Briganti, carbonari, martiri : memoria e narrazione della banda Capozzoli (1829-­1860)

In June 1828 Cilento was the scene of an insurrectional attempt promoted by the Filadelfi Sect. At the head of the insurgents were three brothers, Domenico, Donato, and Patrizio Capozzoli, who had been on the fuorbando lists since 1817. The movement was quickly suppressed and the Capozzolis, who at first escaped to Corsica, were arrested and shot the following year. The social and political identity of the Capozzoli and their role in the 1828 movement were immediately the subject of a heated debate that developed between Italy and France and involved diplomatic authorities, police officials, exiles, and French deputies. The article recounts the different readings of the Capozzoli story up to the 1860s, highlighting the blurred and porous boundaries between private violence and political mobilization that characterize the history of revolutions in the Mezzogiorno throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.