The Literature of Defence and the ‘Heresy’ of Don Sturzo

Abstract

The Sicilianist reaction of Pitrè to Franchetti’s enquiry was not unique; it was violent and long-lived, lasting up to and after the Second World War. However, it is important not to think that the Sicilian intelligentsia was completely deaf to the theories of Franchetti and Sonnino: among those who adopted these theories, at least in part, were Napoleone Colajanni and Gaetano Mosca. The Sicilianists, offended out of love of their land, could count on the support of one of the most famous intellectuals of the island, Luigi Capuana; he gave the most articulated, subtly reserved and defensive reply to Franchetti and Sonnino’s enquiry in his work of 1892, La Sicilia e il brigantaggio (Sicily and Brigandage).