Caprera

Giuseppe Garibaldi

The island is associated with Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian patriot and fighter who lived in the 19th century and was one of the fathers of Italian unification. He bought about half of the island in 1855 and died there in 1882. His house is now a museum and a memorial chapel, and the island is a national monument.

History

After the Roman occupation, Caprera remained deserted for centuries.

In Dante’s Inferno (Canto XXXIII, lines 79-84), written in the early years of 1300, he calls on the gods to punish the evil residents of Pisa by moving the islands of Caprera and Gorgona to block the mouth of the Arno river and flood the city. "Ah, Pisa, you the scandal of the peoples of that fair land where si is heard, because your neighbors are so slow to punish you, may, then, Caprara and Gorgona move and build a hedge across the Arno's mouth, so that it may drown every soul in you!"

At the beginning of the 19th century, a group of shepherds inhabited the island. In the second half of the same century, an English family settled there, the Collins, owners of some lands on the island. Many remains of Roman cargo ships have been found here. In 1855, Garibaldi decided to settle there and planted the first trees of the blooming pinewood which covers the island today. A century after Garibaldi's death, the island was freed from military restrictions and is completely open to the public.

The island is known especially for having been Giuseppe Garibaldi’s last abode for over 20 years and the place of his death. Indeed, with the inheritance of his brother Felix, he acquired the northern half of Caprera in 1856, having initially lived in a hut.

A few years later, the famous Casa Bianca was built in accordance with Garibaldi’s will, in the South American fazenda style, nowadays a museum; some years after, funds raised by his sons and fans allowed him to buy also the other half of the island, which until then had belonged to the English spouses Richard and Emma Collins.

In the big estate, Piana della Tola, Garibaldi planted a lot of trees and started living the life of a farmer, cultivating fields and breeding chickens, sheep, horses (his famous white mare Marsala is buried not far from the house) and a lot of donkeys, to whom he gave his enemies’ names out of amusement. The most unruly of them was called after Pope Pius IX.

Inside the Casa Bianca, Garibaldi lived with the sons that he had with Anita, the ones he had with a servant and the ones he had with his third wife, Francesca Armosino.

In Garibaldi’s room, the clock and the calendars, which are hanging on a wall, still mark the date and time of his death: 2 June 1882 at 6.21 pm. Despite his last wishes, his remains were embalmed and buried in a grave (made of rough granite) just behind the house.

His house, boats and objects, which have become relics of one of the best known and visited museums in Italy, have remained in Caprera. The Garibaldi Compendium of Caprera is open for visit, except for weekly closure on Mondays. Garibaldi’s life on the island and how he cultivated it are described in the memoir written by his daughter Clelia, entitled Mio Padre.

In 1982, Caprera was declared an Oriented Nature Reserve, until the establishment of the National Park.

Sailing

Caprera's Porto Palma gulf is home to the Centro Velico Caprera school since 1967.