Ninco Nanco
Giuseppe Nicola Summa, known as Ninco Nanco (April 12, 1833 - March 13, 1864), was an Italian brigand. One of the most important brigands after the Italian unification, he was a lieutenant of Carmine Crocco, band chief of the Vulture area, in Basilicata. He was known for his brilliant guerrilla warfare and for his brutality against his enemies.
Biography
Early years
Son of Domenico Summa and Anna Coviello, he was born into a poor family involved with problems with the law. His maternal uncle, Giuseppe Nicola Coviello, was a bandit who died burned in a hut where he was hiding from the police; his paternal uncle, Francescantonio, was sentenced to ten years for beating a bourbon gendarme and, after the imprisonment, fled to Apulia after killing a man for a matter of gambling, working as a servant for a landowner of Cerignola but he left soon for banditry.
His father, though an honest farmer, had alcohol problems and one of his sisters was a prostitute. Still a little boy, Ninco Nanco began to work as a servant for a nobleman and later as a keeper of vineyards. At 18, he married a girl called Caterina Ferrara, orphaned of both parents. The couple had no children and the marriage lasted two years. In his young age, he was often protagonist of violent episodes.