Bravo

thumb|200px|alt=A black and white drawing of a man walking on a stone pathway, with two other men idle on the path's sides|The priest don Abbondio sees at once that the thugs waiting for him are bravi. A scene from the opening of Manzoni’s I promessi sposi.

Bravi (sing. bravo; sometimes translated as 'bravoes') were coarse soldiers or hired assassins employed by the rural lords (or dons) of northern Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to protect their interests. The word derives, probably, from the Latin pravus (bad, wicked, evil) via the Spanish bravo, in the sense of violent, aggressive, savage, and impulsive.