The controversial document Alta Vendita, which called for a liberal or modernist takeover of the Catholic Church, was attributed to the Sicilian Carbonari.

Although a plethora of theories have been advanced as to the origins of the Carbonari,[7] the organization most probably emerged as an offshoot of Freemasonry,[4] as part of the spread of liberal ideas from the French Revolution.

[1] The aim of the Carbonari was the creation of a constitutional monarchy or a republic; they wanted also to defend the rights of common people against all forms of absolutism.

[9] Staunchly Catholics and legitimists, the Calderari swore to defend the Church and vowed eternal hatred to Freemasons and Carbonari.

Riots, inspired by events in Cádiz, Spain that same year, took place in Naples, bandying anti-absolutist goals and demanding a liberal constitution.

On 1 July, two officers, Michele Morelli and Joseph Silvati (who had been part of the army of Murat under Guglielmo Pepe) marched towards the town of Nola in Campania at the head of their regiments of cavalry.

However, the Holy Alliance did not tolerate such revolutionary compromises and in February 1821 sent an army that defeated the outnumbered and poorly equipped insurgents in the south.

[12] On 13 September 1821, Pope Pius VII with the bull Ecclesiam a Jesu Christo condemned the Carbonari as a Freemason secret society, excommunicating its members.

[13] Among the principal leaders of the Carbonari, Morelli and Silvati were sentenced to death; Pepe went into exile; Federico Confalonieri, Silvio Pellico and Piero Maroncelli were imprisoned.

The Carbonari were beaten but not defeated; they took part in the revolution of July 1830[8] that supported the liberal policy of King Louis Philippe of France on the wings of victory for the uprising in Paris.

[14] Ciro Menotti was to take the reins of the initiative, trying to find the support of Duke Francis IV of Modena, who pretended to respond positively in return for granting the title of King of Italy, but the Duke made the double play and Menotti, virtually unarmed, was arrested the day before the date fixed for the uprising.

A bid in Modena was an outright failure, but in February 1831, several cities in the Papal States rose and flew the Carbonari tricolour.

Rapidly declining in influence and members, the Carbonari practically ceased to exist, although the official history of this important company had continued, wearily, until 1848.

In Cilento, in 1828, an insurrection of Philadelphia, who called for the restoration of the Neapolitan Constitution of 1820, was fiercely repressed by the director of the Bourbon police Francesco Saverio Del Carretto, whose violent retaliation included the destruction of the village of Bosco.

When the Neapolitan revolution had been effected, the Carbonari emerged from their mystery, published their constitution statutes, and ceased to conceal their program and their cards of membership.

General Guglielmo Pepe proceeded to Barcelona when the counter-revolution was imminent at Naples and his life was no longer safe there; and to the same city went several of the Piedmontese revolutionists when the country was Austrianized after the same lawless fashion.

The dispersion of Scalvini and Ugoni that took refuge at Geneva and others of the proscribed that proceeded to London added to the progress which Carbonarism was making in France, suggested to General Pepe the idea of an international secret society, which would combine for a common purpose the advanced political reformers of all the European States.

In Wilkie Collins' "The Woman in White" the character of Professor Pesca is a member of 'The Brotherhood', an organization placed contemporaneously with, and similarly featured as, the Carbonari.

Clyde Hyder suspects that the model for Prof. Pesca was Gabriele Rossetti, who was a member of the Carbonari, as well as an Italian teacher resident in London during the 1840s.

The Carbonari are mentioned prominently in the Sherlock Holmes short story "The Adventure of the Red Circle" (1911), written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Carbonari are also mentioned briefly in the book "Resurrection Men" by T. K. Welsh, in which the main character's father is a member of the secret organization.

In The Horseman on the Roof , the character of Angelo Pardi is a young Italian Carbonaro colonel of hussars They also appear in Carmen Mola's novel La Bestia (2021).