The film starts and ends in the countryside around Ravenna where will end Anita’s Garibaldi (Anna Magnani) agony. The escape of Garibaldi (Raf Vallone) in July 1849 after the fall of the Roman Republic is told through a long flashback. He will try to escape with an army of a thiusand volunteers chased by the Bourbon, French, Austtian and pontifical amries. The Austrian army will disarm them and make them surrender in San Marino and then it will brutally shoot the diehard Garibaldian followers in the Ravenna marshes while Garibaldi himself, devastated by the death of his beloved partner, avoids miracolously being arrested and goes into exile.

LOCATION Several sequences of the film were shot between the valleys of Comacchio, Porto Garibaldi and the Ravenna countryside.