Alessandro Pavia, a patriot photographer brings together all 1,089 portraits of the protagonists of the Garibaldi expedition
Shortly after the Expedition of the Thousand in 1860, a photographer, Alessandro Pavia (1824-1889), decided to collect all the 1,089 portraits of the protagonists of Garibaldi’s expedition into a single album. The purpose of this initiative, which had a strong civil and patriotic function, was to build a photo gallery of the heroes of the Risorgimento. The Album of the Thousand is today, in all respects, a modern photographic monument that was created by Alessandro Pavia over five years, during which he photographed all the protagonists of the expedition. The few extant copies of this album are rare examples of memorabilia linked to the history of Italian photography: the one exhibited at the museum is dedicated to Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882). In the middle, under a bipartite crown with two branches, one of oak and the other of laurel, symbolizing strength and glory, the Trinacria is visible, the symbol of Sicily, in memory of the place where the vicissitudes of the Thousand began.
