However, its origins as outlaws targeting random travellers would evolve vastly later on to become a form of a political resistance movement, especially from the 19th century onward.

[7] While this saved communities the trouble of maintaining their own policemen, this may have made the companies-at-arms more inclined to collude with their former brethren rather than destroy them.

[9] According to Marxist theoretician Nicola Zitara, Southern Italy experienced social unrest, especially among the lower classes, due to poor conditions and the fact that the unification of Italy had only benefited the land-owning bourgeoisie,[4] so many turned to brigandage in the mountains of Basilicata, Campania, Calabria and Abruzzo.

They included former prisoners; bandits and other people who the Italian government regarded as common criminals; former soldiers and loyalists from the former Bourbon army; foreign mercenaries in the pay of the Bourbon king in exile; some nobility; poverty stricken farmers; and peasants who wanted land reforms.

[10] Robberies by brigand bands were often accompanied by other acts of violence and vandalism, such as arsons, murders, rapes, kidnappings, extortions and crop burnings.

Italians from southern Italy would also go on to play a key role in the ultra-nationalist Fascist movement, most notably the so-called 'philosopher of Fascism' Giovanni Gentile.