How did Giuseppe Mazzini’s earlier plans influence Giuseppe Garibaldi’s expedition to Sicily?

Giuseppe Mazzini did not directly participate in or lead the "party of action" that sponsored Giuseppe Garibaldi’s 1860 expedition to Sicily. However, the expedition is often described as "Mazzini’s gift" to that movement because it was fundamentally rooted in revolutionary plans and strategies he had devised in earlier years.1

Mazzini’s influence on the broader struggle for Italian unification, or Risorgimento, was profound. Through his society, Young Italy, he spent decades promoting the necessity of a united, republican nation and maintaining a constant threat of insurrection against existing governments. By consistently keeping the "Italian problem" at the forefront of European politics and advocating for a unitary state, Mazzini helped create the political and revolutionary climate that enabled Garibaldi’s later successes.213

Furthermore, Garibaldi himself had been deeply influenced by Mazzini’s nationalist ideals since the early 1830s, even participating in a failed republican mutiny in Piedmont under the inspiration of Mazzini’s teachings.4