[1] So, he had to reduce the scope of his trip to southern Italy, and it is likely that Dumas had tried to get in touch with revolutionary and Mazzinian elements in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, with a view to an anti-Bourbon uprising.

[2][1] Passing through Toulon, Nice, Genoa, Livorno, Pisa and Florence (where he arrived on 1 July) he reached Rome, where he asked Ferdinand II's ambassador for permission to visit the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

[1] Dumas had to wait ten years for the final draft of the romance, time which allowed him to search for literary sources to make the work richer.

[3] A widespread literary tradition has attributed the work to Pier Angelo Fiorentino,[5] one of the French novelist's collaborators, whom the writer got to know during his trip to Italy in 1835, which provided him with the material for this book.

[1] Of the tales included in it, many of which were inspired, according to Benedetto Croce, by anecdotes published in 1830 by Michele Palmieri di Micciché,[9] those on the Lazzaroni[10] and those on the evil eye[11] have attracted particular attention from a socio-anthropological perspective.