If we really want to be impartial in giving an historical judgement, we must bear in mind the real seriousness of the Jacobins’ treason both towards the lawful sovereigns and towards the people of the Kingdom; this seriousness was even worsened by the fact that they gave the State in the hands of an invader enemy and, most of all, to the sovereigns these traitors were mostly noble people and often friends of the royal couple and had received benefits from them.

Duke Michele Pezza, called Fra Diavolo

If we could have an instantaneous overview of the Kingdom of Naples in the first six months of 1799, we would see tenths of thousands of people rise up voluntarily from Abruzzo and southern Lazio to Apulia and Calabria and fight to death against the Jacobin Republic and the Napoleonic invader in the name of the Church and the Bourbon Two Sicilies. Just to mention a few names among the most famous heads of pro-Bourbon rising we should list Fra Diavolo (Friar Devil), G.B. Rodio, Giuseppe Pronio, Vito Nunziante , Sciarpa, Panedigrano, etc. We must also mention the great war fought from 1806 to 1810 by the French against the so-called southern pro-Bourbon "Brigandage" to support first Joseph Bonaparte and then Joachim Murat on the Throne of Naples.

It is a tragic history, characterised by bloody massacres, unscrupulous retaliations, dramatic and rude events. Apulia, Basilicata and especially Calabria rose up and created a real situation of permanent war. The insurgents, led by some heroes of ‘99 (again, Michele Pezza, Sciabolone, De Donatis, G.B. Rodio , Sciarpa, Panedigrano, the protagonists of the Holy Faith (Sanfedists) who after seven years did not hesitate to leave again their families and jobs and all the privileges acquired to face death in a desperate war only to serve the same cause as seven years before, the same King against the same enemy), plus other new counterrevolutionary exponents among which I mention Carmine Caligiuri, Rodolfo Mirabelli, Alessandro Mandarini and others. Supported by the British via sea, they faced for years the French-Neapolitan armies and were engaged in real battles "on a grand scale", such as the one they won at Maida. At the end they were defeated, but Murat never obtained peace and support from his subjects: as we already said when talking of Ferdinand IV, when Murat landed at Pizzo and attempted to reconquer the kingdom in 1815 was shot by local peasants, then arrested, processed and condemned to death.

The uprising was an exceptional occasion for many humble commoners to show their heroic loyalty to their sovereigns, as well as for others (nobles and lords) to show their treason to their sovereigns and benefactors.

Some considerations

Marquis Vito Nunziante

We cannot relate in detail these events for lack of space here, but some short general considerations must be made. The trend applied by Italian historiography to all other heroic and tragic events of the Italian uprising - that occurred almost everywhere across the country in those 25 years we are analysing - was that of "concealing" them. However, this was not possible for the Ruffo expedition and Sanfedismo due to the epochal dimensions of these phenomena and therefore in this case the trend was that of "calumniating" them : Ruffo’s followers where only bloodthirsty criminal and murderous gangs looking for easy plunder and Ruffo was the leader they deserved.