We pass through Poggiovalle to reach Nesce that, with its 40 permanent inhabitants, is living an overcrowding summer caused by the ones who live elsewhere and come here just for a few days in the year. But everybody tells us this year’s different, many people coming back to these stone houses and many more hikers. By the way, just after dawn, we can feel the calm and tranquillity of these places.
During the cold periods, the majority of the bandits hid in the Papal State, coming back in spring to fight the Piedmontese and the families that supported them. There mountains were the shelter of some bandits’ mobs such as the famous mob of Cartore, that included 20/30 people fighting against the Piedmontese but sustained themselves through robberies, kidnappings, extortions and fires to the detriment of the rich families of the villages. At the beginning of 1861, paramilitary groups tried to conquer the areas of Cicolano, including the areas of the Path of the Bandits, and were repressed with arrests and shooting from the Piedmontese troops. In April, the uprising, repressed at this point, became brigantry and the military war a partisan guerrilla.