Post-unification Italian brigandage

Brigantaggio
Part of theItalian unification
An episode of brigandage in 1864
Date 1861–1865 Location Southern Italy (formerKingdom of the two Sicilies) Result Unification victory
Belligerents
Kingdom of Italy	Southern Italian brigands Supported by: BourbonLegitimistsin Southern Italy Partisans fromBourbon Spain
Commanders and leaders
Alfonso La Marmora Enrico Cialdini	Carmine Crocco(POW) Ninco Nanco José Borjes
Casualties and losses
(1861–1864) 603 killed Including 21 officers 253 wounded 24 captured or missing	(1861–1864) 2,413 killed 2,768 captured 1,038 executed

Brigandage inSouthern Italy(Italian:brigantaggio) had existed in some form since ancient times. However, its origins asoutlawstargeting random travellers would evolve vastly later on to become a form of a politicalresistance movement,especially from the 19th century onward. During the time of theNapoleonicconquest of theKingdom of Naples,the first signs of political resistancebrigandagecame to public light, as theBourbonloyalists of the country refused to accept the new Bonapartist rulers and actively fought against them until the Bourbon monarchy had been reinstated.Some claim that the word brigandage is a euphemism for what was in fact acivil war.

History

Brigands surprised bypapal troopsin theRoman Campagna.Painting byHorace Vernetfrån 1831

Following the upheaval duringSicily's transition out offeudalismin 1812, a lack of an effective police force made banditry a serious problem in much of rural Sicily during the 19th century.Risingfood prices,the loss of public and church lands, and the loss of feudalcommon rightspushed many desperate peasants into banditry.

With no police to call upon, local elites in countryside towns recruited young men into "companies-at-arms" to hunt down thieves and negotiate the return of stolen property in exchange for a pardon for the thieves and a fee from the victims - a development that is often seen as the genesis of theMafia.These companies-at-arms were often made up of former bandits and criminals, usually the most skilled and violent of them.While this saved communities the trouble of maintaining their own policemen, this may have made the companies-at-arms more inclined to collude with their former brethren rather than destroy them.

After the fall of theHouse of Bourbon'sKingdom of Two Siciliesand its merger with theHouse of Savoy'sKingdom of Sardiniain 1861, which created theKingdom of Italy,the most famous form ofbrigandageemerged inSouthern Italy.According toMarxisttheoretician Nicola Zitara, Southern Italy experienced social unrest, especially among the lower classes, due to poor conditions and the fact that theunification of Italyhad only benefited the land-owningbourgeoisie,so many turned to brigandage in the mountains ofBasilicata,Campania,CalabriaandAbruzzo.However, the brigands were not a homogeneous group, nor did they operate with any common cause. The brigands consisted of a mixture of people with different backgrounds and motives. They included former prisoners; bandits and other people who the Italian government regarded as common criminals; former soldiers and loyalists from the former Bourbon army; foreign mercenaries in the pay of theBourbon king in exile;somenobility;poverty stricken farmers; and peasants who wantedland reforms.Both men and women took up arms.

Brigands launched attacks, not just against the Italian authorities and the landowners, but also against common people,frequently looting villages, towns and farms, and committing armed robberies against both individuals and groups, including farmers, townspeople and rival brigand bands.Robberies by brigand bands were often accompanied by other acts of violence and vandalism, such as arsons, murders, rapes, kidnappings, extortions and crop burnings.

Ex-votoof aBersagliere,wounded in the conflict but survived, dedicated to theMadonna of Caravaggio

Executed brigands

An extremely harsh repression of the brigands by the Italian authorities began in 1863, especially after the passing of thePica Laws,which permitted the arrest of relatives and those suspected of collaborating or helping a brigand.The villages ofPontelandolfoandCasalduniin theProvince of Beneventobecame the site of a massacre of thirteen brigands by ItalianBersaglieri,as a reprisal after the massacre of forty-five soldiers of theItalian armyby local brigands.In total, several thousand brigands were arrested andexecuted,while many more weredeportedor fled the country (seeItalian diaspora).In Palermo in 1866, 40,000 Italian soldiers were needed to put downThe Seven and a Half Days Revolt.

An indication of the number of deaths during the conflict, including killings and other damages caused by brigandage, can be found in "Result of Operations", signed by colonel Bariola of the 6th Military Department inNaples,for the first nine months of 1863:421 brigands had been killed in combat, 322 were shot by firing squad, 504 arrested and 250 surrendered. During the same period, the brigands killed 228 soldiers and wounded 94, killed 379 other persons and kidnapped 331, and killed or stole 1,821 head of cattle.

Whilst brigandage was virtually non-existent in the annexed states of northern and central Italy after the unification in 1861, such as theKingdom of Lombardy–Venetia,theDuchy of Parma,theDuchy of Modena,theGrand Duchy of Tuscanyand thePapal States,the situation in Southern Italy was very different, owing to the previous centuries of history. In his bookEroi e briganti(Heroes and brigands),the Italian historian and politicianFrancesco Saverio Nittidescribes how brigandage was endemic in southern Italy already before 1860:

«…every part of Europe has had brigands and criminals who during wars and misfortune dominated the countryside and put themselves outside the law […] but there was only one country in Europe where brigandage has existed we can say always […] a country where brigandage for many centuries can look like a huge river of blood and hates […] a country where for centuries monarchy based itself on brigandage that became like a historical agent: this is the country of Midday »(from Italian “Mezzodì” or “Mezzogiorno”, the name for Southern Italy during the 19th century).

There is a thesis that the brigandage in southern Italy was a popular revolt againstItalian unificationand theHouse of Savoy,but it should noted that after 1865–1870 the brigandage movement was never followed by any anti-Savoy or anti-unification movement. Many southern Italians held high positions in the new Italian government, such as the 11th Prime Minister of ItalyFrancesco Crispi.Italians from southern Italy would also go on to play a key role in the ultra-nationalistFascist movement,most notably the so-called 'philosopher of Fascism'Giovanni Gentile.The thesis that southern Italy was hostile to Savoy after the unification also doesn't explain the fact that in the referendum on 2 June 1946, about the creation of theItalian Republic,the south voted overwhelmingly for the Savoy monarchy, while the north voted for a republic, and from 1946 to 1972 the monarchist parties (which merged into theItalian Democratic Party of Monarchist Unity) were especially strong in the south and in Naples (a city in which nearly 80% supported the Savoy monarchy).

• 
  A small band of brigands fromBisaccia,photographed in 1862
• 
  The brigandCarmine Crocco
• 
  The brigandMichelina Di Cesare
• 
  The brigandGiuseppe Musolino.

Brigandage in Southern Italy would continue sporadically after the 1870s. Brigands such asGiuseppe MusolinoandFrancesco Paolo Varsallona,both operating at the turn of the 20th century, as well asSalvatore GiulianoandGaspare Pisciotta,operating inSicilyfrom the 1940s to 1950s, all formed bands of brigands in Southern Italy and gained significant status as localfolk heroes.Sardinian banditsand theAnonima sardaalso continued to practice forms of brigandage into the 20th century.

In popular culture

In 2024,Netflixwill release a series about Italian brigandage titledBrigands: The Quest for Gold.

See also

• Carmine Crocco
• Ninco Nanco
• Nicola Napolitano
• Omertà
• Revolt of Montefalcione
• Sardinian banditry

Further reading

• A. Maffei,Brigand Life in Italy: A History of Bourbonist Reactionca.1865.
• Lupo, Salvatore (2009).The History of the Mafia,New York: Columbia University Press,ISBN978-0-231-13134-6
• New York Times,Brigandage in the Two Sicilies.April 25, 1874.