Posthumous Myth
Ferruccio was one of the most famous soldiers of the age, but was not and could not have been an Italian Nationalist, a concept which did not exist in his time. His positive fame was largely exaggerated by Italian writers and poets in search of national myths in the course of the Unification of Italy (19th century).
L'Assedio di Firenze, the most famous novel of Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi, was based on - and greatly glorified - the life Ferruccio. He is indeed cited in "Il Canto degli Italiani", the national anthem of Italy composed in 1847 by Goffredo Mameli. In a 1849 speech at Livorno, Garibaldi likened himself to Ferruccio: "I have touched with my sword the ashes of Ferruccio, and I will know how to die like Ferruccio"
Under Fascism, the legend of his life and death was much celebrated, and a festival in his name was set up in Florence to inculcate his life as an exemplary model. This partially accounts for the popularity of naming male children in Tuscany born at that period Ferruccio'
Read more about this topic: Francesco Ferruccio
Famous quotes containing the words posthumous and/or myth:
“One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
“Myth is the hidden part of every story, the buried part, the region that is still unexplored because there are as yet no words to enable us to get there.... Myth is nourished by silence as well as by words.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)