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. Wikipedia
“The brigand is as a snake: if you don't annoy him, he doesn't bite you.”
Il brigante è come la serpe, se non la stuzzichi non ti morde.
As quoted in Voci dall'ergastolo, E. Loescher, 1903, by Romolo Ribolla
Senza dubbio, ho fatto del male alla società, ma io facevo per difendere la mia vita; per essa avrei dato fuoco a tutto il mondo.
As quoted in Voci dall'ergastolo
