Beniamino Caso, deputy and patriot.

Gaetano Del Giudice, deputy and governor of Capitanata

Brigands of Matese; the first on the left is the boss of bosses, Cosimo Giordano

brigand Maria Maddalena De Lellis, aka Padovella

When the Borbon reign was about to end, the San Gregorio people expressed important liberal figures that they should take power in their hands upon the arrival of Garibaldi. In 1861 Beniamino Caso became the elected deputy to the Parliament of Turin. Gaetano Del Giudice became the Governor of Capitanata besides deputy, while his brother Achille became the Commander of the National Guard of all the neighborhoods and Provincial Councilman.

That year brigands abounded, , a mixture of loyalists and criminals. They were twenty years of iron and fire. The Piemontese army occupied all the Matese. The people at this time were not able to hoe, hunt, or collect firewood.

In San Gregorio the brigand, when they were captured, were shot in front of the Town Hall, on the spot facing the gate of Villa Luisa, near the fountain. Don Achille Del Giudice ordered the repression of brigandage. He formed a squadron of personal guards who when they served, went up to the Matese in order to catch some unfortunate person. The head of these ransom hunters was Carmelo Del Giudice, a distant relative. He would pocket many prizes and later go on to Argentina where he later died.

The brigands at times were fierce, more often desperate. Don Achille was no less severe than they were. The brigand Panella's head was cut off and exposed in the window of his study, under the arc of the Del Giudice Villa. Meanwhile he continued to bring the most attractive young girls to the Villa San Donato, exercising "jus primae noctis" a right to the virginity of his vassal's daughters on their wedding-night, which nobody had the courage to rebel against.

There were many brigands from San Gregorio. The ringleader Antonio De Lellis, Domenico Ferritto, Nicola Verruto and Raffaele De Lellis, nicknamed Holy Father, which sowed the fear in the Benevento province. Among them also was a woman, Maria Maddalena De Lellis, called "brigantessa Padovella". She was from a poor house of the Elci street who joined the brigands for the love of the Lance Corporal Andrea Santaniello.

But then the brigandage was over.