Because family is at the heart of the Mafia
A Morello-era gangster from Corleone gets tangled up in New Orleans and Chicago Mafia plots before making his escape. "What comes across clearly is that Morello is aggravated that Constantino is still in Bogalusa, but whether he wanted him dead or alive is unclear. He seems equally incensed about Constantino’s coordinates as his 'severely good health.'”
Many consider Luca Patti the first instance of a Sicilian mafioso in recorded history, but his ring appears to have had a predecessor, or possibly competition, in Corleone.
This golden age for the island of Sicily is the time that Mafia propaganda reaches back to for nostalgia.
In 1958, Luciano Leggio started a mafia war that lasted five years, and killed more than fifty people, starting with Dr. Michele Navarra, the former boss in Corleone. The victory was short lived, as police swept up dozens of mafiosi from Corleone and Palermo in the early 1960s. Three major trials were held in mainland Italian... Continue Reading →
How fascism moved from left to right, and the Mafia’s enduring relationship with Freemasonry. The historic relationship between the Mafia and Freemasonry is a fascinating one, for the role that its members have taken in world events. It’s a story that unfolds over centuries, crosses oceans, and takes many turns. But once I started asking... Continue Reading →
"Mafia" is a feminine term that means beautiful and proud. Paradoxically, women are both essential to and excluded from the criminal organization. At the turn of the twentieth century, the mafia in Corleone was led by members of a new agrarian bourgeoisie (“nuova borghesia agraria”) of estate managers for absentee landlords. Author and labor organizer Dino Paternostro... Continue Reading →
The keys to finding a mafia connection in your own Sicilian heritage: know your family, and the world they lived in.
Refrigeration---and the mafia---are both older than you might think.
Even the biographies of well-known mafia figures like Giuseppe Morello are made up, in part, of rumors and legends. Morello was called “The Clutch Hand” because three of the fingers on his right hand were fused at birth. His birth defect did not prevent Morello from learning to write, or to fire a gun. It’s... Continue Reading →
Founders of two of the Five Families of New York, Giuseppe Morello and Gaetano Reina, came from Corleone around the same time as my great-grandparents. They're also family.
Mafia Genealogy 