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The Debates and Reconstructions of the Facts
 The
detailed reconstruction of the bloody episodes happened in Bronte in
August of 1860 was done by the brontese historian
Benedetto
Radice,
still a child when these things were happening, in his two books
"Historical memories of Bronte"
and "Nino Bixio in Bronte", (this
last one republished in 1963 by the publisher Salvatore Sciascia,
with a preface by Leonardo Sciascia, ).
The same publisher Salvatore Sciascia, in 1985, published "The
process of Bronte", that integrally recovers the acts of
the first summary trial.
Leonardo Sciascia talks about a "skeleton
in the wardrobe" of which everyone knew the existence,
but about which no one was talking about and that Benedetto Radice,
through a meticulous and careful study of the historical sources,
finds out and reveals, pushed by the love of "natio
loco"
(native land), but also from the wish to return dignity and justice
to the liberal lawyer Lombardo, that Bixio had very hastily got shot
as chief of the riot.
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On the true facts of
Bronte during the summer 1860, had a strong impact the testimony
of the Garibaldian literature and the accomplice silence of a
historiography all wrapped around the myth of Garibaldi, of the
thousand, of the freedom for the Sicilian people: until a scholar
of Bronte, professor Benedetto Radice did publish in the Historic
Archive for Oriental Sicily (year VII, installment I. 1910) a
monograph titled Nino Bixio a Bronte; and already, to give
the remote reasons for the riot, had published (1906, Historic
Sicilian Archive), the essay “Bronte in the 1920
revolution.
And everybody knew about the injustice and the
ferocity of the repression, but it was like having a skeleton in
the cupboard; everybody knew about it but nobody wanted to talk
about it: for prudence, for utmost discretion as the dirty clothes,
if not washed in the family, may never be washed at all.
(Leonardo Sciascia, Nino Bixio a Bronte, 1963) |
The integral edition of the
«Nino Bixio to Bronte»
Benedict's Radice monograph
(drawn by the II° volume of the "Historical Memories of
Bronte") We offer it to You in format
Download the file
(100 pages, 803 KB) |
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Leonardo Sciascia
«That bloodbath for a piece of lava»
 The hunger for land, for this
arid and black ground that with inexpressible patience and hard
labor the men can change into gardens, here has generated bloody
riots as that which, in August 1860, was blindly repressed by Nino Bixio at Biancavilla, Randazzo, Cesaro’, Bronte; and in Bronte
with particular rigor as the hunger for land of the peasants applied
also to the feud that the Bourbon king had given in1799 to the
admiral Nelson, the famous dukedom of Bronte, the parceling out of
which happened only recently, as this estate, besides the Bourbon
king, had been usurped also in1491 by the Pope, and for centuries
Bronte’s citizens had to fight for the rights of their Council
over the feud, judicially and with tragic riots.
In Bronte the word “communist” indicates the party, the popular
faction that appealed for and demanded the restitution to the
Council of the usurped land and its parceling out in opposition to
the “ducal” party, in which the well-off class, supporting the
great usurpation represented by the duchy were hiding their own
small misdeeds.
It is a very interesting municipal story and for the facts of August
1860 gets a case of conscience of the Italian state, of the nation;
it says what the Risorgimento had not been, not realized ideas,
hopes painfully frustrated for which we still feel pain and frustation.
The divided stony ground of the original duchy, (only few hundred
hectares remains to the hard heir of Nelson), is now neglected as
anywhere in Sicily. To the same peasant coming back to Bronte from
the north of Italy, from Germany or Belgium, to spend here his
holidays, shall appear absurd and incredible that people of his
condition, if not relatives, had been able to kill or to be killed
for a piece of stony ground.
“We want the “sciarelle!”, (small piece of lava ground), the
shout of the drowned riot, is far and unreal, almost ridiculous, the
feud looks now like a deserted lunar landscape. But it is strange to
find oneself suddenly in the midst of it, facing the Castle of Maniace, surrounded by tall trees, wrapped in sound of water. And the
trees and the water seem to evoke fog and you can have the illusion
to stand on a piece of English country side. As anywhere man carries
the image of his own country; and the English administrators of the
duchy , even without realizing it, recreated here the ambience of
their own faraway land. Entering the castle, which is actually the
ancient Abbey of Saint Maria of Maniace, the suggestion gets deeper.
In the court yard there is a cross of lava stone, only shaped
differently to ours, studded, in memory of Nelson; In the church are
buried the English feud administrators and their families; and for
who knows something about the facts of 1860 would notice the name Thovez; as William and Frank Thovez were the administrators during
that time.
They, as their predecessors and successors in the administration of
the feud, were able to recreate an English landscape around the
castle, while the Sicilian reality was able to change them into
Sicilians of the worse kind: mean, cunning, tortuous, very able to
play both sides. Here, where the Greek Giorgio Maniace defeated in
1040 the Saracens, on the feud exactly called Saracina, Orazio
Nelson and Nino Bixio’ s glory falls down in blood and injustice:
Nelson accepted this land as payment for treason and a massacre,
Bixio became an apostle of terror instead of justice.
(Drawn from works 1971-1983
edited by Claude Ambrosie Bompiani’ s classics.) |
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Giovanni Verga
«Libertà»
 Besides Giuseppe Cesare Abba, also a great narrator of the level of
Giovanni Verga, who, at the epoch of the facts, was 20 years old,
dedicated to the dramatic rural riot of Bronte his short story, "Libertà"
(Freedom).
Freedom paid very dearly, tragic epilogue of the secular vassalage
grown in the Nelson' shadow, in the rich Dukedom from 1799 settled in
the castle.
"Libertà" is the most significant example of a short story that the Verga wrote inspiring himself to the fight between opposite classes
and to the perennial violence of their relationship. In the various
parts of the tale he makes correspond a historical moment and a
diverse point of view.
The initial part will have Saturday,
August 4, as the date in which the riot against the
"galantuomini" (gentlemen) explodes in all his violence and savagery. The point of
view of the common men is highlighted here in a raising of enthusiasm
and violence. Everything appears right and possible, be it the longing
for economic and social equality, be it the thirst for revenge towards
the wealthy dominant class.
In the central part the short story describes the facts of
Sunday August 5; it is strengthened the vision of the freedom as
equitable distribution of the land and from it gleams an utilitarian
and individualistic vision of the facts.
The third part is divided in a three year period, from
the arrival of the Garibaldians to the emission of the sentence of the
appeal court towards the rebels. Here Verga makes prevail the middle
class point of view:. "Freedom" only means violence and disturbance
against an established order.
The events run slowly, in a raising of indifference, while the
defendants fall into the fatalism of who is not able to explain the
reasons of its defeat.
Of the bloody riot remains so only the pain of the accused, while
life goes on as before. Everything remains the same, everything was
useless, "in the air go only the rags". | |
Bronte's history
In
Summer of 1860, armed with pitchforks and tricolor, Bronte's
farmers move in to attack the duchess Nelson, heir of
that admiral Horatio to whom Ferdinando IV had granted the title
for services rendered in the liquidation of the republic of the
1799.
