Statua di Giuseppe Garibaldi

Como chose an unusual way to honour Giuseppe Garibaldi: not a rearing horse but a grave, caped figure by Vincenzo Vela, inaugurated in 1889 for the thirtieth anniversary of liberation. The municipal portal stresses its anti-rhetorical character, and its ground is deliberate — the spot where the Austrians surrendered after the Five Days of 1848.

Why it matters

The monument's distinction is twofold. First, the sculptor: Vincenzo Vela (1820–1891), the Ticinese sculptor whose naturalistic style broke with cold academic convention, and who took a personal interest in Garibaldian iconography throughout his career. Second, the site: the municipal portal states the statue was erected where the Austrians capitulated after the Five Days of 1848, so the monument and the event it commemorates share a single physical place. The inauguration in 1889, timed for the Trentennale — the thirtieth anniversary of the liberation — also shows how soon after unification cities began fixing the memory of 1848 in permanent form.

What to notice

Garibaldi stands in a controlled pose, his cape falling in broad naturalistic folds. The treatment of drapery and anatomy conveys the anti-rhetorical character noted by contemporary commentators. The monument's location is associated with the surrender that ended Austrian control of Como during the 1848 uprising; the modelling contrasts the finished face with the looser treatment of the garments.

Context and history

The Five Days of Como in March 1848 formed part of the wider insurrectionary wave that swept Lombardy in that year, ending with the withdrawal of the Austrian garrison. Garibaldi's association with the Risorgimento in Lombardy made him the natural dedicatee when the city decided to commemorate the anniversary three decades later. The commission went to Vela, who had already treated Garibaldian subjects and whose preparatory work for the Como monument is documented: the regional heritage catalogue Lombardia Beniculturali preserves a stucco model for the "monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Days of Como of 1848", a title that confirms how directly the sculpture was conceived as a memorial to the 1848 days rather than to the general alone — the model pairs the standing hero with a relief of the surrender of the San Francesco barracks, the episode the monument still marks. The Museo Vela in Ligornetto, the artist's former home, keeps and studies this Garibaldian iconography among its collections, underlining the monument's place within Vela's mature output. Inauguration followed in 1889, within living memory of the events.

Historical accounts associate the monument with the surrender of 1848.