<i>Amore e patria</i>: The Friendship of Jessie White Mario and Barbara Bodichon

Abstract

During her lifetime, Jessie Meriton White Mario was constantly before the public eye in Italy, England and America. Her activities as a public speaker in England and America in support of the cause of Italian unification during the 1850s as well as her imprisonment in Genoa for supposedly being involved in the ill-fated expedition by Pisacane in 1857 brought her, and the cause of Italy, considerable attention. She maintained her presence both in the British press and the New York Nation via a continuous series of articles on Italy right up until her death in Florence in 1906. In Italy, where she lived from the time of its unification until her death, the attention of the public was guaranteed by her biographies of Risorgimento heroes, most notably those of Garibaldi and Mazzini, with both of whom she had friendships dating from the early 1850s.