Il piccolo garibaldino Revisited

Underage Risorgimento Volunteering and the Case of Fourteen-Year-Old Giovanni Martinelli

Abstract

The aim of this article is to outline the early contours of the history of underage volunteering during the Italian Risorgimento, using the case of fourteen-year-old Giovanni Mattia Martinelli as a microhistorical example. Giovanni clandestinely enlisted as a volunteer in the Italian Volunteer Corps in 1866, was arrested for desertion, and tried by a court martial. The article explores how young boys managed to enter the ranks, what their families thought of such enlistments, and to what extent the military institution facilitated their presence. Despite the relative ubiquity of this phenomenon, underage volunteering appears to have been far from unproblematic within family circles. Parents, for instance, wrote letters to volunteer commanders not only requesting the annulment of enlistments but also stressing that their sons’ youth and inexperience made them unfit for military life. The role of the armed forces in enabling the enlistment of minors, however, remains ambiguous. Although military authorities discharged underage volunteers when parents intervened or legal proceedings required it, some evidence suggests that they were more tolerant of their presence than the law strictly allowed.