a child, after a heavy snowfall, I was preparing, with immense privilege, to be the first to run through fresh, soft, unexplored snow.
As I read on, I also found some letters. I realised on reading them that they were only copies. There were scratches and erasures, some words had been replaced with others, some parts had been completely erased, and there were small additions here and there. I soon realised that the letters that delivered to the addressee (the noblewoman Eufemia Celesti) had obviously been copied in good style and on a different sheet of paper, so much so that after each rough copy, I noticed the tearing of the following pages. The ones where the letter had probably been transcribed in fair copy.
I was surprised to learn that Giovanni Darco, a rebel who had gone into hiding at a very young age, was incredibly well educated. In those days, illiteracy was common; many rebels did not even know how to read their bounty or even their names posted on the walls of towns and villages as wanted men. This man, on the contrary, had good language skills, and I soon discovered how he learned.
During my stay in Palermo, Rachele Borghese had a large package sent to me by express parcel containing a General Formulary of all Judicial Acts by Luigi Tirrito, published in Palermo in 1859, an impressive Collection of the Laws and Royal Decrees of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, issued for the adjustment of the Real estate Registry office in Sicily drawn up in Palermo in 1856, the Statutes of the Civil Administration in Sicily of 1857 and above all The Proclamations of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies conquered by Garibaldi and subsequent edicts, published by the Fibreno Printing House in Naples in 1862.
Rachele was unable to find anything on the personal events of the rebel Giovanni Darco, but studying the Bourbon laws and Garibaldi's subsequent pro-dictatorship decrees helped me understanding the legislative, social and human context in which these events took place.
Surprisingly, however, the biggest news came from Calogero Bau. I had involved him – without any commitment and with little hope – in the search for any personal records concerning Giovanni Darco without being able to offer him any information other than his name – was it the real one? – and one evening, while I was still at the Panormos, he called me. He had found him! It took me a while to understand. He told me that he had sifted through all the registers from 1828 onwards and, finally, under number five of the extraordinary register of foundlings for the year 1839, there was a record of the discovery of an infant with handwritten notes on the back which he took care to scan and email to me.
I read it with greedy anticipation:
Extraordinary register of foundlings
Number 5
The year 1839, on the 30th of the month of March before us, Dr. Michelle Emmanuele Mayor and Civil Status Officer of the Municipality of Galati, District of Patti, Province of Messina, came Mrs. Anna Guarnera of 48 years of age, a midwife by profession, resident here in Galati, who introduced us a child who declared that he was found in the public wheel of the Panetteria neighbourhood, today at eight o'clock, of which she does not know the mother and the father.
We recognised him at the apparent age of a few hours, with no marks or signs on his body wrapped in rags, to which we gave the name of Giovanni D'Arco. The above-mentioned declaration and presentation have been written in the presence of Giuseppe Papotto of 42 years of age, a shoemaker by profession, resident here in Galati, and Giacomo Anzalone of 38 years of age, a farmer by profession, resident here in Galati, witnesses intervening to the present document together with Mrs. Anna Guarnera above mentioned.
The present document, which we have drawn up, has been registered in the current register, read to the declarant and the witnesses, and on the day, month, and the year previous signed by us having declared the witnesses not to know how to write.
Michelle Emmanuele Mayor
Giacomo Anzalone witness
Giuseppe Papotto witness
Therefore, the rebel Giovanni Darco was a foundling almost certainly born in Galati the night of March 30, 1839, and left in the public wheel. A series of short handwritten notes on the back of the page read:
11 January 1863. Recognised as a deserter, lacking a military exemption, he was sentenced to five years in prison.
9 June 1863. Guilty of murder and for having formed an armed band, he is an outlaw in the Nebrodi mountains as a rebel named Giovanni Darco, previously sentenced in absentia to capital punishment.
Then nothing else.
Who had made those brief notes and why? Some government official? The Bersaglieri? The handwriting was not of Mayor Michele Emmanuele; moreover, there was nothing else that could help me, but this confirmed the authenticity of what had been found and the proper precautions taken by Sister Clara Rosa in keeping that diary so carefully and secretly.
The foundling from Galati, Giovanni D'Arco, had escaped the conscription imposed by the pro-dictatorship government and had gone into hiding. In little more than five months and at only twenty-four years of age, he had lost an apostrophe but had become the rebel named Giovanni Darco.
Every piece was falling into place.
I spent the last day in Galati. Having taken pictures of every page of the text, I rushed to the archive to see Giovanni Darco's birth certificate in person and immediately afterward put the tome containing the diary back in its original position. I was slightly saddened, thinking that it was destined to fall victim to the humidity, but my honesty and love for my country prevailed.
I have reported below what I read myself, without any comment or remark. I have only explained difficult and obsolete words and tried smoothing out the language and writing in the harsher parts. I could not explain then and still cannot explain up to this day where such good fortune came from. However, to have nothing to blame me for, I have made myself a mere executor of an order that I immediately felt was paramount and clear: to give light to this story, simply for what it was, to enhance its truth, cleansing it, after more than two centuries, of the “different gospel” that has been preached.
Just as those who wrote, protected, and safeguarded it would have wanted, at the cost of their own lives.
I apologise in advance if I have not succeeded.
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