ABSTRACT
This first chapter tries to establish, in broad terms, the nature of the Garibaldinism that contributed to the birth of the Italian State, its origins, and its trajectory over the years immediately following the Expedition of the Thousand. The volunteers discussed in these pages would appear to bear out the more classic model of war volunteering based on the association and interconnection between patriotism and nationalism. It was often these same volunteers, or at least a minority of them, that brought about a new tradition of war volunteering, closer to political radicalism and with a transnational character. They were the protagonists, that is, of the transition from a form of volunteering driven primarily by patriotic motives to another form of volunteering which was generated in large part by the new ideologies taking hold throughout Europe: a transition which was entirely natural for many, but upon which historiography has yet to dwell specifically.
