Salus patriae suprema lex: il controllo delle armi nella repressione dei Fasci a Palermo, 1894

In 19th-century Italy, authorities responded to emergency situations by combining martial law and the disarmament of the civilian population. Within this framework, the repression of the Fasci dei lavoratori, the popular movement of protest which spread across Sicily in the early 1890s, represented the apex of a long trajectory and its most accomplished realization. By making use of archival documentation from Rome and Palermo, the article aims to reconstruct the objectives, the operational practices and the results of the Italian State’s campaign to disarm the civilian population of Palermo in 1894. It does so with the intention of filling the gap that exists in the otherwise rich literature on the Fasci, highlighting at the same time the continuities in the systematic adoption of extraordinary measures in the management of public order in liberal Italy.