This essay examines the role that images in both literature and the plastic arts play in the construction of national identity, while focusing primarily on personifications of the nation as mother in works by Luigi Mercantini, Eugenio Baroni, and Gabriele D'Annunzio. Despite their differences, and a time span of fifty years between the first and last, the three works under discussion all aim to commemorate the actions of Giuseppe Garibaldi, all feature a female figure who represents the nation, and all are connected through the Monumento ai Mille at Quarto and its inaugural celebration. After placing each work in its historical context, I argue that their similarities with regard to the gendered nation are indicative of a way of thinking about the nation and national identity that begins in the Risorgimento and endures in pre-WWI nationalist contexts.
