It is widely known and proven that the brigands and their leaders, by an overwhelming majority, were nothing but common criminals. Active in the south for many centuries, uninterruptedly and in large numbers, gangs of brigands wrought devastation on the population like a plague.
The extent of the crimes committed by these criminals in its precise quantitative dimensions still remains unknown to this day. Just to give an idea of its possible proportions we can recall the estimate made by Adolfo Perrone in his study on brigandage (“Il brigantaggio e l’Unità d’Italia” Milano-Varese 1963, p. 266), which reports about 5 or 6 thousand civilians murdered by brigands only in the years after Unification. It is a total that is substantially equivalent to that proposed by Franco Molfese, certainly the greatest scholar of post-unification brigandage, for the total number of brigands killed or executed by the army and the national guard in the course of the suppression of the phenomenon from 1861 to 1865. It is superfluous to specify that while those killed by the brigands were innocent victims, the brigands themselves were armed criminals.
The sum of murdered civilians suggested by Perrone, even if it were exact, would not however take into account the injuries, abductions, rapes, arsons and all other crimes committed by these criminals, not to mention all the soldiers killed by the brigands.
When evaluating these figures, one must remember that brigandage was widely present throughout the south at least since the fourteenth century. An exhaustive examination of the crimes perpetrated by brigands would require a work of many years made by an entire team of scholars, since it would be necessary to examine an endless number of documents which moreover are scattered in various different archives and sources of another nature.
While waiting for such a worthy study to be carried out, it is however easy to offer a quick summary of the delinquent acts of individual bandits or brigand gangs, in order to provide a reduced sample, which, although it can not replace a detailed statistical analysis, can still be a valuable asset.
The brigand leader Michele Caruso, a friend of Carmine Crocco, was a psychopath and a sadist who enjoyed killing men, women and animals for pure sadism. He was addicted to completely unjustified murder, which he did for the pure pleasure of killing. His innumerable murders were perpetrated without any apparent motivation, as if seized by frenzies of homicidal madness.
The following is one example:
"March 12, 1863: Along the road that leads to Montuoro, Luigi Bianco di Ururi was met by the Caruso gang. Caruso, upon seeing him, said to him: 'Where are you going?', to which the other turned back and said: 'I'm going to the countryside.' 'It is better that you stay here, otherwise this bad weather may bring harm to your health', and, without saying anything else, Caruso shot and killed him. No animal kills for the sake of killing like Michele Caruso did."
[Abele De Blasio, "Il Brigante Michele Caruso Ricerche di Abele De Blasio", Stab. Tipografico, Napoli, 1910]Another emblematic case of his actions, among many others, took place in October 1863, when this brigand leader went with his mistress Filomena Ciccaglione (a woman who had been kidnapped by him after the same criminal had murdered her father) to the home of one of his "compare" (comrade or friend) in Puglia. At the time in southern Italy "comparaggio" (unbreakable kinship) meant a very strong and heartfelt bond. The "compare" welcomed Caruso, hosted him in his home and offered him lunch. After eating, Michele Caruso, without any apparent reason, murdered his "compare" and even massacred his entire family. After the massacre, the brigand literally dismembered the body of his "compare" and threw it into a boiling water boiler, thus boiling it.
During the trial, Caruso, who was illiterate, declared to one of the judges what his philosophy of life was: "Ah Sir! Had I known how to read and write, I would have destroyed the human race!" This famous affirmation, examined among others also by the important historian of brigandage Franco Molfese as one of the most typical expressions of the brigand mentality, perfectly corresponds to the crimes he committed, which often seemed inspired by a pure and simple taste of killing and destroying merely for the pleasure of doing it, based on a hatred he had for the world as a whole. Since childhood Caruso had dedicated himself to torturing and killing animals and in adulthood he continued to do the same thing to both humans and beasts. This brigand was also taken by a particular hatred for pregnant women, whom he kidnapped and killed just because they were pregnant.
One of the main capimassa (commander of a group of peasants) of the Sanfedisti was the infamous Donato De Donatis, the main ally of the gang leader Giuseppe Costantini, known as Sciabolone ("The Saber"). Donato De Donatis was born in 1761 in Fiolo, a hamlet of Rocca Santa Maria, to Gregorio and Annantonia Bilanzola di Acquaratola, and was sent to join the priesthood by his family. Although he had been consecrated as a priest, he seized the opportunity offered to him by the unrest of 1799 to constitute a gang of bandits who devoted themselves to looting, often accompanied by rapes and murders. Curiously this group of criminals was led by three priests: the gang leader Don Donato De Donatis, along with Don Carlo Emidio Cocchi and Don Donato Naticchia. There was also an ex-friar named Vincenzo Benignetti, originally from Camerino, who practically played the role of jester in the gang and was a multi-time offender, imprisoned several times after being found guilty of fraud and theft.
De Donatis was in theory an ecclesiastic, but his behavior was decidedly contrary to Catholic moral norms, since, besides his acts of brigandage in the proper sense, he was also a blasphemer and had a regular French mistress. Moreover De Donatis was a bisexual and pedophile and dedicated himself to the rape of young boys.
The aforementioned Michele Caruso was also a sexual maniac, guilty of many rapes. Anna Belmonte, an attractive peasant girl, suffered a robbery at her father's farm on September 19, 1862, committed by three brigands from the Caruso gang, who ransacked the house before leaving. Severely frightened, she went to take refuge at the house of her neighbor, a certain Saverio Carbone, where, however, she instead found herself face to face with Caruso who, after having beaten her, raped her in front of Carbone's wife. After the rape of Anna Belmonte, Caruso left and a little later encountered a teenage girl near the farm of S. Auditorio. The brigand leader ordered his three gang members to rape her, which they did before sodomizing the girl. This detail should be noted: Caruso, having already just raped someone, in this circumstance did not personally rape this woman, but ordered his men to do so: therefore he was not moved by the desire to seek sexual satisfaction, but rather from the pleasure of committing evil. Of course, these are just some of the cases of rape by Caruso and his gang. To cite another example: near Morcone, in the vicinity of Cuffiano, a teenage girl was raped to death by almost all members of the gang, as a medical examiner later attested.
Michele Caruso's brigand gang, going to the town of Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi, came across fifteen women working in the fields of Bisaccia: the gang kidnapped them and took turns raping them. Two teenagers ended up dying as a result of the violence they had suffered.
But the rapes committed by the brigands were incalculable and perpetrated by these gangs in every place they roamed. For example, on June 28, 1861, six brigands raped Maria Michela Rao at gunpoint in the village of Pratella. On June 30, 1861 near Isernia, in the district of Pietra Bonata, four bandits from the Ciccone gang broke into the small village of Campozillone and kidnapped Antonia de Luca, who was a relative of one of the criminals, Benedetto de Luca. After kidnapping the girl, the brigands took her to a forest and took turns raping her for several days...
Carmine Crocco himself, during his 1872 trial in Potenza, in response to a question concerning rape, answered in terms so vague and reticent, but in substance admitted his guilt, comparing himself to a garden warbler, that is, to a bird that pecks when and where he wants — a clear sexual metaphor.
The relationship between brigands and criminal mafia organizations is also a proven fact. The Sicilian Mafia in its development between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries drew upon the feudal nature of Bourbon society and institutions. In fact, already in the eighteenth century, the police departments and the private militias of the landowners in Sicily were both recruited from criminals:
"We know however that the campieri (field guards), not unlike the cavalry soldiers and the municipal guards who are supposed to keep order in the countryside, are usually ex-bandits capable of intimidating bad guys (cattle raiders, extortionists, highway robbers) with their own tactics, or if necessary collaborating with them in good neighborly logic [...]; both are usually called mafiosi by contemporaries".
[Salvatore Lupo, Storia della mafia dalle origini ai giorni nostri, Roma 1993, pp. 4-5]Even in the days of the "Iron Prefect" Cesare Mori, who fought harshly against the Mafia on the orders of Mussolini, the brigands were still colluding with the Mafia.
In Campania, the brigand gangs active around Naples were related to the Camorra. The most famous Neapolitan brigand, Antonio Cozzolino, nicknamed Pilone ("big and hairy"), was notoriously in business with the Camorristi and devoted himself to their same activities, from smuggling to extortion. But also other brigand leaders near Naples were Camorristi or friends of the Camorristi.
Two Camorristi "families" active in the 1850's and 1860's, the Maiello family of Somma and the Pipolo family of Pomigliano, engaged in strictly "Camorristic" activities together with men of brigand background. But the same happened in the 40's and 50's of the same century, under Ferdinand II of Bourbon, with the Monda and Sarno Camorristi "families" who dominated the area of Somma, Nola, Marigliano, etc. Smuggling, extortion, mafia control of the markets, corruption and interference in procurement were the common criminal activities of these Camorristi brigands.
One of the most notorious Camorristi leaders of the nineteenth century, Aniello Ausiello, known as the "Re della zumpata" ("King of the knife duel") sold weapons to the brigands and eventually became a brigand himself. One can go on and on.
The brigand leaders themselves acknowledged in writing (if and when they could read and write, which was rarely the case) that their men were delinquents.
At the time of his arrest, the Spanish officer José Borjes, sent by Francis II to lead the brigands, admitted that he was on his way to Rome to tell the Bourbon king that he had nothing but "miserable and wicked men" on his side, that Crocco was a criminal of the worst kind, and that Langlois was a brute:
"I was going to tell Francis II that he has no one except miserable and wicked men to defend him, that Crocco is a sacripant and Langlois a brute."Borjes in his private diary expressed very harsh judgments against Carmine Crocco, which the historian Aldo Albònico summarizes in his study:
"The Spaniard reproached the brigand as: the greatest thief he had ever known; a coward who made the Spaniards perform the most dangerous tasks and did not dare to leave familiar territory; a petty man fearful of losing the money he had accumulated through robberies; a presumptuous man, worried about losing some of his authority in the event that a true military organization would enter the fray."
[A. Albònico, La mobilitazione legittimista contro il Regno d’Italia, Milano 1979, p. 72]The brigand leader Pasquale Romano, called "Sergente Romano" by his brigands, wrote the same: "But since in these there was only the desire of Stealing and never that of being honored with equality to mine, they began to agitate against me, allowing themselves to say among themselves: we went out into the countryside and we are called Thieves and we have to Steal and if our Leader does not do as we say, miserable death will come or he will remain alone." Despite the many grammatical errors, the passage is clear: the bandits led by Romano wanted to engage in theft and were willing to kill their leader if he tried to stop them.
The brigands did not shy away from killing each other, in revenge or in "settling accounts" between rival gangs.
In 1799 the brigands of the Fontana gang physically liquidated the brigands of the Rondinoni gang. A couple of brigands were buried alive in a mass grave at the Teramo Cathedral; they were buried with all the other bodies and left to perish in this way by asphyxiation or putrefaction. Another was beheaded and his head kicked around by the Fontana gang.
Among the acolytes of "Sergente Romano", two brigands called Elia and De Martini killed another bandit named Francesco Monaco from Ceglie Messapica. The brigand Monaco had kidnapped a peasant, Rosa Martinelli, forcing her to join the gang and become his sexual slave. The other two brigands killed him because they wanted to replace him and take hold of the kidnapped woman for themselves.
Tristany and Zimmermann, two foreign mercenaries in service of Francis II during his stay in Rome, had the brigand Chiavone and some of his bandits shot on June 28, 1862 in an area called Valle dell’Inferno (Hell Valley). Tristany and Zimmermann were among the mercenaries which the exiled Bourbon used to try to stir up brigandage in the south. The death of the brigand Chiavone was followed by other "settling of accounts" among the members of his gang, accompanied by torture. One brigand was killed by his own accomplices by being hung upside down from a tree branch and left to die this way. [A. Albònico, La mobilitazione legittimista contro il Regno d’Italia, Milano 1979]
Quite a few brigands were true and proper cannibals who ate human flesh. The most famous case is that of Gaetano Mammone, whose cannibalism is attested by many sources, including those of the Bourbon side. But many other brigands ate human flesh, such as the members of the La Gala gang who kidnapped, tortured and finally devoured one of their former accomplices.
Not infrequently the brigands murdered children as well. For example, on September 7, 1863, in the district of Cancinuto in Castelvetere in Val Fortore, Michele Caruso's gang massacred eighteen people, including children. Another well-known brigand, Francesco Mozzato, nicknamed Bizzarro ("Bizarre"), brutally killed his own newborn son. Several murders took place during a violent brigand riot in the city of Gioia on July 28, 1861, including the murder of an eight-year-old boy, who was shot to death because he was "guilty" of having said that he wanted Vittorio Emanuele II to be king.
The sheer number of crimes committed by the brigands is such as to prevent them from being even briefly summarized, since they were certainly in the range of tens of thousands. A famous scholar of brigandage, Basilide Del Zio (“Melfi e le agitazioni nel melfese. Il brigantaggio”, Melfi 1905), indicates with great precision that, in the territory of Melfi alone and only in 1863 (therefore in a very limited time and place), there were 175 murders, 130 injuries and mutilations, 81 rapes, 800 thefts and robberies, 200 arson attacks and 350 cases of blackmail by brigand gangs. This happened only in 1863 and only in the territory of Melfi. From this one can only begin to imagine the number of crimes committed by the brigands, who raged for centuries throughout the whole Mezzogiorno.
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