What is a statue of Garibaldi doing on the path that leads to Cala Violina, near Cala Martina?
The story begins in August 1849, when Giuseppe Garibaldi fled from Rome, reconquered by the Franco-Papal forces, with the intention of reaching Venice. The journey had been so tragic that Garibaldi, hunted by the Austrians and the papal secret police, decided to change his destination, heading to Tuscany with the intention of reaching Liguria by sea.
In Maremma, in fact, he could count on a group of trusted patriots. The architect of the escape to Liguria was in fact Angiolo Guelfi, a rich Maremma landowner, republican and patriot, in whose country house, right in Scarlino, Garibaldi spent a night.
Thanks to his local contacts, Guelfi managed to find a fishing boat willing to help Garibaldi. From the Guelfi house began the last and perhaps most dangerous part of the escape to reach the sea: «at five in the morning on September 2, 1849, Garibaldi on foot and escorted by only one companion (the faithful Captain Leggero), led by a handful of local patriots, set off, and through the countryside and the scrub, after crossing the Collacchie and Costiere roads, they reached the coast at Cala Martina. At 10 in the morning they boarded a fishing boat, which on September 5 landed in the Gulf of La Spezia.»
This is why, on that stretch of path, in 1949 to celebrate the centenary of the events, a monument was erected, a bronze bust depicting Garibaldi, the work of the Grosseto sculptor Tolomeo Faccendi.