fered in important particulars, and first began to assume importance
in southern Italy during the Napoleonic wars. In the reign (1808-1815)
of Joachim Murat a number of secret societies arose in various parts of
the country with the object of freeing it from foreign rule and
obtaining constitutional liberties; they were ready to support the
Neapolitan Bourbons or Murat, if either had fulfilled these aspirations.
Their watch-words were freedom and independence, but they were not
agreed as to any particular form of government to be afterwards
established. Murat's minister of police was a certain Malghella (a
Genoese), who favoured the Carbonari movement, and was indeed the
instigator of all that was Italian in the king's policy. Murat himself
had at first protected the sectarians, especially when he was
quarrelling with Napoleon, but later, Lord William Bentinck entered into
negotiations with them from Sicily, where he represented Great Britain,
through their leader Vincenzo Federici (known as Capobianco), holding
out promises of a constitution for Naples similar to that which had been
established in Sicily under British auspices in 1812. Some Carbonarist
disorders having broken out in Calabria, Murat sent General Manhes
against the rebels; the movement was ruthlessly quelled and Capobianco
hanged in September 1813 (see Greco, _Intorno al tentativo dei Carbonari
di Citeriore Calabria nel 1813_). But Malghella continued secretly to
protect the Carbonari and even to organize them, so that on the return
of the Bourbons in 1815 King Ferdinand IV. found his kingdom swarming
with them. The society comprised nobles, officers of the army, small
landlords, government officials, peasants and even priests. Its
organization was both curious and mysterious, and had a fantastic ritual
full of symbols taken from the Christian religion, as well as from the
trade of charcoal-burning, which was extensively practised in the
mountains of the Abruzzi and Calabria. A lodge was called a _vendita_
(sale), members saluted each other as _buoni cugini_ (good cousins), God
was the "Grand Master of the Universe," Christ the "Honorary Grand
Master," also known as "the Lamb," and every Carbonaro was pledged to
deliver the Lamb from the Wolf, i.e. tyranny. Its red, blue and black
flag was the standard of revolution in Italy until substituted by the
red, white and green in 1831.

When King Ferdinand felt himself securely re-established at Naples he
deter