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First published in 1821, in the aftermath of the Neapolitan revolt of the year prior, Memoirs of the Secret Societies of the South of Italy, and Particularly the Carbonari, supplies an insight onto a tumultuous period in Italian history, shining a light into a mysterious network of subversive organisations. One of them, the Carbonari, of murky origins, an off-shoot of Freemasonry, had by that time infiltrated even the highest echelons of society-including ministries and the army-and become powerful enough to alter the course of events. Hastily written with a sense of immediacy after their failed efforts resulted in arrests, imprisonment, torture, and the death penalty for some of its members, the account herein relies on primary sources, including legal documents and the Carbonari’s internal literature. The latter give insight into their origins, mythology, rituals, organisation, secret alliances, and beliefs. The author, allegedly Jakob Bartholdy, a diplomat then stationed in Rome, seems thoroughly well informed of the inner workings of the sect. It becomes clear that though it attracted adepts of various persuasions, including royalists, Muratists, and Bourbonists, and though they used Christian and nationalist rhetoric, they also contained ultras with republican ideas, and the general tenor of their belief system was liberal and progressive. Assassinations were attributed to them and the Emperor of Austria denounced the Carbonari as a conspiracy to destroy all governments. It seems not to be without reason that reference is made early in the narrative to Augustin Barruel’s Memoirs to Illustrate the History of Jacobinism, for this intrepid exposé, belongs to the same genre.
