The struggle, at first and in the intentions of the people, was more against the taxes than against Spain; more against the viceroy than against the distant king. But the distinction was difficult to maintain for long. The nobles had once been chastised by Spain, but not anymore. Or if he had punished the big and dangerous barons, he had given and gave a free hand to the lesser and harmless nobility. Now Genoino also asked Spain for more justice for the people, more restraints for that nobility who, by giving votes, bought privileges. He proposed to establish a regiment of people and nobles, equalized under the scepter of Spain. There was an awareness among the southern people of what they and the Kingdom had done for the Spogna, of what they had given of money and soldiers to support the monarchy in its wars. Thus, both by logical extension, Speech to the Neapolitan people to excite them to freedom , all an exhortation to heal that disunity which was the cause of the common ruin.
According to THEFREEGEOGRAPHY.COM, the cooperation of nobles and people did not take place. The Neapolitan movement took on both an anti-Spanish and anti-Spanish character. The people organized themselves militarily, had their own “general of the people’s artillery” in Ottaviano Marchese; the supreme command had to be assumed, willy-nilly, by Francesco Toraldo, prince of Massa, an old soldier for Spain. The provinces immediately echoed: hate, grudges were not lacking, even if they were “for fear buried under the ashes of silence”. Peasants and vassals and barons fought; barons and city nobility and nobiliter viventes, that is, wealthy merchants, doctors, lawyers, physicists and other “book readers”; noble families and families. Movement, on the whole, disheveled, without a clear single line, without a force that guides and restrains the particular impulses, that is, of small family groups and single families. But seen as a whole, and not in local details, it is a movement of peasants and elements of the bourgeoisie against barons and nobility. At the center of the scene, both in the capital and in the provinces, are visible middle-class people, bourgeois or civilians who have doctoral degrees, that is, they represent culture and want to rise to nobility; noble dissidents and kept away from lucrative places, which tend to make masses with the civil element; artisans and petty bourgeois who cry out against the privileges of the nobles and struggle to get some too. It fluctuates between an ideal of distributive justice, in conformity with the public interest, which is on everyone’s lips, and the aspiration to take a place among the privileged. From these middle classes come the leaders: even if there is no lack of barons and nobles, ambitious to excel, confident of exploiting the movement against the Spanish ministers. Naples assumed a position of primacy on this occasion; or rather, he retained his position as head of the Kingdom. The Neapolitan people considered themselves invested with authority over the whole Kingdom. The provinces were asked for men and money for resistance and war. Decrees of exemption from taxation for the people reached the provinces from Naples. When a republic is desired in Naples, the magic word winds through the whole Kingdom. And the Neapolitan republic sends orders to expel the royal officers; he sends officers who encourage everyone to get rid of the dominion of the barons and of the tributes to the royalty forever, with the help of the brave Neapolitans. In every land, offices are set up in the name of the Neapolitan senate. Hatred of the nobility: to the nobility in general, but even more to this or that local family in particular; fed to a very large extent by reasons of private and family interest; so much so that nobles often find themselves commanding the rioters and their bands. The content of the word “republic” is probably this: a regime without nobility, more than without Spain, although against Spain and its officials it was equally great aversion, and the enemies of the nobility also attacked the royals and the nobles almost all ended up taking sides for Spain and the king.
Faced with all this, nobility and baronry, among which, too, there was no lack of old adversaries of Spain, people who hoped this movement could give the opportunity and strength to get rid of Spain and kept practices with French or Savoy agents, who had made a fresh start. outbreak of motions; nobility and barony began to draw closer to Spain. This happened in Palermo, from which many nobles, in the face of the storm, had come out. Here too the plebs found themselves alongside the nobility and both alongside the Spaniards: those plebs who had moved against the gabelles, but which had then been regained, after the movement had expanded to other and superior objectives. The assault on the district of the tanners, the center of the revolt, was given by the plebs, led by lords. The tannery was sacked, Alessi killed (22 August). In August, the revolution was over. The people of Palermo kept for a few years the right to elect two jurors or popular senators. But soon the nobles put them at the door. And at the head of the municipality of Palermo, only titled. However, a certain vitality of the workers did not cease. Viceroys, inquisitors gathered around to relate people and nobility.
