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The shawl is made of black and white checked wool, with fringes and commemorative embroidery on one side resulting from the folding. It wrapped Carlo Cattaneo, who died in 1869, and then Giuseppe Mazzini during his illness and death. The object bears an embroidered inscription telling its story: “This cloth, which belonged to CARLO CATTANEO and wrapped his body on 6 February 1869, was cherished as a memento by GIUSEPPE MAZZINI, who covered himself with it when he was ill and died on 10 March 1872. AG. BERTANI”. Giuseppe Mazzini's shawl is a plaid – or more precisely a maud, a blanket made of raw wool in two natural colours – used as a garment and, until his last moments, by Carlo Cattaneo. It was kept by Mazzini and used by him during his illness until his death, then passed on to Agostino Bertani and finally used to cover Maurizio Quadrio at his death. This is why it is an object of great symbolic and historical value, having passed through the hands of four protagonists of the Italian Risorgimento: an artefact that began as an everyday object and then became a memento, a relic, and finally a relic.