Florence is set to rejoin the many Italian cities that boast a museum of the Risorgimento, the political and military movement that united Italy in the 19th century.
Rome, Turin and Venice are among the cities whose Risorgimento collections attract thousands of visitors each year, boasting everything from declarations of independence to weapons used by Garibaldi and his Redshirts and curios such as period tools and musical instruments.
Florence is aiming to vie with them thanks to the hundreds of souvenirs, documents, letters, paintings and books scattered in various sites around the city, Florence Culture Commissioner Giovanni Gozzini explained Friday.
The memorabilia will be collected in the new museum, to be built on the site of the former Murate prison, he said.
The city plans to issue a tender for the building work by the end of this year with a view to having the museum completed by 2011, the 150th anniversary of Italian unification.
Florence had a Risorgimento museum until 1939 when it was closed and never reopened, officials said.
Its contents were sent to various libraries and galleries including the Stibbert Museum and Palazzo Pitti.
Many pieces were damaged in the great Florence flood of 1966 and will be restored before finding a place in their new home.
The first genuinely 'new' piece in the museum will be a recently rediscovered flag sent to Florence by three Milanese noblewomen after Florentine patriots rose up in solidarity with an 1848 Milan uprising against its Austrian rulers, Gozzini said.
The famous 'Five Days of Milan' (March 18-22, 1848) marked the beginning of a series of 1848 revolutions in northern Italy and resulted in the Austrian withdrawal from the city.
