200th ANNIVERSARY OF THE

‘FASTIGGI REVOLT’

Calitri, since time immemorial, had always been a community which derived its livelihood from the land. Farmers had ploughed the neighboring fields, planted crops, and grazed their flocks on the lush green pastures. It did not matter who actually owned the land - whether it was the local monasteries or feudal lords - because it was an unwritten law dating since medieval times that the local peasants use the lands for their livelihood and pay the owner with a percentage of the harvested crops. This privilege which grew out of feudal times came to be knows as il diritto degli usi civici.

It wasn’t until the late 1700’a that the successors of the feudal lords attempted to demand changes to these outdated customs. One person who wanted to stop the local farmers from using his lands was the abbot of the aristocratic Mirelli family and he took his case to the local court. The local farmers realized that such a move was a threat to their livelihood, especially since they had never possessed the land that their ancestors had tilled for centuries. The Commune of Calitri took up the cause of its citizens in court and won for them their continued rights to use the local terrain for farming and grazing. Still determined, the abbot continued his fight in a higher court and obtained what we would call an injunction today. Sensing that the courts in Naples were using delay tactics, the local government - inspired by the outcome of the French revolution - took it upon itself to divide the lands into 455 parts for its farming community.

In order to prevent the local people from seizing the partitioned land, government troops were sent to Calitri. Not only did the arrival of the soldiers incense the local population, but it provoked a near riot.