Nicola Barbato
Encyclopedia
Nicola Barbato, was a Arbëreshë socialist and politician. He was one of the national leaders of the Fasci Siciliani
(Sicilian Leagues) a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration in 1891-1894, and perhaps might have been the ablest among them, according to the Marxist
historian Eric Hobsbawm
.
. He devoted himself in the then prevailing positivist climate to study psychiatry
. His work on the psychology of paranoia in the journal of the mental hospital of Palermo in 1890, was judged positively by Cesare Lombroso
and Enrico Morselli.
He also was active politically, working for the newspaper L'isola (The Island), directed by Napoleone Colajanni
in Palermo. Back in Piana, he witnessed the intense misery on the countryside as a medical officer. He became the leader of the Fasci dei lavoratori
(Workers League) of Piana degli Albanesi and was known as 'the workers' apostle'. Other leaders included Rosario Garibaldi Bosco
in Palermo
, Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
in Catania
, and Bernardino Verro
in Corleone
.
Famous are his Labour Day
speeches on May 1 at Portella della Ginestra, where he used to speak to the crowd from a big rock that was later called the "stone of Barbato." The first meeting took place in 1893 and the place became a historic meeting place of local peasantry from the neighbouring towns of Piana degli Albanesi
, San Giuseppe Jato
and San Cipirello
. The tradition was interrupted during the fascist period and resumed after the fall of the Fascist regime. In 1947, Portella della Ginestra was the scene of a massacre
that killed 11 people and wounded 33, perpetuated by the bandit Salvatore Giuliano
.
, he was arrested in January 1894 and was brought to trial. In spite of an eloquent defence, which turned the Court into a political platform and thrilled every socialist in the country, he was sentenced to 12 years.
“In front of you,” he said to the judges, “we provided the documents and evidence of our innocence. My friends thought it necessary to support their defence legally; I will not do so. Not because I have no confidence in you, but it is the law that does not concern me. So I do not defend myself. You have to sentence: we are the elements that destroy your sacred institutions. You have to sentence: it is logical, human. I will always pay tribute to your loyalty. But we say to our friends outside: do not ask for pardon, do not ask for amnesty. Socialist civilization should not begin with an act of cowardice. We demand a condemnation, we do not ask for mercy. Martyrs are more useful to the holy cause than any propaganda. Condemn us!” His famous self-defence in the Court has entered the socialist historiography.
The heavy sentence aroused strong reactions in Italy and even in the United States. In Palermo a group of students went to the Teatro Bellini and asked the orchestra to perform the hymn of Garibaldi. And the theater applauded.
while he was still in detention. He was a candidate in protest against the repression of the Fasci Siciliani in many national electoral districts. His election was annulled by the Council of the Chamber. In the next elections in September 1895, he was elected again in two electoral colleges. He was assigned by lot to the district of Cesena
, leaving the fifth district of Milan to Filippo Turati
, the grand old man of the socialist, who was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies
for the first time.
After nearly two years, on March 16, 1896, he was released as the result of a pardon recognizing the excessive brutality of the repression. After his release, Barbato and the other Fasci leaders Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
and Rosario Garibaldi Bosco
were met by a large crowd of supporters in Rome, who released the horses form their carriage and dragged them to the hotel, cheering for socialism and denouncing Crispi. When Barbato returned to his home town Piana dei Greci, he was greeted by 5,000 people, more than half the population. At that point he was probably the most popular socialist leader in Sicily.
in Crete
. Returning to Italy in 1898, he was again sentenced for subversive activity. He attained national prominence in the Italian Socialist Party
, was elected to Parliament in 1900 and was a member of the National Executive Board of the Party until 1902.
In 1903, Barbato traveled through Europe on a propaganda tour among Italian emigrants, and in 1904 he left for the United States, where he remained until 1909. He was active in the Italian Socialist Federation and within the Italian communities on the East coast. He favoured the association of Italian socialists with the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW).
He returned to Sicily in 1909. In 1913 the Italian Socialist Party appointed Barbato as its candidate in the electoral district of Catania against his former ally of the Fasci Siciliani, Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
, who had joined the Italian Reform Socialist Party
supporting the Italian invasion of Libya. He was beaten but voters also condemned the political attitude of the De Felice Giuffrida abstaining en masse.
His political work among the peasants of his home town led to clashes with the Mafia
boss of Piana, Ciccio Cuccia. After the murder of his cousin, Mariano Barbato, and the socialist militant Giorgio Pecoraro in May 1914, and of the Socialist leader of Corleone
, Bernardino Verro
, in November 1915, he was seriously threatened by the Mafia, and the national leadership of the Socialist party ordered him to leave Piana degli Albanesi for Milan
. He was again elected to Parliament in 1919, and died in Milan on May 23, 1923.
Fasci Siciliani
The Fasci Siciliani, short for Fasci Siciliani dei Lavoratori , were a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, which arose in Sicily in the years between 1889 and 1894...
(Sicilian Leagues) a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration in 1891-1894, and perhaps might have been the ablest among them, according to the Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
historian Eric Hobsbawm
Eric Hobsbawm
Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm , CH, FBA, is a British Marxist historian, public intellectual, and author...
.
Early life
Born in Piana dei Greci (now Piana degli Albanesi), he graduated in medicine at the University of PalermoUniversity of Palermo
The University of Palermo is a university located in Palermo, Italy, and founded in 1806. It is organized in 12 Faculties.-History:The University of Palermo was officially founded in 1806, although its earliest roots date back to 1498 when medicine and law were taught there...
. He devoted himself in the then prevailing positivist climate to study psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
. His work on the psychology of paranoia in the journal of the mental hospital of Palermo in 1890, was judged positively by Cesare Lombroso
Cesare Lombroso
Cesare Lombroso, born Ezechia Marco Lombroso was an Italian criminologist and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the established Classical School, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature...
and Enrico Morselli.
He also was active politically, working for the newspaper L'isola (The Island), directed by Napoleone Colajanni
Napoleone Colajanni
Napoleone Colajanni was an Italian writer, journalist, criminologist, socialist and politician. In the 1880s he abandoned republicanism for socialism, and became Italy’s leading theoretical writer on the issue for a time...
in Palermo. Back in Piana, he witnessed the intense misery on the countryside as a medical officer. He became the leader of the Fasci dei lavoratori
Fasci Siciliani
The Fasci Siciliani, short for Fasci Siciliani dei Lavoratori , were a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, which arose in Sicily in the years between 1889 and 1894...
(Workers League) of Piana degli Albanesi and was known as 'the workers' apostle'. Other leaders included Rosario Garibaldi Bosco
Rosario Garibaldi Bosco
Rosario Garibaldi Bosco was an Italian politician and writer; a Republican-inspired socialist...
in Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
, Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida was a Sicilian socialist politician and journalist. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration.-Early life:Born in a humble family in Catania, he soon lost his father, and spent his...
in Catania
Catania
Catania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse. It is the capital of the homonymous province, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy.Catania is known to have a seismic history and...
, and Bernardino Verro
Bernardino Verro
Bernardino Verro was a Sicilian sindicalist and politician. He was involved in the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration in 1891-1894, and became the first socialist mayor of Corleone...
in Corleone
Corleone
Corleone is a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy....
.
Famous are his Labour Day
International Workers' Day
International Workers' Day is a celebration of the international labour movement and left-wing movements. It commonly sees organized street demonstrations and marches by working people and their labour unions throughout most of the world. May 1 is a national holiday in more than 80 countries...
speeches on May 1 at Portella della Ginestra, where he used to speak to the crowd from a big rock that was later called the "stone of Barbato." The first meeting took place in 1893 and the place became a historic meeting place of local peasantry from the neighbouring towns of Piana degli Albanesi
Piana degli Albanesi
Piana degli Albanesi is a comune with 6,427 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo, Sicily.The town is the most important and populous Arbëreshë community in Sicily and it is the episcopal see of the Byzantine Catholic Church...
, San Giuseppe Jato
San Giuseppe Jato
San Giuseppe Jato is a village in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, southern Italy.The village sits in a hilly region of Palermo's hinterland, 31 km from the Sicilian capital.-History:...
and San Cipirello
San Cipirello
San Cipirello is a comune in the Province of Palermo in the Italian region Sicily, located about 25 km southwest of Palermo. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 5,201 and an area of 20.9 km².San Cipirello borders the following municipalities: Monreale, San Giuseppe Jato....
. The tradition was interrupted during the fascist period and resumed after the fall of the Fascist regime. In 1947, Portella della Ginestra was the scene of a massacre
Portella della Ginestra massacre
The Portella della Ginestra massacre was one of the more violent acts of in the history of modern Italian politics, when 11 people were killed and 33 wounded during May Day celebrations in Sicily on May 1, 1947, in the municipality of Piana degli Albanesi...
that killed 11 people and wounded 33, perpetuated by the bandit Salvatore Giuliano
Salvatore Giuliano
Salvatore Giuliano was a Sicilian peasant. It has been suggested that the subjugated social status of his class led him to become a bandit and separatist. He was mythologised during his life and after his death...
.
Arrest and conviction
Following the repression of the Fasci Siciliani by the government of Francesco CrispiFrancesco Crispi
Francesco Crispi was a 19th-century Italian politician of Arbëreshë ancestry. He was instrumental in the unification of Italy and was its 17th and 20th Prime Minister from 1887 until 1891 and again from 1893 until 1896.-Sicily:Crispi’s paternal family came originally from the small agricultural...
, he was arrested in January 1894 and was brought to trial. In spite of an eloquent defence, which turned the Court into a political platform and thrilled every socialist in the country, he was sentenced to 12 years.
“In front of you,” he said to the judges, “we provided the documents and evidence of our innocence. My friends thought it necessary to support their defence legally; I will not do so. Not because I have no confidence in you, but it is the law that does not concern me. So I do not defend myself. You have to sentence: we are the elements that destroy your sacred institutions. You have to sentence: it is logical, human. I will always pay tribute to your loyalty. But we say to our friends outside: do not ask for pardon, do not ask for amnesty. Socialist civilization should not begin with an act of cowardice. We demand a condemnation, we do not ask for mercy. Martyrs are more useful to the holy cause than any propaganda. Condemn us!” His famous self-defence in the Court has entered the socialist historiography.
The heavy sentence aroused strong reactions in Italy and even in the United States. In Palermo a group of students went to the Teatro Bellini and asked the orchestra to perform the hymn of Garibaldi. And the theater applauded.
Elected and amnesty
In the elections in May 1895, he was elected for the Italian Socialist PartyItalian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
while he was still in detention. He was a candidate in protest against the repression of the Fasci Siciliani in many national electoral districts. His election was annulled by the Council of the Chamber. In the next elections in September 1895, he was elected again in two electoral colleges. He was assigned by lot to the district of Cesena
Cesena
Cesena is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, south of Ravenna and west of Rimini, on the Savio River, co-chief of the Province of Forlì-Cesena. It is at the foot of the Apennines, and about 15 km from the Adriatic Sea.-History:Cesena was originally an Umbrian...
, leaving the fifth district of Milan to Filippo Turati
Filippo Turati
Filippo Turati was an Italian sociologist, poet and Socialist politician.-Early life:Born in Canzo, province of Como, he graduated in law at the University of Bologna in 1877, and participated in the Scapigliatura movement with the most important artists of the period in Milan, publishing poetry...
, the grand old man of the socialist, who was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies
Italian Chamber of Deputies
The Italian Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of the Parliament of Italy. It has 630 seats, a plurality of which is controlled presently by liberal-conservative party People of Freedom. Twelve deputies represent Italian citizens outside of Italy. Deputies meet in the Palazzo Montecitorio. A...
for the first time.
After nearly two years, on March 16, 1896, he was released as the result of a pardon recognizing the excessive brutality of the repression. After his release, Barbato and the other Fasci leaders Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida was a Sicilian socialist politician and journalist. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration.-Early life:Born in a humble family in Catania, he soon lost his father, and spent his...
and Rosario Garibaldi Bosco
Rosario Garibaldi Bosco
Rosario Garibaldi Bosco was an Italian politician and writer; a Republican-inspired socialist...
were met by a large crowd of supporters in Rome, who released the horses form their carriage and dragged them to the hotel, cheering for socialism and denouncing Crispi. When Barbato returned to his home town Piana dei Greci, he was greeted by 5,000 people, more than half the population. At that point he was probably the most popular socialist leader in Sicily.
Prominent Socialist leader
In 1897, he volunteered to go fight with partisans during the Turkish-Greek warGreco-Turkish War (1897)
The Greco-Turkish War of 1897, also called the Thirty Days' War and known as the Black '97 in Greece, was a war fought between the Kingdom of Greece and Ottoman Empire. Its immediate cause was the question over the status of the Ottoman province of Crete, whose Greek majority long desired union...
in Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
. Returning to Italy in 1898, he was again sentenced for subversive activity. He attained national prominence in the Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
, was elected to Parliament in 1900 and was a member of the National Executive Board of the Party until 1902.
In 1903, Barbato traveled through Europe on a propaganda tour among Italian emigrants, and in 1904 he left for the United States, where he remained until 1909. He was active in the Italian Socialist Federation and within the Italian communities on the East coast. He favoured the association of Italian socialists with the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
(IWW).
He returned to Sicily in 1909. In 1913 the Italian Socialist Party appointed Barbato as its candidate in the electoral district of Catania against his former ally of the Fasci Siciliani, Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida was a Sicilian socialist politician and journalist. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration.-Early life:Born in a humble family in Catania, he soon lost his father, and spent his...
, who had joined the Italian Reform Socialist Party
Italian Reform Socialist Party
The Italian Reform Socialist Party was a social-democratic political party in Italy.It was formed in 1912 by those leading reformists who had been expelled from the Italian Socialist Party because of their desire of entering in the majority supporting Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti...
supporting the Italian invasion of Libya. He was beaten but voters also condemned the political attitude of the De Felice Giuffrida abstaining en masse.
His political work among the peasants of his home town led to clashes with the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
boss of Piana, Ciccio Cuccia. After the murder of his cousin, Mariano Barbato, and the socialist militant Giorgio Pecoraro in May 1914, and of the Socialist leader of Corleone
Corleone
Corleone is a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy....
, Bernardino Verro
Bernardino Verro
Bernardino Verro was a Sicilian sindicalist and politician. He was involved in the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration in 1891-1894, and became the first socialist mayor of Corleone...
, in November 1915, he was seriously threatened by the Mafia, and the national leadership of the Socialist party ordered him to leave Piana degli Albanesi for Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. He was again elected to Parliament in 1919, and died in Milan on May 23, 1923.