Carmine Crocco
| Carmine Crocco | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
5 June 1830 Rionero in Vulture, Basilicata
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| Died | 18 June 1905 (aged 75) Portoferraio, Tuscany |
| Other names | Donatello |
| Organization | Brigandage in the Two Sicilies |
Carmine Crocco, known as Donatello or sometimes Donatelli (5 June 1830 – 18 June 1905), was an Italian brigand. Initially a Bourbon soldier, later he fought in the service of Giuseppe Garibaldi. Soon after the Italian unification he formed an army of two thousand men, leading the most cohesive and feared band in southern Italy and becoming the most formidable leader on the Bourbon side. He was renowned for his guerrilla tactics, such as cutting water supplies, destroying flour-mills, cutting telegraph wires and ambushing stragglers.
Although some authors of the 19th and the early 20th century regarded him as a "wicked thief and assassin" or a "fierce thief, vulgar murderer", since the second half of the 20th century writers (especially supporters of the Revisionism of Risorgimento) began to see him in a new light, as an "engine of the peasant revolution" and a "resistant ante litteram, one of the most brilliant military geniuses that Italy had".
Today many people of southern Italy, and in particular of his native region Basilicata, consider him a folk hero.
Crocco was born into a family of five children in Rionero in Vulture, which was at the time part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. His father, Francesco Crocco, was a servant of the noble Santangelo family from Venosa and his mother, Maria Gerarda Santomauro, was a housewife. His uncle Martino was a veteran of the Napoleonic army who fought in Spain during the Peninsular War, losing a leg, probably in the siege of Saragossa. Crocco grew up with the tales of his uncle, from whom he learned to read and write. While a child, Crocco began to develop an aversion towards the upper class, after his brother was beaten by don Vincenzo, a young lord, for killing a dog who had attacked a Crocco family chicken. His mother, pregnant at that time, tried to defend her son but the lord kicked her in the belly, forcing her to abort. His father was later accused of the attempted murder of don Vincenzo and was imprisoned without sufficient proof.
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