The dress accompanied Anita to San Marino, where the woman, ready to leave again, exchanged it on July 31 in the shop of haberdasher Teresa Simoncini for a simpler garment more suitable for escape.
The dress remained in San Marino and soon became an object of patriotic veneration, beginning a long exhibition “pilgrimage”, similar to a secular relic, symbolizing the central role of women in the Italian Risorgimento myth.
Anita Garibaldi’s dress
Until February 15 the dress will be exhibited in Brescia at the Risorgimento Museum “Leonessa d’Italia” as part of an exhibition organized by the Brescia Museums Foundation and the Municipality of Brescia, in collaboration with the State Museums of the Republic of San Marino and with the patronage of the National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento in Turin.
The focus dedicated to Ana Maria de Jesus Ribeiro, precisely Anita Garibaldi, the third appointment that Fondazione Brescia Musei dedicates to the figure of Giuseppe Garibaldi, concludes the 2025 exhibition season.
The exhibition is also an opportunity to present the project “Anita Garibaldi – narrator avatar”an expression of the ongoing experiment of Fondazione Brescia Musei, dedicated to the valorization of heritage through digital innovation tools and cultural narrative. The historical and curatorial research therefore passes through contemporary languages, in line with the style of the museum’s layout, with a project awarded in the “Exhibiton design” category of the Red Dot Award 2023 and curated by the studio Limiteazero, capable of offering an accessible and participatory knowledge experience. In this temporary installation of augmented mediation, Anita Garibaldi’s black silk dress enters into dialogue with the painting “Dying Anita” by Pietro Bouvier. The avatar, accessible via a QR code, becomes the voice of this story between history and image, allowing the audience to enter into a direct relationship with the historical story.
“It is a great pride for Fondazione Brescia Musei – explains President Francesca Bazoli – to close a year so intensely dedicated by our Museum of the Risorgimento ‘Lionessa d’Italia’ to the figure of Giuseppe Garibaldi, examined from multiple perspectives and analyzing his historical role and fortune in the visual arts, with the exhibition of such a symbolic and evocative object. Anita Garibaldi’s dress, an extraordinary artefact of material culture, recalls the values of the courage of this female figure, who thus participates in the national destiny and is intensely committed to the community.”
A place where virtual reality and history meet
Reopened in 2023 after twenty years of closure, the Leonessa d’Italia Risorgimento Museum is welcomed in the Grande Miglio del Castello and is a place where memory enters into dialogue with the present through an innovative and immersive installation. The new exhibition trajectory, the result of lengthy historiographical and planning work, talks about the Risorgimento as a ‘European’ phenomenon of urgent relevance. Relics, sculptures, paintings and ‘reliquaries’ enter into dialogue with a rich digital collection that integrates a story that continues to this day. The exhibition is divided into eight sections and is narrated entirely in Italian and English.
Rediscover history to enhance the present
The exhibition dedicated to Anita Garibaldi is part of the new museum approach of Leonessa d’Italia, a museum where the rediscovery of history becomes an essential tool for preserving memory, strengthening cultural heritage, analyzing the present and developing a critical sense. The Risorgimento VR Experience project, winner of the InnovaCultura tender – which aims to contribute to the growth and innovation of the cultural and creative sectors and of the cultural institutions and places in Lombardy – saw the creation of four accessible Virtual Reality experiences, mainly aimed at a young audience. The Museum experiences are accessible to everyone – even deaf users due to the presence of LIS content – thanks to specific content management software. Participants can take an emotional journey through time, delve into the historical context of the Risorgimento and relive the stories of heroes and events that shaped modern Italy. They will be followed by the same protagonists of the Risorgimento events who will guide visitors through a compelling narrative full of anecdotes and accurate historical details. The narration is entrusted to the character created especially for the project by Elisabetta Dami, children’s book writer and creator of Geronimo Stilton. The role of narrator is entrusted to Leonessa Lea, an anthropomorphic fictional character, a tribute to Brescia, who accompanies the children to discover some of the values of the Risorgimento. VR experiences offer visitors the opportunity to learn about archival materials and artifacts that are not accessible to the public.
La Leonessa talks about VR experience at the Risorgimento Museum Leonessa d’Italia
The Risorgimento VR Experience project fits perfectly into the museum’s narrative plot, centered on three pillars: the historical finds, the works of art that contributed to shaping the imagination of the Risorgimento epic, and the digital collection. With this immersive project – co-developed thanks to the know-how of Way Srl and Beside, the Risorgimento Museum can count on a new technology to enjoy and enhance the cultural heritage of the city, addressing an adult audience, but also schools and tourists. To complete the project, a short, unpublished comic strip was also created, specially designed by illustrator Silvia Bigolin and edited by the Brescia Musei Foundation in the preparation of the content, which will be distributed to teachers and made available to the public as a dissemination tool.
La Leonessa talks about VR experience at the Risorgimento Museum Leonessa d’Italia
A modern museum
The new museological system of the Risorgimento Museum is the emblematic testimony of how the Risorgimento can be told in a contemporary key. In the last part of the museum route, entitled ‘Heritage’, the phenomenon of the use of history, and the Risorgimento in particular, as an instrument of political and ideological legitimation is examined. The ideal destination of the route is represented by two objects: the silver medal for military courage for the resistance, awarded to the city of Brescia and the anastatic copy of our Constitutional Charter, an expression of the city’s fundamental values and national identity. The museum thus becomes an educational space, where historical narrative is not limited to the transmission of notions, but becomes a place where memory becomes an active instrument for understanding the present.
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