The Molisan Brigandage and its Relation to the Southern Brigandage
(From notes written by Mario Gramegna)
At this point, it is worth asking why, precisely coinciding with a major reform such as the abolition of feudalism in Molise, where the event was significantly impactful, brigandage developed in a notably virulent manner. Why, for over 10 years, was it possible to live as outlaws, with brigands like Fulvio Quici, Paolo Vasile, and others?
Undoubtedly, one initial cause was the counteroffensive of the "galantuomini" (landowners) against the archivists of 1799. People like Fulvio Quici were forced into becoming outlaws to escape persecution. However, this does not mean there were no other reasons. For example, the "galantuomini" were those who had almost exclusively acquired lands during the division of demesnes because they were the only ones with liquid capital to purchase lands, taking away the only privilege of civil uses from the poor peasants.
For the peasants, anyone who had bread and wine was undoubtedly a Jacobin, and thus hatred against the "galantuomini" became fiercer. This hatred was further fueled by the initial operations of dividing the demesnes, which did not even leave crumbs for the already impoverished peasants. Therefore, it also explains the sympathy of the people towards King Ferdinand IV, the continuator of Charles III’s policies favoring the claims of the peasant masses. The renewal brought by the French army had not benefited them; in many cases, their situation had worsened. They did not receive land, lost a significant part of their civil uses, and continued to pay higher taxes to support the troops than they did previously.
In fact, the armed insurrections in the municipality of Roccamandolfi in 1807, under the cry "Long live Ferdinand IV," saw many peasants as protagonists (Angelo D'Andrea, Giovanni Castrillo, Geremia Martelli, Giuseppe Cianella). Similarly, in Riccia, the previous year, about fifty outlaws, including Lorenzo Santopuoli, Francesco Morrone, and Vitale Mastroianni, attempted to restore the old Bourbon government. Even the municipality of Campochiaro was targeted by brigands in 1810. The houses of the rich were attacked and stripped of everything, with some even set on fire, without any opposition from the inhabitants.
The entire Matese area was almost entirely dominated by brigands, favored by their perfect knowledge of the terrain, the presence of caves and crevices, and the dense forest cover, which became a labyrinth for those pursuing them, navigable only by the brigands themselves. We must admit that terrifying mysteries and extraordinary legends surround the brigands of southern Italy, from Taccone to Quagliarella in Basilicata, to Parafante, Francatrippa, Benincasa, Boia, Mazziotti, and Bizzarro in Calabria, Antonelli in Abruzzo, and Fulvio Quici in Molise. This has often led to a biased and imaginative view of them, influencing even historians.
Recently, the famous brigand Pezza, known as Fra Diavolo, has been reevaluated by an anonymous descendant who aimed to rectify past erroneous judgments about his brigand activities. He nearly proposed the erection of a monument declaring, “To him who defended the rights and freedom of the people,” highlighting how the transition from brigand to patriot can sometimes be a short step. However, this is merely an attempt to justify crimes under the guise of national liberation, which is entirely unjustified.
It is necessary to state that in Molise, at the end of the 1700s and the early 19th century, brigandage assumed a somewhat different character compared to Calabria and Basilicata, for reasons that we will explain later. This does not mean it was a unique type of brigandage, but it was certainly less bloody and had characteristics that can be understood from an environmental and social evaluation perspective.
Despite in-depth studies, many mysteries remain, but the legends have almost disappeared (unlike in Calabria with the beautiful story of Angelillo). The brigands with earrings and long hair, nightmares of the past, are now merely historical figures. The avenging brigand, the benefactor brigand, and sometimes the personification of justice were different aspects that these characters assumed in the fervent imagination of the southern Italian populations. In fact, throughout the history of the Spanish viceroyalty and the Bourbon kingdom, brigandage played a fundamental and highly interesting role, particularly in understanding certain social and political aspects of the populations themselves.
Peasants, driven to desperation by hunger or persecuted by the baron’s justice, would form bands, electing a leader—often the most intelligent and fierce— and take to the wilderness to rob and kill. Brigandage usually began as a revolt, but in many cases, it was simply a criminal instinct that drove some to commit crimes under the guise of supposed injustices.
In Molise, the real cause was precisely this, while the geographic environment was ideal for surprise attacks, escapes after misdeeds, and safe hideouts, away from any attacks by government troops and the civic guard. The history of the Bourbons, after Charles III, is closely linked to brigandage, which even played a leading role in 1799 by decisively restoring the kingdom to Ferdinand IV, after quelling the liberal ferment of the Neapolitan Republic, which had arisen with the help of French arms. On that occasion, the Bourbons shamelessly and unscrupulously used brigands, appointing them as colonels or generals as a reward for their services to the monarchy’s cause.
When in 1806, the Bourbons fled to Sicily in exile, yielding to the French armies, they incited the people and revived brigandage. Notable figures like Fra Diavolo, Pizza, Guariglia, and Furia, known since 1799, reemerged. That same year, Fulvio Quici from Trivento began making a name for himself (along with other brigands from neighboring towns), becoming an over-a-decade-long nightmare for the police and military, who tried in vain to capture him.
Before delving into the chronicles of events featuring him, it is appropriate to continue describing the state of the kingdom and Molise, which, along with Campania, Calabria, Basilicata, Puglia, and Abruzzo, constituted the Kingdom of Naples, forming a political unity of six centuries with considerable uniformity of characteristics.
In fact, regional differences were not significant except in some coastal areas of Campania and Puglia, which were densely populated and intensively cultivated. The rest of the kingdom had few urban centers worth mentioning, with agriculture practiced extensively and characterized by large wooded or uncultivated areas, or completely abandoned lands.
This disparity between coastal areas and inland locations, still very pronounced today, was extremely strong back then due to the general economic and social backwardness of the entire kingdom, almost completely devoid of roads and divided into a multitude of local markets. Naples, for example, at the end of the 1700s with its 400,000 inhabitants, was one of the largest cities in Italy and Europe, but it was essentially a bureaucratic capital. It was the residence of the ruling class, around which a massive economically unqualified population of servants, unemployed, and forgotten people lived.
The rest of the kingdom, with a total population of 5 million, consisted of inhabited centers, none of which exceeded 30,000 inhabitants, but almost all lifeless bodies, as commerce and industry played a very limited role and in a very restricted area, not facilitating the exchange of products or human contact.
This is an important element to penetrate the social conception of the psychological isolation in which the inhabitants of the Molisan towns lived, almost all part of fiefs entrusted to the trustees of lords who resided in comfortable dwellings in Naples, completely oblivious to their lands and fief inhabitants, ready to cultivate vast tracts, and submissive to pay homage and make acts of submission to the representative of the lord tasked with collecting rents.
When Charles III of Bourbon became king in 1734, the Kingdom of Naples still had an essentially feudal structure, with over 10,000 feudal lords, three-quarters of the population subject to feudal jurisdiction, and only one-quarter dependent on the king. Although the barons no longer represented an independent political force, as in the times of the Angevin and Aragonese kings, having been weakened first by the Spanish viceroys and then by the monarchy, they continued to control not only the kingdom’s economy but also the state’s structural organization through friendships and interests.
Therefore, the erosion work that the bourgeoisie and the intellectual class had to undertake to dismantle a politically and economically intolerable system, even to the king, was extremely difficult. The king was now aware of the need to eliminate noble privileges and some inconceivable injustices. Fundamental reforms were realized only during the Napoleonic period, under Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat (February 1810 - May 1815), deeply influencing the social and political development of the population.
However, almost against all logic, it was precisely during this period that the phenomenon of brigandage flourished vigorously, fueled everywhere by the silence of the populations and the support of many influential and supposedly respectable individuals.
It should be considered, in truth, that the ruthless Bourbon reaction against the instigators of the Parthenopean Republic of 1799 particularly affected the bourgeoisie and part of the nobility, while the peasants, the real protagonists of the king’s return to Naples, were left disappointed by the unfulfilled promises made by Cardinal Ruffo. The solemn commitment, in the name of the sovereign, to abolish the feudal system and resolve the issue of common lands in favor of the people was not fulfilled even in the slightest.
Taxes, levies, and indirect duties continued to burden the people, while symbolic changes such as the abolition of the "sedili" (an antiquated patrician administration in the city of Naples) and the fideicommissa (entailments for urban properties) were made to distract the populace. Thus, the betrayal of the people's expectations should have represented a serious element of hostility against the Bourbons. Instead, under the Napoleonic rule, the peasant masses longed for their return, supporting the brigands and the friends of the old monarchy.
In this period of confusion, between promises and lack of reforms at the beginning of the last century, even the clergy, already the custodians of a rich patrimony, continuously competing with the nobility and the affluent bourgeoisie, regained their dominance, extending their "morto mano" (dead hand) even further and reconstituting the feared order of the Jesuits.
But in 1805, the ambiguity of Naples' foreign policy led to the fall of the Bourbons once again. Napoleon, faced with the duplicitous policy wherein the Bourbon ambassador in Paris signed a neutrality treaty with France while the Naples government forged alliances with Russia and made agreements with England, had no more doubts and sent an army under General Massena, who entered Naples on February 14, 1806.
A few months later, Joseph Napoleon was appointed by his brother as King of the Two Sicilies. Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina fled to Sicily, hoping with the help of the English to incite, as in 1799, the peasant masses. Initially, they achieved significant successes, especially in Calabria, but soon the general momentum slowed, and the peasants preferred a near-passive attitude, although not favorable to the French.
The war was then characterized by a series of skirmishes, small landings, espionage, agreements with numerous brigand bands, and outbreaks of insurrection in numerous localities of the Kingdom, creating a dangerous chaos exploited by criminals eager to make their fortune and the impoverished, driven by hunger and injustices, to turn against society while posing as patriots.
Indeed, the disorders of 1799 had stirred spirits to the point that, like a race for fortune, brigands followed by famished throngs entered villages, plundered, spread terror, raped, and self-styled themselves as defenders of the legitimate sovereign. Their acts were of unprecedented ferocity: Bizzarro, no less fierce than Mammone, fed his dogs with French officers brutally murdered.
Obviously, the populations, deprived of any protection from governmental bodies, terrorized by the brigands' fame, dared not collaborate in any way with the established authority to destroy the bands of bandits. Also, the support for the brigands was widespread, and even the slightest suspicion of espionage against the brigands would lead to the alleged traitor being swiftly identified. In such cases, revenge would mercilessly strike the suspect and their family.
Often the informers were also the protectors and defenders, sometimes out of timidity, sometimes out of greed, and often the supporter would enrich themselves while the brigand ended up on the gallows. Churches and monasteries frequently hosted brigands, with the monks of Venafro praying by day and disguising themselves at night to assault and rob travelers.
In Calabria, the French troops were eventually rendered impotent, prompting King Joachim Murat in September 1810 to send General Manhès with dictatorial powers to crush any attempts by the population to support the outlaw bands. The general rose to the occasion, employing methods reprehensible in many respects but the only ones capable of achieving positive results. He was therefore ruthless to the point of implementing barbaric forms of intimidation against the populations, which in many cases had built a dangerous barrier of silence and complicity. He succeeded completely, as he destroyed brigandage in Calabria to its roots, and his name became synonymous with terror.
Why, then, was he not sent to Molise? Evidently because brigandage in the Molise region had more the characteristic of true banditry, with rare bloody manifestations that might have a motive, certainly not justifiable, but a consequence of a logic, under some aspects acceptable: revenge for a denunciation, for an unjustly suffered wrong, for a shameful abuse endured. Never crime for the sake of crime. This also shows that the Molise brigand had not completely lost their moral sense and managed, in unfavorable circumstances (often a matter of life or death), to maintain a certain self-control.
(From notes written by Mario Gramegna)
At this point, it is worth asking why, precisely coinciding with a major reform such as the abolition of feudalism in Molise, where the event was significantly impactful, brigandage developed in a notably virulent manner. Why, for over 10 years, was it possible to live as outlaws, with brigands like Fulvio Quici, Paolo Vasile, and others?
Undoubtedly, one initial cause was the counteroffensive of the "galantuomini" (landowners) against the archivists of 1799. People like Fulvio Quici were forced into becoming outlaws to escape persecution. However, this does not mean there were no other reasons. For example, the "galantuomini" were those who had almost exclusively acquired lands during the division of demesnes because they were the only ones with liquid capital to purchase lands, taking away the only privilege of civil uses from the poor peasants.
For the peasants, anyone who had bread and wine was undoubtedly a Jacobin, and thus hatred against the "galantuomini" became fiercer. This hatred was further fueled by the initial operations of dividing the demesnes, which did not even leave crumbs for the already impoverished peasants. Therefore, it also explains the sympathy of the people towards King Ferdinand IV, the continuator of Charles III’s policies favoring the claims of the peasant masses. The renewal brought by the French army had not benefited them; in many cases, their situation had worsened. They did not receive land, lost a significant part of their civil uses, and continued to pay higher taxes to support the troops than they did previously.
In fact, the armed insurrections in the municipality of Roccamandolfi in 1807, under the cry "Long live Ferdinand IV," saw many peasants as protagonists (Angelo D'Andrea, Giovanni Castrillo, Geremia Martelli, Giuseppe Cianella). Similarly, in Riccia, the previous year, about fifty outlaws, including Lorenzo Santopuoli, Francesco Morrone, and Vitale Mastroianni, attempted to restore the old Bourbon government. Even the municipality of Campochiaro was targeted by brigands in 1810. The houses of the rich were attacked and stripped of everything, with some even set on fire, without any opposition from the inhabitants.
The entire Matese area was almost entirely dominated by brigands, favored by their perfect knowledge of the terrain, the presence of caves and crevices, and the dense forest cover, which became a labyrinth for those pursuing them, navigable only by the brigands themselves. We must admit that terrifying mysteries and extraordinary legends surround the brigands of southern Italy, from Taccone to Quagliarella in Basilicata, to Parafante, Francatrippa, Benincasa, Boia, Mazziotti, and Bizzarro in Calabria, Antonelli in Abruzzo, and Fulvio Quici in Molise. This has often led to a biased and imaginative view of them, influencing even historians.
Recently, the famous brigand Pezza, known as Fra Diavolo, has been reevaluated by an anonymous descendant who aimed to rectify past erroneous judgments about his brigand activities. He nearly proposed the erection of a monument declaring, “To him who defended the rights and freedom of the people,” highlighting how the transition from brigand to patriot can sometimes be a short step. However, this is merely an attempt to justify crimes under the guise of national liberation, which is entirely unjustified.
It is necessary to state that in Molise, at the end of the 1700s and the early 19th century, brigandage assumed a somewhat different character compared to Calabria and Basilicata, for reasons that we will explain later. This does not mean it was a unique type of brigandage, but it was certainly less bloody and had characteristics that can be understood from an environmental and social evaluation perspective.
Despite in-depth studies, many mysteries remain, but the legends have almost disappeared (unlike in Calabria with the beautiful story of Angelillo). The brigands with earrings and long hair, nightmares of the past, are now merely historical figures. The avenging brigand, the benefactor brigand, and sometimes the personification of justice were different aspects that these characters assumed in the fervent imagination of the southern Italian populations. In fact, throughout the history of the Spanish viceroyalty and the Bourbon kingdom, brigandage played a fundamental and highly interesting role, particularly in understanding certain social and political aspects of the populations themselves.
Peasants, driven to desperation by hunger or persecuted by the baron’s justice, would form bands, electing a leader—often the most intelligent and fierce— and take to the wilderness to rob and kill. Brigandage usually began as a revolt, but in many cases, it was simply a criminal instinct that drove some to commit crimes under the guise of supposed injustices.
In Molise, the real cause was precisely this, while the geographic environment was ideal for surprise attacks, escapes after misdeeds, and safe hideouts, away from any attacks by government troops and the civic guard. The history of the Bourbons, after Charles III, is closely linked to brigandage, which even played a leading role in 1799 by decisively restoring the kingdom to Ferdinand IV, after quelling the liberal ferment of the Neapolitan Republic, which had arisen with the help of French arms. On that occasion, the Bourbons shamelessly and unscrupulously used brigands, appointing them as colonels or generals as a reward for their services to the monarchy’s cause.
When in 1806, the Bourbons fled to Sicily in exile, yielding to the French armies, they incited the people and revived brigandage. Notable figures like Fra Diavolo, Pizza, Guariglia, and Furia, known since 1799, reemerged. That same year, Fulvio Quici from Trivento began making a name for himself (along with other brigands from neighboring towns), becoming an over-a-decade-long nightmare for the police and military, who tried in vain to capture him.
Before delving into the chronicles of events featuring him, it is appropriate to continue describing the state of the kingdom and Molise, which, along with Campania, Calabria, Basilicata, Puglia, and Abruzzo, constituted the Kingdom of Naples, forming a political unity of six centuries with considerable uniformity of characteristics.
In fact, regional differences were not significant except in some coastal areas of Campania and Puglia, which were densely populated and intensively cultivated. The rest of the kingdom had few urban centers worth mentioning, with agriculture practiced extensively and characterized by large wooded or uncultivated areas, or completely abandoned lands.
This disparity between coastal areas and inland locations, still very pronounced today, was extremely strong back then due to the general economic and social backwardness of the entire kingdom, almost completely devoid of roads and divided into a multitude of local markets. Naples, for example, at the end of the 1700s with its 400,000 inhabitants, was one of the largest cities in Italy and Europe, but it was essentially a bureaucratic capital. It was the residence of the ruling class, around which a massive economically unqualified population of servants, unemployed, and forgotten people lived.
The rest of the kingdom, with a total population of 5 million, consisted of inhabited centers, none of which exceeded 30,000 inhabitants, but almost all lifeless bodies, as commerce and industry played a very limited role and in a very restricted area, not facilitating the exchange of products or human contact.
This is an important element to penetrate the social conception of the psychological isolation in which the inhabitants of the Molisan towns lived, almost all part of fiefs entrusted to the trustees of lords who resided in comfortable dwellings in Naples, completely oblivious to their lands and fief inhabitants, ready to cultivate vast tracts, and submissive to pay homage and make acts of submission to the representative of the lord tasked with collecting rents.
When Charles III of Bourbon became king in 1734, the Kingdom of Naples still had an essentially feudal structure, with over 10,000 feudal lords, three-quarters of the population subject to feudal jurisdiction, and only one-quarter dependent on the king. Although the barons no longer represented an independent political force, as in the times of the Angevin and Aragonese kings, having been weakened first by the Spanish viceroys and then by the monarchy, they continued to control not only the kingdom’s economy but also the state’s structural organization through friendships and interests.
Therefore, the erosion work that the bourgeoisie and the intellectual class had to undertake to dismantle a politically and economically intolerable system, even to the king, was extremely difficult. The king was now aware of the need to eliminate noble privileges and some inconceivable injustices. Fundamental reforms were realized only during the Napoleonic period, under Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat (February 1810 - May 1815), deeply influencing the social and political development of the population.
However, almost against all logic, it was precisely during this period that the phenomenon of brigandage flourished vigorously, fueled everywhere by the silence of the populations and the support of many influential and supposedly respectable individuals.
It should be considered, in truth, that the ruthless Bourbon reaction against the instigators of the Parthenopean Republic of 1799 particularly affected the bourgeoisie and part of the nobility, while the peasants, the real protagonists of the king’s return to Naples, were left disappointed by the unfulfilled promises made by Cardinal Ruffo. The solemn commitment, in the name of the sovereign, to abolish the feudal system and resolve the issue of common lands in favor of the people was not fulfilled even in the slightest.
Taxes, levies, and indirect duties continued to burden the people, while symbolic changes such as the abolition of the "sedili" (an antiquated patrician administration in the city of Naples) and the fideicommissa (entailments for urban properties) were made to distract the populace. Thus, the betrayal of the people's expectations should have represented a serious element of hostility against the Bourbons. Instead, under the Napoleonic rule, the peasant masses longed for their return, supporting the brigands and the friends of the old monarchy.
In this period of confusion, between promises and lack of reforms at the beginning of the last century, even the clergy, already the custodians of a rich patrimony, continuously competing with the nobility and the affluent bourgeoisie, regained their dominance, extending their "morto mano" (dead hand) even further and reconstituting the feared order of the Jesuits.
But in 1805, the ambiguity of Naples' foreign policy led to the fall of the Bourbons once again. Napoleon, faced with the duplicitous policy wherein the Bourbon ambassador in Paris signed a neutrality treaty with France while the Naples government forged alliances with Russia and made agreements with England, had no more doubts and sent an army under General Massena, who entered Naples on February 14, 1806.
A few months later, Joseph Napoleon was appointed by his brother as King of the Two Sicilies. Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina fled to Sicily, hoping with the help of the English to incite, as in 1799, the peasant masses. Initially, they achieved significant successes, especially in Calabria, but soon the general momentum slowed, and the peasants preferred a near-passive attitude, although not favorable to the French.
The war was then characterized by a series of skirmishes, small landings, espionage, agreements with numerous brigand bands, and outbreaks of insurrection in numerous localities of the Kingdom, creating a dangerous chaos exploited by criminals eager to make their fortune and the impoverished, driven by hunger and injustices, to turn against society while posing as patriots.
Indeed, the disorders of 1799 had stirred spirits to the point that, like a race for fortune, brigands followed by famished throngs entered villages, plundered, spread terror, raped, and self-styled themselves as defenders of the legitimate sovereign. Their acts were of unprecedented ferocity: Bizzarro, no less fierce than Mammone, fed his dogs with French officers brutally murdered.
Obviously, the populations, deprived of any protection from governmental bodies, terrorized by the brigands' fame, dared not collaborate in any way with the established authority to destroy the bands of bandits. Also, the support for the brigands was widespread, and even the slightest suspicion of espionage against the brigands would lead to the alleged traitor being swiftly identified. In such cases, revenge would mercilessly strike the suspect and their family.
Often the informers were also the protectors and defenders, sometimes out of timidity, sometimes out of greed, and often the supporter would enrich themselves while the brigand ended up on the gallows. Churches and monasteries frequently hosted brigands, with the monks of Venafro praying by day and disguising themselves at night to assault and rob travelers.
In Calabria, the French troops were eventually rendered impotent, prompting King Joachim Murat in September 1810 to send General Manhès with dictatorial powers to crush any attempts by the population to support the outlaw bands. The general rose to the occasion, employing methods reprehensible in many respects but the only ones capable of achieving positive results. He was therefore ruthless to the point of implementing barbaric forms of intimidation against the populations, which in many cases had built a dangerous barrier of silence and complicity. He succeeded completely, as he destroyed brigandage in Calabria to its roots, and his name became synonymous with terror.
Why, then, was he not sent to Molise? Evidently because brigandage in the Molise region had more the characteristic of true banditry, with rare bloody manifestations that might have a motive, certainly not justifiable, but a consequence of a logic, under some aspects acceptable: revenge for a denunciation, for an unjustly suffered wrong, for a shameful abuse endured. Never crime for the sake of crime. This also shows that the Molise brigand had not completely lost their moral sense and managed, in unfavorable circumstances (often a matter of life or death), to maintain a certain self-control.