Briganti! Storie e Immagini dal Risorgimento a oggi

From 23 October 2025 to 29 March 2026, the National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento presents “Brigands! Stories and images from the Risorgimento to the present day”, the first exhibition to explore brigandage as a complex historical phenomenon and cultural myth, focusing on the period from the 18th century to the present day. Was brigandage the heroic southern resistance to unification or a challenge to the state by criminal gangs? The exhibition recounts with scientific and historical rigour a powerful theme that occupies a significant place in the Italian collective imagination, restoring brigandage to its time, to a historical context of revolutions, wars and political clashes that has little to do with hagiography, romantic representations or contemporary exploitation.

The exhibition also aims to investigate how and why the figure of the brigand became an icon through 200 works including paintings, prints, military uniforms, photographs, daggers, amulets, film posters and multimedia materials from the collections of the National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento and other prestigious institutions such as the Cesare Lombroso Museum of Criminal Anthropology and the National Cinema Museum in Turin.

The exhibition is curated by Silvia Cavicchioli, scientific director of the National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento, Gian Luca Fruci, associate professor of contemporary history at the University of Pisa, Silvano Montaldo, professor of contemporary history at the University of Turin and scientific director of the Cesare Lombroso Museum of Criminal Anthropology, Alessio Petrizzo, contract professor of Contemporary History at the University of Padua, Carmine Pinto, professor of Contemporary History at the University of Salerno, and Giulio Tatasciore, professor of Modern History at the University of Salerno.