| The Italian punishment of internal exile, particularly as applied to political prisoners during the Fascist ventennio. The basic principle was that the victim was dispatched to a remote village, generally in the poor southern regions of Basilicata, Puglia or Calabria with minimal facilities and zero communications, and ordered to remain there; it was pretty much impossible to conduct any form or economic or political activity, but quite a lot of writing was done. Almost every writer and politician of note in post-war Italy had undergone this treatment under the fascists; it was also to be the fate of Benito Mussolini himself after the September 1943 coup, but he was to be rescued from his quarters in Isola del Gran Sasso (in the Abruzzi) by SS paratroopers and taken north to found the Republic of Salò.
The best known account of time spent in confino is Carlo Levi's highly readable novel Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (Christ stopped at Eboli). | 
