The inner civil war in the Italian Mezzogiorno and the explosion of brigandage in the 1860s are among the most vibrant and polarising fields of the new Risorgimento historiography. The contributions collected by Alessandro Capone in this volume provide a good overview of new approaches and research questions that have emerged in recent years in the attempt to better understand the civil war in southern Italy – here labelled as La prima guerra italiana (The First Italian War). The volume is divided into four parts. The first deals with the pre-Unification period and the (re-)emergence of brigandage in the Napoleonic era and in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies after 1815. The remaining three parts focus on the decade after the formation of the nation-state in 1861: Part II on volunteer and paramilitary corps employed in the war against brigandage; Part III on the organisation of the police apparatus; Part IV on the use of army and counter-insurgency strategies in areas of brigandage. In his introduction, Alessandro Capone emphasise the fact that the civil war in the Mezzogiorno was part of a broader process of state expansion, nation-building, and liberal reforms, which intensified from the late eighteenth century and expanded transnationally in the Atlantic and Mediterranean world. Unfortunately, however, the contributions to this volume do not address the issue of the civil war in the Mezzogiorno from a comparative, transnational, or global perspective.
The volume analyses the ‘great brigandage’ as an integral part of the conflictual process of state and nation making. During the most political phase of the war between 1861 and 1866 the aim of the new Italian government and the supporters of Italian national unification in the Mezzogiorno was to legitimise the new state against pro-Bourbon reaction and papal interference. The defeat of the ‘political’ brigandage opened a new phase of the conflict against essentially criminal rather than political bandits. The final part of the ‘First Italian War’ lasted until the mid-1870s. The aim of the Italian government and its southern Italian allies was to provide security and justice in the new provinces, where bandits killed peasants, kidnapped landowners, and intimidated local authorities. Alessandro Capone and other contributors to this volume stress not only that the quest for security was crucial in the process of nation-building, but also that internal and external security were deeply interwoven. They also clearly point out that understanding the local society and gaining its support was a crucial aspect of the ‘First Italian War’. The local population began to increasingly support the nation-state after massive police and army reinforcements and the adoption of exceptional laws in 1863. Prominent military officers such as Emilio Pallavicini di Priola, who had a reputation as a crisis manager, adopted a system of reward and punishment, which managed to isolate the brigand bands. However, as noted by Daniele Palazzo in his contribution, the atrocities of the brigands also played a crucial role in alienating support for the insurgents among the local population.
Liberal notables were at the forefront of the efforts against brigandage. Alessandro Capone, Rosanna Giudice, and Carmine Pinto thus emphasise that the formation of the Italian national state and the repression of the ‘great brigandage’ resulted from a mobilisation of large parts of southern Italian society. However, as noted by Laura Di Fiore, the war in the Mezzogiorno was also marked by organisational problems and a dramatic lack of resources – the creation of modern police forces is a good case in point. The volume also includes contributions dealing with tensions between the military and civilian authorities, and between the use of exceptional measures and ‘normal’ control of the public order (Andrea Azzarelli and Mariamichela Landi). Other contributions examine counterguerrilla operations and strategies carried out not only by regular soldiers but also by paramilitary forces (Rosanna Giudice, László Pete, Carmine Pinto). In taking a cultural history approach to the war in the Mezzogiorno, the contributions by Eva Cecchinato, Michele Di Giorgio and Silvia Siniscalchi explore the perception and cultural construction of brigandage. In his contribution, Marco Rovinello sheds new light on the impact of the introduction of conscription in the Mezzogiorno.
Civil war and the ‘great brigandage’ after national unification have been one of the most dynamic areas of research in the field of Risorgimento studies during the last decade. The volume edited by Alessandro Capone offers a comprehensive overview of current research. This makes the volume interesting and very useful, although the findings presented in many contributions have already been published elsewhere. It would have been useful to add a concluding essay (at the end of each part, or at the end of the book) to summarise the achievements of current research and identify areas where further research is needed.
