The exhibition "Agitated Risorgimento" opens at Casa Mazzini (Museum of the Risorgimento, via Lomellini), with the commented display of the main collection of Risorgimento handkerchiefs preserved in Italy. The exhibition, curated by the Museum's conservator, Massimo Angelini, and set up by Elio Micco, presents handkerchiefs (mostly silk carré scarves) produced between 1847 and 1912, including some unique pieces that do not have analogies with the relics preserved in other Italian museums, such as the handkerchief depicting Balilla (1847), the one dedicated to a conspiracy of 1847 that never happened (a true fake news of the mid-nineteenth century), and a rare and extraordinary Masonic silk teaching board.

During the period 1847-1849, patriotic ideals could be openly expressed, and consequently artisans, textile industries, and merchants were engaged in a lively production and commercialization of handkerchiefs that could now be freely used in public spaces. Based on the specimens preserved in museums, we can affirm that the political handkerchiefs of this period usually feature one or more of these decorative themes: portraits of the leaders of the national movement, which in 1847 are mainly Pius IX and the reformist sovereigns (Leopold II, Charles Albert); the reproduction of texts, which could be slogans and keywords (Long live Pius IX, Civic Guard, Reforms, etc.), or important edicts and decrees (Pius IX's amnesty; the decree granting the Neapolitan or Turin constitution); and finally, the colors, initially those of the reformist states (the papal white and yellow; the white and red of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the blue of the Kingdom of Sardinia) and then clearly the tricolor.

The exhibition also includes everyday objects, preserved at the Museum of the Risorgimento, but reinterpreted during the years of the Risorgimento in a political and propagandistic key. Among these, there is a screen from 1850 decorated with over two images cut out from books and magazines, and the shawl that covered Carlo Cattaneo (1869) and Giuseppe Mazzini (1872) on their deathbeds.

The exhibition will be inaugurated on May 13 with a lecture by Silvia Cavicchioli, professor of Contemporary History at the University of Turin, entitled "The second life of the relics of the homeland."