Luigi Settembrini, According to His Wife

Abstract Settembrini’s wife, Raffaella (‘Gigia’) Faucitano, played a crucial role in establishing Settembrini’s public persona, as well as supporting him through his long incarceration and, probably, saving his life. This chapter offers a moving portrait of their relationship and shows that they, in turn, established excellent relationships with a wide range of other actors: fellow revolutionaries, Piedmontese aristocrats, Black sailors, British statesmen, classical scholars, and common criminals. Classical scholarship often provided a link: Settembrini’s connection to William Ewart Gladstone is important in this regard—and is also relevant to current debates in postcolonial criticism. Settembrini, Faucitano, and other subaltern figures affected shifts in imperial British politics at a level of power very far removed from their conditions. Overall, this chapter places Settembrini’s autobiographical writing and Faucitano’s own writing and shaping of his life within a complex network of relationships, showing how autobiography was used for the purposes of revolution and, later, nation-building.