# Did "Red" revolutionaries exist in 18th-Century Italy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 1, 2014, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045 "2014-04-01T02:22:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/1 "2014-04-01T02:22:22Z")
In [_The Earth Will Shake,_](http://www.amazon.com/The-Earth-Will-Shake-Illuminatus/dp/1561841625) the first volume of Robert Anton Wilson’s [Historical Illuminatus Chronicles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Historical_Illuminatus_Chronicles), beginning set in Naples in 1765, the villains are a group of violently revolutionary peasants and workers (and nobody else, apparently) called the _Rossi_ (“Reds”). They seem to be a kind of Communists without benefit of Marxist doctrines (developed in the following century); their main tactic is assassination of the rich. But did they really exist? I can find no Wikipedia entry, and I’ve never heard of such a thing outside this book. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/2 "2014-04-01T11:21:01Z")
They sound like they’re based on the Carbonari, but they happened later on. My guess is that Wilson made them up for the book. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/3 "2014-04-01T13:55:59Z")
The Italian Revolution of 1848 pitted leftist Italian nationalists against right-wing Austrians, but I gather it was more of an ideological divide than an economic one. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/4 "2014-04-01T14:46:04Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The Italian Revolution of 1848 pitted leftist Italian nationalists against right-wing Austrians, but I gather it was more of an ideological divide than an economic one. And prominent amongst the former group were Garibaldi’s Redshirts. However, this was almost a century too late to be relevant to the OP’s question, and Garibaldi’s use of red uniforms does not appear to have been rooted in any sort of Italian leftist tradition. Wikipedia implies\* that it arose simply because [he once got his hands on a job lot of red shirts for cheap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirts_%28Italy%29). ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ \*It does not quite explicitly say so. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/5 "2014-04-01T15:03:17Z")
It is interesting to note that among [Garibaldi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Garibaldi_biscuit.jpg)’s leading enemies, during the Risorgimento, were the [Bourbons](http://wearenotfoodies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Chocolate-Bourbon-biscuits.jpg). Perhaps it is not a coincidence that both types of biscuit appear to have been introduced by [the same company](http://www.culture24.org.uk/places-to-go/london/art25801). Obviously it is all part of the conspiracy! ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/6 "2014-04-01T15:52:30Z")
It would be quite the stretch, but they could have read Rousseau’s Social Contract published three years earlier, and had really run with the phrase “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” And just coincidentally adopted red as their color. Pirate and bandits ran pretty egalitarian outfits. But they still required leaders, who got the job by sticking a knife in their predecessor, more often than by open elections. If I were to dream up a proto-Communist movement pre American and French Revolutions, I’d have its members be inspired by the Levellers of the English Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/7 "2014-04-01T16:48:00Z")
According to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_(politics)): > [@](#): > > In the Middle Ages, ships in combat flew a long red streamer, called the Baucans, to signify a fight to the death.[3] In one petition, a group of English sailors asserted that the Crown had no right to a share of the prize money earned from a Norman ship captured in 1293 because it had raised the Baucans.[4] (Raising this streamer may have been a relatively novel practice at this time, since the writers feel the need to explain it.) By the 17th century, the Baucans had evolved into a red flag, or “flag of defiance.”[5] It was raised in cities and castles under siege to indicate that they would not surrender.[6] “The red flag is a signal of defiance and battle,” according to Chambers Cyclopedia (1727–41).[7] > The red cap was a symbol of popular revolt in France going back to the Jacquerie of 1358. The color red become associated with patriotism early in the French Revolution due to the popularity of the Tricolour cockade, introduced in July 1789, and the Phrygian cap, introduced in May 1790. A red flag was raised over the Champ-de-Mars in Paris on July 17, 1791 by Lafayette, commander of the National Guard, as a symbol of martial law, warning rioters to disperse.[8] As many as fifty anti-royalist protesters were killed in the fighting that followed. > Inverting the original symbolism, the Jacobins protested this action by flying a red flag to honor the “martyrs’ blood” of those who had been killed.[9] They created their own red flags to declare “the martial law of the people against the revolt of the court.”[10] The Jacobin Club ruled France during the Reign of Terror (1793–1794) and made the red flag an unofficial national emblem.[1] However, the earlier Tricolor never lost its official status and regained popularity under Napoleon. > British sailors mutinied near the mouth of the River Thames in 1797 and hoisted a red flag on several ships. Two red flags flown by marchers during the Merthyr Rising of 1831 in South Wales were soaked in calf’s blood.[11] The red flags of Merthyr became a potent relic following the execution of early trade unionist Dic Penderyn (Richard Lewis) in August 1831 despite a public campaign to pardon him. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/8 "2014-04-01T17:01:28Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > According to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_(politics)): I once read that Communists chose red as their color because it was the color of the standards of the proletarian units of the ancient Roman army – is there nothing to that at all? ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/9 "2014-04-01T19:22:42Z")
What eighteenth-century Naples did have was a strong folk memory of Masaniello and the revolt of 1647. Admittedly, the idea of Masaniello as some sort of proto-revolutionary mostly came later, after the French Revolution, when it was bound up with his nineteenth-century reinvention as a hero of opera and historical novels. But before that he had been remembered throughout Europe as the archetypal rabble-rouser. And he famously wore a red hat! But if the novelist is aware of any of this, wouldn’t he just name-check him? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/10 "2014-04-01T19:45:11Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > They sound like they’re based on the Carbonari, but they happened later on. My guess is that Wilson made them up for the book. In the same book Wilson has the _Carbonari_ (that is, references to them – they don’t appear on-scene AFAICR) existing in the mid-18th-Century. ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/11 "2014-04-01T19:54:20Z")
There was no “Italy” in the 18th century.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/12 "2014-04-01T20:19:01Z")
> [@nevadaexile](#): > > There was no “Italy” in the 18th century.🙂 I see the smiley, but in case anyone takes this seriously, [of course there was](http://www.antiquemapsandprints.com/scans/p-4156.jpg) (map from 1793). The region was referred to as Italy even if it wasn’t united as a single country. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/13 "2014-04-01T22:27:57Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I see the smiley, but in case anyone takes this seriously, [of course there was](http://www.antiquemapsandprints.com/scans/p-4156.jpg) (map from 1793). The region was referred to as Italy even if it wasn’t united as a single country. And if the _Rossi_ existed, almost certainly they would not have been active in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies alone. (Though mainly there, I suppose – the further south in Italy you went the worse the poverty was – then and now.) ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/14 "2014-04-01T22:41:26Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I see the smiley, but in case anyone takes this seriously, [of course there was](http://www.antiquemapsandprints.com/scans/p-4156.jpg) (map from 1793). The region was referred to as Italy even if it wasn’t united as a single country. There was no “Italy” in the commonly understood sense of the word. There were various individual kingdoms until 1861. That’s when it united into the short-lived Kingdom of Italy before it eventually became a republic. > **[Kingdom of Italy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Italy)** > > The Kingdom of Italy (Italian: Regno d'Italia \[ˈreɲɲo diˈtaːlja\]) was a state that existed from 17 March 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was proclaimed King of Italy, until 10 June 1946, when the monarchy was abolished, following civil discontent that led to an institutional referendum on 2 June 1946. This resulted in a modern Italian Republic. The kingdom was established through the unification of several states over a decades-long process, called the Risorgimento. That process was i... ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/15 "2014-04-01T22:42:44Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I see the smiley, but in case anyone takes this seriously, [of course there was](http://www.antiquemapsandprints.com/scans/p-4156.jpg) (map from 1793). The region was referred to as Italy even if it wasn’t united as a single country. There was no “Italy” in the commonly understood sense of the word. There were various individual kingdoms until 1861. That’s when it united into the short-lived Kingdom of Italy before it eventually became a republic. What is now “The United States” existed prior to !783, but no one referred to its as such prior to that time. > **[Kingdom of Italy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Italy)** > > The Kingdom of Italy (Italian: Regno d'Italia \[ˈreɲɲo diˈtaːlja\]) was a state that existed from 17 March 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was proclaimed King of Italy, until 10 June 1946, when the monarchy was abolished, following civil discontent that led to an institutional referendum on 2 June 1946. This resulted in a modern Italian Republic. The kingdom was established through the unification of several states over a decades-long process, called the Risorgimento. That process was i... ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/16 "2014-04-01T22:56:53Z")
There are two commonly understood senses of the word: a nation-state located largely on the Italian peninsula, and the peninsula itself. The name “the United States” did not exist prior to 1783. The name Italy did. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/17 "2014-04-02T00:15:34Z")
> [@nevadaexile](#): > > There was no “Italy” in the commonly understood sense of the word. There were various individual kingdoms until 1861. That’s when it united into the short-lived Kingdom of Italy before it eventually became a republic. This shows a rather deep ignorance of history. Italy was “commonly understood” as a geographical term, not just for the peninsula but for most of the area covered by the present nation, long before it became unified. [Italia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Italy) as the name of the region goes back at least to the Roman Empire. Here’s [another map from 1700](http://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/Italie-martineau-1700), and [another from 1765.](http://www.garwood-voigt.com/catalogues/H25637ItalyMountague.jpg) > [@](#): > > What is now “The United States” existed prior to !783, but no one referred to its as such prior to that time. But people referred to Italy as Italy/Italia/Italie etc for thousands of years before it became a nation. The geographical area covered by the United States may have existed before 1783, but “The United States” did not. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/18 "2014-04-02T01:15:21Z")
Yup. Italy was an established geographical and cultural entity long before it was politically united into a single state. If there was no Italy before 1861, then there was no Ireland before 1922, and all those people in the nineteenth century who _thought_ they were Irish were mistaken. Plus, of course, the Irish famine cannot have happened. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/19 "2014-04-02T01:40:49Z")
Proto-communist movements in Europe have quite a long history. The English Levellers and the Diggers, including the famous thinker Freeborn John, had a lot of fairly radical ideas about how to reduce or eliminate inequality in England in and around the time of the Protectorate. During the Münster Rebellion, radical Anabaptists sought some pretty radical redistribution of property, going so far as to seize all money, jewelry, and other valuables to be held in common\*. You don’t need Marx to be a Communist. \*In the best tradition of communists everywhere, that meant that the leaders got hold of all the wealth to the exclusion of the common people, even if it was theoretically held in common. And in the best traditions of radical religious movements everywhere, they imposed polygamy on everyone in town, giving young teenagers away in “arranged” marriages to people with political power. A fascinating little episode in history. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/20 "2014-04-02T02:37:26Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > There are two commonly understood senses of the word: a nation-state located largely on the Italian peninsula, and the peninsula itself. The name “the United States” did not exist prior to 1783. The name Italy did. Or, sometimes, “the Italies.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045.md?page=2)