Midnight In Sicily

by Peter Robb

  Ordered by the Supreme Court to pay the not inconsiderable costs of his trial, the accused then resumed his lifetime seat in the Italian Senate. In May 2006, at the age of eighty-seven and after sixty years as a deputy and senator in the Italian parliament, he came within a whisker of being elected Speaker of the Senate. A few days earlier the Italian government led by Silvio Berlusconi had been defeated by a few votes in a national election, and former prime minister Berlusconi soon saw some of his own outstanding criminal charges lapse under the statute of limitations, just as former prime minister Andreotti had done before him.

  A fortnight before the election which removed Berlusconi, Bernardo Provenzano, for years the capo indiscusso of Cosa Nostra and pursued by the police without success for thirty-eight years, was arrested by a team of masked commandos at the age of seventy-three. He had just taken delivery of a parcel of fresh laundry in a farmhouse a few minutes’ walk from his family home in Corleone.

  In his mature years, the tractor who mowed down everything in his path had become Cosa Nostra’s accountant promoting a more flexible and less confrontational approach to the Italian state. Just like the old days. He had lately had a prostate operation at a private clinic in the South of France and for years had been issuing his orders from wherever he was by means of tiny handwritten notes, encoded on his Bible and delivered hand-to-hand by infinitely devious routes. He was upset when they wouldn’t let him keep the the well-thumbed old Bible in jail.

  Everything has to change so everything can stay the same.

  —Peter Robb

  January 2007

  SOME PLAYERS

  AMBROSOLI Giorgio: Milan lawyer, appointed by Italian government to oversee liquidation of Banca Privata Italiana: murdered July 1979

  ANDREOTTI Giulio: DC politician & life senator: first entered Italian government in 1947, twenty times minister & seven times prime minister until 1992: on trial for mafia & Pecorelli murder

  BADALAMENTI Gaetano: Palermo mafia boss, expelled from Cupola early in Riina’s rise to power & escaped to Brazil in 1979: in prison in US since 1987

  BONTATE Stefano: Palermo mafia boss & member of Cupola from 1970: leading opponent of Riina’s rise to power: killed April 1981

  BORSELLINO Paolo: magistrate in Palermo prosecutor’s office, leading member of antimafia pool in 1980s & close colleague of Giovanni Falcone: deputy chief prosecutor in Palermo from 1991: killed July 1992

  BUSCETTA Tommaso [Masino]: leading mafioso of Palermo group defeated by Riina & Corleonesi: arrested in Brazil 1983: decided to collaborate with Falcone 1984 after murder of most of his family: most important mafioso pentito

  CALO Pippo: mafia boss, ally of Riina, the Cupola’s financial expert: based in Rome for many years: arrested March 1985, convicted in maxitrial & still in prison: witness at Andreotti murder trial

  CAPONNETTO Antonino: Florentine magistrate, became Palermo chief prosecutor after murder of Rocco Chinnici in 1983: created Palermo antimafia pool, enabling the maxitrial of 1985: retired 1987

  CARNEVALE Corrado: Sicilian supreme court judge: overturned many mafia convictions on technicalities: suspended & under investigation for mafia links

  CASELLI Gian Carlo: from Torino, in Palermo as chief prosecutor since January 1993: close friend & colleague of Falcone

  CHINNICI Rocco: Palermo chief prosecutor after 1979: campaigned against mafia’s cultural prestige in Sicily, initiated major investigations into drug traffic, indicted Cupola for Dalla Chiesa murder: killed July 1983

  CRAXI Bettino: former socialist party leader, prime minister 1983—1987, now facing twenty-four years’ imprisonment for corruption: in Tunisia

  CUTOLO Raffaele: Naples camorrista, founder & head of Nuova Camorra Organizzata, in prison for many decades, mediated release of kidnapped DC politician Ciro Cirillo in 1981

  DALLA CHIESA Carlo Alberto: carabinieri general: served twice in Sicily, defeated leftwing terrorism in seventies: made prefect of Palermo: killed with wife September 1982

  DI MAGGIO Baldassare [Baldo]: mafioso pentito, former member of Brusca family & driver to Totò Riina: enabled police to arrest Riina & claims to have witnessed 1987 kiss between Riina & Andreotti

  FALCONE Giovanni: leading Palermo antimafia magistrate, prepared maxitrial indictment in 1985, transferred to Rome justice ministry 1991, killed in May 1992 with wife & three of escort

  GAVA Antonio: Naples DC politician, minister of interior in eighties: convicted of corruption 1996: on trial as camorrista 1995-6

  GELLI Licio: presumed head of secret P2 lodge uncovered in 1981: financier & influence peddler: convicted of rightwing terrorism 1996: linked to mafia & Vatican

  LIGGIO Luciano: former estate guard from Corleone, murdered predecessor in 1953 to become head of Corleone mafia clan & later head of Cosa Nostra & mentor of Salvatore Riina: arrested 1974, died in prison

  LIMA Salvo: Palermo DC politician & member of Cosa Nostra, successively mayor of Palermo, government minister, member of European parliament: head of Andreotti faction of DC in Sicily: killed March 1992

  LUCIANO Lucky: born Salvatore Lucania at Lercara Friddi in Sicily, emigrated to US in 1919, head of US Cosa Nostra in thirties & forties, thought to have assisted allied invasion of Sicily 1943, freed & repatriated to Italy 1946: died Naples 1962

  MORO Aldo: DC politician from Bari: prime minister: ideologue of understanding with PCI: kidnapped & murdered by Red Brigades 1978

  PECORELLI Mino: journalist, former member of Italian secret services, owner & writer of Rome political newletter OP: murdered March 1979

  RIINA Salvatore [Totò]: head of Corleone mafia clan since mid-seventies & head of Cosa Nostra from early eighties: operated in hiding in Palermo from 1969 until arrest in January 1993: now serving various life sentences

  SALVO Ignazio: wealthy Sicilian businessman & DC politician: arrested as mafioso November 1984: convicted in maxitrial: killed September 1992

  SALVO Nino: wealthy Sicilian businessman & DC politician, cousin & partner of Ignazio Salvo: arrested as mafioso November 1984: died of brain tumour 1986

  SINDONA Michele: Sicilian banker, financier, mafioso: poisoned 1986

  TERRANOVA Cesare: Sicilian magistrate, prosecutor of mafia in seventies: after serving in Italian parliament returned to Palermo as chief prosecutor: killed September 1979

  VITALONE Claudio: former Rome magistrate, member of Andreotti entourage, DC senator & minister: on trial in Perugia with Andreotti, accused of organizing Mino Pecorelli murder for Andreotti

  VIZZINI Calogero: mafia boss of Villalba, boss of bosses of Sicilian mafia at time of allied invasion in 1943: made honorary colonel in US army: died 1952.

  SOURCES

  THE RAW documents are in Italian and are the most enthralling of all. In published form there are Caselli et al. La Vera Storia d’Italia, for the Andreotti trial, and Falcone et al. [ed. Stajano], Mafia, for the mafia maxitrial, and the parliamentary reports in Commissione parlamentare antimafia, Mafia e politica and Commissione parlamentare antimafia, Camorra e politica, and in Tranfaglia [ed.], Mafia, politica e affari 1943–1991.

  Three indispensable books, however, are in English. Paul Ginsborg’s A History of Contemporary Italy. Politics and Society 1943–1988 is a lucid synthesis of the social and political context of the crimes discussed here, sparely and movingly written. Alexander Stille’s Excellent Cadavers. The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic for the first time makes intelligible the nightmare complexity of mafia history and antimafia history over the last twenty years. It recounts meticulously Falcone’s and Borsellino’s process of discovery of Cosa Nostra and its history, dealing rather less fully with the political relationship that began to come to light after their murders. The late Claire Sterling’s Octopus, aka The Mafia, is now like Ginsborg’s History slightly out of date in its information and also slightly heightened in its colour but formidably accurate and detailed, particularly useful on the American connection, and unputdownable.

  Leonardo
Sciascia’s books come and go in English. The Day of the Owl and Equal Danger [Il Giorno della Civetta and Il Contesto] were published together by Paladin [HarperCollins] in 1987 but seem to be out of print. The Moro Affair and One Way or Another [L’Affaire Moro and Todo Modo] were published by Carcanet in the UK in 1987 and may be still around.

  Ada Boni’s Talismano della Felicità is the indispensable Italian cook book and Elizabeth David warns against denatured English versions of it. Her own Italian Food remains a necessary document of the anglo experience of Italian eating and a book you’d want, anyway, to read.

  Otherwise I’ve scavenged freely, using the books below, as Montaigne says somewhere, not to form my ideas but to prop up the opinions I’d already formed.

  Aa. vv., Renato Guttuso dagli esordi al Gott mit uns 1924–1944, Palermo 1987

  Abulafia, David, Frederick II. A Medieval Emperor [1988], London 1992

  Andreotti, Giulio, Cosa Loro. Mai visti da vicino, Milano 1995

  Arlacchi, Pino, Il processo, Milano 1995

  Arlacchi, Pino, La mafia imprenditrice. L’etica mafiosa e lo spirito del capitalismo, Bologna 1983

  Arlacchi, Pino, Gli uomini del disonore. La mafia siciliana nella vita del grande pentito Antonino Calderone, Milano 1992

  Barthes, Roland, Wilhelm von Gloeden, Napoli 1978

  Barzini, Luigi, From Caesar to the Mafia, London 1971

  Barzini, Luigi, The Italians, London 1964

  Bassani, Giorgio, Il Romanzo di Ferrara, Milano 1981

  Benton, Barbara, Ellis Island, New York 1985

  Biagi, Enzo, Il boss è solo, Milano 1986

  Boardman, John et al., The Oxford History of the Classical World, Oxford 1986

  Bocca, Giorgio, L’Inferno. Profondo sud, male oscuro, Milano 1992

  Bolzoni, Attilio & D’Avanzo, Giuseppe, La giustizia è cosa nostra. Il caso Carnevale tra delitti e impunità, Milano 1995

  Boni, Ada, Il talismano della felicità [c. 1932], Roma 1995

  Borges, Jorge Luis, Ficciones [1956], London 1993

  Borges, Jorge Luis, Tutte le opere [vol.I], Milano 1984

  Borsellino, Paolo [ed. Cimino. Marta & D’Onofrio, Gettina],… sai, Lucia, Palermo 1994

  Braudel, Fernand, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II [1949, 1966], London, 1972

  Bufalino, Gesualdo & Zago, Nunzio [eds], Cento Sicilie. Testimonianze per un ritratto, Firenze 1993

  Buongiorno, Pino, Totò Riina. La sua storia, Milano 1993

  Caldarola, Giuseppe [ed.], Autobiografia di Cosa Nostra, Roma 1994

  Calvesi, Maurizio & Lo Cascio, Dora Favatella, Museo Guttuso, Palermo 1991

  Calvi, Fabrizio, La vita quotidiana della mafia dal 1950 a oggi, Milano 1986

  Calvino, Italo, Fiabe Italiane [1956], Torino 1989

  Calvino, Italo, Saggi [vol. I], Milano 1995

  Caselli, Gian Carlo et al., “La giustizia e i suoi nemici”, MicroMega 4/95

  Caselli, Gian Carlo et al., La Vera Storia d’Italia, Napoli 1995

  Cavallero, Felice [ed.], Mafia. Album di cosa nostra, Milano 1992

  Chroniques siciliennes. Photographies de Letizia Battaglia et Franco Zecchin, Paris 1989

  Cipri, Daniele & Maresco, Franco, Lo Zio di Brooklyn, Milano 1995

  Coletti, Alessandro, Mafie. Storia della criminalità organizzata nel Mezzogiorno, Torino 1995

  Commissione parlamentare antimafia, Camorra e politica. Relazione approvata dalla Commissione il 21 dicembre 1993, Roma & Bari 1994

  Commissione parlamentare antimafia, Mafia e politica. Relazione del 6 aprile 1993, Roma & Bari 1993

  Cornwell, Rupert, God’s Banker. An Account of the Life and Death of Roberto Calvi, London 1983

  Corrao, Francesca Maria [ed.], Poeti Arabi di Sicilia, Milano 1987

  Cortelazzo, Manlio & Zolli, Paolo, Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana [5 vols], Bologna 1979–1988

  Costantini, Costanzo, Ritratto di Renato Guttuso, Roma 1985

  Costantini, Costanzo, Il caso Guttuso tra scandalo e mistero, Roma 1987

  Craft, Robert, Stravinsky. Chronicle of a Friendship. Revised & Expanded Edition, Nashville & London 1994

  Croce, Benedetto, Storie e leggende napoletane [1919], Milano 1990

  Dalla Chiesa, Nando, Delitto imperfetto. Milano 1984

  Dalla Chiesa, Nando, Il giudice ragazzino. Storia di Rosario Livatino assassinato dalla mafia sotto il regime della corruzione, Torino 1992

  Dalla Chiesa, Nando, Storie di boss ministri tribunali giornali intellettuali cittadini, Torino 1990

  David, Elizabeth, Italian Food [1954], rev. ed., London 1989

  David, Elizabeth, Harvest of the Cold Months. The Social History of Ice and Ices, London 1995

  Deaglio, Enrico, Raccolto Rosso, Milano 1993

  De Filippo, Eduardo, Cantata dei giorni dispari [vol. III], Torino 1995

  Di Lello, Giuseppe, Giudici. Cinquant’anni di processi di mafia, Palermo 1994

  Falcone, Giovanni & Padovani, Marcelle, Cose di Cosa Nostra, Milano 1991

  Falcone, Giovanni et al. [ed. Stajano, Corrado], Mafia. L’atto di accusa dei giudici di Palermo, Roma 1992

  Fava, Claudio, Cinque delitti imperfetti. Impastato, Giuliano, Insalaco, Rostagno, Falcone, Milano 1994

  Fernandez, Dominique, La Zattera della Gorgone. Passeggiate in Sicilia. Fotografie di Ferrante Ferranti, Palermo 1992

  Fiandaca, Giovanni & Costantino, Rosario [eds.], La mafia, le mafie. Tra vecchi e nuovi paradigmi, Roma & Bari 1994

  Finley, M.I., Ancient Sicily, London 1964

  Fitzgerald, F. Scott, The Great Gatsby [1925] in The Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald [Vol. 1], London 1958

  Franchetti, Leopoldo, Condizioni politiche e amministrative della Sicilia [1877], Roma 1993

  Galasso, Alfredo, La mafia politica, Milano 1993

  Gambetta, Diego, La mafia siciliana, Torino 1992

  Gibbon, Edward, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [1776–1788] [3 vols.], London 1994

  Gilmour, David, The Last Leopard. A life of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, London 1988

  Ginsborg, Paul, A History of Contemporary Italy. Society and politics 1943–1988, London 1990

  Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Italian Journey. The Collected Works [vol. 6] [1816 & 1817], Princeton 1994

  Green, Peter, Alexander to Actium. The Hellenistic Age, London 1990

  Hess, Henner, Mafia. Le origini e la struttura, Roma & Bari 1973

  Irwin, Robert, The Arabian Nights. A companion, London 1994

  La Duca, Rosario, I veleni di Palermo, Palermo 1988

  Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi di, Il Gattopardo [1957 Ms, X ed.], Milano 1992

  Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi di, Opere, Milano 1995

  Lewis, Norman, The Honoured Society [1964], London, 1984

  Lewis, Norman, Naples ’44 [1978], New York 1994

  Longhi, Roberto, Caravaggio [1952, 1968], Roma 1982

  Lullies, Reinhard & Hirmer, Max, Greek Sculpture [rev. ed.], London 1960

  Lupo. Salvatore, Storia della mafia, Roma 1993

  Maraini, Dacia, Bagheria, Milano 1993

  Marchese, Pasquale, L’invenzione della forchetta, Soveria Mannelli 1989

  Minna, Rosario, La mafia in cassazione, Firenze 1995

  Montaigne, Michel de [ed. Rat, Maurice], Essais [1580], Paris 1962

  Montale. Eugenio, Satura. 1962–1970, Milano 1971

  Moravia, Alberto, Renato Guttuso, Palermo 1962

  The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary [2 vols], Oxford 1993

  Orioles, Riccardo et al. [eds.], 30 anni. Mafia e politica 1965–1995. I Siciliani III/28, Catania 1995

  Orlando, Leoluca, Palermo, Milano 1990

  Ovid [tr. Peter Green], The Erotic Poems, Harmondsworth 1982

  The Oxford English Dictionary [Compact Edition, 2 vols], Oxford 1971

  Pasolini, Pier Paolo, Lettere Luterane, Torino 1976

  Pasolini, Pier Paolo, Scritti Corsari, Milano 1975

  Patroni Griffi
, Giuseppe, Scende giù per Toledo, Milano 1981

  Penny, Nicholas, The Materials of Sculpture, New Haven & London 1993

  Petronius [tr. Branham, Bracht & Kinney, Daniel], Satyrica, Berkeley 1996

  Pezzino, Paolo, Mafia: industria della violenza. Scritti e documenti inediti sulla mafia dalle origini ai giorni nostri, Firenze 1995

  Polo, Marco [ed. Pizzorusso, Valeria Bertolucci]: Milione. Versione toscana del trecento [1975], Milano 1982

  Putnam, Robert D., Making Democracy Work. Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton 1993

  Ramondino, Fabrizia, Althénopis, Torino 1981

  Ramondino, Fabrizia & Müller Andreas Friedrich, Dadapolis. Caleidoscopio napoletano. Torino 1989

  Rea, Ermanno, Mistero napoletano. Vita e passione di una comunista negli anni della guerra fredda, Torino 1995

  Renda, Francesco, Storia della Sicilia dal 1860 al 1970 [3 vols], Palermo 1984–1987

  La Repubblica [ed. Scalfari, Eugenio], passim, Roma, 1975–1996

  Root, Waverley, The Food of Italy, New York 1971

  Rossi-Doria, Manlio, Scritti sul Mezzogiorno, Torino 1982

  Ruggieri Tricoli, Maria Clara, La Villa Niscemi, Palermo 1989

  Runciman, Steven, The Sicilian Vespers. A history of the Mediterranean world in the later thirteenth century [1958], Cambridge 1992

  Russo, Enzo, Uomo di rispetto, Milano 1988

  Sales, Isaia, La camorra, le camorre [1988], Roma 1993

  Santino, Umberto, La mafia interpretata. Dilemmi, stereotipi, paradigmi, Soveria Mannelli 1995

  Santino, Umberto, La borghesia mafiosa, Palermo 1994

  Santino, Umberto & La Fiura, Giovanni, L’impresa mafiosa, Milano 1990

  Santino, Umberto & La Fiura, Giovanni, Dietro la droga. Economie di sopravivenza, imprese criminali, azioni di guerra, progetti di sviluppo, Torino 1993