Filomena Pennacchio

Filomena Pennacchio (1841 – 1915), also known as Philomena Pennacchio, was a 19th-century Italian brigand. She joined a gang of brigands in 1862. Throughout her time with the brigands, she earned herself the nickname "Queen of the Woods". She was arrested in 1864 and sentenced to prison. Eventually, she was released and lived in Turin, Italy, for the rest of her life. She died on February 17, 1915.

Life Early life

Pennacchio was born in San Sossio Baronia, Italy in 1841 to her father, Giuseppe Antonio Pennacchio, and mother, Vincenza Maria Caterina Bucci. Her father was a butcher. However, she soon became orphaned after her mother died when Pennacchio was 4 years old and her father died in 1853.

Pennacchio subsequently joined the brigand life in 1862. However, there are two conflicting narratives about how she became a brigand.

The first version claims that Pennacchio murderered her husband with a pin before fleeing the scene. The marriage had occurred when Pennacchio was young, and her husband became abusive. Pennacchio murdered him in defense and fled into the woods, where she found Giuseppe Caruso and his gang.

The second version insists that Pennacchio worked on a local farm, owned by Nicola Misso, until 1862. Then the farm was attacked by a group of brigands, led by Giuseppe Schiavone, an already successful brigand. Pennacchio was violently coerced into traveling with the gang. Incidentally, this was the narrative which Pennacchio herself repeated during her eventual arrest. She claimed that this pivotal event occurred in 1863, even though her first brigand activity was documented in October of 1862. Brigands frequently led attacks against landowners and aligned peasants. They frequently looted villages and committed other acts of violence, such as arson, murder, kidnapping, and extortion.

Pennacchio's contributions to brigandage

Pennacchio was involved in Italian brigandage from 1862-1864. She joined a gang when she was 22 years old and spent a majority of the 3 years with Giuseppe Schiavone.

Lovers While the time frame and number of lovers held by Pennacchio remains vague, At the time, Pennacchio was separated from Schiavone. Due to her pregnancy, she was in hiding with the midwife Angiola Battista Prato in Melfi. Once Schiavone was made aware of the death sentence, he requested to see Filomena one last time. The request was granted, only if he gave the location of where she was staying, which he did and then went to visit her. The final moments of the couple were spent sharing kisses and with Schiavone asking Filomena for forgiveness. On November 28, 1864, Giuseppe Schiavone was executed. Despite the collaboration with the authorities, Pennacchio was still sentenced to 20 years of hard labor. She initially completed this sentence under the nuns of San Vincenzo in Melfi. Later, her sentence was reduced to 7 years and she continued labor in a women's prison.

Life after Eventually, Pennacchio was released from prison. In April 1883, she married Antonio Valperga, who was a rich oil merchant.

Pennacchio is also fictionalized as the character Margherita in Maria Rosa Cutrufelli's 1990 novel "La Briganta." Margherita's story mirrors key aspects of Pennacchio's life, including her supposed beginning of murdering her husband, joining a gang of brigands, many of her companions, and ending in imprisonment.