The Church’s Trajectory in the Face of Southern Resistance After the Unification of Italy
Abstract: Post-Unification brigandage cannot be reduced to the convenient category of rural criminality, nor can it be uncritically celebrated as a purely popular epic. Rather, it was a complex and deeply divisive phenomenon in which Bourbon dynastic loyalties, peasant poverty, resistance to compulsory conscription, protest against the failure to redistribute land, hostility toward the new Savoyard administration, and the survival of forms of banditry already present in pre-Unification Southern Italy converged. Within this historical grey area lies the attitude of the Papal States: initially inclined to tolerate, and at times indirectly facilitate, the presence of legitimist bands along the frontier; later, as the diplomatic and military context evolved, increasingly determined to suppress the very same phenomenon. The Pericoli Edicts, the Convention of Cassino, and the De Witten Edict mark the transition from political expediency to raison d’état, demonstrating how even papal authority, once the security of its own territory became paramount, resorted to extraordinary measures, special tribunals, and severe sanctions against brigands and their supporters.
Keywords: #PostUnificationBrigandage #SouthernQuestion #PapalStates #PiusIX #Bourbons #Risorgimento #Repression #ConventionOfCassino #GiuseppePettenati #EthicaSocietas #EthicaSocietasReview #ScientificJournal #HumanSciences #SocialSciences #ethicasocietasupli
Giuseppe Pettenati: jurist, essayist and independent historical researcher.
Post-Unification Brigandage as a Trauma of Nation-Building
Post-Unification brigandage refers to the complex set of armed uprisings, rural bands, popular protests, and legitimist reactions that emerged after 1860, primarily throughout the territories of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Its nature was far more intricate than that portrayed by celebratory Risorgimento historiography, which, in order to consolidate the myth of a nation finally reunited under the banner of liberty, had every interest in reducing Southern resistance to a barbaric, criminal, and anachronistic residue.
While many bands undoubtedly engaged in robbery, kidnapping, extortion, and violence, the phenomenon cannot be understood if detached from the political and social context in which it arose: the Savoyard annexation of the South, the collapse of the Bourbon monarchy, the alienation of large segments of the population from the new state, the frustration of peasant expectations regarding land redistribution, and the traumatic impact of an administration perceived as external, heavily militarized, fiscally burdensome, and culturally distant.
Italian unification, celebrated in the official national narrative as the fulfillment of the fatherland, was experienced by many Southerners as a military occupation, the replacement of a legitimate authority by a foreign power, and the imposition of new obligations by officials, officers, and legislators who appeared not as liberators but as conquerors. Out of this fracture emerged a reaction in which Bourbon loyalty, social resentment, popular religiosity, fear of conscription, and the pre-existing geography of rural banditry merged into a single political and human reality.
Brigandage thus became a low-intensity civil war, an irregular and brutal conflict fought across mountains, forests, farms, villages, and borderlands. The new Italian state asserted its sovereignty through extraordinary military and legislative measures, while the bands—sometimes supported by local sympathizers, sometimes merely protected by the silence born of fear—offered a fragmented, violent, symbolically powerful, and ultimately unsuccessful resistance.
The Papal Frontier and the Church’s Initial Ambiguity
The attitude of the Papal States toward post-Unification brigandage was initially characterized by substantial ambiguity. This should not be interpreted as simple moral uncertainty or administrative indecision, but rather as the result of a precise political calculation. Following the collapse of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Rome became the place of exile for Francis II of Bourbon and the symbolic center of a legitimist cause that still nurtured hopes of restoration in Southern Italy.
During this first phase, the bands operating along the frontier between the Papal States and the Kingdom of Italy could appear, in the eyes of many reactionary and legitimist circles, as an indirect instrument for destabilizing the new political order, sustaining Bourbon nostalgia, and slowing the expansion of the Savoyard project toward Rome. The brigand was therefore not merely a disturber of public order but, at least potentially, the enemy of the enemy.
The convergence between the Bourbon and papal causes should neither be exaggerated into a complete identification nor dismissed altogether. A Bourbon restoration in Naples could have represented, from a legitimist perspective, a political and military buffer protecting the Pope’s temporal power, increasingly threatened by the advance of the Kingdom of Italy and by the growing demand that Rome become the capital of the new nation.
This context produced a frontier tolerance that manifested itself less through direct or official support for brigandage than through a grey area of hospitality, administrative inertia, local protection, complicity, and practical difficulties in distinguishing political refugees, former Bourbon soldiers, draft evaders, adventurers, accomplices, and ordinary criminals. This ambiguity constituted one of the essential conditions for the survival of the bands during the early years of the conflict.
When Political Convenience Becomes a Public Order Problem
Such tolerance could only endure as long as brigandage remained useful—or at least not excessively damaging—to papal interests. Once the bands began generating instability, fear, kidnappings, extortion, and violence within papal territory itself, what had previously been tolerated as politically advantageous became an internal threat requiring suppression.
The bands were not regular armies. They did not operate under consistent political or military discipline, relying instead on forced requisitions, local protection networks, vendettas, extortion, and clandestine mobility. Their irregular nature increasingly blurred the distinction between legitimist resistance and territorial criminality, forcing papal authorities to recognize that the same phenomenon capable of weakening the Kingdom of Italy could simultaneously undermine public order within the Papal States.
A familiar pattern in the history of sovereign power thus emerged: what authority tolerates when it serves to weaken an adversary, it represses when it begins to threaten its own stability. More than a moral transformation, this shift reflected the cold logic of raison d’état, which recognizes neither permanent allies nor permanent enemies, only changing interests, fragile equilibria, and evolving threats.
The September Convention and the Need for a Peaceful Frontier
A decisive diplomatic turning point came with the September Convention of 15 September 1864 between the Kingdom of Italy and the French Empire. Under the agreement, France pledged to withdraw its troops from Rome within two years, while Italy undertook to respect the territorial integrity of the Papal States and transfer its capital from Turin to Florence, a gesture intended to reassure both Pope Pius IX and Napoleon III regarding a temporary suspension of Italian ambitions toward Rome.
Within this new framework, frontier stability became essential. The survival of the Papal States depended in part upon their ability to present themselves as an orderly and effective sovereign entity, rather than as a safe haven for armed bands capable of attacking Italian territory before retreating across the border.
Brigandage thus evolved from a policing issue into a matter of international diplomacy. The persistence of a destabilized frontier risked undermining the delicate balance among Paris, Rome, and Florence, while providing Italy with additional arguments for denouncing papal incapacity and increasing political pressure on the Holy See.
Consequently, tolerance gradually gave way to repression—not because the Papal States suddenly adopted the Savoyard interpretation of brigandage as mere criminality, but because territorial security, international credibility, and the preservation of temporal power demanded that the bands be treated as a threat to be eliminated.
The Pericoli Edict and Emergency Justice
One of the most significant manifestations of this repressive turn was the edict issued on 7 December 1865 from the Apostolic Palace of Frosinone by Monsignor Luigi Pericoli, Apostolic Delegate of the province of Campagna e Marittima. The measure established extraordinary judicial mechanisms designed to combat brigandage more effectively than ordinary courts.
A special commission composed of three civilian magistrates and three military officers was empowered to judge crimes related to brigandage. Its verdicts were not subject to appeal or review, creating a form of accelerated and essentially emergency justice in which security considerations prevailed over procedural guarantees.
From a legal-historical perspective, the significance of the edict lies not merely in the severity of its sanctions but in the logic underpinning it. Faced with a phenomenon perceived as a radical threat to public order, the Papal States created a special legal regime, confirming a recurring tendency of sovereign powers to transform emergencies into laboratories of exceptional legislation.
Notably, papal anti-brigandage measures displayed striking functional similarities to those adopted by the Kingdom of Italy in the South. Despite their political opposition, both states increasingly relied upon the same language of exception: special tribunals, reduced legal safeguards, militarization of territory, repression of collaborators, and extensive surveillance of suspect communities.
From Mixed Commission to Extraordinary Tribunal
As initial measures proved insufficient, repression intensified. The mixed commission was eventually replaced by an Extraordinary Tribunal for brigandage cases in the provinces of Frosinone and Velletri, reflecting the recognition that the struggle against brigandage was no longer a temporary emergency but a long-term security policy.
Repression extended beyond armed brigands themselves to encompass the broader social networks that sustained them: supporters, informants, suppliers, relatives, and alleged accomplices. The objective was not simply to capture band leaders but to dismantle the human and material environment upon which they depended.
Subsequent measures, particularly those associated with Prosecutor Agapito Rossetti, imposed increasingly detailed controls over food supplies, firearms, ammunition, and gunpowder, even prohibiting the transport of quantities exceeding daily needs. These restrictions reveal a deliberate strategy of isolating brigand groups from local communities and transforming the territory itself into a hostile environment for their survival.
The Convention of Cassino and the End of the “Quail Leap”
The operational turning point arrived with the Convention of Cassino of 24 February 1867. This agreement between the Papal States and the Kingdom of Italy coordinated anti-brigandage efforts along the frontier and authorized pursuit across the border, effectively eliminating the practice popularly known as the salto della quaglia (“quail leap”), whereby brigands could attack on one side of the border and seek refuge on the other.
The frontier thus ceased to be an ambiguous refuge and became instead a zone of cooperative repression between two politically hostile states united by a common interest in restoring public order.
The significance of the Convention was profound. Although divided by the Roman Question and the dispute over temporal power, the Pope-King and the Kingdom of Italy found common ground in the suppression of brigandage, demonstrating once again how raison d’état can generate practical cooperation even between ideological adversaries.
The De Witten Edict and the Expansion of Repression
On 23 May 1867, Minister of the Interior Luigi Antonio De Witten extended the anti-brigandage measures already in force in Frosinone and Velletri to the entire Papal States. Brigandage was no longer treated as a local problem but as a systemic threat to state stability.
The resulting repressive apparatus became increasingly comprehensive, combining gendarmerie forces, mounted patrols, special tribunals, supply restrictions, financial rewards, and cross-border pursuits in a coordinated effort to destroy the bands and their support networks.
This evolution vividly illustrates a recurring institutional dynamic: prolonged emergencies generate their own legal frameworks; repeated exceptions become normalized; and security, when elevated to the dominant political value, tends to compress legal safeguards and transform entire communities into objects of surveillance and suspicion.
Elisa Garofali: The “Queen of the Mountains”
Among the most evocative figures of this period was Elisa Garofali, remembered as the “Queen of the Mountains.” Originating from the area of Amaseno and associated with the band leader Luigi Cima, her story occupies the blurred space where historical documentation, popular memory, and romantic myth intersect.
Described as remarkably beautiful, determined, skilled with weapons, and capable of moving confidently through the mountainous frontier regions, Garofali embodies the often-overlooked female presence within brigandage. Official narratives frequently portrayed women either as monstrous deviants or as romantic heroines, rarely acknowledging the complexity of their roles.
Many women became involved in brigandage through family ties, personal relationships, territorial loyalties, or sheer necessity. Yet they were far from passive participants. They frequently acted as couriers, informants, suppliers, negotiators, protectors, and occasionally active combatants.
According to traditional accounts, Elisa Garofali was captured on 12 May 1867 while disguised as a man and attempting to cross the frontier near Villa Santa Lucia in order to see her daughter. Sentenced to life imprisonment, she died in the harsh prison established within the Baths of Diocletian in Rome. Her memory endures as a powerful symbol in which motherhood, repression, and political ambiguity converge.
The End of Brigandage and the Eve of Porta Pia
The official end of brigandage within the Papal States was proclaimed by Interior Minister Augusto Negroni’s edict of 25 February 1869. While the deeper social causes of the phenomenon persisted, the decree acknowledged the dismantling of the principal brigand bands and the success of the repressive apparatus constructed during the preceding years.
Only a year later, on 20 September 1870, Italian troops entered Rome through the Breach of Porta Pia, bringing an end to the temporal power of the Pope and concluding the long conflict between Italian national sovereignty and papal rule.
There is a certain historical irony in this sequence of events. The Papal States, having repressed brigandage in order to demonstrate their capacity for governance and preserve internal security, ultimately proved unable to defend themselves against the advance of the Kingdom of Italy. The authority that had crushed the brigands in the name of order was itself overwhelmed by a stronger political order destined to reshape the nation.
Post-Unification brigandage remains one of the deepest wounds in the history of Italian state formation. It reveals what patriotic rhetoric often preferred to ignore: unification was also conquest; liberation was also imposition; legality was also repression; modernization was also social trauma. The South was not merely a passive recipient of national progress but the stage for a fierce, fragmented, violent, and desperate resistance that exposed the difficulties faced by the new state in becoming a genuinely shared political community.
The trajectory of the Papal States—from initial tolerance to exceptional repression—demonstrates that history rarely follows clear moral lines. It proceeds instead through calculations, fears, shifting interests, and institutional necessities. The brigand was neither merely a criminal nor simply a resistance fighter; he was the product of a world in disintegration, an ambiguous figure shaped by defeated political loyalties, rural poverty, endemic violence, popular religiosity, legitimist propaganda, and state repression.
To understand brigandage is not to justify it, but to rescue it from simplification. It is to recognize that the birth of the Italian state was not only a parliamentary, diplomatic, and military achievement but also a social conflict, a territorial trauma, and a largely forgotten civil war. In the events of the papal frontier—through edicts, extraordinary tribunals, cross-border pursuits, and tragic figures such as Elisa Garofali—we glimpse one of the least reconciled faces of the Italian Risorgimento.
Essential Bibliography
Bartolini, C. (1897/1989). Il brigantaggio nello Stato Pontificio. Cerchio: Adelmo Polla Editore (facsimile reprint).
Pettenati, G. (Ed.). (2025). Papa Pio IX. La seconda visita in Ciociaria nel maggio 1863. KDP.
Riccardi, F. (2023). Il brigantaggio postunitario. Una storia tutta da scrivere. Arte Stampa Editore.
Riccardi, F. La repressione del brigantaggio nella Provincia di Frosinone sotto Pio IX. In Quaderni Meridionali, Vol. II.
Scerrato, M. (2016). Fiori di ginestra. Donne briganti lungo la frontiera 1864–1868. AliRibelli Edizioni.
Archivio di Stato di Frosinone, Direzione di Polizia, Malviventi e briganti, b. 293, fasc. 705.
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