Garibaldi: Is his body still in its tomb?

Italy marked the 150th anniversary of its unification in 2011, but there is some doubt about the exact resting place of Giuseppe Garibaldi - one of the leaders who helped bring the country together. One person, more than any other, wishes to resolve that puzzle, and for her it is a quest that goes back decades.

It is a scene from a day many years ago, way back in the 1930s.

There is a parade ground, filled with Italian soldiers, and standing in front of them on a table is a little girl only about three years old.

In her arms is the Italian flag, which she is about to present to the regiment - and to the troops she would have seemed like just the right person for the job.

Because this was Anita Garibaldi - the great-granddaughter of Giuseppe Garibaldi.

The little girl was a living link with one of the heroes of Italy's struggle for unification. She was even dressed in a tiny red shirt, like the 1,000 red-shirted, volunteer fighters who followed the general into battle.

Today, decades on, that parade remains one of Anita's earliest memories.

His great-granddaughter is frustrated, but she is pressing on with her campaign. She is as determined as ever to secure permission to open the tomb and clear up the mystery.

She argues too that if the tomb is opened, and the general is there, then perhaps he should be moved to Rome and given an honourable resting place in the capital of the nation that he did so much to bring into being.

On the other hand, perhaps Italians might decide that the time had at last come to grant their hero the funeral rites that he had desired.

They might decide that it was time to cremate him at that place he had chosen, just down from his house overlooking the sea.