Notes Introduction 1. Report of the Prefect of Palermo of 25 April 1865 (Alatri 1954, p.92). 2. For a detailed analysis of Pitrè and his interpretation of the word mafia exclu- sively from a psychological and folkloristic point-of-view, see the following chapters. 1 The Origins of the Mafia as a Criminal Phenomenon and as a spirit 1. The maestranze survived the suppression of the 18th century, carried out else- where, which followed the new Enlightenment ideology. The very close sense of solidarity between members and the ties which were both religious and economic guaranteed stability and strength to these organisations, but they were bound to an ecclesiastical and feudal system of privileges. For a detailed analysis of the role of the maestranze in pre-unification Sicily, see Domenico Novacco, Inchiesta sulla mafia, (1963, pp.86–87) and, by the same author, Mafia ieri, mafia oggi, (1972, pp.83–84). 2. For further analysis of the legend of the Beati Paoli, see the following chapters. 3. The text of the proclamation of 28 May 1621 reads: ‘vendere et alienare ... ogni giurisdizione di mero e misto impero, alta e bassa, cum gladii potestate, a tutte quelle città et università et terre del Regno che la vorranno comprare’ (Bonaffini, 1975, pp.18–19). 4. The writer Brydone, whom we will go on to look at in detail, was one of the first to describe with spirit and efficiency the link between the noble class and mafiosi ante litteram. 5. The first chapter of the Promessi Sposi is largely dedicated to enumerating the grida, with which the viceroys and governors of Milan tried to solve the problem of the bravi, paid by the local lords to guarantee their personal safety, but who often behaved more like paid assassins. 6. The legations were the administrative and territorial divisions of the Roman Curia. The organisation of the church’s territory dates from under Clemente XI (1700–1721), Dizionario di Storia, 1995. 7. The first edition was published in London in 1773, followed immediately by nine other editions. The book was rapidly translated into German and French. The Italian version only appeared in 1901. 8. See the following chapters. 225 226 Notes 2 The Abolition of Feudalism, Mafia in the Unified Kingdom and I Mafiusi della Vicaria 1. For a more detailed picture on the Bourbon restoration, see also La mafia in un villaggio siciliano (1860–1960) by A. Block and Storia della Sicilia medievale e moderna by D. Mack Smith. 2. See also on this subject the interesting work by Giovanna Fiume Le bande armate in Sicilia, Palermo, Sellerio, 1984. 3. See the following chapters. 4. F. Renda, ‘Mitologia e sociologia della mafia’ in La mafia. Quattro studi, Aa.Vv, Bologna, 1970. 5. F. Renda, Storia della Sicilia, Vol. III, Palermo, Sellerio, 1984–87, p.115. 6. The gabellotto in Sicily was someone who paid the gabella, or the tax for renting a property, usually of a large size. He was therefore a tenant, except that the gabellotto did not usually cultivate the land himself but sublet to others, thereby loading the extra cost of mediation onto the last person in the chain. 7. The terrible prison was between Piazza Marina and the Cala del Carbone; completed in 1598 and in use until the end of the 19th century, it was then replaced by the safer prison of the Ucciardone. 8. Although literary verismo is best represented by Southern Italians and Sicilians (Verga and Capuana above all), it was in Milan that the movement origi- nated in the 1870s. It was partly the positive outcome of the non-conformist, subversive Scapigliatura movement which involved painters, musicians, poets, critics and had its centre in Milan. The aspiration to free themselves from cultural provincialism led the scapigliati to look outside Italy towards France, in particular, and Germany. French naturalism and Zola became major cultural references. Verga’s arrival in Milan, in 1872, came at the right moment in his literary career. Verga’s verismo, after his arrival in Milan, was a rediscovery of the popular, ethical world of his rural Sicily which he contemplated and described with the detachment and nostalgia of a transplanted intellectual. ‘Restraint may be singled out as the dominant feature of Verga’s stories and novels of the 1880s: restraint of passion and emotion in the portrayal of Sicilian peasants and fishermen; formal restraint in the elaboration of a terse, self- effacing, sapid prose style which almost lets the story tell itself and the characters speak their minds in their own way. Sensationalism and excess are banished on principle. Violence may occur in the form of murder and is set within the natural ethics of the community which endorses it. (Sansone, 1987 p.15). A good example is the short story novella, Cavalleria rusticana, where Alfio has to challenge Turiddu in public and then kill him in a rustic duel. Cavalleria rusticana was later adapted as an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni in 1890, and considered one of the classic verismo operas. Its music has been the inspiration for mafia movies (the most notable example is the opera which Anthony Corleone appeared in at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo). 9. M. Onofri, Tutti a cena da Don Mariano, Milano, Bompiani, 1996, p.52. Notes 227 10. Antonio Starabba, marquis di Rudinì, a Sicilian politician, was mayor (1864) and then prefect (1866), before moving to Naples in 1868. He was minister and member of parliament for right-wing movements and headed two governments (1891–92 and 1896–98) whose policies were anti-Crispi (i.e. limits to expenditure on the home front and a rapprochement with France on the foreign front). 11. G. Nicastro, Teatro e società in Sicilia, Roma, Siia, 1978, p.16. 12. S.F. Romano, Storia della mafia, Milano, Mondadori, 1963, pp.170–71. 13. D. Pantano, ‘Proposta di messa in scena de I mafiusi della Vicaria’ in Risorgimento e mafia in Sicilia, edited by S. Di Bella, Cosenza, Pellegrini, 1991, p.95. 14. S. Pedone, Prefazione a I mafiusi della Vicaria, Palermo, La Zisa, 1994, p.vi. 15. G. Rizzotto, I mafiusi della Vicaria, Palermo, La Zisa,1994, p.54. 16. Loschiavo rightly notes that the last act of the play, added later, ‘is fairly flat and stilted ... with a rhetorical, bombastic and non-spontaneous finale, where the unknown or Incognito turns up’. He adds that ‘to have this unknown man, armed with a revolver, appear in the workshop of Gioacchnio Funciazza to stop the outbreak of fighting single-handedly, and threaten judicial perse- cution like a policeman, seems to me to have been an act of stupidity on the part on the author’ (Loschiavo 1962, p.95). 17. Probably the author meant to be ironic here; the mafia is also a society of mutual assistance. For Diego Gambetta, in fact, this is the fundamental nature of the honourable society. 18. P. Mazzamuto, La mafia nella letteratura, Palermo, Andò, 1970, p.15. 19. All classes of society from the nobility to the working class saw the play, and this is above all what made it so important. The play enjoyed great success nationwide and the company toured as far as Milan and Turin, as would happen later with Verga’s Cavalleria rusticana. 20. The lampa was ‘the name of a sort of tribute that a new prisoner was asked and obliged to pay to the head-camorrista of the cell on the first evening’ (Pitrè 1889, p.325). 21. S. Di Bella, Risorgimento e mafia in Sicilia, i mafiusi della Vicaria di Palermo, Cosenza, Pellegrini, 1991, p.17. 22. L. Franchetti, Condizioni politiche e amministrative, Roma, Donzelli, 1993, p.93. 3 Public and Private Enquiries on the Criminal Consortium ... but the Mafia Doesn’t Exist 1. R. Catanzaro, Il delitto come impresa, Milano, Rizzoli, 1991, p.126. 2. Atti Parlamentari della Camera dei deputati, (1874–75), ‘Discussioni’, 11 giugno 1875, p.4126 in Storia della mafia, S. Lupo, Roma, Donzelli, 1993, p.28. 3. This historian was one of the most important intellectuals of the second half of the 19th century. He gave rise to the theories of Italian positivism and wanted to apply the methods of the exact sciences to the humanities (the so-called historic method). His intellectual activities were matched by his intense participation in political life. Apart from his institutional roles (he 228 Notes was MP for the right twice and minister for education in the government of Rudinì in 1891–92), his comments about Italian social problems were considered to be authoritative, and he was regarded as one of the most lucid and attentive analysts of the time. His writings about the Mezzogiorno were particularly important, and his Le lettere meridionali (Napoli, Roma-Firenze, Bocca, 1882) are considered the starting point for Italian meridionalismo. 4. These were inspired by a series of writings in letter form sent by Pasquale Villari to the newspaper L’opinione in 1875. At the centre of attention were the appalling socio-cultural conditions of the South, but also the means and methods of the Italian Unification, and in general the cultural and political omissions of the country. Altogether, Le lettere meridionali represent an exam- ination of the conscience of the whole generation which had directed the Unification, and they are considered the first expression of the meridional- ismo (meridionalist movement). 5. The notabili (important people) were those who controlled the political and economic power in liberal Italy of the late 19th century, thanks to their capacity to create a network of clients who ensured their re-election to parliament.