The Carbonari

[Anthropos]

Carbonari

(CHARCOAL-BURNERS)

The name of a secret political society, which played an important part, chiefly in France and Italy, during the first decades of the nineteenth century. The improbable claim was made that the society originated some centuries earlier, and the French king Francis I appears in the secret documents of the Carbonari as one of their protectors. In reality the association originated as the eighteenth century passed into the nineteenth; it was one of the results of the political movement which accompanied the great French Revolution and of the political principles that were proclaimed at that time. It is not certain whether the Carbonari, as a political society, had its first organization in France or Italy. At any rate the power of the association was first shown at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the Kingdom of Naples and the States of the Church. READ MORE

Certain rather defining traits of The Carbonari account for the posting of this under 'Religion' rather than under 'Politics', but political discussions pertaining to the Carbonari are most welcome. Initiation, grades and an oath of silence are among the reasons for treating them in a context related to religion, but their influence has been directly political. The article is rather short and quite interesting.

[December]

Low-cost masonry for the working class.

A sect of extremists with republican/anarchist ideals, too riff-raff to be accepted by rich freemasons, carbonari always provided those with men willing to do the dirty jobs for a couple of bucks.

The regicide of 1908 which lead to the fall of the Portuguese Monarchy in 1910 was performed by 2 carbonari. That's the best way I can abridge my perception about them.

[sean]

The exact origins of Carbonari are unclear, the society took the “secret” part quite seriously. They may have been imported from France. They could have been a homegrown offshoot of freemasonry (after the freemasons were discredited due to association with France); they had initiation ceremonies, symbols, and hierarchies similar to that famous secret group. The Carbonari, with as many as 60,000 members, was by far the largest of several secret societies on the Italian peninsula at the time. Though they didn’t form with the goal of unifying Italy, they were responsible for setting everything in motion.

Low-cost masonry for the working class.

One thing in particular was that the lower class actually was very much against Italian unification. For instance, when the Carbonari started their insurrections in the 1830s they failed constantly. Largely because the peasants were regionalist royalists who thought they were flaming retards. Even Garibaldi was largely leading a force of false flag volunteers.