2-995-840 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Presentation of medals to Garibaldi's veterans in the Grand Square, Naples, 1860. Italian soldiers are decorated. 'Nearly the last act of Garibaldi, before closing his career, for the time, in Italy was to assist at the ceremony of presenting the commemorative medal to the chosen band that landed with him at Marsala on the 11th of May last. They mustered on that day 1080, but of these only 426 survived to receive the decoration. The presentation took place in the Largo del Palazzo on the 4th November. The Hungarian cavalry, a noble-looking set of fellows, were in front of the palace. There were red-jackets, too, on the three sides of the square, and nearly in the centre was seated Garibaldi, together with a number of ladies of high rank, and the deputation from the municipality of Palermo, all on painted chairs, whilst two or three common wooden tables placed before them bear all the trays full of medals, and another the register of the names...As they were called the men came up through two files of their countrymen, and the Duchess Verdura pinned on a medal to their breasts'. From "Illustrated London News", 1860.