The Carboneria has been the most important and widespread among the Italian and European secret companies created to counter the return of absolutism wanted by the Restoration.
The origins of the Carboneria
The origins of the Carboneria are to be found outside Italy and precisely in France. In fact, the most reliable hypothesis is that it derives from the Charbonniers (society of good cousins) of France County, the operative and reactionary instrument of the sect of the Filadelphs. After 1806, some philadelphs, who went to the kingdom of Naples as officers or officials in the service of Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat, would have introduced the Carboneria, to have a subordinate organization easy to spread among the masses. It quickly spread to the rest of Italy, France and Spain. The Carbonari took their symbols and rituals from the work of the Carbonari, as did the Freemasons from that of the bricklayers.
The internal organization of the Carboneria
The members of the Carboneria were called good cousins and were organised into sections, called sales, grouped territorially under the direction of parent sales, which in turn depended on high sales.
Initiation levels were initially two, apprentice and teacher, to which was added after a few years, that of grand master. The admission to the various degrees and the internal life were regulated by complicated rituals and full of symbols (oaths, words of passage, conventional signs, etc..); the doctrinal principles, rituals and organizational were contained in the catechisms, different for the various degrees. In the first degree some humanitarian principles were generally professed, based on morals and traditional religion. In the second degree there was talk of constitution, independence and freedom. In the third, the aspiration to create a republic and a regime of social equality was proclaimed, involving the division of land and the promulgation of the agricultural law.
The Carboneria and the uprisings of 1820-1821
In the years immediately following 1815, the Carboneria gradually spread to northern Italy, establishing contacts with the secret societies that existed here (adelphs, federates, sublime perfect masters), which depended in part on Filippo Buonarroti.
The Carboneria acquired a particular consistency in the Marches and in Romagna, where it spread some clandestine newspapers and prepared in 1817 an insurrectional attempt in Macerata.
It reached its maximum development in 1820, when it gave the decisive impetus to the Neapolitan revolution in July, without however being able to maintain the direction of the movement, which passed from the first days to the men of Joachim Murat.
At the end of 1820, the arrest of Piero Maroncelli and Silvio Pellico put the Austrian police on the trail of the Carbonara organization in Lombardy.
Having entered into crisis after the failure of the revolutions of 1820-1821 and the repressions that followed, the Carboneria had a brief phase of recovery when Giuseppe Mazzini tried to infuse it with a more modern spirit and worked for its diffusion in Lombardy and Tuscany. But the arrest of Mazzini (November 1830) and the subsequent creation of Giovine Italia (1831) again disrupted the ranks of the association.
Why the Carboneria failed
The Carboneria did not give any practical results either because of the narrow social base (the members were mainly officers, aristocrats, intellectuals, members of the enlightened and liberal bourgeoisie) or because of the uncertainty of its programs entrusted more to the commitment and enthusiasm of the adherents (poorly prepared at an ideological, political and, above all, military level) than to precise political orientations.
Exciting facts about the Carbonari society
Carbonari Devotion was quite constant and selfless, even ordinary Italians gave an oath, called "the word of Carbonari". A special scope had a rite of passage in the number of Carbonari, which was quite pompous and solemn. He meant the incineration of coal. This burning symbolized the metamorphosis by which a new member of society was transformed into a person who was crystal clear from the spiritual point of view.
Thanks to the flow of Carbonari, corrupt and bad ways were eradicated and led people to ease and freedom in everything. The sacrament of initiation was performed in the forest, near the hut Venta Carbonari. This action was carried out in the presence of other members of society. The new man was put in a bag and sent to the "thinking room", where he was in the presence of people who recommended him. Then the head of the society conducted his interrogation on the subject of morality. After that, the newcomer was released and solemnly congratulated on his initiation into the ranks of the Carbonari.