Il testo qui allegato è tratto integralmente dal libro : Tarcisio Bottani, Wanda Taufer, “Storie del Brembo. fatti e personaggi del medioevo al novecento”, pubblicato da Ferrari editrice nell’anno 1998.
ringrazio quindi l’Autore per la gentile e preziosa concessione

We are not equal

As can be inferred from many of the episodes so far reported, the robbers Brembana Valley are never missed, in any period of its history. Not everyone has had the same luck in the popular imagination: most have fallen into oblivion, but someone has gone more or less deserved to history. There are those who were luckier dead than alive. And’ the case of Vincenzo Tacky, Pa said Paci-dana, which, pretending to be one that “stole from the rich to give to the poor”, has built a reputation, pa appliance undeserved, the romantic hero, lover of justice and ready to fight the injustices of the powerful and rulers.

The realtà, as we shall see, was assai meno poetic.

Little success has had post-mortem Angelo Pessina, detto tarfu, slightly less than a contemporary of Pac-Chiana, leader of the robbers, who raged in the mid-nineteenth century in Val Taleggio.

For the past few years his exploits were brought to light by the historian Bernardino Luiselli and worth propose them in this review of chronicles brembane.

Two events almost parallel, both ended in tragic mo-do, but to which the people of the valley has subsequently attributed different values, perhaps because of the different style that characterized the attitudes of the two protagonists. In short, if the substance of the criminal actions was the same, the pose of the two towards the public rewarded by far the Tacky.

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The story of Vincent Tacky, said “Paci-Well Pada” has long since entered the popular imagination, perhaps more to the legends that have sprung up around his exploits that for far less noble historical reality of its existence.

The legends have it listed as a robber good, wrongly accused of theft and forced to flee to evade capture, long lived in hiding and become the defender of the weak against the exactions of the powerful. Almost none of this corresponds to reality, as the Tacky was but one of many robbers who at that time infested the Brembana Valley. Perhaps one of the most dangerous, some one who had the most luck of all after death.

The advent of the Napoleonic regime, in that 1797 had put an end to the centuries-old Venetian domination, had upset the quiet and secluded mountain community from Bergamo who all of a sudden you came to visit in contact with a whole new way of governing and perentorio.L 'excessive fiscalismo, conscription and the meticulous control of the individual life that characterized the early years of the new regime were at the origin of most forms of rebellion less open, often resulted in the desertion and subsequent spread of the scourge of banditry, not even new in the history of the valley. Paci Paciana was one of these brigands from the initial rebellion against the established power, came to rule the roost in the length and breadth of extorting, their own exclusive advantage, the more affluent countries where people came into action.

Tacky was a native of the then town of Poscante, having been born in the district of Grumello de Bonoré’ Zanchi, the 18 December 1773. This is demonstrated by the act of baptism prepared the 20 of the same month by the pastor of Crane-mello, Don Giovanni Andrea Zanchi.

As a young man ran a tavern near the Ponte Vecchio Zogno, within the boundaries of municipal and parish Poscante. This tavern was located in the building, still existing, adjacent to the current trattoria White. A part of the tresche with Lissona, woman not really clear customs, a first clear indication of his personality we have linked to each other by marriage with his cousin Angela Sonzogni, daughter of the lord of Mount Zogno.

It was a marriage celebrated twice. The first took place on ce-rimonia 2 June 1794, in the church of the Foppa-, with the intervention of the priest Don Marco Negri, but it was immediately canceled because tainted by the bond of consanguinity and the lack of consent of the bride, it seems that she was coerced by force to marry his cousin. But Vincent does not admit defeat and on April 1795, Having failed to persuade her cousin, could regularize his position with a second marriage, this time celebrated in the parish church of Zogno, dal par-roco, don Giuseppe Maria Grigis. Instituted by the French Government, Vincent was be-come “explorer Satellizio”, ie informer in the service of Venice, as seen, did not disdain to use also common criminals for their own purposes.

This role had guaranteed to Tacky also the protection of the many who disliked the Napoleonic. Armed with this coverage, did not hesitate to take to the underworld, making thefts and robberies in several countries of the valley, culminated in the 1797 with the attack on the parish priest of Bracca, that led to the first conviction.

The episode of Bracca is one of those that have the greatest historical basis among the many attributed to the bandit, having been the subject of judicial proceedings and subsequent trial.

This was extortion at gunpoint, with threat of death, perpetrated during the night in the rectory, against the parish priest, Father Agostino falconer who had the only wrong to keep a sum of money, certainly not co-spicua, but still appealing to the bandit.

The process that followed ended with the conviction in absentia for Tacky which to escape the hunt unleashed against him by the justice of the newly installed government of Napoleon, had to leave the valley and re-pair in Venice.

Back in Brembana Valley, towards the end of the same year, shooting action bandit who became more and more daring and unscrupulous.

His specialty became the extortion against wealthy landowners: between the documented cases are to be reported to the detriment of those spouses Mazzoleni for two thousand disadvantaged Ziche, di Bortolo Bonetti, even for five thousand and an unspecified Gritti, forced to shell out seven hundred svanziche. Not that the public force to look the same, indeed, hunted him at all times, but the protections enjoyed by the Tacky allowed to escape forever the capture.

These protections, accompanied by the contribution that provided him with other criminals aggregatisi gradually to him, the re-Sero increasingly defiant, to the point of non-stop even before the threat of weapons. Indeed, at some point between the guides and the men ordered to his fighter began to count the dead and wounded. This helped to make him an elusive character, who added to his credit among the common people, decidedly hostile to the French government and its law enforcement.

Credit which reached its peak during the famous episode of the jump of the bridge, that is when he managed to sal-Varsi in extremis, Ambria while jumping from the bridge was about to be captured after yet another criminal action.

The 19 May 1806, in an attempt to get their hands on the bandit who had already become too dangerous for the credibility of law enforcement, on his head was placed a bounty of a hundred sequins in life and in death sixty.

Meanwhile, the research was intensified and there were firefights during one of which the bandit returned to hit the big, killed in gunfire, before Angelo Fezi Calusco, the 28 May 1806, and day after Angel Lanciano, auxiliary of Justice.

But Paci Paciana from that moment had to defend himself even by individuals of his own race, who would not hesitate to skin him just to get their hands on the full size.

And from one of these was the deadly ambush.

A certain Carcino said Carcioffo (the Cartoccio), appears in various businesses of the Tacky bandit, is agreement with the police, assured him that the size and immunity in exchange for the head of the bandit. The Karkinos wasted no time and at the first opportunity he did not hesitate to kill her in her sleep Tacky, firing a shot-the trombone, near Gravesend, in Como on the night of 5 and the 6 August 1806. The head of trentatreenne “master of the Valley Brem-bana, who robbed the rich to give to the poor”, was brought in Bergamo and ended up exposed on the sidelines of Fara.

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The tarfù is a big larva which elects planted the tree trunks, preference of young walnuts, and there creeps feeding the pulp and consequently digging long tunnels which are causing serious and sometimes irreparable damage to the plant. As it is virtually impossible to flush out the parasite without damaging the wood, the farmers are fighting it by introducing a stretch of the tunnel fuse or a wick soaked in flammable liquid fire that damage, thus leading to the death of the larva. In this concept was held among the people of the Taleggio Valley the robber Angelo Pessina, said precisely Tarfù, in the years that sowed panic with his exploits bandit. Companies at all negligible, and it is worth reporting, Following the trace of the detailed reconstruction carried out by Luiselli .....