Giuseppe Garibaldi is, by a huge margin, the most famous person in the story of the Italian Unification. But, his fame goes beyond that. In many ways, he was the most famous person of the entire 19th century - he was the first international superstar heart-throb romantic hero. Garibaldi was famous on a scale never before seen, as his fame coincided with an explosion in the technology of mass media - the telegraph, lithography, photography, combined with increasing literacy and public interest in foreign affairs.