Beati Paoli is the name of a secretive sect thought to have existed in medieval Sicily. The sect, as described by the author Luigi Natoli in his historic novel I Beati Paoli (written as a series under the pseudonym William Galt in 1909, then re-published as books in 1921 and 1949), resembles an order of knights fighting for the poor and the commoners. Whereas the novel is fictitious, Sicily's history bears some evidence that the Beati Paoli actually existed.