Benvenuti / Welcome to
Itri
(page 5 of 8)
“Fra Diavolo”
Itri was the birthplace of the legendary bandit, Michele Pezza, born 10 April 1771, who became better known as “Fra Diavolo”. Stories recount that as a child he became very ill, and afterwards in gratitude of his full recovery, his mother would dress him in the habit of a Franciscan monk, and expressed a desire for him to enter the clergy. He was then alotted the nickname of “Fra Michele Arcangelo”. However, in 1797 he fled Itri, to avoid prosecution for a murder that he had allegedly committed, and consequently took up the life of a bandit.
“La Ciociara” / “Two Women” (1960) staring Sophia Loren was also filmed in the Itri area.
For her performance as the widowed mother of a teenage girl in this movie that depicted the horrors of the second great war she won an Oscar. It was directed by Vittorio De Sica. The film was based on a book by Alberto Moravia. He was sent to the Campodimele, on the Gustav Line, during WWII, and he took inspiration from the happenings of this time for his novel.
In 1830 Daniel Francois Auber wrote an operetta based on this story.
During the 1930s it was made into a comic film entitled "The Devil's Brother" starring Laurel and Hardy.
In Itri there is a museum regarding the outlaws called the Museo del Brigantaggio.
The film “Non C’è Pace Tra Gli Ulivi” / “No Peace Under the Olive Trees” was filmed in the Itri, Fondi, Sperlonga area. It starred Raf Vallone and Lucia Bosé and was directed by Giuseppe De Santis (born in Fondi).
His name was then transformed to “Fra Diavolo” meaning "Brother Devil". He became a notorious brigand, who knew the local terrain like nobody else. He led a ruthless gang of bandits who preyed upon unsuspecting travellers along the lonely mountain pass between Fondi and Itri.
He later became associated with the political revolutions in the South of Italy at the time of Napoleon’s Invasion of Italy. He was finally captured and hanged by the French in 1806.
