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Between Legend and Likeness: Gerolamo Induno’s Anita Garibaldi and the Visual Construction of a Modern Italian Heroine
Schmitz, Lily Etta
Schmitz, Lily Etta
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Abstract
Popular visual culture and academic studies systematically rely on one single image of Anita Garibaldi, marginalizing other depictions as either illegitimate or derivative. This authorized image, derived from a supposedly authenticated likeness, has been codified outside of art-historical analysis, allowing visual evidence to be shaped by non-specialist interpretations. The scholarly neglect of Gerolamo Induno’s 1849 portrait of Anita raises critical questions about how her image and memory have been constructed and mythologized. Examining Induno’s understudied work enables this study to trace how Anita’s image was used in later depictions to both celebrate and contain her, exposing the interplay between a fragmented historical record, socio-political imagination, and the mechanisms of mythmaking. By focusing on a select group of portraits and commemorative images, this thesis analyzes the visual strategies through which Anita’s posthumous myth was articulated. Rather than offering an exhaustive survey, it highlights recurring representational tropes that reveal broader patterns in the construction of female patriotic heroism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italy
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Master of Arts in Art History -- John Cabot University, Spring 2026.
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2026
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Schmitz_Lily_MA_Thesis_SP26.pdf
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Garibaldi, Anita, 1821?-1849, Revolutionaries' spouses
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Schmitz, Lily Etta. "Between Legend and Likeness: Gerolamo Induno’s Anita Garibaldi and the Visual Construction of a Modern Italian Heroine". Master's Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2026.
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International