Fra Diavolo

Background

Fra Diavolo (real name - Michele Pezza) was born on the 7th of April in 1771, in Itri, Kingdom of Naples, France.

Career

He entered the service of the king of Naples in 1798.

When the kingdom of Naples was overrun by the French and the Parthenopaean Republic established (1799), Cardinal Ruffo, acting on behalf of the Bourbon king Ferdinand IV, who had fled to Sicily, undertook the reconquest of the country, and for this purpose he raised bands of peasants.

Owing to his unrivalled knowledge of the country, he succeeded in interrupting the enemy's communications between Rome and Naples.

But although, like his fellow-brigands under Ruffo, he styled himself " the faithful servant and subject of His Sicilian Majesty, " wore a military uniform and held military rank, and was even created duke of Cassano, his atrocities were worthy of a bandit chief.

His excesses while at Albano were Such that the Neapolitan general Naselli had-him arrested and imprisoned in the castle of St Angelo, but he was liberated soon after.

After spreading terror through Calabria, he crossed over to Sicily, where he concerted further attacks on the French.

He returned to the mainland at the head of 200 convicts, and committed further excesses in the Terra di Lavoro; but the French troops were everywhere on the alert to capture him and he had to take refuge in the woods of Lenola.

For two months he evaded his pursuers, but at length, hungry and ill, he went in disguise to the village of Baronissi, where he was recognized and arrested, tried by an extraordinary tribunal, condemned to death and shot.

Although his cruelty was abominable, he was not altogether without generosity, and by his courage and audacity he acquired a certain romantic popularity.

Achievements

• He is celebrated as a popular guerrilla leader in folk legends and in the novels of the French writer Alexandre Dumas père.

References

• Fra Diavolo