Maria Oliverio

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Maria Oliverio

Maria , also Marianna Oliverio , according to other sources Olivieri or Oliviero , married Monaco , called Ciccilla (born August 30, 1841 in Casole Bruzio , † after 1864 probably in Catanzaro ), was a Calabrian brigandess who went down in the folk history of Calabria.

Life

Maria Olivero was born into a poor Calabrian farming family. It is the time of the unification of Italy , the Bourbons and the Vatican fought against the power-striving Piedmont . Brigantism arose in the southern Italian provinces. Maria fell in love with the young dispossessed Pietro Monaco , who killed a large landowner and then became a brigand. Shortly before he fled to the Calabrian mountains, he married Maria - and left her alone after the wedding. This not only had to grieve as being left behind, but was also in competition with her older sister Concetta , who Monaco had previously had as a lover. In a fit of jealousy, Maria stabbed her sister in her own marriage bed and cut off her head. With this in her luggage, she followed her husband into the mountains, who had meanwhile risen to become captain. The sister murder for him impressed Pietro so much that he made Maria his right hand and his closest confidante. Her special areas of responsibility were dealing with "quiet weapons" such as poison - and of course knives.

Maria soon rose to be a poison expert. She poisoned the food of Piedmontese soldiers who were chasing her and checked her husband's food for poison, as a bounty had been placed on Pietro and there was always the danger that one of the soldiers could be a traitor. It also happened one night: a renegade named Celestino , who had become a spy, shot Pietro in his sleep and injured Maria on the arm. Severely injured, she was still trying to build a pyre to burn her husband when soldiers arrested her. Covered in blood and struggling violently, she was taken to the dungeon of Policastro . There she renamed herself Maria Monaco in memory of her husband and did not want to be named otherwise from then on. The Catanzaro Court sentenced her to death in 1864, but shortly before it was enforced, she converted her sentence into life-long forced labor. Maria Oliverio-Monaco died in captivity. The exact date and place of her death, the circumstances of her death and the location of her grave are unknown.

In a Calabrian folk song it says:

La fimmina di lui brigante Monacu muriu
pirch di la fimmina non aviva
cchiù manchu li vesti, e lu cori
comu 'na pertra stipatu' mpettu teniva
Bonuses li giudicanti, gran signuria!
She died, the wife of Brigand Monaco
Because she no longer had anything feminine
not the heart; her heart was a stone in her chest
You judges did well, you great gentlemen.
from: Le Brigantesse , Francamaria Trapani, Rome 1968 (p. 33)

Literature and Sources

  • Il brigantaggio in Calabria , Vincenzo Padula, Rome 1981
  • Il Sud nella Storia d'Italia , R. Villari, Universale Laterza, 1977
  • Pietro Monaco e Maria Oliverio , Pietro D'ambrosio, Brigantaggio - Storia e Documenti di un mito della Presila, Edizioni Brenner, Cosenza 2002.
  • La Guerra Cafona - Il brigantaggio meridionale nella Stato d'Italia , Salvatore Scarpino, Boroli Editore, ISBN 88-7493-059-3 ( online )
  • The queen of the three breasts. Guide to magical and legendary Calabria , Giulio Palange (translated by Julia Jäger), Catanzaro 2000, ISBN 88-7284-867-9 , pp. 139–140
  • Ciccilla. Storia della brigantessa Maria Oliverio del brigante Pietro Monaco e della sua comitiva , Peppino Curcio, the book contains Pietro Monaco sua moglie Maria Oliverio ei loro complici , Alexandre Dumas, Pellegrini editore, Cosenza 2010. Cod. ISBN 978-88-8101-693- 8th

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Oliverio, Maria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oliverio, Marianna; Monaco, Maria (married name); Ciccilla
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Calabrian brigantess
DATE OF BIRTH August 30, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH Casole Bruzio
DATE OF DEATH after 1864
Place of death unsure: Catanzaro