Da «terra di briganti» a «città martire». L’identità e il mito di Pontelandolfo (1973-2020)

The history of Pontelandolfo, a small town in the province of Benevento, remained substantially unchanged until the 1970s, when the reinterpretation of the events that took place in the town during the war of post-unitary banditry made it a symbol of rhetoric of the new Southern revisionism and, more recently, of the neo-Bourbon mythology. Although the numbers and dynamics of the episode have been widely ascertained by old and new research, a sensational case of historical manipulation has been built around Pontelandolfo, which would confirm the existence of a Risorgimento against the South, made up of massacres, even of a genocide, covered up by the victors and the official history. Leaving the historical-reconstructive problem in the background, this article intends to reflect on the path that in the last fifty years has transported an anonymous country in the South to the center of a heated and contentious debate on a regional and national level. In this perspective, Pontelandolfo is no longer just a typical case of fake history like many others in Italy and in the world. It is also a useful tool to explore and understand broader dynamics of community building, identity or tradition in which the history of the past crosses the problems of the present, giving rise to cultural debates, individual opportunities, building memories and territorial, intellectual, social and political claims.

Keywords: Pontelandolfo; Myth; Fake history.