Garibaldi's Volunteer Army

Garibaldi's Volunteer Army appears as a force of political upheaval whose break-up redirects its young members into the regular army and the emerging Italian state. The novel gives little account of its internal organization; instead, it shows its significance through the differing perceptions of those around it, the transition of Tancredi Falconeri and Count Carlo Cavriaghi into regular service, and the wider expectation that the revolution will change who holds power more readily than it changes the social order.

Revolutionary Context

During the crisis of 1860, the army’s movement toward Palermo was part of the unsettled political landscape in which Tancredi left the Salina household. Don Fabrizio initially interprets the political language around the conflict as a promise of limited violence followed by negotiated change. He expects events to be more theatrical than transformative, with only a small number of casualties and the old arrangements substantially preserved.

Don Pietro Russo, a local dependent of Don Fabrizio, reveals how popular support for the upheaval is entangled with private interests. He professes sympathy for the young volunteers and anticipates greater liberty, security, trade, and lighter taxes, while Don Fabrizio knows Russo is also trying through intermediaries to acquire the Argivocale estate. Russo’s assurances that the Prince and Villa Salina will remain safe further show how the new political situation is understood through personal protection and connections, not only public ideals.

Don Fabrizio eventually understands the local Liberals’ hopes as a bid to take the place of the old ruling class rather than abolish its privileges. In his view, the change will be gradual: the Salinas may lose some symbols of office, while retaining their family standing and perhaps receiving compensation or a place in the new political order. The volunteers’ campaign thus belongs to a revolution that can overturn authority while leaving room for accommodation between established aristocrats and rising local figures.

Break-Up and Transfer to Regular Service

The army’s dissolution is described through the later account of Tancredi and Count Carlo Cavriaghi. When Don Fabrizio sees them in their new uniforms, he asks whether Garibaldini still wear red shirts. They explain that their volunteer service is over: after Garibaldi’s army broke up, they could either return home or enter the regular army, and both chose to remain in military service under the Kingdom of Sardinia, anticipating its transformation into the army of Italy.

The transfer brought a formal loss of rank. Tancredi had been a captain and became a lieutenant; Cavriaghi, formerly a lieutenant, became a second lieutenant. They nonetheless describe themselves as happier in the regular force, where the uniform brings respectability. Their change of status captures a wider conversion of revolutionary participation into service within a recognized state institution: the men give up rank, but gain a more accepted public identity.

Conduct, Mobility, and Reputation

Tancredi and Cavriaghi sharply distinguish their new service from their experience among the volunteers. They describe the former army as disorderly and associate it with ambush and looting, while presenting the regular force as disciplined and respectable. These judgments come from the two former volunteers themselves, and their eagerness to contrast the institutions also reflects their satisfaction at having acquired new uniforms and standing.

Their account of the journey from Palermo to Donnafugata adds a comic measure of how military authority could be improvised in transit. At post stations they obtained fresh horses by presenting sealed papers as urgent orders on the King’s service; the documents were actually bills from a Naples hotel. The episode does not establish a general practice of the army, but it shows Tancredi and Cavriaghi turning their military status into practical mobility through bluff.

The volunteer force is also linked to the geography of the campaign. Don Fabrizio recalls that, shortly before Garibaldi entered Palermo, British naval officers visited his house to view the surrounding hills and learn where the volunteers were operating. Garibaldi was already at Gibilrossa. The officers’ visit places the army close to the city before its entry and connects the campaign to the outsiders’ scrutiny of Sicily during the crisis.

Political and Narrative Significance

The army’s importance lies not only in the campaign but in what follows its dissolution. Tancredi and Cavriaghi move from volunteer service into the regular military, while Don Fabrizio’s political reflections repeatedly anticipate continuity beneath apparent change. Their transition makes the army a point of passage between revolutionary action and the institutions that succeed it.

The novel later shows Tancredi combining aristocratic connections with fresh financial resources and political activity. His marriage to Angelica Sedàra is supported by the wealth of her father, Don Calogero, and restoration work at Villa Falconeri is overseen by Don Fabrizio and financed by Don Calogero. Tancredi’s postwar energy helps make him influential, while he masks his political activity with a manner of nonchalance. The army is not presented as the sole cause of his later position; rather, his movement out of volunteer service forms one part of a broader adaptation in which military, financial, and social resources are recombined.

Through the volunteers’ dissolution and their members’ advancement, the army embodies the novel’s restrained view of political revolution. It participates in a real transfer of authority, yet the careers that emerge from it are absorbed into a continuing contest over rank, respectability, wealth, and influence.