A Warriors' Love Story
In 1844, he met Giuditta Tavani, a girl of barely fourteen, being a frequent visitor to the material warehouse of her father. They married almost immediately in the parish of S. Crisogono in Rome.
In spite of Giuditta's young age, she saw in Francesco a man who, like her, loved 'liberty' and supported a secular Italian State. They married immediately and fought together to defend the Roman Republic, which, nevertheless fell into French hands in 1849, restoring the Papal Government.
They followed the retreat towards the Adriatic to avoid heavy papal reprisals, they headed, with Garibaldi, towards Venice. Subsequently, still refugees, passing through Romagna, where they continued to conspire, then re-entered Rome, hidden to organise its liberation. Here they frequented the home and the wool shop of Giulio Ajani (1835–1890), a forgotten 'patriot' of the time, in the Lungaretta in Trastevere.
Read more about this topic: Francesco Arquati
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