A Rebel In Love

In its original form, this booklet was supposed to be slightly big. However, the Poor Clare nun reduced its size by carefully cutting the margins to camouflage it better within Tome X so that they would fit perfectly into the new book, transforming it into a sort of book within a book.

Only by carefully looking at the back of the tome, could you discern the different colours of the first original part and the subsequent addition. But I had no merit in this discovery, since only by luck I drop my eyes on that book which, placed randomly among the others, revealed that small, different detail. That tome of the Bible concealed within it a handwritten diary.

In the following days, the reading and analysis of what I had discovered utterly captivated me. I threw myself wholeheartedly into the events that unfolded before my eyes, and, at the same time, I began to frantically search for evidence, proofs, and writings that would give me further knowledge of the facts reported in that diary. I went several times to the State Archives of Palermo, to the Regional Library, to the Episcopal Curia; at some point, I was forced to rent a room at the Panormos B&B, a few steps from the Politeama Theatre.

It was from there that, every morning, I looked for some news, some clue, grasping onto the little historical information in the diary. With only a few days left before my return to Lombardy, I never got a break. I quickly set up a vast research network through my contacts in the field of old books and post-Risorgimento Sicilian history.

Rachele Borghese could not take much more of me. She was the young owner of Le pagine d'incanto, in Chiaramonte Gulfi, an antique book shop of which I was and still am an affectionate customer and which on many occasions had supplied me with rare and curious texts on Sicilian history.

I shyly confess that I stressed poor Rachele at all hours of the day and, in some cases, even at night to get news about possible bibliographic discoveries on the subject. I aroused – I imagine – the wrath and antipathy of the young husband to whom I promised to give a copy of this text as a present, together with a bottle of new olive oil from my land, an apology for my pressing demands.

I entrusted the IT investigation instead to my brotherly friend Salvo Lecce, who spent many nights in Milan on online archives, regional OPACs, and inter-library services searching for data or texts that might be helpful to me. The nightmare was back. I took again a path bristling with brambles and nettles, but this time it was not the rage of a wild sow that was chasing me but the thirst for truth.

I only hoped that I would not slip again because I knew perfectly well how treacherous the ground of history was.

A DIFFERENT GOSPEL

The hidden diary was preceded, in turn, by a short incipit written by a female hand:

Sister Clara Rosa,

Abbess of the Convent of Santa Agatha of the Daughters of Santa Clara of Assisi in the town of Galati, at the dawn of this new year 1866 AD., I place here the writings that I was given to keep, in memory of the courageous deeds of Giovanni Darco. He was condemned in absentia by the laws of the Kingdom of Italy for rebelry, sedition and desertion, murder and theft, and gang robbery since 1863 and still vehemently wanted in these mountains and elsewhere.

Like a dear and secret son, I take care to keep it as an everlasting testimony of the real facts that happened and that I understood through direct words and also through the words of others as they really happened and not as history has written, keeping my word to hand down the memory of a human battle of a son of this land of Galati, that bravely opposed the new occupation of old masters, that now threaten also our sacred vows and ecclesiastical institutions, without fear of human judgment and even more of that of God to which they will one day submit unavoidably.

It happened that in the past year, around the third ten days of April the Bersaglieri6 posted in the streets of this city and around it an edict announcing the final liberation of the Nebrodi Mountains from the band of the rebel Giovanni Darco. He had kept at bay the military of the new kingdom for more than two years, at the point to require the presence on the island of a military delegation from Piedmont.

This dispatch, published widely and posted as a threat and a warning on the walls of all the towns in the district, read:

“The Royal Delegation congratulates the Royal Carabinieri, the Bersaglieri, and all the faithful and honest people who, since the birth of the rogue band of outlaws headed by the rebel Giovanni Darco and created by him, have served the Sovereign King and the Constituted Authority. The perseverance and invaluable courage of the soldiers finally overcame the criminal gang nesting in the Nebrodi hills. The fugitives and their associates have until the end of the tenth day – from the date of this proclamation – and the opportunity to surrender unarmed and in peace. After this period has elapsed without success, the remaining perpetrators, and those of them who are subsequently arrested and sentenced will be sentenced to death by public hanging.”

Even within these strong and sacred walls, the echoes of those words also displayed at the entrance of the Mother Church reached me, and, the following night, I recited a prayer for the victims' souls of both factions.

A few days later, when the priests of some neighbouring churches had gathered at the Church of the Assumption7 and waters settled a little, Don Nofrio Cletofonte, archpriest of Nicosia, also a wanted man, sneaked up on me and, asking to see me – to my astonishment –, placed this diary in my hands, affirming that I was chosen by God and the author to receive, keep and protect it. Eight days later, the archpriest was taken by the Bersaglieri and shot in the public square with twelve other rebels. I guarded this booklet with delight and curiosity and read it all in one breath in my room.

Now that I fear for my life and feel my end near, I have decided to protect it here, hidden among the letters to the Galatians, as tracers of the real events that took place in the land of Galàti, of a brave fight for freedom, hoping that one day it will be held in honest hands. They will finally bear immortal witness to the light of truth against the sad darkness of lies.

It suddenly became clear that this opening had been written by the same hand that had affixed the handwritten note on all the other volumes – Sor Clara Rosa Girgentani Custos Veritatis. Then in Tome X had indicated how to unravel the mystery by inserting that verse of St. Paul, hidden by the scroll. Sister Rosa wanted to draw attention to that work – Sacred Scripture is just the vulgate –, and then direct interest precisely to the Letter to the Galatians and then to the diary that she had so skilfully concealed.

It was clear that this booklet had been the object of a ruthless hunt, and I immediately began to read it hungrily. It was, as mentioned, a diary written by Giovanni Darco (or D'Arco), the rebel at the head of the reckless group, which was the subject of the edict referred to by the nun in the beginning.

I did not immediately realise what testimony I had in my hands. And yet, for a moment, I had the same impression and felt the same emotion as when, as a child, after a heavy snowfall, I was preparing, with immense privilege, to be the first to run through fresh, soft, unexplored snow.

As I read on, I also found some letters. I realised on reading them that they were only copies. There were scratches and erasures, some words had been replaced with others, some parts had been completely erased, and there were small additions here and there. I soon realised that the letters that delivered to the addressee (the noblewoman Eufemia Celesti) had obviously been copied in good style and on a different sheet of paper, so much so that after each rough copy, I noticed the tearing of the following pages. The ones where the letter had probably been transcribed in fair copy.

I was surprised to learn that Giovanni Darco, a rebel who had gone into hiding at a very young age, was incredibly well educated. In those days, illiteracy was common; many rebels did not even know how to read their bounty or even their names posted on the walls of towns and villages as wanted men. This man, on the contrary, had good language skills, and I soon discovered how he learned.

During my stay in Palermo, Rachele Borghese had a large package sent to me by express parcel containing a General Formulary of all Judicial Acts by Luigi Tirrito, published in Palermo in 1859, an impressive Collection of the Laws and Royal Decrees of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, issued for the adjustment of the Real estate Registry office in Sicily drawn up in Palermo in 1856, the Statutes of the Civil Administration in Sicily of 1857 and above all The Proclamations of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies conquered by Garibaldi and subsequent edicts, published by the Fibreno Printing House in Naples in 1862.

Rachele was unable to find anything on the personal events of the rebel Giovanni Darco, but studying the Bourbon laws and Garibaldi's subsequent pro-dictatorship decrees helped me understanding the legislative, social and human context in which these events took place.

Surprisingly, however, the biggest news came from Calogero Bau. I had involved him – without any commitment and with little hope – in the search for any personal records concerning Giovanni Darco without being able to offer him any information other than his name – was it the real one? – and one evening, while I was still at the Panormos, he called me. He had found him! It took me a while to understand. He told me that he had sifted through all the registers from 1828 onwards and, finally, under number five of the extraordinary register of foundlings for the year 1839, there was a record of the discovery of an infant with handwritten notes on the back which he took care to scan and email to me.

I read it with greedy anticipation:

Extraordinary register of foundlings

Number 5

The year 1839, on the 30th of the month of March before us, Dr. Michelle Emmanuele Mayor and Civil Status Officer of the Municipality of Galati, District of Patti, Province of Messina, came Mrs. Anna Guarnera of 48 years of age, a midwife by profession, resident here in Galati, who introduced us a child who declared that he was found in the public wheel of the Panetteria neighbourhood, today at eight o'clock, of which she does not know the mother and the father.

We recognised him at the apparent age of a few hours, with no marks or signs on his body wrapped in rags, to which we gave the name of Giovanni D'Arco. The above-mentioned declaration and presentation have been written in the presence of Giuseppe Papotto of 42 years of age, a shoemaker by profession, resident here in Galati, and Giacomo Anzalone of 38 years of age, a farmer by profession, resident here in Galati, witnesses intervening to the present document together with Mrs. Anna Guarnera above mentioned.

The present document, which we have drawn up, has been registered in the current register, read to the declarant and the witnesses, and on the day, month, and the year previous signed by us having declared the witnesses not to know how to write.

Michelle Emmanuele Mayor

Giacomo Anzalone witness

Giuseppe Papotto witness

Therefore, the rebel Giovanni Darco was a foundling almost certainly born in Galati the night of March 30, 1839, and left in the public wheel. A series of short handwritten notes on the back of the page read:

11 January 1863. Recognised as a deserter, lacking a military exemption, he was sentenced to five years in prison.

9 June 1863. Guilty of murder and for having formed an armed band, he is an outlaw in the Nebrodi mountains as a rebel named Giovanni Darco, previously sentenced in absentia to capital punishment.

Then nothing else.

Who had made those brief notes and why? Some government official? The Bersaglieri? The handwriting was not of Mayor Michele Emmanuele; moreover, there was nothing else that could help me, but this confirmed the authenticity of what had been found and the proper precautions taken by Sister Clara Rosa in keeping that diary so carefully and secretly.

The foundling from Galati, Giovanni D'Arco, had escaped the conscription imposed by the pro-dictatorship government and had gone into hiding. In little more than five months and at only twenty-four years of age, he had lost an apostrophe but had become the rebel named Giovanni Darco.

Every piece was falling into place.

I spent the last day in Galati. Having taken pictures of every page of the text, I rushed to the archive to see Giovanni Darco's birth certificate in person and immediately afterward put the tome containing the diary back in its original position. I was slightly saddened, thinking that it was destined to fall victim to the humidity, but my honesty and love for my country prevailed.

I have reported below what I read myself, without any comment or remark. I have only explained difficult and obsolete words and tried smoothing out the language and writing in the harsher parts. I could not explain then and still cannot explain up to this day where such good fortune came from. However, to have nothing to blame me for, I have made myself a mere executor of an order that I immediately felt was paramount and clear: to give light to this story, simply for what it was, to enhance its truth, cleansing it, after more than two centuries, of the “different gospel” that has been preached.

Just as those who wrote, protected, and safeguarded it would have wanted, at the cost of their own lives.

I apologise in advance if I have not succeeded.

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