page_title: Carmine Crocco
section_title: Last days
hierarchical_section_title: Carmine Crocco / Life / Last days
caption_attribution_description: il primo a destra è il brigante Carmine Crocco
context_page_description: Carmine Crocco, known as Donatello or sometimes Donatelli, 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 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.
context_section_description: Without external support, Crocco turned to plundering and extortion to raise funds, cooperating with like-minded confederates and making raids from Molise to Apulia. Vespasiano De Luca, director of Public Safety in Rionero, invited him to sign a treaty of surrender but Crocco declined. Even without the help of the Bourbons, Crocco, skilled in guerrilla warfare, was able to harass the Piedmontese soldiers. 
  Faced with the apparent invincibility of Crocco's army, the Hungarian Legion (who helped Garibaldi during the expedition of the thousand) intervened in support of the royal coalition.
  Suddenly, Crocco was betrayed by Giuseppe Caruso, one of his lieutenants. Caruso went to the Piedmontese authorities and revealed Crocco's location and hideouts. Under the command of General Emilio Pallavicini (known to have stopped Garibaldi's expedition against Rome in the calabrian mountains), the royal army engaged and defeated Crocco. 
  His band suffered many casualties, and some of his lieutenants, such as Ninco Nanco and Giuseppe "Sparviero" Schiavone, were captured and executed by firing squad, leaving Crocco to retire toward the Ofanto zone. After losing the last battle, he was forced to flee to the Papal States, hoping for help from Pius IX, whom he knew had previously supported the southern opposition.
  Upon arrival Crocco was captured by papal troops in Veroli and imprisoned in Rome. He was then turned over to the Italian authorities and sentenced to death on 11 September 1872 in Potenza, but the sentence was commuted to hard labour for life. He was imprisoned on Santo Stefano Island, where he began writing his memoirs, with the help of Eugenio Massa, captain of the royal army, which published them in 1903, under the name Gli ultimi briganti della Basilicata (The last brigands of Basilicata). 
  The manuscript was republished in the post-World War II era by other authors like Tommaso Pedio (1963), Mario Proto (1994) and Valentino Romano (1997). Crocco was later transferred to the prison at Portoferraio, where he died on 18 June 1905.
caption: Portrait of Crocco (first on the right) during his imprisonment in Portoferraio
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