Michelina De Cesare

Michelina Di Cesare (1841–1868), also known as La Brigantessa, was a member and perhaps a leader of the brigands in Southern Italy who fought against the Italian authority after the unification of Italy.

Biography Michelina was born to a very poor family in Caspoli, a hamlet of Mignano Monte Lungo, in the province of Terra di Lavoro, nowadays in the province of Caserta. Her brother and their parents, Domenico Antonio Di Cesare and Giuseppa Diodati, were labourers. According to the mayor of Mignano, even when she was a child, Michelina would conduct small thefts in the surroundings of Caspoli.

In 1861, she married Rocco Tenga,

Michelina's gang, sometimes working alone and sometimes with other known local gangs, operated for several years (from 1862 to 1868) in the mountainous territory between Mignano and the surrounding towns, making assaults, robberies and kidnappings. One attack on the village of Galluccio was unique because it featured some robbers disguised as police and pretending to have arrested other robbers, and the group simply marched into the town unchallenged. Their raids did not slow down even after 1865, when gangs like Michelina's were sharply reduced in many other areas of southern Italy.

She is also one of the two titular characters of the stage play Mickey & Joe: Good. Bad. Ugly. Dirty. (2025), written by her descendant, Canadian playwright Michaela Di Cesare.