Garibaldi Lodge No. 890, Melbourne (Victoria, AUSTRALIA), MCMLXXXVI

In the light of the events of the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, Garibaldi Freemasons Lodge No. 890, Melbourne (Victoria, Australia), MCMLXXXVI initiated new entered apprentices and thus made four new candidates members of the lodge, in June 2022 and July 2022 to commemorate the 140 anniversary of the life and work of their spiritual founder:

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi, (born July 4, 1807, Nice, French Empire [now in France] – died June 2, 1882, Caprera, Italy), was an Italian patriot and soldier of the Risorgimento (the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single state in 1861, i.e. the Kingdom of Italy.), a Republican who, through his conquest of Sicily and Naples with his guerrilla Redshirts, contributed to the achievement of Italian unification under the royal house of Savoy. 

Garibaldi’s family was one of fishermen and coastal traders, and for more than 10 years, he was a sailor. In 1832 he acquired a master’s certificate as a merchant captain. By 1833–34, when he served in the navy of the kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, Garibaldi, in 1834, took part in a mutiny intended to provoke a republican revolution in Piedmont, but the plot failed; he escaped to France and in his absence was condemned to death by a Genoese court.

From 1836 to 1848, Garibaldi lived in South America as an exile, and these years of turmoil and revolution in that continent strongly influenced his career. He volunteered as a naval captain for the revolutionary units in the Brazilian Empire. After a succession of victories by the Brazilians in 1839–40, Garibaldi. Driving a herd of cattle, he made the long trek to Montevideo with his spouse Anita and their son. There he tried his hand as a commercial traveler and teacher but could not accustom himself to civilian life. In 1842 he was put in charge of the Uruguayan navy in another war of liberation, this time against the dictator of Argentina. The following year, again in the service of Uruguay, Garibaldi took command of a newly formed Italian Legion at Montevideo, the first of the Redshirts, with whom his name became so closely associated. 

He oversaw the defense of Montevideo for a short time in 1847. Garibaldi thus greatly impressed foreign observers as an honest and able man. His South American experiences gave him invaluable training in the techniques of guerrilla warfare that he later used with great effect against French and Austrian armies, which had not been taught how to counter them. 

In April 1848 Garibaldi led 60 members of his Italian Legion back to Italy to fight for the Risorgimento of Italy in the war of independence against the Austrians. He first offered to fight for the Pope and then when his offer was refused by the King of Piedmont-Sardinia. The king, too, rebuffed him, for his earlier conviction as a rebel in 1834 was still remembered; moreover, the regular army despised the self-taught guerrilla leader. Therefore, Garibaldi went to the aid of the city of Milan, where rebels had already arrived and had given the war of liberation a more republican and radical turn. The king after his defeat at the hands of the Austrians agreed to an armistice. Still, Garibaldi continued in the name of Milan what had become his private war and emerged creditably from two engagements with the Austrians. 

However, heavily outnumbered, he eventually had to retreat to Switzerland. Garibaldi settled down in Nice with his family, but his resolve to help free Italy from foreign rule was stronger than ever. He was confirmed in his purpose by his belief that the many Italian states, though often engaged in internecine warfare, could nonetheless be unified into a single state. When Pope Pius IX, threatened by liberal forces within the Papal States, fled from Rome toward the end of 1848, Garibaldi led a group of volunteers to the city. There, in February 1849, he was elected a deputy in the Roman Assembly, and it was he who proposed that Rome should become an independent republic. In April a French army arrived to restore the papal government, and Garibaldi was the chief inspiration of a spirited defense that repulsed a French attack on Janiculum Hill. In May he defeated a Neapolitan army outside Rome, and in June he was the leading figure in the defense of Rome against a French siege.

Academic research/fieldwork and study (Courtesy: Webmaster - Photo Album)

There was no chance at all of holding the city, but the gallantry of the resistance became one of the most inspiring stories of the Risorgimento. Refusing to accept defeat, Garibaldi led a few thousand men out of Rome and through central Italy in July 1849, maneuvering to avoid French and Austrian armies...

... 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giuseppe-Garibaldi 

(COMPLETE TEXT)