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uan Pablo Duarte, founder of the Dominican Republic, is the Dominican national hero who most closely
resembles Giuseppe Mazzini, the icon of republican ideas in Italy.
In France and in England, Mazzini strengthened his revolutionary spirit, always at the service of his
homeland. Duarte also spent time in those countries, in the prime of his years, collecting with open hands
the seeds of freedom that he would plant in his beloved yet enslaved country.
In 1832 Mazzini founded a secret society called Young Italy (La Giovane Italia). A few years later, in 1838,
Duarte also founded the secret society La Trinitaria. Mazzini’s motto was “God and the People.” The motto
for Duarte was “God, Country and Liberty.”
Both figures fought fervently to create a free republic: one in Columbus’s native country and the other in
the Ligurian mariner’s beloved island. Both suffered persecution, imprisonment, and exile. Both consecrated
their entire lives—to the exclusion of all other endeavors—to the principles of freedom, which constituted
their single purpose and the aspiration of their fellow countrymen.
To compare Duarte with Mazzini is to extend the highest honor to the Dominicans’ exalted hero, but it is
also our tribute to the distinguished revolutionary who best symbolizes present-day Italy.
That is why, on this February 27, the day commemorating the founding of the Dominican Republic, when
we raise our flag under this blue sky of Italy, we reverently evoke, as in an offering of mutual love for our
countries, the most illustrious names of Duarte and Mazzini.
Rome, 1950
CHAPTER 10
Duarte and Mazzini
By Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi
Former president of the Dominican Academy of History
•
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rodríguez Demorizi, Emilio.
Duarte y otros temas
. Santo Domin-
go: Academia Dominicana de la Historia, 1976.
Casa de Italia central
patio, located on
Hostos Street in the
Colonial Zone.
© Giovanni Cavallaro