Risorgimento and fasci
The Risorgimento
During the XIX century those revolutionary and Risorgimento moods that prepared the Italian national unity also matured in Sicily and the Arbëreshë of Piana did not fail to exercise their own role there. Their participation in the most incisive phases of the Sicilian and national Risorgimento uprisings was characterized by a strong political and military support. Already in 1820 and 1847 numerous plans had given life to secret committees, making them promoters of various initiatives aimed at arousing a more widespread patriotic sentiment. However, it was in 1860 that the planes rendered their greatest service to the Risorgimento movement by hosting in their country the "Mazzinian emissaries" Rosolino Pilo and Giovanni Corrao who had arrived in Sicily to prepare for the Garibaldi landing. During the days of their stay in Piana, despite the threatening injunctions of the Bourbon authorities, the revolutionaries of the plan, as well as hiding them, helped them in initiating contacts with the patriotic committees of the surrounding countries. Later, after the landing in Marsala, Piana hosted the Garibaldians providing logistic support, provisions and a secure strategic shelter [5].
The Fasci dei Lavoratori
Another significant moment in the history of the Arbëreshë Pianioti coincided with the events of the Fasci dei Lavoratori which, towards the end of the 19th century, affected Sicily and had national and international resonance. The Fasci were a political-trade union movement, the first in European history with a socialist inspiration, which tried to initiate profound transformations in production relations with the aim of improving the miserable conditions of the Sicilian peasants. The workers' fascist (Dhomatet e gjindevet çë shërbejën) of Piana, directed by Nicola Barbato, one of the most prestigious and cultured leaders of the entire movement, was certainly among the best organised. There were several thousand registered farmers and small landowners, including around 1,500 women. This last event, surprising for those times, had wide coverage in the national press of the time.
IThe movement was quickly and bloodyly repressed by the Italian government, then paradoxically led by Francesco Crispi, also Sicilian-Albanian and a former student of the Greek-Albanian Seminary in Palermo. The socio-cultural effects of the Fasci did not end with their suppression, but, by perpetuating the teachings of Nicola Barbato, they left a large, and still alive, trace in the history and culture of Piana. And right around the stone that bears the name of Barbato, in Portella delle Ginestre, a few kilometers from the town, on 1 May 1947 the bandit Salvatore Giuliano shot at the defenseless farmers who were celebrating Labor Day there.
[5] G. Costantini, Sessanta giorni di storia della venuta di Rosolino Pilo in Sicilia alla presa di Palermo,. Palermo, 1860; S. Petrotta, I siculo-albanesi nel Risorgimento in V centenario della fondazione di Palazzo Adriano, Palermo, 1983.
[6] G. Schirò, Te dheu i huaj, Palermo, 1900, p. 78; M. Sciambra, Le epigrafi sepolcrali esistenti nella chiesa di Palazzo Adriano in Shêjzat (Le Pleiadi), IX, 1965, nn. 5-8, pp. 206-210.