Margaret Fuller Ossoli citizen of Massachusetts, Rome and the World - Citizen Memorials on Waymarking.com

INAUGURATION OF PLAQUE VIALE MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI
Rome, Villa Sciarra - Tuesday 19th of October, 2010 – 10 am

The plaque text in Italian goes: Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Giornalista americana incaricata dalla Repubblica Romana del 1849 per l'assistenza ai feriti.

English translation: Margaret Fuller Ossoli, American journalist appointed by the Roman Republic of 1849 for the care of the wounded.

ADDRESS OF MARIO BANNONI
Italian Committee for the Bicentennial of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

Distinguished Councillor Croppi, Distinguished Cultural Attache Mees, Distinguished participants, Ladies and Gentlemen,

As the Italian Representative of the Committee for the Bicentennial of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, I am particularly pleased to see today fulfilled a dream that has taken me for over a year, since I came here, following any trace of Margaret, for my book about her, and I noticed that the road sign of this park-lane contained a now obsolete wording, not tuned to her personality, as it quoted her married name before her maiden one. I reported it to the competent Authority of the City of Rome, and I was happily able to find soon, among the staff of Councillor Croppi and Superintendent Broccoli, very skillful and caring people as to sound immediately and make possible what we are here today celebrating, but also as to coordinate it with the arrival in Italy of our distinguished friends from the Margaret Fuller Ossoli Bicentennial Committee.

I am also especially pleased that this sign, this park-lane here is once again dedicated to the memory of Fuller Ossoli, since it was on this clods (and that is not a rhetorical device), right here, of course on the bulwarks, but lost them, on this second line of defense, was shed the Italian blood, the blood of those brave men that Fuller Ossoli nursed, with great dedication and defiance of danger.

I’d like to recall the famous lines of the Italian poet Cesare Pavese:
You know not the hills where the blood is shed.
How many fled, how many threw down weapon and name.
A woman shall watch the fleeing.

Nobody threw gun and name down here, no one fled here. Not even Margaret fled, nor she just stood by watching and doing nothing, she rolled up her sleeves and tried hard in her hospital; to the last, and after.

Due to the noble family of her husband, Fuller got secretly married with him, and in Rieti she had also given birth to their son Angelino. On the eve of the French intervention, in order to follow her husband, serving as Officer in the Roman Civic Guard, she entrusted her child in Rieti to a wet-nurse. A foreign citizen, still single as she appeared, no one would have blamed her if on the outbreak of the battle she had decided to go back and take care of her son. Instead she decided to stay, and while her husband was fighting on the walls up there and was promoted to captain in the field, she accepted to coordinate the nursing care to the wounded in the Hospital Fatebenefratelli. It was not a simple task, because Fuller Ossoli acted under a constant shower of French bombs and grenades: one of them, hit the Hospital and exploded just in its courtyard, despite the fact that the hospital was well marked by a black flag: a signal showing an hospital or ambulance at a time when the Red Cross had not yet initiated and not even imagined.

Under such situation, Fuller Ossoli as a journalist had already sent several reports which exposed the Italian artistic, social and politics situation; now she added to them her war correspondent coverages (as we would say today), telling her American readers about the unequal battle fought here: the mighty French expeditionary force certainly was not a "peace keeping mission" of nowadays, where our brave soldiers go to help the defenseless civil people, harassed by bands of fierce and ruthless fundamentalists, often becoming victim of their generosity: the expeditionary force sent by the to be Napoleon III, instead, had been sent with the specific aim of overthrowing the Roman Republic, a democratic government, proclaimed by an Assembly legitimately elected by universal suffrage (a rarity at the time); the French came responding to a specific appeal forwarded to the international powers, not to help Rome, but to restore the temporal power of popes on Rome.

The third reason why I am particularly pleased, is the co-occurrence of the 140th anniversary of Rome, as Capital of Italy: finally in 1870 the dream of many young people, many of whom unknown, who here have struggled, have died or were wounded and disabled, the great dream of Margaret Fuller who took care of them and wrote about them in her newspaper, has finally came true.

For all these reasons, we may well proclaim that Margaret Fuller Ossoli, not only as a great American writer and journalist, but also as a great and devoted daughter of Italy, deserves to be remembered right here, on this hill, dedicated to the patriots who contributed, each one their way, to the achievement of Italian unity.

Website with more information on either the memorial or the person(s) it is dedicated to: [Web Link] Location: Villa Sciarra

Visit Instructions:
Add another photo of the memorial. You and/or your GPS can be in the photo, but this isn't necessary.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   03/25/2018 Lillemaider&Dr.Pallo visited it