I would really appreciate if anyone could recommend books that delve into the life of these people in the 19/18th century.
I have been doing genealogy research on my ancestors from Sicily and Central Italy. Now I've obtained many of their birth and death documents from Italy where they are typically listed as "country men." I have to assume they were peasants. But now that I have assembled factual information about their life events I would like to get a sense of how they lived.
If there is anything specific to their home cities that would be amazing too. In Sicily, they lived in a small town of Marineo which is near the major city of Palermo which I am lead to believe they visited occasionally. Thanks!
Not exactly what you're looking for but you should check out Carlo Levi's "Christ Stopped at Eboli". It's his account of being exiled to a small, very primitive town in southern Italy and his reflections on the comparative modernity of the north with the more primitive lifestyle in the south. It is from the 1930/40's though