by John Dickie
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.
ASC:
Corte di Appello delle Calabrie, Guzzi Giovanni + 2, 4/9/1877. A case in Nicastro involving ex-cons.
Sezione accusa, Zema Demetrio + 5, 23/10/1878. A case in Gallina (just outside Reggio Calabria) where a man imprisoned for assault in 1872 was released in 1876 and formed a criminal association. The gang, who practised extortion, are accused of shooting a man in the head for offending Zema’s ‘concubine’.
Sezione accusa, Serraino Giuseppe + 7, 23/12/1879. Here the ‘criminal association’ charge is dismissed.
Sezione accusa, Battista Antonino + 16, 17/12/1879. A group of thieves, one of whom had a record as a prison camorrista, but who do not create a formal criminal association; based in the Palmi area.
Sezione accusa, Voce Vincenzo + 2, 30/06/1882. A classic tale of factional rivalry between wealthy families rather than an organised crime episode. Three brothers in Bruzzano are accused of hiring a killer to eliminate one of the opposing clan; one of the brothers is a judge.
Sezione accusa, Barbaro Felice + 6, 23/4/1883. Municipal corruption in the Locride. As yet no criminal association element, it would seem. This case and the previous one show the Calabria that would prove vulnerable to the emergence of the picciotteria.
Corte di Appello delle Calabrie, Crocè Paolo + 3, 22/3/1884. Four picciotti from Reggio Calabria appeal against their convictions.
Sezione accusa, Anania Giuseppe + 27, 21/4/1884. The first signs of the picciotteria in Nicastro, dating back to 1883. All of the accused are ex-cons, and they have links with Ciccio Cappuccio, the ‘Little Lord Frankie’ of the Neapolitan camorra. Pimping is their primary source of income.
Sezione accusa, Romeo Bruno + 27, 7/12/1899. Picciotti from S. Cristina.
Sezione accusa, Auteri Felice + 316, 7/12/1899. The picciotteria centred in Iatrinoli, Radicena and Cittanova in the Plain of Gioia Tauro. A vast prosecution based on the evidence of a killer from the gang who was not offered help by his comrades once he had been arrested. The leader is a 39-year-old shepherd. He and his men stole cattle and forced landowners to take picciotti on as guards.
Corte di Appello delle Calabrie, Auteri Felice + 229, 25/2/1901. A later stage in the same trial—the document is particularly insightful on the picciotti’s attitude to women. Ciconte reads this trial as an example of dynastic marriages in the picciotteria. But while there are two marriages mentioned, it seems to me that we are still clearly in a milieu dominated by face-slashings and petty conflicts of ‘honour’ over prostitutes, of a kind familiar from the world of the Neapolitan camorra. The bosses, nonetheless, are said to have ‘risen from squalor’ and ‘accumulated a fortune’.
Sources consulted throughout this section:
P. Bevilacqua, ‘Uomini, terre, economie’ in P. Bevilacqua and A. Placanica, Storia d’Italia. Le regioni dall’Unità a oggi, La Calabria, Turin, 1985. Another fundamental study, which is particularly good on the vulnerability of the peasantry. Again it would be interesting to match this account of the family’s role in the peasant economy with what we know about the nature of the picciotteria. For the moment, it is the contrast between the peasant family and the gangs that is most striking.
V. Cappelli, ‘Politica e politici’, in P. Bevilacqua and A. Placanica, Storia d’Italia. Le regioni dall’Unità a oggi, La Calabria, Turin, 1985. Particularly important for the effects of the electoral reforms of the 1880s.
E. Ciconte, ’Ndrangheta dall’Unità a oggi, Rome-Bari, 1992. Ciconte in particular identifies evidence of what he believes is a mafia presence in Calabria before the 1880s. My interpretation of that evidence, broadly speaking, is that it represents localised instances where the prison camorra established a temporary bridgehead in the outside world—a bridgehead that would turn into a full-scale colonisation in the 1880s and 1890s. The quotation about ‘the wails of the wounded and dying’ being audible before the Angelus is cited from Ciconte, p. 211.
G. Cingari, ‘Tra brigantaggio e “picciotteria”: Giuseppe Musolino’, in idem, Brigantaggio, proprietari e contadini nel Sud, Reggio Calabria, 1976.
G. Cingari, Storia della Calabria dall’Unità a oggi, Rome-Bari, 1983.
G. Cingari, Reggio Calabria, Rome-Bari, 1988.
Cronaca di Calabria. This weekly has occasionally good coverage of the picciotteria emergency. For the quotation from the initiation ritual (‘Are you comfortable? Very comfortable!’), see ‘La mala vita a Palmi’, 30/09/1896. The Trimboli testimony on the myth of the Spanish knights is in ‘La mala vita a Palmi’, 11/03/1897. On the ‘innately wicked’ well-to-do africoti, see 12/03/1896.
F. Piselli and G. Arrighi, ‘Parentela, clientela e comunità’, in P. Bevilacqua and A. Placanica, Storia d’Italia. Le regioni dall’Unità a oggi. La Calabria, Turin, 1985. Important on society and the economy in the Plain of Gioia Tauro, but does not square that socio-economic profile with the available evidence on the nature of the early picciotteria.
13. Harsh mountain
K. Baedeker, Italy. Handbook for Travellers. Third Part: Southern Italy and Sicily, London, 1869.
P. Borzomati, La Calabria dal 1882 al 1892 nei rapporti dei prefetti, Reggio Calabria, 2001. Contains the first reports on a substantial mafia presence in Reggio.
L. Costanzo, Storia delle ferrovie in Calabria, Cosenza, 2005.
L. Franchetti, Condizioni economiche ed amministrative delle province napoletane, Florence, 1875. Franchetti does use the m-word on one occasion, on p. 155. ‘I hear tell that quite a few big landowners who live in the big cities are, as it were, excluded from their estates by a kind of maffia of middle-class people who rent those estates. But this phenomenon is not as generalised as some people seem to believe’. Franchetti does not give enough information for us to be able to interpret this observation. We know of course that he would go on to write a famous study of the ‘middle-class villains’ of Sicily (his ter
m), so we can be sure that the Tuscan intellectual had no qualms about denouncing the mafia when he saw it. The best we can do, perhaps, is to add this isolated note to the list of fragmentary sightings of Calabrian mafiosi before the 1880s.
F. Manduca, Studii sociologici, Naples, 1888. Manduca, a magistrate, tells us that as chief prosecuting magistrate (procuratore del Re) in Reggio Calabria he was friends with some politicians who had been imprisoned under the Bourbons who, they alleged, put mafiosi and camorristi in their cells to provoke them and cause trouble; they had to defend themselves with knives. We can add this reference to the list of early mentions of organised crime in Calabria.
G. Verga, ‘Fantasticheria’, in idem, Vita dei campi, Milan, 1880.
U. Zanotti-Bianco, ‘Tra la perduta gente—Africo’, in idem, Tra la perduta gente, Milan, 1959.
The following maps allow one to trace the progress of railway construction through the areas of ‘high mafia density’ (to use an Italian phrase) in Calabria:
Corpo di Stato Maggiore, Carta delle strade ferrate del Regno d’Italia in esercizio nell’Aprile del 1869.
Comando del Corpo di Stato Maggiore (Direzione Trasporti), Carta delle ferrovie e delle linee di navigazione del Regno d’Italia, Istituto Topografico Militare, gennaio 1877.
Ditta Artaria, Carta speciale delle ferrovie e della navigazione in Europa, Milan, 1878.
Comando del Corpo di Stato Maggiore (Direzione Trasporti), Carta delle ferrovie e della linee di navigazione del Regno d’Italia, Istituto Geografico Militare, 1883.
Carta delle ferrovie, telegrafi, tramways a vapore e corsi d’acqua navigabili del Regno, Milan, 1886.
Cesare Ramoni, Ferrovie italiane nel 1890. Carta completa delle reti ferroviarie, Milan, 1890.
Istituto Geografico Militare, Carta delle ferrovie e delle linee di navigazione del Regno d’Italia, Edizione giugno 1891.
Carta della ferrovie e delle linee di navigazione del Regno d’Italia, Istituto Geografico Militare, gennaio 1894.
The figure of 1,854 people successfully prosecuted for membership of the picciotteria between 1885 and 1902 comes from a speech by the prosecutor Sansone in the Musolino trial, as reported in Giornale d’Italia, 1/5/1902.
14. The tree of knowledge
I have used the following documents to try and reconstruct the emergence of the ’ndrangheta in the Plain of Gioia Tauro chronologically:
ASC, Sezione Accusa. Corte d’appello di Catanzaro, Lisciotto Francesco + 23, v. 133, 18/1/1889.
ASC, Sezione Accusa. Corte d’appello di Catanzaro, Sciarrone Giovanbattista + 95, v. 137, 21/2/1890.
ASC, Corte d’appello delle Calabrie. Tripodi Carmine, v. 323, 27/8/1890.
ASC, Corte d’appello delle Calabrie. Calia Michelangelo + 65, v. 324, 14/10/1890.
ASC, Corte d’appello delle Calabrie. Marino Francesco + 147, v. 336, 9/9/1892. The trial that mentions the two oathed women members of the picciotteria.
ASC, Corte d’appello delle Calabrie. Saccà Rocco + 45, v. 364, 31/5/1897. This is the trial based on the testimony of Pasquale Trimboli, who gives us our first evidence of the myth of the three Spanish knights.
La Ragione. This local paper was threatened by the picciotti and covered its emergence in Palmi in 1888 closely. The paper was also concerned about the relationship between the police and the gangs: ‘the police should not trust anyone they pay for information, because such people perhaps belong to the gangs themselves: instead of uncovering the criminal cabals, these informers help cover them up’ (1/4/1888).
Zivì. A radical paper that on 16/6/1895 complains about the overly friendly relations between the police and picciotti in Palmi.
F. Arcà, Calabria vera. Appunti statistici ed economici sulla provincial di Reggio, Reggio Calabria, 1907.
G.A. Carbone, ‘Cenni sull’agricoltura ed industrie agrarie del circondario di Palmi’, L’Agricoltura e le Industrie Agrarie, 15/4/1893. The first of a series of articles running until 15/10/1893 that are essential on the economic background to the emergence of the picciotteria.
N. Marcone, Un viaggio in Calabria. Impressioni e ricordi, Roma, 1885.
15. Darkest Africo
The following court documents from the ASRC constitute the most concentrated documentation from any early ’ndrangheta trial. They include the voluminous court papers, including witness statements, and the judges’ rulings from the four trials of the Africo picciotteria: three groups of defendants prosecuted separately as part of the same criminal association and a smaller group accused of murdering the main witness in the case, Pietro Maviglia.
ASRC, Tribunale penale di Reggio, b. 750, inv. 68, vol. 1, 2. Associazione a delinquere 1887–1894.
ASRC, Tribunale penale di Reggio, b. 154, inv. 68, fasc. 4. Assise RC. Procedimento contro Callea Domenico +10 per l’omicidio di Maviglia Pietro 1894.
ASRC, Tribunale penale di Reggio, b. 543, inv. 68, no. 3069. Procedimento contro Ioffrida Domenico di Roghudi + 39 associazione a delinquere 1896.
ASRC, Tribunale Reggio Calabria, Sentenza 25/3/1896, Velonà Filippo + 29.
ASRC, Tribunale Reggio Calabria, Sentenza 27/4/1896, n. 210, Ioffrida Domenico + 39.
ASRC, Tribunale Reggio Calabria, Sentenza 26/5/1896, n. 444, Favasuli Bartolo + 29.
C. Alvaro, Polsi nell’arte, nella leggenda, nella storia, Reggio Calabria, 2005 (1912).
G. Chirico, Una vicenda giudiziaria di associazione per delinquere di tipo mafioso nella provincia di Reggio Calabria (1890–1900), Tesi di Laurea, Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, Università degli Studi di Messina, 1989–90. A precocious analysis of part of the above material.
P. Martino, ‘Per la storia della ’Ndrànghita’, Biblioteca di Ricerche Linguistiche e Filologiche, vol. 25, no. 1, 1988. Very useful on the jargon of the picciotteria and its derivation.
G. Postiglione, Relazione statistica dei lavori compiuti nel circondario del tribunale civile e penale di Palmi nell’anno 1890, Palmi, 1891.
J. Steinberg, The Number. One man’s search for identity in the Cape underworld and prison gangs, Johannesburg, 2004.
F. Varese, The Russian Mafia. Private Protection in a New Market Economy, Oxford, 2001. An excellent account of the Russian mafia.
16. The King of Aspromonte
Archival sources:
ASRC, Gabinetto di Prefettura, n. 1089, Associazione a delinquere in S. Stefano, b. 27, inv. 34. Mangione’s reports on the picciotteria in Musolino’s hometown. Includes remarkable material on Musolino’s sisters.
ASRC, Gabinetto di Prefettura, Serie prima, affari riservati. Bandito Musolino. The vast collection of documents on the Musolino case.
See for example:
Ditto, b. 2, fasc. 11. Delegati di PS impegnati nella cattura di Musolino, sottofasc. Mangione. On the policeman who investigated the picciotteria in Santo Stefano.
Ditto, b. 2, fasc. 23. Stampa. Notizie sul brigante Musolino. Press clippings on Musolino that show how worried the authorities were about the growth of his mythical status as an innocent avenger.
Ditto, b. 2, fasc. 13. Favoreggiatori. A collection of false leads from all over Italy and the USA.
Press:
I have followed the Musolino trial in Giornale d’Italia and Avanti! (April–June, 1902).
G. Cingari, ‘Tra brigantaggio e “picciotteria”: Giuseppe Musolino’, in idem, Brigantaggio, proprietari e contadini nel Sud, Reggio Calabria, 1976. Fundamental for all aspects of the Musolino case. The brigand’s open letter to La Tribuna, dated 28/3/1900, is quoted from Cingari.
N. Douglas, Old Calabria, London, 1983 (1915).
E. Morselli and S. De Sanctis, Biografia di un bandito. Giuseppe Musolino di fronte alla psichiatria ed alla sociologia, Milan, 1903.
M. Pascoli, Lungo la vita di Giovanni Pascoli, Milan, 1961.
A. Rossi, ‘Alla ricerca di Musolino’, L’Adriatico, 11/2/1901. The first of a brilliant series of twenty articles (most published under the title ‘Nel regno di Musolino’) running until 6/4/1901.
PART V: ME
DIA DONS
17. Bankers and Men of Honour / 18. Floriopolis / 19. Four trials and a funeral
ACS, DGPS, aa.gg.rr. Atti speciali (1898–1940), b. 1, fasc. 1, ‘The Sangiorgi Report’. It is worth noting that there were some links between Palizzolo and the mafiosi detailed in Sangiorgi’s report. The MP provided character references for some of the Men of Honour whose gun licences the chief of police confiscated. Palizzolo’s favourite Villabate cosca sold stolen cattle through the same Palermo butcher who hosted summits attended by Antonino Giammona, Francesco Siino, et al.
There is information on Sangiorgi’s activities as chief of police of Palermo in the Sangiorgi career files, including the transfer notification telegram I quote.
The best accounts of the Notarbartolo affair are in:
S. Lupo, Storia della mafia, Rome, 1996. The quote from the police on Palizzolo as ‘the mafia’s patron’ is quoted on p. 115. Lupo also describes Ignazio Florio’s free ride during the trial as ‘miraculous’.
G. Barone, ‘Egemonie urbane e potere locale (1882–1913)’, in M. Aymard and G. Giarrizzo (eds), Storia d’Italia. Le regioni dall’Unità a oggi. La Sicilia, Turin, 1987. Florio on the mafia as ‘an invention created to calumny Sicily’ is quoted on p. 317. The quotation about the fear among honest journalists is from p. 314. Cosenza quoted on the ‘priests of Themis’ is on p. 325.
There are also useful points in:
F. Renda, Socialisti e cattolici in Sicilia (1900–1904), Caltanissetta, 1972.
F. Renda, Storia della mafia, Palermo, 1997. The quotation on ‘the high mafia planned the murder long in advance’ is on p. 147.
N. Colajanni, La Sicilia dai borboni ai sabaudi (1860–1900), Milan, 1951.
L. Notarbartolo, Memorie della vita di mio padre, Pistoia, 1949. On the Tribuna Giudiziaria being close to Cosenza, see p. 365.
R. Poma, Onorevole alzatevi!, Florence, 1976. Quotes the lines on the Florence verdict hailed as a sign of national unity.
S. Sonnino, Diario 1866–1912, vol. 1, Bari, 1972. On the possibility of an early election due to the first Notarbartolo trial.
