Carmine Crocco

In the early 1860s, after the unification of Italy, the southern regions of Basilicata, Campania and Apulia were swept by an insurgency that the new Italian government called brigandage. Its most famous leader was Carmine Crocco, a laborer's son who commanded as many as two thousand men, fought in support of the deposed Bourbon king and for several years controlled large stretches of the countryside, occupying towns and ambushing government troops.

He was born on June 5, 1830, in Rionero in Vulture, in Basilicata, in the afternoon, according to the time handed down in astrological collections. His family were poor; his father worked for a noble family. When Carmine was a boy, a nobleman's son beat his brother and kicked his pregnant mother, causing her to miscarry, and his father was later imprisoned on doubtful charges. Crocco wrote that these experiences filled him with hatred for the upper classes.

His Sun is in Gemini, with Mercury, retrograde, also in Gemini, both in the eighth house, which rules crisis, danger, death and survival. Gemini is quick, adaptable and cunning, and in the eighth it describes someone who survives through wits in life-and-death situations. Crocco was known for his intelligence and his ability to evade capture.

With Scorpio on the Ascendant, he carried intensity, secrecy and a capacity for ruthlessness, and his Moon is in Sagittarius in the first house, describing a restless need for freedom. Crocco spent years living in forests and hideouts, first as an outlaw after killing a man who had insulted his sister, and later as a guerrilla commander.

Mars in Pisces sits in his fourth house, linked with family and origins, and Saturn in Leo lies in his ninth house of beliefs and causes. In 1860 Crocco joined Giuseppe Garibaldi's forces, hoping for a pardon, and fought at the Battle of the Volturnus. When he received no reward and was arrested instead, he turned against the new state and joined the Bourbon cause.

Pluto in Aries, in his fifth house, and Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune in his third house describe violent conflict and upheaval in his surroundings. His bands raided towns including Venosa, Lavello and Melfi.

In 1864 he was betrayed by one of his lieutenants and his forces were defeated. He fled to the Papal States, was arrested and was eventually handed over to the Italian authorities. In 1872 he was sentenced to death, a sentence commuted to life imprisonment. In prison he dictated his memoirs, published in 1903, and he died in the prison at Portoferraio on the island of Elba on June 18, 1905. The Gemini Sun in his eighth house kept him alive by his wits; the Scorpio Ascendant made him feared.