Popolo criminale

Between the 18th and 19th centuries, a series of figures from the lower classes took the Western European imagination by storm. First came the Neapolitan ‘lazzari’, then the Parisian ‘sans-culottes’, followed by the mysterious ‘thugs’ of distant India, and finally, once again from Naples, the ‘camorra’ members: In successive waves, newspapers, correspondence and novels were permeated by the exploits of groups which, despite their diversity, embodied a recurring image: rebellious commoners who, in one way or another, opposed the established order. Is there a common thread, wonders Francesco Benigno, lecturer in Modern History at the Normale di Pisa, that can link experiences so distant in time and space?

To answer this, he sifts through a vast body of material, comprising a wide variety of texts, from travel diaries to newspaper articles, from police orders to lithographs, and so on. And he uncovers several interesting points. A first observation is that all these phenomena are far more complex than they are usually portrayed. Thus, for example, the Neapolitan ‘lazzari’ – who, for some observers, are the epitome of an irredeemably idle ‘Neapolitan spirit’ – are viewed by others simply as ‘people waiting for work or resting after having done it’. A second point is that the construction of the stereotypical image of these phenomena is largely the result of a hostile perspective; thus, for example, ‘the seminal texts defining the criminal phenomenon of thuggee were written by the very authors who simultaneously “discovered” and combated it’. Nevertheless, these descriptions ‘undergo a process of appropriation. Consequently, defamatory definitions are politically co-opted, becoming markers of belonging and distinction’. In this way, ‘depictions are created that draw on reality and which, in turn, by representing it, shape it’, so that representation and reality continually influence one another, leading to judgements that are to some extent stereotypical and which are then reflected in behaviour. And here Benigno concludes by turning to the present day: “The stereotypical symbolic representations shown in these pages are also found in the globalised collective imagination. In these cases, they concern individuals identified as natural recipients of social anxiety, potential threats and, in times of distress, easy scapegoats. Their existence should not, therefore, be viewed as that of separate communities, for it is inseparable from the history of the societies that both welcome them and, at the same time, marginalise them.”

Francesco Benigno
, "Popolo criminale
", il Mulino, 272 pp., 24 euros