What’s the next best thing to visiting a place? Reading about it. While I would have loved to have been able to follow through with my Calabria tours this past spring, the lockdown gave me the opportunity to catch up on a few books that had been waiting patiently on my shelf. Amongst them, La Brigantessa by Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli.
La Brigantessa
The book’s dramatic cover sets the tone for this historical novel set in Southern Calabria during the period of Italian Unification. The story takes place in 1862, a tumultuous time, particularly difficult and tragic for the Italian South. For the average visitor to Italy or the casual reader, the Risorgimento can be confusing when one hears of the victories of Giuseppe Garibaldi and sees statues of him up and down the peninsula, but then becomes aware of a negativity clouding the subject. The novel presents the dichotomy between the south’s initial support of Garibaldi and the subsequent delusion with the outcome of the political movement that favored the north. Continue reading
