1861 rebellion in Montefalcione, Italy
The revolt of Montefalcione was a popular pro-Bourbon insurrection that occurred between July 6 and 10, 1861, which had Montefalcione as its epicenter, as well as spreading to several neighboring towns and villages. The anti-unification unrest that shook the territory of Irpinia in those days was characterized by bloody fighting and acts of hostility, perpetrated by both factions involved.
These acts culminated in a massacre, carried out in the town of Montemiletto and its surroundings by contingents of the Hungarian Legion and the Royal Italian Army, through the summary killing, for the purpose of repression and reprisal, of a number of rioters and civilians varying, according to sources, between 97 and 150. Among them, Giuseppe D'Amore, a boy who was only thirteen years old, was also shot.
Background.
First revolt of Montemiletto.
In September 1860, about a month before the holding of the annexation plebiscites, while the territory of the Campanian provinces was affected by the events related to Garibaldi's campaign in the south of Italy's mainland and the imminent entry of regular troops of the Piedmontese army, most of the populations of Montemiletto, Torre Le Nocelle and Pietradefusi rose up in arms against the pro-Unitarian forces to restore the authority of Francis II, railing against the liberal families in the area.
In Montemiletto, the action of liberal groups led to the overthrow of Bourbon institutions: on the night of September 5, some pro-Unitarian veterans of the Ariano insurrection, including Carmine Tarantino, a captain of the National Guard and professor at the Royal High School, entered the town. Receiving the support of Giuseppe Fierimonte, leader of the liberals and captain of the local National Guard, Tarantino and his men, extolling Garibaldi, headed for the local telegraph post, cutting its wires and isolating it. The group then placed under arrest the Urban Guard militiamen who had resisted the taking of the town.
The action of the pro-Unitarian forces led to turmoil and agitation among the legitimist population: at dawn on September 6, the sound of the "tofa", a sea shell used as a horn of call, summoned the peasants of the countryside surrounding Montemiletto to prepare to fight back. In the evening, ringing bells accompanied the village uprising, which was led by Matteo Lanzilli of Montemiletto and Carmine Ardolino of Torre Le Nocelle.
Armed with rifles and rural tools, the commoners penetrated Giuseppe Fieramonte's palace, killing him with axes and shotguns. Other liberals perished: Domenico Colletti and his son, Angelo Leone, brother of the archpriest, Raffaele La Porta, Pellegrino Meola and his son, some members of the Pesa family, and other liberals from Aiello and Montaperto returning from the Ariano expedition. Giacinto de' Sivo reports that the bodies of the liberals were laid out on the telegraph pylons that they had torn down the previous day. According to some sources, a total of 23 liberals were killed and the homes of many landowners were looted.
The following day the legitimists moved toward Torre Le Nocelle and ""to the sound of drums and with white flags, shouting Long Live Francis II"." They went through the streets of the town, hunting down the liberals: three of them, Pasquale Rotondi, Carmine Rotondi and Baldassare Rotondi, were killed. On the morning of the 7th, Bourbon soldiers on horseback set out from Avellino for Montemiletto, but were recalled by General Scotti and driven back. At the same time, Garibaldian troops entered the town of Irpinia, putting it back under the Unitarian forces, repressing and arresting the rioters, with the intention of "exacting revenge" on the population, in the words of historian de' Sivo. On the same day, Garibaldi entered Naples.
The uprising resulted in more than five hundred indicted, and nearly four hundred arrests. In Dentecane, a jury was set up, with the task of judging those arrested and executing among them the ""instigators of public order by seditious actions"." The special court was dissolved on October 27, 1860 by an act of Minister of Grace and Justice Pasquale Scura, countersigned by prodictator Giorgio Pallavicino, and the jurisdiction was transferred to the ordinary courts.
In mid-September Garibaldi sent J. R. Wolfe, in his capacity as "Surgeon of the General Staff" to the area to treat the wounded of Ariano and Montemiletto, who had a grim impression of the living conditions of many families, and on September 18 he opened a subscription to which he called on Neapolitans to contribute ""so that you may wish with offerings to help those unhappy fellow citizens of yours who have paid such a high price for your present joy"."
To escape capture, many rioters had gone into hiding, taking refuge in the woods between Montefalcione, Montemiletto, Lapio, Chiusano and Montaperto, as well as in the mountains of Volturara, Sorbo and Salza.
The formation of rebel groups.
These first groups of insurgents, later enlarged by other fugitives, began to organize militarily also due to the presence among them of former soldiers of the Army of the Two Sicilies. The armed bands that were being formed had the more or less explicit support of the legitimist populations, receiving logistical and organizational support from numerous inhabitants of the municipalities in the area, acting as liaisons between the insurgent groups and the various towns.
Two figures in particular soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, that of 25-year-old Basilio Pagliuca, who was the mastermind and military leader of the revolt, and that of 42-year-old Gaetano Maria Baldassarre. Both from prominent Montefalcione families (their respective fathers had served as mayors at different times), they were the leading figures of the resistance movement. Baldassarre, who had played a prominent role in the Montemiletto uprising of September 1860, had already been denounced on the following October 30 by Montefalcione Mayor Carlo Contrada, who had explicitly requested the authorities in Naples that the captain of the National Guard of Candida, Michele Tagle, be put on his trail.
Gaetano Baldassarre was the soul of the turmoil. He and his sister Nicolina were energetic activists: they held organizational meetings, encouraged the resistance, and worked to spread insurrectional ideas by putting up political posters hostile to the Savoy government and Garibaldi as well as extolling the revolt. Also collaborating with Baldassarre was archpriest Gaetano Girone, who was similarly denounced to the authorities in Naples.
The arrest warrant against Baldassarre was issued by Naples on November 1, 1860, and its execution was referred to the governor of Avellino, Giuseppe Belli, who had called Baldassarre "the fiercest leader of the rebellion that took place in Montefalcione and the massacres of Montemiletto." Baldassarre left the area in order to escape capture, and took refuge first in Capua, and then in Gaeta, where he was one of the extreme defenders of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies as part of the siege of the fortress. After the capitulation of Gaeta, and in accordance with the surrender pacts, he returned to Montefalcione, where he disguised under an apparent tranquility his intention to continue in the work of rebellion, becoming the political coordinator of the revolt.
In addition to Pagliuca and Baldassarre, other men from the surrounding area rose to the role of leaders of the movement, including Angelo Ciarla of Montemiletto, Vincenzo Petruzziello of Montefalcione, Pasquale Palladino of Lapio and Francesco de Francesco of Chiusano.
Montefalcione riots.
The insurrection.
As early as the first days of January 1861, the governor of Avellino was alerted about the preparations of the revolt, which was underway in the area between Montefalcione, Lapio, Montemiletto, Torre le Nocelle and Pietradefusi. Upon such news, a reconnaissance unit commanded by Captain Masi was sent to the area, with orders to conduct searches and disarm suspects. Despite this, a number of Bourbon flags were hoisted in Montefalcione on February 10, and the subsequent arrival of Captain Tagle in an investigative capacity had no major results. The situation in the area became progressively uncontrollable, and not even the National Guard was in a position to exert any opposition to the rising sentiment of rebellion.
On the evening of July 5, the military leaders of the uprising, led by the young Pagliuca, worked out the final details of the action to be taken, and exchanged their watchword, which was to be ""Rome and seven clubs"." The next morning, two armed men came to the mayor of Montefalcione, Diocle Polcari, intimating that he should destroy the Savoy insignia and incite the people to revolt. After pretending to comply, the mayor fled to Candida to his brother Basilio at the first opportunity.
In the afternoon of the same day, about sixty men, including many uniformed Bourbon soldiers, entered the town commanded by Basilio Pagliuca and Carmine la Contrada. Upon the department's arrival, the population rose up, disarming the National Guard, destroying the Savoyard insignia and raising the Bourbon flag in their place; meanwhile, the few liberals in the village fled. The Savoy government was declared forfeited, the Bourbon government restored, and Gaetano Baldassarre was appointed mayor, effectively restoring Montefalcione as a territory of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The municipality thus became the center of a revolt that would soon spread to neighboring towns and villages, while Pagliuca was assumed to be the point of reference for conspirators from neighboring villages.
The government counteroffensive.
Even before the hotbed of revolt was ignited in Montefalcione, government forces in nearby Montemiletto feared an uprising in the town, so much so that they lobbied the new governor of Avellino, Nicola De Luca, several times, tending to obtain the dispatch of military units. The governor arranged several arrest warrants issued for anyone suspected of plotting against the new government, but he could not send soldiers, since the bulk of those he had, about eighty men from the 62nd Infantry Regiment, were employed in guarding the overcrowded prisons in the province filled with reactionaries.
Montemiletto, however, was considered a square of relevant strategic importance, since it was seen as the last outpost in defense of the Montefusco prison, in which about 300 prisoners were held, part of whom were precisely Montemiletto people arrested after the September 1860 uprising and for whom a liberation attempt was feared. Thus, on July 5, De Luca authorized Carmine Tarantino, accompanied by a few soldiers, to gather men to take on Montemiletto. Stopping at Candida, Tarantino hoped to complete his troop by also hiring Tagle, who had 72 National Guard militiamen at his disposal, but a reasonable economic arrangement could not be found. Before reaching Montemiletto, the expedition crossed paths with some liberal families fleeing the town, but Tarantino convinced them to turn back. On the 6th, the Savoyards entered Montemiletto, establishing in the Fierimonti (or Fierimonte) palace, which had the appearance of a fort, their headquarters.
An initial reaction to the legitimist insurrection in Montefalcione was thus organized. On July 7, starting from Montemiletto, Carmine Tarantino, together with Archpriest Leone, a former prisoner, later pardoned, and now mayor of the same town, at the head of five line infantry soldiers, a few National Guardsmen and about 40 volunteers (among them, according to De Sivo there were also Camorrists), attempted the assault on Montefalcione; however, finding themselves outnumbered, they were forced to retreat, taking shelter in Contrada Bosco. Hailing from Montefredane, Montefusco, Santa Paolina, Pratola and Prata, about one hundred and twenty men, including infantrymen and national guardsmen, came to Tarantino's rescue. A firefight with the rebels ensued: nine of them were taken prisoner, while one fell in combat. The government troops, about to gain the upper hand, pursued the reactionaries all the way into the town of Montefalcione, but were led, thus, into an ambush: they were repelled and forced to flee. Tarantino, abandoned by his reinforcements, returned with his group to Montemiletto, locking himself up in the Fierimonte palace along with the liberal families.
After the revolt.
To Montefalcione, now in legitimist hands, came from Montemiletto a squad of men, some of them wearing the uniform of the Army of the Two Sicilies, led by Angelo Ciarla. Friar Urbano Noviello led a procession through the streets of the town, during which a picture of Queen Maria Cristina, wife of Ferdinand II and venerated as a saint, was raised.
In the meantime, on the morning of July 7, Basilio Pagliuca had moved toward Chiusano di San Domenico, with the aim of fostering the uprising of this town and to help the insurgents of Lapio; while, the next day, Angelo Ciarla left Montefalcione with his men to return to Montemiletto.
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