La costruzione del Racconto: la 'vera' invenzione della Gardun͂a

The legend, or foundation myth, of the Three Ancient Spanish Knights of the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta is well known and has become common knowledge thanks to numerous books on the topic. Notwithstanding the fact that the story of a XVI century Spanish Secret Society is now considered to be false by the majority of scholars, the hypothesis of its existence has been recycled and assigned to Cervantes, the writer of the Novelas ejemplares, more than as author of Don Quijote. The supposed origin and description of a famous secret society of mobsters and burglars in Seville was attributed, then, to Cervantes. If we accept this popular version, as most ‘Mafia Experts’ seem to have done nowadays, in the XIX century a Spanish organization, the Garduña, was imported directly to Naples by three Spanish Knights and gave birth to the Camorra, its rituals, organization and language. Our work retraces this intricate and tangled story: it is structurally that of a historical novel and was of great inspiration for the creation of the nineteenth century Camorra Myth. In particular, it is important to reconstruct how and when those affiliated to the Camorra and ’Ndrangheta began to tell, and write as well, the Story of the Honoured Society and its codes. On the other hand, it is necessary to distinguish between historically plausible fact and what is only creative literary invention. Many popular books written by famous writers on the topic accepted and repeated facts, with added technical explanation, without checking their historicity and without considering that semi-universal cognitive and cultural patterns were involved. In the second part of our works we carry out a more in-depth etymological and linguistic analysis, with precise attention paid to possible Spanish influences and their real relevance or irrelevance in the creation of the Camorra and ’Ndrangheta codes.