CARBONARI, the members of certain secret revolutionary societies that played an active part in the history of Italy and France early in the 19th century. The Carbonari (Ital. "charcoal burners") gained importance in southern Italy during the reign of Joachim Murat (1808-15). They aimed at freeing the coun try from foreign rule and obtaining constitutional liberties, and were ready to support the Bourbons or Murat, if either had ful filled these aspirations. Murat himself had at first protected them, especially when he was quarrelling with Napoleon, but later, some Carbonarist disorders having broken out in Calabria, Murat sent General Manhes against the rebels, and the move ment was ruthlessly quelled in Sept. 1813. But Malghella, Murat's minister of police, 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 curious and mysterious, and had a fantastic ritual. 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." 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 secure he determined to exterminate the Carbonari, and to this end his minister of police, the Prince of Canosa, set up another secret society called the Calderai del Contrappeso ("braziers of the counterpoise"), re cruited from the brigands and the dregs of the people, who com mitted hideous excesses against supposed Liberals, but failed to exterminate the movement. On the contrary, Carbonarism flour ished and spread to other parts of Italy. Among the foreigners who joined it for love of Italy was Lord Byron. The first rising promoted by the Carbonari was the Neapolitan revolution of 182o. Some regiments comprised many Carbonari, and on July 1 a military mutiny broke out at Monteforte, to the cry of "God, the King, and the Constitution." The troops sent against them sympathized with the mutineers, and the king, being powerless to resist, granted the Constitution (July 13), which he swore on the altar to observe. But the Carbonari were unable to carry on the government and after the separatist revolt of Sicily had broken out the king obtained from the Emperor of Austria the loan of an army. Early in 1821 a force of 5o,000 Austrians defeated the constitutionalists under General Pepe and the king dismissed par liament, and set to work to persecute the movement.
A similar movement broke out in Piedmont in March 1821. Here as in Naples the Carbonari comprised many men of rank, and they were more or less encouraged by Charles Albert, the heir-presumptive. The rising was crushed, and a number of the leaders were condemned to death or long terms of imprisonment, but most of them escaped.
The French revolution of 1 830 had its echo in central Italy. In the papal states a society called the Sanfedisti or Bande della Santa Fede had been formed to counteract the Carbonari, and their behaviour and character resembled those of the Calderai of Naples. In 1831 Romagna and the Marches rose in rebellion and shook off the papal yoke with astonishing ease. At Parma and Modena the rulers were expelled by Carbonarist risings, but re-established by the Austrians, who occupied Romagna and re stored the province to the Pope. Among those implicated in the Carbonarist movement was Louis Napoleon, although it does not appear that he ever actually became a Carbonaro. Even in after years, when he was ruling France as Napoleon III., he never quite forgot that he had once been a conspirator, a fact which influenced his Italian policy. The Carbonari, after these events, ceased to have much importance, their place being taken by the more energetic Young Italy Society presided over by Mazzini.
In France, Carbonarism began to take root about 182o. The example of the Spanish and Italian revolutions incited the French Carbonari, and risings occurred at Belfort, Thouars, La Rochelle and other towns in 1821, which were easily quelled. The Car bonarist lodges were centres of discontent until 1830, when, after contributing to the July revolution of that year, most of their members adhered to Louis Philippe's Government.
The Carbonarist movement undoubtedly played an important part in the Italian Risorgimento, and if it did not actively con tribute to the wars and revolutions of and 1866, it prepared the way for those events.