The Renaissance

During the nineteenth 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 pianoti coincided with the events of the Fasces of the workers 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 sought to initiate profound transformations in the relations of production with the aim of improving the miserable conditions of Sicilian peasants.

The Bundle of workers (Dhomatet and 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 organized.

There were several thousand peasants and small owners, including about 1,500 women. This latter event, surprising for those times, was widely echoed in the national press of the time.

The movement was quickly and bloody repressed by the Italian government, then paradoxically led by Francesco Crispi, also a 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, 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 fired at the unarmed peasants who celebrated the Labor Day there.

 

 

 

[ 5] G. Costantini, Sixty days of history of the arrival of Rosolino Pilo in Sicily at the capture of Palermo ,. Palermo, 1860; S. Petrotta, The Sicilian-Albanians in the Risorgimento in the fifth centenary of the foundation of Palazzo Adriano, Palermo, 1983.

[6] G. Schirò, Te dheu i huaj, Palermo, 1900, p. 78; M. Sciambra, The sepulchral epigraphs existing in the church of Palazzo Adriano in Shêjzat (Le Pleiadi), IX, 1965, nn. 5-8, pp. 206-210.