Banditry

Giuseppe Nicola Summa, in the register of births, lieutenant of brigand Carmine Crocco. Greedy, ignorant, merciless. Uncatchable. In 1864 he was shot in a barn, his body hung on Avigliano square. Eugenio Bennato dedicates a song to him: "Qui si fa l’Italia o si muore. E Ninco Nanco deve morire (...) è nato zappaterra e ammazzarlo non è reato e dopo un colpo di rivoltella l’hanno pure fotografato". ("Here we make Italy or we die. And Ninco Nanco must die (...) he was born a farmer and killing him was no crime and after the gunshot he was also shot by a camera".

In 1859 Ferdinand II Bourbon dies. His successor Franceschiello is a 23 year old "guaglione" (young man). Amid total chaos, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies collapses and is annexed to the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. In 1863 the Parliament approves the Pica Bill for the repression of banditry that institutes court martial and war laws. Turin sends its troops to fight against the enemies of the nation: the brigands.

Here are the brigands. Wild beasts, flaunted like hunting trophies, a combination of physical and iconic violence. Marina Miraglia comments: these pictures are the fruit of a rising bourgeois state that imposes its vision of the social order and decrees the distance among classes through blood and the mortification of dead bodies. "Collodion mortuary" as J. Claretie defines them.

With the Unity of Italy came the grist tax and the privatization of state properties. And the detestable national service. It was a wrench from the rural and pastoral society to the capitalist and industrial one. "The state (...) laid waste Southern Italy and the islands, butchering, shooting, burying the poor farmers alive whom some bought writers tried to bring shame upon calling them brigands." Gramsci, L’Ordine Nuovo.

Nicknamed Pilone for his big moustache and thick beard, he was an illiterate stonecutter. A faithful follower of the Bourbons, he distinguished himself in the repression of the 1848 riots. At Calatafimi he conquered the flag of Garibaldi’s Thousand. The Piedmontese army killed his family and arrested his wife. Yet he was one of the last to surrender. After nine years in hiding on the Vesuvius, he was stabbed to death in 1870, aged 46.

Zi Beppe, born in 1820, land keeper, became a brigand to escape shooting after killing a national guard. Initially Crocco’s lieutenant, he killed 124 people during his 4 years in hiding. In 1863 he handed himself over to the Savoy authorities contributing to the repression of banditry in Vulture.

Phrenology of Doctor Miraglia

Biagio Gioacchino Miraglia, Head of Aversa Psychiatric Hospital and founder of the Italian Society for Mental Disorders, in 1864, anticipating Lombroso, theorized the biological inferiority and delinquency as bestiality. He provided a pseudo-scientific basis to oppression and social injustice. His theories of criminal anthropology were based on the measurements of brigands’ skulls, among whom the La Galas.

Doctor Miraglia compared the size of brain mass in brigands' skulls with the measures of races considered inferior, establishing a hierarchy of savagery. First ranked Domenico Papa "whose head indeed (...) must be considered proportionally more monstrous than that of the Caribbean, close to the repulsive shape of hyaenas' and crocodiles' heads."

Brigand women

"Drudes", in gaelic "immoral women", were nurses and cooks but, most of all, they were wives, mothers and lovers. And they did shoot, at least like men did. Ciccilla, 20 years old, from Calabria, chopped down her sister Theresa for slander with 48 axe blows. Giuseppe Catozzella, in his novel Italiana tells the story of "awful Ciccilla" (...): "I am not a man and would never want to be one".

In love with brigand Francesco Guerra, ex-Bourbon soldier, the drude Michelina was shot dead with her man in 1868. Her naked body was displayed on Mignano Square. We suppose this is Michelina’s portrait. Any contribution that may help giving back identity and dignity to this beautiful woman is welcome.

Brigands in Sardinia

Following the Massari-Castagnola Report on popular discontent and banditry submitted to the Commission in 1863 and the Rural Survey by Stefano Jacini in 1877, in 1894 Francesco Pais Serra wrote in Le Condizioni economiche e della sicurezza pubblica in Sardegna (Economic conditions and public security in Sardinia): " the legendary Sardinian bandit....is attractive for his mix of romantic strength, brutal revenge and chivalrous naivety..."

The battle of Morgogliai, between Oliena and Orgosolo, was an action decided by governor Pelloux. On one side the army and Carabinieri, on the other the gang of brothers Serra Sanna from Nuoro and Virdis, the most feared brigand heads in Sardinia: about 200 Carabinieri and soldiers versus 5 bandits. (Elia Serra Sanna had a 12.500 liras reward on his head).

Giulio Bechi, lieutenant, narrated the events in his book Caccia grossa. Scene e figure del banditismo sardo. It was a "secret and yet manifest struggle (...) fought in the name of humanity and justice". The reaction to his writing was violent: Bechi, charged with slander by the Sardinians, was challenged to a duel, sued and sentenced to two months. His book sold like hot cakes. (The reward on Giacomo Serra Sanna's head was 8.000 Liras).

The "killing" had been preceded by the "Saint Bartholomew night", on May 14 and 15. A roundup of families in Nuoro and surroundings, mass arrest of those who protected the fugitives. Hundreds of bandits and brigands went into hiding. Local people would call them Sos Zigantes (the Giants). (8.000 liras on Virdis’ head).

Giuseppe Sanna Salaris, Head of Cagliari asylum, examined 1000 brigands arrested in 1899: painstaking skull measurements and analysis according to Lombroso's theory. His findings can be found in Una centuria di delinquenti sardi. Ricerche analitiche e comparative sui banditi e sui loro parenti prossimi, written in 1902. Despite the wild look in this picture, Gusai was not so cruel. The reward on is head amounted to 200 liras only.

The theories developed by Alfredo Niceforo, a disciple of Lombroso’s, had many followers: Sardinians are born potential criminals. It’s a matter of their skulls, the Parallelepipedoides variabilis sardiniensis, typical of the wildest and most primitive people as described in La criminalità in Sardegna in 1897. In the picture, Su Bellu d’Uliana, a ruthless bandit from Dorgali with fourteen warrants of arrest and a 5000 lira reward on his head.

Sanna Salaris, in his studies, precisely describes the traits of Sardinian bandits: men aged from 21 to 30 "1,56 to 1,65 m. tall - but there’s one who is 1 meter and 84 cm. tall - shepherds by profession (about 60%)". Goddi, the man in the picture, killed a man who stole an animal from him and apparently beheaded his dead body and let the head roll down at his father's feet.