The Last Portrait: Mazzini and Lega, Parallel Lives in the Risorgimento

This boxed set contains two volumes published on the occasion of the exhibition L’ultimo ritratto: Mazzini e Lega, storie parallele del Risorgimento, presented in Rome at the Vittoriano from 31 May to 8 September 2024.

The first volume, edited by Edith Gabrielli and with the historical consultancy of Giuseppe Monsagrati, rests on The Last Moments of Giuseppe Mazzini, the famous painting by Silvestro Lega, exceptionally on loan from the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, in the United States, to the VIVE – Vittoriano and Palazzo Venezia. The publication contains essays by Edith Gabrielli, Giuseppe Monsagrati, Maria Pia Critelli, Marco Pizzo, Giovanni Belardelli, Tsugumi Maki, Maureen C. O’Brien and Elisabetta Matteucci. On the one hand, the contributions explore the role that Mazzini attributed to traditional and mass communication, as well as to the control and dissemination of his public image, and on the other they illustrate the importance of The Last Moments in Silvestro Lega’s stylistic development and the whole imaginary of the republican movement.

The second, entitled Giovanni Spertini e un inedito busto di Giuseppe Mazzini del 1878, is wholly devoted to an important and recent acquisition of the VIVE. Edith Gabrielli’s text places the marble bust in Spertini’s artistic and professional career, relating it to other works devoted to Mazzini and, more generally, the leading figures of the Risorgimento.

Both volumes are richly illustrated: the first, in particular, contains a sequence of portraits of Mazzini made with different artistic techniques, and a veritable album on the painting by Silvestro Lega; the second, the results of the photo shoot created for the occasion by Mauro Magliani.

English edition. Translations by Oona Smyth and Peter Mark Eaton for Scriptum, Rome.