Tuesday Tidbit-Italy

 I learned so much about the history of the Italian Peninsula during my research for Sins of a Rogue. Not just the history of the area, but geography and language, too. It's a convoluted dance with random sources, but here's the Wiki page I used most for the historical feel of Calabria during the 1780s.

For several hundred years between the 1400-1800s The Kingdom of Naples, Southern Italy below Rome, was ruled by the French, Spanish, and Austrians with varying degrees of interest in the location. The monarchy cared only for profits, so taxed the people of Southern Italy to death.

The area suffered from plague, earthquakes, corruption, more corruption, heavy taxation, disinterest, and finally Napoleon. Check out these maps from Wikipedia that helped me get a sense of things, geography wise.

This disinterest led to the rise of what we now call The 'Ndrangheta.   I've read several books on them. Not too much delve into the history or origin of the 'Ndrangheta, but they were all interesting such as Blood Brotherhoods: A History of Italy's Three Mafias by John Dickie.

This is from the Wiki Page:

The 'Ndrangheta was already known during the reign of the Bourbons of Naples. In the spring of 1792, there was the first official report in history on the 'Ndrangheta, and a mission as "Royal Visitor" was entrusted to Giuseppe Maria Galanti; these travelled far and wide throughout most of Calabria, often also making use of reports (answers written on the basis of a sort of questionnaire to fixed questions, prepared by himself) of local notables deemed reliable and trusted. This resulted in a bleak picture, as well as on the economic situation in the region, especially on that of public order.^[11] This work has been analyzed by various contemporary historians.^{[12][11][13][14]} Luca Addante writes in the introduction to the re-edition of Galanti's report ("Giornale di viaggio in Calabria", Rubbettino Editore, 2008):^[13] "the murders, thefts, the kidnappings were infinite; the ignorance of the clergy was scandalous; the village notables, obsessed with the idea of enriching themselves and then ennobling themselves, rapacious monopolizers of local administrations, who grew up in the shadow of a decadent nobility whose remains were being prepared." Galanti, in particular, reports in the Giornale the descriptions of disturbing crime phenomena, noting how the inefficient administration of justice, the corruption and the monopoly of the barons, was starting to produce cases, as in Maida, of "a small bunch of young, freeloaded young men who commit violence with the use of firearms. Justice is idle because without force and without a system malicious people become policemen (a sort of urban guard)." In the District of Gerace, "the raids of the criminals in the countryside are general. Almost all the militiamen are the most troublemakers in the province because the criminals and the debtors adopt this profession and are guaranteed by commanders in contempt of the laws. With this, the crimes, which grow every day".^[15]