Piazza Garibaldi

This guide to Piazza Garibaldi in Cinque Terre's Monterosso starts with a curious statistic: Giuseppe Garibaldi is said to be the second most common bronze figure in Italy, after the Virgin Mary. It follows how a country unified from separate kingdoms in the 1860s reached for the same handful of names to share, and why Garibaldi in particular ended up standing in square after square, including this modest one ringed by pastel houses and cafe tables. Names like Cavour, Mazzini and Vittorio Emanuele recur across Italian streets and squares the same way, though none as often as his.