Blood Brotherhoods (123 page)

I owe a special debt to Lesley Lewis for allowing me to consult her late husband Norman’s diaries—the notes he drew on while writing his profoundly compassionate and yet disillusioned observations in
Naples ‘44
.

Laura and Giulio Lepschy were for me, as for so many Italianists in the UK, an endless source of linguistic wisdom. Maria Novella Mercuri helped me work out some of the trickier, ungrammatical passages in some manuscripts.

I have had the great boon of being able to consult a number of journalists who are immersed in the subject of organised crime on a day-to-day basis. In Sicily, Lirio Abbate, Attilio Bolzoni, Salvo Palazzolo, and Dino Paternostro offered advice, material or both. In Calabria, Pietro Comito passed on a rare copy of Serafino Castagna’s autobiography. Peppe Baldessarro knows as much about the ’ndrangheta as any journalist: it was enriching to chat with him in the course of several visits to Calabria. Several of these names are among the all too many courageous and professional Italian journalists who have had to face death threats from the clans.

Yet again my biggest thank you goes to my wife, Sarah Penny. I am constantly astonished by her ability to juggle work, family and my seemingly endless demands for time. She has my gratitude and my love, always. The book is dedicated to her, to our two children Elliot and Charlotte, and to their baby sister, Iris.

I
LLUSTRATION CREDITS

Image   Source

page

xxxiv       Above: © Corbis / photo Ina Fassbinder Below: photo Armin Thiemer

xxxvi       Private collection

8            
Illustrated London News
, 1859

9            A. De Blasio,
Usi e costumi dei camorristi
, 1897

17           © The British Library (from F. De Bourcard,
Usi e costumi di Napoli e contorni descritti e dipinti
, vol. II, 1858)

18           © The British Library (from F. De Bourcard,
Usi e costumi di Napoli e contorni descritti e dipinti
, vol. II, 1858)

22           
L’Illustration
, 1860

24           A. Comandini,
L’Italia nei cento anni del secolo XIX
, vol. 3

25           
L’Illustration
, 1860

26           © The British Library Newspapers, Colindale (from
Il Mondo Illustrato
, 1860)

29           A. Comandini,
L’Italia nei cento anni del secolo XIX
, vol. 3

31           © The British Library Newspapers, Colindale (from
Il Mondo Illustrato
, 1860)

33           
Illustrated London News
, 1860

36           
Illustrated London News
, 1859

51           
Illustrated London News
, 1860

71           © Corbis / photo Armin Thiemer

80           Private collection

96           A. De Blasio,
Il tatuaggio
, 1905

98           A. De Blasio,
Usi e costumi dei camorristi
, 1897

100         Biblioteca Nazionale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’, Naples, reproduced by kind permission of the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, Italy

103         Above: © Getty Images. Middle and Below: private collection

104         Museo Pitré, Palermo, reproduced by kind permission of the Comune di Palermo

109         C. Del Balzo,
Napoli e i napoletani
, 1885

111         © The British Library Newspapers, Colindale (from
Le Monde Illustré
, 1893)

122         © John Dickie

136         © John Dickie

143         E. Morselli,
Biografia di un bandito
, 1903

150         Above: Reproduced by kind permission of the Archivio di Stato di Reggio Calabria. Middle and Below: E. Morselli,
Biografia di un bandito
, 1903

151         
Illustrated London News
, 1902

152         
Illustrated London News
, 1902

159         Private collection

170         
L’Illustrazione Italiana
, 1899

171         
L’Illustrazione Italiana
, 1901

172         
L’Illustrazione Italiana
, 1901

174         Private collection

191         
Il Mattino
, 1911

203         
La Scintilla
, 1911

206         
La Scintilla
, 1911

207         A. De Blasio,
Usi e costumi dei camorristi
, 1897

208         
Illustrated London News
, 1911

210         
La Scintilla
, 1911

246         E. Morselli,
Biografia di un bandito
, 1903

256         © Getty Images

261         Reproduced by kind permission of Istituto Luce, Rome / Archivio Fotografico

264         Above left and right, below left: Private collection. Below right: Top-Foto Topham Picturepoint

268         Left: reproduced by kind permission of
Gazzetta del Sud
, 1986. Right: private collection

302         Courtesy of Archivio de
L’Unità

307         Lux Films / RGA

308         Private collection

309         Private collection

322         © Bettmann / Corbis

331         Private collection

348         © Getty Images / Mondadori

349         © Bettmann / Corbis

364         © Enzo Brai / Pubblifoto, Palermo

374         © Getty Images / Gamma-Keystone

385         © Enzo Brai / Pubblifoto, Palermo

395         Courtesy of archive of Pasquale Capellupo

405         © AP / Press Association Images

413         Archivio Carabinieri, Palermo

416         © AP / Press Association Images / Raul Fornezza

418         © Getty Images / Popperfoto

422         © Alberto Roveri / Rosebud2

425         © Eric Gaillard

432         © ANSA

441         Alessandro Fucarini / Agenzia Fotografica Labruzzo, Palermo

451         © Contrasto / eyevine / Angelo Palma

474         © ANSA

475         Private collection

488         © ANSA

510         Left: courtesy of Centro di Studi ed Iniziative Culturali Pio La Torre, Palermo. Right: Archivio Fotografico Pietro Oliveri, Corleone

516         © ANSA

517         © Contrasto / eyevine / Shobha

518         © ANSA

526         © Corbis / ANSA

553         Alessandro Fucarini / Agenzia Fotografica Labruzzo, Palermo

557         © Rex Features / Contrasto

561         © Tony Gentile

576         © Getty Images / Gamma-Rapho

579         © Corbis / Antoine Gyori / Sygma

582         Archivio Carabinieri, Palermo

609         © AP / Press Association Images / Luca Bruno

612         Archivio Carabinieri, Palermo

619         © AP / Press Association Images / Italian Police

622         © John Dickie

630         © AP / Press Association Images / Salvatore Laporta

635         © AP / Press Association Images / Salvatore Laporta

640         © AP / Press Association Images / Adriana Sapone

646         © AP / Press Association Images / Adriana Sapone

I would like to thank the following for their help in sourcing photographs:

Chiara Augliera of the Cineteca di Bologna; Maggiore Antonio Coppola of the Carabinieri’s Nucleo investigativo–reparto operativo, Palermo; Fabio Cuzzola; Nick Dines; Cecilia Ferretti of the Archivio Unità; Capitano Giuseppe Lumia and the ROS in Gioia Tauro; Vito Lucio Lo Monaco of the Centro Pio La Torre, Palermo; Gabriele Morabito; Nino Sapone; Fabio Truzzolillo.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the copyright holders, but if there are any errors or omissions, PublicAffairs will be pleased to insert the appropriate acknowledgement in any subsequent printings or editions.

N
OTES ON SOURCES

FOR SOCIOLOGISTS IT HAS BECOME COMMONPLACE TO TREAT ITALY’S MAJOR CRIMINAL organisations as different aspects of the same set of problems. Historians have been slow to catch up. All the major historians of organised crime in Italy have made often very insightful comparative asides. Yet sustained comparison is very rare indeed.
Blood Brotherhoods
is intended to explore what we can learn by letting the histories of the three mafias run in parallel to one another. It is a task that has presented many challenges, notably at the level of narrative organisation. But the goal is fundamentally a simple one, all the same: a chronicle.

Blood Brotherhoods
is also intended for readers beyond Italy, as well as within its borders, for whom the word ‘mafia’ conjures up visions of Al Pacino before it does the faces of Luciano Liggio, Raffaele Cutolo or the De Stefano brothers. What I hope to do is dissipate some of the confusion generated both by films like
The Godfather
, and by the catchall word ‘mafia’. In an effort to make
Blood Brotherhoods
as accessible as possible, I have not used footnotes or endnotes. Those of us who are university lecturers and therefore lucky enough to read for a living all too easily forget the huge efforts that many people have to make to find the time to read—and to read non-fiction in particular. Perhaps the least we can do to meet such readers halfway is to produce a narrative unencumbered by references, nods to obscure academic debates, and the name-dropping of academic allies and opponents.

That said, footnotes fulfill many duties and afford many pleasures. The following pages can be but a poor substitute for them. My hope is that they will at least serve as a stimulus to further reading, a recognition of my many intellectual debts, an indication of what sources I have used to formulate and substantiate my arguments, and a clue to interesting issues that I did not have time to explore or treat fully. Some of the sources cited are not referred to or quoted from explicitly in the text, but I have included them here all the same, generally for one of two reasons: first, because they make points that I did not have the space to explore and illustrate in the text; second, because they add evidential weight.
Blood Brotherhoods
, as a comparative history, can have no pretentions to being an encyclopedic account of the camorra, the Sicilian mafia and the ’ndrangheta. My approach has been to choose stories that I consider to be exemplary. By including the full range of my archival sources on the picciotteria, for example, I hope to show that my choice of exemplary stories has a broad foundation in firsthand research, whether by me or by other people.