title: ["The grandest hero who has ever lived": an unpublished letter written by Florence Nightingale about Garibaldi].
abstract: In  the year of the 150th anniversary of the Unity of Italy, Italian nurses cannot forget that Florence Nightingale herself, founder of modern Nursing , was a fervid support of the Risorgimento and of Italian unity.  An unpublished letter, signed by her and conserved in the State archives of Pistoia, illustrates her feelings about  the process of unity under way  in the country where she was born.
authors.affiliation: Università degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per la Salute della Donna e del Bambino, Viale Pieraccini 24, Italy. filippo.festini@unifi.it
authors.forename: Filippo
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Festini
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Giusti
mesh_terms: D004739:England; D006676:History of Nursing; D049672:History, 19th Century; D007558:Italy