Introduction
The eruption of Southern brigandage following Italian unification was long ignored, even erased from school textbooks, which were primarily aimed at instilling a sense of Italian identity in students. Later, this phenomenon was revisited by left-wing intellectuals, who interpreted it as a class struggle motivated by economic reasons—an example of Marxist historical theory. In recent years, brigandage has been re-evaluated and even romanticized by certain groups, who view Italian unification as a sort of colonial war waged by the Piedmontese and, more generally, the northern Italians, against the prosperous and developed Bourbon kingdom. In this perspective, brigands are seen as a form of patriotic guerrilla fighters, a kind of reverse Garibaldini.
But can brigands truly be considered as reverse Garibaldini, men fighting for a cause opposed yet comparable to Garibaldi's? This work attempts to outline a response to this question.

The Brigands
Firstly, let’s understand who the brigands were. Brigandage was a widespread phenomenon up until the late 19th century, common throughout the south of Italy as well as in areas like Lazio and Romagna, and, to an extent, globally. Brigands were people who lived hidden in forests, mountains, or deserted wastelands. At the time, governments had too few resources to control these vast, scarcely populated territories: roads were nonexistent, and communication was extremely difficult. In remote mountainous areas, like those in Irpinia or Basilicata, one could find small villages perched here and there, with large, uninhabited expanses covered in forests, hills, and scrubland—the brigands’ natural domain.
Brigands had no legitimate economic means, so they lived by robbing, usually targeting rare travelers or by demanding ransom from kidnapped landowners. Sometimes, they might even attack small, isolated towns. Inevitably, they killed anyone who resisted; hence, they were thieves, robbers, murderers, and occasionally rapists (since they had no women among them).
People often turned to brigandage after committing a crime, such as murder or theft, with no other recourse but to escape from inhabited areas and hide in the wilderness. However, these crimes were sometimes driven by extreme poverty or an honor killing, as it was then called, against someone who had threatened a family woman’s virtue—a duty in those times.
Therefore, although brigands committed intolerable crimes by the standards of an orderly state, they were not necessarily wicked. Out of either calculation or genuine kindness, they sometimes spared the poor and only attacked the rich, who were, after all, the ones with money. They might use part of their loot to help the poor, thus creating a valuable network of collaborators. In such cases, a myth of generosity might arise around them (similar to Robin Hood or the “gentle bandit” of Romagna, referenced by Pascoli). They could be seen as avengers of the poor and oppressed against rich exploiters and oppressors, admired by the downtrodden for their courage to rebel against misery, oppression, and injustice—in essence, for embodying a truer sense of justice than that of official laws, which the powerful manipulated for their own benefit.
Think of Renzo in The Betrothed: the law didn’t protect his Lucia, and for a moment, he considered a desperate act—killing the local lord and fleeing, essentially choosing the life of a brigand. But he quickly abandoned this idea, knowing it would mean losing Lucia, whom he hadn’t yet even touched. It was better to seek the Church’s help. Had Lucia indeed been violated, even Father Cristoforo likely couldn’t have dissuaded Renzo from his revenge.
The brigand’s life was extremely harsh. They had to leave their families, with only a few women, reserved for the leaders, occasionally joining them. They had no shelter, were constantly on the move, exposed to cold and hunger, always with death at their side. Above all, there was no future for them: sooner or later, they would be captured and end their miserable lives on the gallows. There was only one way out: royal amnesty. The government could decide it was easier to forgive their crimes than to pursue each brigand individually, or it might recruit them to fight in times of war in exchange for the long-desired amnesty. A similar policy was used with the pirates who infested the Atlantic.

Carmine Crocco
Let us now examine Carmine Crocco’s story, the "general of the brigands" and the most prominent leader of Southern brigandage, even the subject of a popular TV series. Crocco, a peasant from Rionero, joined the Neapolitan army, where he excelled and reached the rank of non-commissioned officer. At some point, however, he committed a murder and was forced to desert. In his autobiography, he claimed it was an honor killing, as the victim had attempted to seduce his sister. However, this might not be true, though it’s not relevant here.
In 1860, during Garibaldi's campaign, Crocco was promised amnesty if he fought with Garibaldi, which he did, even fighting at Volturno. However, the amnesty was not granted due to unforeseen complications. Crocco returned to brigandage. A new opportunity arose when he was promised amnesty again if he fought for the Bourbon king. He led the brigands of Basilicata for years, commanding around two thousand men divided into bands and capturing many towns, robbing liberal bourgeois. Violent retaliation from the Italian army eventually crushed the brigands. Crocco fled to the Papal States, expecting amnesty through the intervention of the Pope or the Bourbon king, only to be detained by the papal authorities as a brigand. Eventually, he was to be deported to Algeria by the French authorities, but the Italians intercepted the French ship and captured him. Sentenced to death, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment to avoid straining relations with France. Crocco died in prison forty years later, having written an autobiography to justify his life.

Popular Uprising
However, the Southern brigandage was not just an outbreak of traditional banditry but had numbers and characteristics that set it apart. It can better be understood as a peasant revolt, similar to the French jacqueries—spontaneous uprisings of the poor and oppressed throughout history whenever peasants’ living conditions became unbearable, such as the 18th-century Cossack uprising led by Pugachev or the roughly contemporary Taiping Rebellion in China.
The context of Southern Italy was unique: a conflict between “caps” and “hats.” “Hats” were the characteristic headgear of the galantuomini—a term not meaning “honest men” but simply men in gala attire. These were the landowners and professionals such as army officers, judges, lawyers, and public administrators, who constituted the wealthy class. Meanwhile, the “caps” were worn by peasants and shepherds, who spent their lives working in the barren fields, dividing their meager harvests with landowners.
Into this very tangible conflict fell the Garibaldians’ expedition. Good Mazzinians, they believed that the freedom they were bringing, along with unity, would solve all problems for the people, leading to liberty and prosperity. These were noble but abstract ideals that took no account of the real conditions of the poorest southern regions.
As the peasant revolt grew, its futility became evident: the return of the Bourbons, at most, would have meant a return to previous injustices.

Conclusion
In conclusion, we cannot consider the brigands as reverse Garibaldians. Garibaldi's followers were mostly urban middle-class men or artisans; peasants were virtually absent among them. In contrast, brigands were always peasants, never extending beyond their social class or involving the towns. The Garibaldians were driven by noble ideals they had read in books, whereas brigands were illiterate and moved by real, direct experiences of poverty and injustice.

To understand the world of the brigands, one must think less of patriotic novels like Small Ancient World by Fogazzaro or The Reaper of Sapri by Mercantini, and more of works like Verga’s novella Liberty or Levi's Christ Stopped at Eboli: two utterly different worlds, bound to collide in the ruthless conflict that marked the suppression of Southern brigandage.