In other countries, at other times, these few "brigands" might easily 
be considered "Robin Hoods", Guerillas, or Freedom Fighters. 

In my sifting through Web Sites concerning Italian Culture and History
in developing my I-A PORTAL, I discovered the text of the preface and
two chapters of the book by Count A. Maffei, (1865) 
BRIGAND LIFE IN ITALY: 
A HISTORY OF BOURBONIST REACTION, 
London, MacDonald and Tugwell.  

I was intrigued by the easy availability of an "at that time/ in that place"
writing, (137 years old) but puzzled by some of it's statements.So I 
requested Professor Emeritus Jim Mancuso, who is one of the most 
knowledgeable people on this subject that I know, to comment, which he 
graciously furnished, and which follow.
=====================================================
From: Jim Mancuso

I certainly l appreciate the opportunity to read this text, and look forward
to reading the remainder of Maffei's book when it becomes available.
Rose Albrizio has done a service to those of us who want to know
something about those conditions in Southern Italy and Sicily that 
preceded the Trans Atlantic emigration.

I would recommend, however, that anyone who would read this text should
accompany that reading by a study of John Dickie (1999), DARKEST ITALY: 
THE NATION AND STEREOTYPES OF THE MEZZOGIORNO, 1860-1890.  
New York: St. Martin's Press.

This side-by-side reading, even if one goes no further than reading the
title of Dickie's book, will immediately inform the reader of problems with
Maffei's text - over generalization and stereotyping.

(A reader of Maffei's text might also be tempted to try to hold the writer
of this 1865 book to a standard of scholarship by which the writer would be
expected to produce some numerical data to support his flowery assertions.
In that Maffei seems oblivious to this kind of scholarly approach, his text
reads more like a biased political tract than like a scholarly
presentation.)

I have indicated in other places, 
(See http://www.capital.net/~soialban/borhisfr.html )
that I regard the Bourbon dynasty as unsavory perpetrators and perpetuators
of the misery that created the society of Southern Italy and Sicily at the
time of l'avventura. Thus I am inclined to feel some satisfaction at reading
Maffei's discussion of how the government of Bourbon kings contributed to
the growth and maintenance of brigandage in Southern Italy and Sicily.

At the same time I am very willing to accept Dickie's major thesis about
how conceptions of brigandage were used by the power structure of the 
newly unified Italian state to interfere in the social life of the South and 
to
impose their view of nationhood on to the people of that part of Italy.

Dickie's monograph builds on his study of hundreds of references to
demonstrate the ways in which the anti-brigandage campaign served to
stimulate the publication of hundreds of personal comment, pamphlets,
speeches and books - such as Maffei's  - that established the stereotype 
of the Southern Italian as a highly emotional, primitive, immoral, and
generally (and, in some cases, genetically) lawless.

The following quotation from Dickie's book offers a strong insight into
Dickie's writing and conclusions:

"If banditry 'is occult, invisible, secret' [as some writers maintain],
and if it extends throughout the social fabric and even into the 'instincts
of these people' [as is indicated by one writer], then to combat it, the army
must have an unrestricted reach.  More than anything the South needs to 
be watched.  Most of the numerous pamphlets and histories of the time 
recommend that the Italian government and army should tackle the problem 
by supervising all public employees and suspicious characters and rapidly
building a modern road and rail network - tasks that were quite beyond their
capacities.  The measures proposed are often little short of fantastic: One
pamphleteer here recommends, in order to deprive the brigands of cover,
'that all the growth in flat areas should be cut down.' Whilst the
national space is demarcated by dint of its diametrical difference from the
South and brigandage, the state is imagined and identified with as the
powerful but insecure subject of the knowledge of [the bandit as
representative of the South].  (Page 37)

The reading of these books, the one by Maffei and the other by Dickie,
leaves me with a well-formed perspective on the ways in which writers
disseminated, throughout the world, the construction of the stereotype of
the Southern Italian and Sicilian as an innately primitive lawbreaker.  By
establishing that stereotype, the new Italian state could justify having
forcefully incorporated Southern Italy and Sicily into the unified Italy.
The military campaign against the brigands, on the other hand, established
the image of the army of the new Italian state as a force undertaking to
clear the beautiful, classical, and inviting Southern Italy and Sicily of
the lawlessness that suffused through the psyche of the peoples of Southern
Italy and Sicily.

Whatever one's level of acceptance of the validity of Maffei's account of
how the Bourbon governments and the RC Church were involved in the 
promotion and maintenance of brigandage, a reader cannot disregard 
Dickie's thesis that the stereotyping and denigration the societies of 
Southern Italy and Sicily was promoted (implicitly or directly), throughout 
the world, as a means of justifying the "assimilation" of Southern Italians 
and Sicilians into the new nation state.

Again, thanks to Rose Albrizio for her efforts to make Maffei's text
available to internet users.
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See:
http://members.aol.com/rambler32/myhomepage/Maffei/Maffei_Index.html