Challenging the Mafia Mystique

Cosa Nostra from Legitimisation to Denunciation

Rino Coluccello

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781349555529, 9781137280497
• eBook ISBN: 9781137280503
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The Sicilian Mafia, or Cosa Nostra, is one of the most intriguing criminal phenomena in the world. It is an unparalleled organised criminal grouping that over almost two centuries has been able not only to successfully permeate licit and illicit economy, politics and civil society, but also to influence and exercise authoritative power over both the underworld and the upper-world. This criminal phenomenon has been a captivating conundrum for scholars of different disciplines who have tried to explain with various paradigms the reasons behind the emergence and consolidation of the mafia. Challenging the Mafia Mystique provides an analysis of the changes the Sicilian mafia has undergone, from legitimisation to denunciation. Rino Coluccello highlights how, from the very emergence of the organised criminal groups in Sicily, a culture existed that was protective and tolerant of the mafia. He argues that the various conceptualisations of the mafia that dominated the public and scientific debate in the nineteenth and more than half of the twentieth century created a mystique, which legitimised the mafia and contributed to their success. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of organised crime, Italian politics and Italian literature.

1

The Origins of the Mafia as a Criminal Phenomenon and as a Spirit

Hypothesising an origin

The precise origins of the mafia are still unknown; criminal associations vaguely similar to those of today existed during the period preceding unification, even if during that period the word mafia was not used. Some signs of proto-mafioso practices can already be found in the 16th and 17th century, yet these signs are not clear enough to be defined as part of the process that with time would be recognised and defined by the word mafia.

A series of hypotheses date the origin of the mafia to the mid-19th century, after the landing of Garibaldi in Sicily, but the historian Santi Correnti from Catania states, somewhat questionably, that ‘the origins of the mafia are lost in the mists of time’ (Correnti 1972, p.226). The Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia has also given his interpretation of the mafia as a phenomenon already in existence for some time: ‘In 1838 the mafia already existed: but with a different name (or nameless)’ (Sciascia 1970, p.75). In fact, the writer of Racalmuto refers to the presence of associations with corporate structures as the maestranze¹ (early forms of trade unions) before 1800 to which the viceroy reformer Domenico Caracciolo feels he must pay particular attention, ‘displayed with some sensational arrests’ which revealed ‘certain connections between nobility and criminality’ (ibid.). Expert on the history of the mafia, Orazio Cancilia is bewildered by the claims to a 19th-century origin of the phenomenon, maintaining that ‘I do not know nor have I been able to ascertain when it revealed itself for the first time on the island, but I note its presence already in the third decade of the 16th century’ (Cancilia 1987, p.16), several centuries before the word mafia spread, following the theatrical play I mafiusi della vicaria in 1862. After the 16th century, Cancilia adds, ‘it has always characterised the history of the island: in the cities as a connivance between criminality and institutions, in rural towns as an exercise of feudal power with systems and methods that did not exclude the recourse to abuse and exploitation’ (Cancilia 1987, p.16). Francesco Renda, scholar of the history of the mafia, has also supported the theory ‘that the mafia as an “affair”, that is, as a spirit, as behaviour of the individual and also as a criminal association sworn to practice organised violence, was not created in the context of the inclusion of the island as part of the national State’, but existed before the process of unification, and had assumed ‘distinct and precise manifestations’ (Renda 1984, p.197). Renda refers to the Beati Paoli,² a secret 18th-century sect, ‘whose oral and written traditions prefigured the mafia archetype as an “honoured society”, one that practices violence, including murder, with good intentions, to do justice and defend the weak against the strong’ (Renda 1984, p.197). In more certain historical terms, and recording evident signs of mafioso behaviour, the testimonies of foreign travellers visiting Sicily around the end of the 18th century should also be remembered, as we will see later with the Scottish writer Patrick Brydone. They describe typical proto-mafia situations, such as the practice common among noblemen of employing bandits and criminals, or alternatively, ‘the institutional precedent of the compagnie d’armi, where the State, in the interests of public safety, collaborated with bandits and criminals, on the principle that the thieves or criminals are paid so that they don’t steal or will keep the other villains under control’ (Renda 1984, p.197). Another historian, Paolo Pezzino, notes that the first organisational forms of mafia date back at least ‘to the revolutionary Sicilian tradition around 1800 and directly implicate elements of the working classes who use the bourgeois society of previous decades as a model’ (Pezzino 1990, p.17). During the period in which ‘the mafia was not called mafia’, a few proto-mafia social figures emerged, who paradoxically are cut down to size just as the term mafia with its derivatives becomes a word used and abused by the press of that time. This is the period during which the creation of the centralised State occurs and alliances form between the criminal phenomenon and the world of politics and institutions.

Feudal Sicily

During the course of the various foreign dominations of Sicily that followed one after another, the island’s inhabitants were never quite strong enough to be independent, nor so weak as to be completely dominated or absorbed by the power of the continent. This allowed the island’s inhabitants to conserve some of their privileges and keep their freedom intact. Power in 17th-century Sicilian society was divided between the Spanish Crown and the nobility, and every attempt by the central government to claim greater power was hindered. The bureaucracy was inefficient and disorganised, and the lack of effective communication links made movement across the island nearly impossible. With the diffusion of the large estates, the more rural areas of the island, far from both Palermo and the Crown, became ideal areas for groups of bandits to control.

In the 17th century, Sicilian economic policy was entirely based on the exploitation of the feudal system. This was not just a ‘political structure through which the sovereign or “il signore” granted a vassal some of his territory to use and administrate’ (Tessitore 1997, p.34), but above all represented the large latifondi (vast agricultural estates) that were often badly managed. The old clientele system of the Roman Empire was replaced by feudalism – the new political order originally established in France in the 7th century, which then spread over the rest of Europe.

The revolutions, the demographic and economic changes, and the various dominations left the feudal structure unaltered throughout. The central powers were naturally in favour of such a system in their territories and often consolidated the privileges or power of the barons in exchange for donations or duties. After 1621, the acquisition (obviously upon financial payment) of the mero e misto impero³ allowed free exercise of jurisdictional power within defined territorial districts. The landowners were almost completely exempt from the traditions of vassalage that had existed until then, and this laid the foundation for the formation of lots of small independent states. The political situation of the 17th century was such that ‘we cannot speak of misgovernment in Sicily, but of non-government, which is something much worse than the former eventuality, which, when it occurs, at least guarantees a tangible presence of the state, (even if negative)’ ( Castiglione 1987, p.11). The absenteeism and indifference of the central institutions created a power vacuum, which was even more evident in the more remote and more inaccessible areas of the island and became a formidable element in the growth and development of the proto-mafioso phenomenon.

The emergence of the gabelloti

The absenteeism of the traditional ruling figures in the rural areas, for whom the feudal estate had represented an instrument of domination for centuries, generated a power vacuum that was promptly filled by a new and unscrupulous emerging class. The barons had in fact leased many of their large estates to gabelloti (administrators), who very quickly saw their economic and political powers increase.

The rural landowners had managed, over time, to create a certain independence and to increase their wealth, thanks to an equidistant association with the central power (the Crown) and those who lived on the large estate. The figure of the baron, therefore, had become an indispensable point of reference for all the social structure. When the absentee barons employed the gabelloti to run their estates, these emerging entrepreneurial land managers immediately filled the power vacuum created in that equidistant relationship.

On the large estates, there had once been a notable industry of produce linked to animal rearing. Over the course of centuries, the demand for grain production fell, which led to a rise in unemployment among herdsmen, who often went to swell the ranks of the brigands: the classic bandits of the Sicilian countryside were in fact herdsmen. In addition, the decrease in pastures, occurring simultaneously to a growth in the population, had increased the value of animals. Theft of cattle was a very common activity because of the low risks and assured income involved, yet it called for cooperation between the perpetrators, swiftness in the transferral of the stolen animals, and control of the markets in the various towns. The thefts were committed by ‘small, very fluid organisations, men who united to carry out a task and could then disband’ (Crisantino 1994, p.22). The weakness of the central state certainly represented a favourable circumstance in creating united, highly motivated gangs; the king and his laws were distant institutions, and the barons, moreover, often had agreements of mutual protection with the members of these gangs.⁴

Even if at this early stage brigandage cannot be compared precisely to the mafioso phenomenon as it developed from the start of the 19th century, by the end of the 1500s and early 1600s it was already a factor that contributed decisively to the affirmation of the proto-mafia. It was during this period that several noblemen made offers of protection to some criminal gangs in exchange for their own personal safety. Sicily during this period was a society in which power was divided between the Crown and the barons, and every attempt by the State to claim greater power was thwarted. The central government, however, refused to take responsibility for the problem of security. The noble landowners in the 16th and 17th centuries ran into the same problems faced by the medieval lords and thus frequently decided to adopt a policy of compromise with the criminal organisations.

As a result of the new status quo, the viceroy was compelled to reassess the feudal lords as an instrument of power and, above all, adopt a much more permissive and lenient policy than in the past, establishing connections of a nature that today could be defined as political-mafioso, involving concessions such as impunity to well-known accomplices and assassins, who then used their impunity to continue to exert violence. The intention was ‘on the one hand to repay those who had remained loyal to the institutions, and on the other hand to recover the loyalty of those barons who had at times rebelled against the Spanish monarchy, with a conciliatory policy backed by Madrid’ (Cancilla 1984, p.18). Another decisive factor in the origin of the mafia was the protection granted to the feudality when crimes were committed.

In the 17th century, the situation worsened. Numerous ‘proclamations’, grida and prammatiche, were issued to discourage brigandage and those who supported it.⁵ The situation regarding public order also deteriorated – above all in the rural areas – so in order to avoid the continuous incursions of the bandits, many representatives of the local powers came to agreements by providing them with secure lodging on their own farms. The government attempted to fight this phenomenon by creating the so-called Compagnie d’armi.

The recruitment for the Compagnie d’armi often drew from bandits and rebels, and the ability to use weapons and to accept a customary life of violence were fundamental requirements. In the more remote and inaccessible areas where the state institutions were completely absent or had difficulty making their presence felt, the landowners employed the so-called campieri (field guards), who took care of the safety of the employer and his estate. Here, too, rebels or criminals who, paid by noblemen, should have fought the organised gangs were instead often in agreement with these very groups of bandits. Both the Compagnie d’armi and the campieri undertook the service of public security in exchange for a ‘fixed price’ from landowners and ‘they were responsible ... for any losses caused by extortion or thefts of the bandits’ (Tessitore 1997, p.50).

The church also had a particular position. The Sicilian clergy, thanks to the Apostolica Legazia,⁶ did not depend on the discipline and jurisdiction of the Roman Curia, but rather on the Spanish King. As Novacco finely notes: ‘by entering into the network of privileges, the church recreated the social and cultural profile of the environment’ (Novacco 1963, p.62).

A paradoxical situation is consequently created in the corrupt Sicily of the 17th century. The monopoly of violence, usually a privilege of the State authorities, was legally entrusted to groups of criminals, the Compagnie d’armi, and the campieri, who in the social pyramid of the time represented a structure that, with good reason, can be defined as proto-mafia.

Literary representations of the mafia ante litteram: Scottish traveller Brydone and the ‘Sicilian bandits’

It is possible to surmise, therefore, that the criminal phenomenon defined as a proto-mafia had roots that went back much further than the post-unification period and, most importantly, was not born and nurtured amid those centres that are generally identified as marginal, but rather among the well-to-do pillars of society. The Sicilian aristocracy, with their protective, tolerant culture, did not shy from alliances with groups of villains in order to further reinforce their own hegemony and undermine the power of the Crown.

Despite the commitment of the various viceroys to reforms, banditry continued to remain an impenetrable force. The complicity and protection of the barons certainly played an important role in the development of a ‘mafioso mafia mentality/spirit’: this particular situation was created in the 18th century, where the certainty of being exempt from state justice encouraged the nobility and the rest of the well-to-do classes to assume attitudes that were often illegal, themselves becoming highly criminal factors.

This was the situation described in 1770 by the Scottish traveller Patrick Brydone, who was quite rightly considered ‘the first to have discovered that unexplored land called Sicily’ (Tuzet 1955, p.34) in the literary sense, thanks to the publication of his successful book A Tour through Sicily and Malta: In a Series of Letters to William Beckford (Brydone 1790).⁷

The traditional itinerary of the ‘grand tour’ of Europe consisted of visits to the principle artistic centres of Italy, with Naples at the extreme southern border. Brydone, however, on the advice of Sir William Hamilton, ‘inviato straordinario e ministro plenipotenziario di Sua Maestà britannica alla Corte di Napoli’ (Brydone 1968, p.17), ventured as far as Sicily.

European knowledge of Sicily, until that period, was extremely limited. One should bear in mind that the Encyclopédie, a monumental piece of work that listed all the treasures of 18th-century Europe, described Palermo in 1766 as ‘the city with an archbishopric and a small, almost forgotten port because it was destroyed by an earthquake’, which rings more of myth than a description of an actual place. With regards to Sicily, the text ended: ‘To be brief, Sicily has nothing considerable today except for its mountains and the Inquisitional tribunal’ (Frosini, 1970, p.14).

Brydone received a university education, served in the army and soon became a ‘travelling preceptor’ (Tuzet 1955, p.36), or a tutor who travelled with some Scottish noblemen.

The journey that Brydone undertook in the island in 1770 became an opportunity for a correspondence in diary form with his friend William Beckford. The Scottish writer is a ‘philosopher ... of the Enlightenment’ (Tuzet 1955, p.38) with the best qualities of Scottish travellers. He has no illusions; ‘his eyes often twinkle with 18th century irony, as he observes people and things’ (Renda 1968, p.18). It is also possible to see in his work indications of a new sensitivity, influenced by Scottish Enlightenment ideas. Brydone observes and imagines with brilliant humour; he is curious to experience and penetrate the Sicilian usages and customs. During his journey around Sicily, Brydone encounters, with great amazement, a mafia ante litteram. He is the first intellectual of a certain prestige to produce a very articulate description of the criminal phenomenon that, with great irony, he defines as an ‘honourable order’ (Brydone 1790, Vol.I, p.75), an honourable brotherhood containing all of the elements of an organisation that a century later will be defined as mafia. The Scottish traveller is provided with letters of recommendation that open the doors to the powerful Sicilian palaces. He observes with great astonishment that the most powerful and important noblemen, such as the Prince of Villafranca, governor of Messina, uses as guards ‘the most daring, and most hardened villains, perhaps, that are to be met with upon earth’; people who, in other countries, Brydone notes with wonder, ‘would have been broken upon the wheel or hung in chains, but are here publicly protected, and universally feared and re...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  The Origins of the Mafia as a Criminal Phenomenon and as a Spirit
• 2  The Abolition of Feudalism, Mafia in the Unified Kingdom and I Mafiusi di la Vicaria
• 3  Public and Private Enquiries on the Criminal Consortium...but the Mafia Doesnt Exist
• 4  Mafia and Politics in Sicilian Society at the End of the 19th Century: The Notarbartolo Affair, the Formation of Sicilianism and Consolidation of the Mafia Mystique
• 5  The Literature of Defence and the Heresy of Don Sturzo
• 6  The Popular Legitimisation of the Mafia: The Beati Paoli and the Mafioso as an Avenger
• 7  Fascism and the Surrender of the Mafia, the Allied Invasion and the Return of the Villains
• 8  The Breaking Point: Danilo Dolci and a New Image of theMafia
• 9  Leonardo Sciascia: The Writer as the Public Conscience
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index