Carbonari - Organization

Organization

They were organised in the fashion of Freemasonry, broken into small cells scattered across Italy. Although it is inappropriate to say that they had one unified mission, evidence suggests that despite regional variations, most of the membership sought the creation of a liberal, unified Italy. Carbonari was the name of a secret political society that emerged during the nineteenth century in Italy. Although some of the society's documents claim that it originated in medieval France, and were under the sponsorship of Francis I of France during the sixteenth-century, this claim is hard to substantiate. Although a plethora of theories have been advanced as to the origins of the Carbonari, the organization most likely emerged as an offshoot of Freemasonry, in reaction to the spread of liberal ideas from French Revolution and first became influential in the Kingdom of Naples (under the control of Gioacchino Murat) and the Papal States.