Blood Brotherhoods (127 page)

9. Double vendetta

ACS, Ministero dell’Interno, Direzione Generale Affari Generale e del Personale, Fascicoli del personale del Ministero (1861–1952) IIa Serie, B. 256. Sangiorgi Ermanno, Questore. Sangiorgi’s career file, containing the documentation on the ‘fratricide’ case and much else besides. Most of what I have written about Sangiorgi is from this source.

ACS, Ministero di Grazia e Giustizia, Dir. Gen. Aff. Penali, Miscellanea, b. 46, fasc. 589. The correspondence concerning Carlo Morena’s defence of Pietro De Michele, including Sangiorgi’s evidence against the latter.

A. Cutrera,
I ricottari. La mala vita di Palermo
, Palermo, 1979 (1896). On the differences between
ricottari
and
mafiosi
.

J. A. Davis,
Conflict and Control
, London, 1988. Good for contextual information on policing in Liberal Italy.

J. Dunnage,
The Italian Police and the Rise of Fascism
, London, 1997. Contains a good brief summary of policing history in Italy before Fascism.

I. Fazio, ‘The family, honour and gender in Sicily: models and new research’,
Modern Italy
, 9 (2), 2004. An exceptionally useful survey of the vast literature on the Sicilian family.

C. Guerrieri, ‘L’azione repressiva di Giovanni Nicotera contro mafia e camorra’, in A. Bagnato, G. Masi and V. Villella (eds),
Giovanni Nicotera nella storia italiana dell’Ottocento
, Soveria Mannelli, 1999. For the background to the whole Sangiorgi-Morena-De Michele story told here.

P. Pezzino, ‘“La Fratellanza”
di Favara’
, in
idem
,
Una certa reciprocità di favori. Mafia e modernizzazione violenta nella Sicilia postunitaria
, Milan, 1990.

‘Processo Amoroso e compagni’, in
Giornale di Sicilia
. Series of articles covering the trial begins on 29/8/1883 and ends on 20/10/1883. The trial is a classic instance of the way only the mafia’s losers were successfully prosecuted. The trial is, among other things, an unexplored source on the role of women in the mafia.

G. Vaccaro,
Notizie su Burgio
, Palermo, 1921. One of the few published sources of information on the history of this Sicilian agrotown. Suspiciously, it portrays De Michele as a victim of the 1848 rebellion.

PART III: THE NEW CRIMINAL NORMALITY

10. Born delinquents: Science and the mob

G. Alongi,
La maffia nei suoi fattori e nelle sue manifestazioni: studio sulle classi pericolose della Sicilia
, Rome, 1886.

G. Alongi,
La camorra. Studio di sociologia criminale
, Turin, 1890.

G. Alongi, ‘Polizia e criminalità in Italia’,
Nuova Antologia
, 1/1/1897. Summarises police accommodation with organised crime after the crucial years of 1876–77.

A. Cutrera,
La mafia e i mafiosi. Origini e manifestazioni
, Palermo, 1900. The best of the policemen writing in the era of positivism.

C. D’Addosio,
Il duello dei camorristi
, Naples, 1893.

A. De Blasio,
Usi e costumi dei camorristi
, 2nd edn, Naples, 1897.

A. De Blasio,
Il tatuaggio ereditario e psichico dei camorristi napoletani
, Naples, 1898.

A. De Blasio,
Nel paese della camorra. (L’Imbrecciata)
, Naples, 1901.

A. De Blasio,
Il tatuaggio
, Naples, 1905.

C. Fiore, ‘Il controllo della criminalità organizzata nello Stato liberale: strumenti legislativi e atteggiamenti della cultura giuridica’,
Studi Storici
, 2, 1988.

C. Lombroso,
L’uomo delinquente in rapporto all’antropologia, alla giurisprudenza ed alle discipline carcerarie
, 4th edn, 2 vols, Turin, 1889.

F. Manduca,
Studii sociologici
, Naples, 1888. An interesting and contradictory text by a leading former magistrate with experience in both Sicily and Naples. In positivist style he blames ethnic factors for the mafia and camorra, but runs against the consensus of the time by believing that the mafia, like the camorra, is an organisation with a hierarchy.

A. Niceforo,
L’Italia barbara contemporanea
, Milan, 1898.

11.   An audience of hoods

La fondazione della camorra
is covered in
Il Mattino
,
Roma
and
Corriere di Napoli
, October–November, 1899. The photograph of a scene from
La fondazione della camorra
can be viewed at:
http://archiviteatro.napolibeniculturali.it/atn/foto/dettagli_foto?oid=127417&descrizione=stella&query_start=10
.

The letter from the Ispettorato Vicaria to the Questura (Police HQ) in Naples on the
Fondazione della camorra
, dated 4/11/1899 was available on the same site, but now seems to have been taken down.

V. Bianco,
La mala vita
ovvero
I camorristi nella Vicaria
, manuscript play held in Biblioteca Lucchesi Palli, Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples.

V. Bianco,
La mala vita’
o
’E carcere ’a Vicaria
, manuscript play held in Biblioteca Lucchesi Palli, Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples.

V. Bianco,
La mala vita
o
’O zelluso d’ ’o Mercato
(1923), manuscript play held in Biblioteca Lucchesi Palli, Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples.

G. Castellano,
’E guappe ’a Vicaria
, manuscript play held in Biblioteca Lucchesi Palli, Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples.

F.P. Castiglione,
Il segreto cinquecentesco dei Beati Paoli
, Palermo, 1999.

E. De Mura (ed.),
Enciclopedia della canzone napoletana
, Naples, 1969, vol. III. See the entries on the San Ferdinando and on Edoardo Minichini.

S. Di Giacomo and G. Cognetti,
Mala vita
, Naples, 1889. A camorra play by one of the best-known Neapolitan authors of the era.

S. Di Giacomo in (various authors),
Napoli d’oggi
, Naples, 1900. On the camorra in the theatre, the San Ferdinando, Stella, etc.

S. Di Giacomo, ‘Il “San Ferdinando”’, in
idem
,
Napoli. Figure e paesi
, Naples, 1909.

V. Linares, ‘I Beati Paoli’, in
idem
,
Racconti popolari
, Palermo, 1886.

F. Mancini, ‘I teatri minori’ in F. Mancini and S. Ragni (eds),
Donizetti e i teatri napoletani nell’Ottocento
, Naples, 1997. On the San Ferdinando.

G. Montemagno,
Luigi Natoli e i Beati Paoli
, Palermo, 2002.

F. Renda,
I Beati Paoli. Storia, letteratura e leggenda
, Palermo, 1988.

G. Tessitore,
Il nome e la cosa. Quando la mafia non si chiamava mafia
, Milan, 1997. On modern-day
mafiosi
—men of the criminal caliber of Totuccio Contorno, Gaetano Badalamenti, Totò Riina and Gaspare Mutolo—who believe, or profess to believe, that their organisation is the modern form of the
Beati Paoli
.

G. Trevisani (ed.),
Teatro napoletano. Dalle origini a Edoardo Scarpetta
, 2 vols, Bologna, 1957.

V. Viviani,
Storia del teatro napoletano
, Naples, 1969.

12. The slack society

ACS, Archivio di Francesco Crispi, Crispi Roma, fasc. (79) 320, Relazioni e promemoria relativi alla organizzazione della PS e dei CC specie in Sicilia, 1888.

ACS, Archivio di Francesco Crispi, Crispi Roma, fasc. (222) 321, Relazione d’inchiesta sul personale e sull’organizzazione delle guardie a cavallo di Pubblica Sicurezza nelle provincie di Palermo, Trapani, Girgenti e Caltanissetta, 1887. Contains Sangiorgi’s report dated 25/10/1888. There is also material on Sangiorgi’s mission to Sicily at this time in his career file (see above). Davis,
Conflict and Control
, also covers the mission.

Il Mattino
. For coverage of Ciccio Cappuccio’s funeral, 7–8/12/1892; and 9–10/12/1892 for Ferdinando Russo’s poem about the
camorrista
.

La Gazzetta Piemontese
is a very useful press source on the disturbances of August 1893. The profile of Sangiorgi when he was appointed police chief in Milan is in the issue of 14/2/1889.

A.G. Bianchi (ed.),
Il romanzo di un delinquente nato. Autobiografia di Antonino M
., Milan, 1893.

G. Fortunato,
Corrispondenze napoletane
, Cosenza, 1990. A collection of classic writings on the Southern Question originally published 1878–80. See particularly, ‘La camorra’.

M. Marmo,
Il proletariato industriale a Napoli in età liberale
, Naples, 1978. On the camorra-backed cab drivers’ strike. Davis,
Conflict and Control
is also useful on this.

S. Pucci, ‘Schizzo monografico della camorra carceraria’, in
Allegazioni e discorsi in materia penale
, Florence, 1881. Article by a magistrate involved in prosecuting the prison camorra.

F.M. Snowden,
Naples in the time of cholera, 1884–1911
, Cambridge, 1995.

P. Turiello,
Governo e governati in Italia
, P. Bevilacqua (ed.), Turin, 1980 (1882).

P. Villari, ‘La camorra’, in
idem
.,
Le lettere meridionali ed altri scritti sulla questione sociale in Italia
, Florence, 1878.

PART IV: THE ’NDRANGHETA EMERGES

Court rulings on the emergence of the ’ndrangheta:

ASRC:

Tribunale Reggio Calabria, Sentenze, 16/7/1890, n. 301, Arnone Alessandro + 36. Based in Reggio. One of several cases where prostitutes testify against the
picciotti
.

Ditto
, 12/3/1896, Triveri Giacomo + 4. A group tried for petty thefts in Gherio. The criminal association element of the prosecution is not proven.

Ditto
, 16/11/1896, n. 1028, Attinà Domenico + 18. A group based in Condofuri, Casalnuovo and Roccaforte. One witness blames the railways for the spread of the picciotteria. Several local notables testify against the
picciotti
, despite having relatives in the gang, whose members have ‘trying it on with women’ among their aims.

Ditto
, 7/9/1897, Arena Michele + 57. A large group based in Reggio.

Ditto
, 7/10/1899, n. 22. A case based in Melito, which sees
picciotto
Beniamino Capri sentenced to six months for rape and membership of a criminal association.