On 15th March 2025 – it was a Saturday – 50,000 people quietly invaded Piazza del Popolo in Rome, a monumental square that has often witnessed key events within Italian political history. Called a ‘Square for Europe’, the gathering originated from the idea of Michele Serra, a columnist for a major national newspaper (La Repubblica), who claimed that a large mobilization of civil society was needed to contrast the repeated attacks, from different sides, on European values and identity. In his opening speech, Serra used a translation of the famous battle cry ‘Here we make Italy, or we die’ (‘Qui si fa l’Italia o si muore’), shouted by Giuseppe Garibaldi before a key battle during his successful campaign to unite the country in 1860, hence the title of this blogpost