The Mute Man of Sardinia

This story, set in the mid-nineteenth century Sardinia, revolves around the feud that truly took place between the Vasa and Mamia families, and that led to the death of more than seventy people. Bastiano Tansu is a character who really existed; he was death-mute since birth, and he was mistreated and marginalized until his fury and prodigious aim became useful to the feud’s cause. The family connection and the murder of his brother Michele indissolubly tied him to one of the two faction leaders, Pietro Vasa, who turned him into one of the most feared killers of the entire feud. The State and the Church made some attempts, often clumsy, to stem the wave of terror as the two factions destroyed one another. When the peace of Aggius determined the end of the feud, Bastiano seemed to also have found inner peace thanks to the reciprocated love with a shepherd’s daughter. But in a violent and superstitious world that accused him of being the devil’s son already as a child, Bastiano couldn’t be absolved, and was killed by his cousin Pietro Vasa.