61 Facts About Calogero Vizzini

Calogero Vizzini was considered to be one of the most influential and legendary Mafia bosses of Sicily after World War II until his death in 1954.

Calogero Vizzini is the central character in the history of direct Mafia support for the Allied Forces during the invasion of Sicily in 1943.

When Calogero Vizzini died in 1954, thousands of peasants dressed in black and his funeral was attended by high-ranking mafiosi, politicians, and priests.

Calogero Vizzini was born on 24 July 1877 in Villalba, a village in the province of Caltanissetta, with a population of approximately 4,000 people at the time.

Calogero Vizzini's father, Beniamino Vizzini, was a peasant who managed to marry into a slightly more well-off family that owned some land.

Calogero Vizzini was semi-literate and did not finish elementary school.

Calogero Vizzini became a cancia, an intermediary between the peasants who wanted their wheat milled into flour and the mills that were located near the coast.

Calogero Vizzini arranged protection with the bandit Francesco Paolo Varsallona, whose hide-out was in the Cammarata mountains.

Calogero Vizzini enrolled in Varsallona's band while conducting his cancia business.

In 1908, Calogero Vizzini was able to acquire a substantial part of the Belici estate when he brokered a deal between the owner, duke Francesco Thomas de Barberin who resided in Paris, and the local rural bank Cassa Rurale, whose president, the priest Scarlata, was Calogero Vizzini's uncle.

Calogero Vizzini held 290 hectares for himself and generously left the rest to the bank to lease out to Catholic peasants.

Calogero Vizzini came to an agreement with the Army Commission to delegate the responsibilities to him.

Calogero Vizzini collected a poll tax on the animals whose owners wanted to avoid requisition.

Calogero Vizzini was the broker for animals that were rustled for the occasion, buying at a low price from the rustlers and selling at market prices to the Army.

In 1917, Calogero Vizzini was sentenced to 20 years in the first instance for fraud, corruption and murder, but he was absolved thanks to powerful friends who exonerated him.

Calogero Vizzini made his fortune on the black market during World War I, and expanded his activities to the sulphur mines.

Calogero Vizzini was present at a dinner in July 1922 with the future ruler of Italy, Benito Mussolini, in Milan and supported the March on Rome by Mussolini in October 1922, financing the column that marched from Sicily.

Calogero Vizzini appointed Cesare Mori as the prefect of Palermo and granted special powers to persecute the Mafia.

Calogero Vizzini claimed to have been incarcerated by Mori, but there are no historical records.

Calogero Vizzini returned to Villalba in 1937 and no one dared to persecute him anymore.

In July 1943, Calogero Vizzini allegedly helped the American army during the invasion of Sicily during World War II.

Calogero Vizzini was unknown in other parts of Sicily at the time and had no overall power since Prefect Mori's operations had disconnected the network of the Mafia.

Calogero Vizzini was taken to a command post outside Villalba and was interrogated about a recent firefight involving an American jeep on patrol.

When Calogero Vizzini made it clear that the Italian soldiers had fled and the firefight had been caused by exploding ammunition, the frustrated US army official took his rage out in a stream of obscenities.

Calogero Vizzini was utterly embarrassed by the incident and ordered his interpreter not to tell anybody what had happened.

Calogero Vizzini had a long record of involvement with Catholic social funds and there were several clergymen in his family.

Calogero Vizzini claimed to have acted as a peacemaker; only his intervention saved his Fascist predecessor from being lynched.

Calogero Vizzini would become an important player in the midst of the separatist crisis later on.

On 6 December 1943, Calogero Vizzini participated in the first clandestine regional convention of the Sicilian separatists movement of the Sicilian Independence Movement in Catania.

Calogero Vizzini's presence suggested the Mafia's support for independence, and aided the conservative wing in their attempt to control the movement.

Later, Calogero Vizzini represented the Fronte Democratico d'Ordine Siciliano, a satellite political organization of the separatist movement.

Many of its members were "lieutenants in the high Mafia" and Calogero Vizzini was considered its leader.

Calogero Vizzini started to establish cordial relations with Mafia leaders.

Calogero Vizzini gained the cooperation of Vizzini, who had supported separatism but was now prepared for a change in the island's political situation in the direction of regional autonomy.

Calogero Vizzini welcomed Vizzini's joining the DC in an article in the Catholic newspaper Il Popolo in 1945.

Calogero Vizzini was in a fierce dispute over the lease of the large estate Micciche of the Trabia family in Palermo, with a peasant cooperative headed by Michele Pantaleone who had founded the Italian Socialist Party in Villalba.

Calogero Vizzini had tried hard to persuade Pantaleone to marry his niece, but failed.

Calogero Vizzini had agreed to permit the meeting as long as land problems, the large estates, or the Mafia were not addressed.

Six months later Calogero Vizzini acquired the lease for the Micciche estate.

Calogero Vizzini "assured them that they were free to hold their meeting without any fear of disturbance if they were careful enough not to speak on local matters".

Calogero Vizzini admitted that he interrupted Li Causi, but denied that he had ignited the violence.

Calogero Vizzini was never convicted because by the time of the verdict, he was already dead.

In 1950, Lucky Luciano was photographed in front of the Hotel Sole in the centre of old Palermo, frequently the residence of Don Calo Calogero Vizzini, talking with Don Calo's bodyguards.

Calogero Vizzini's network reached the United States where he knew the future family boss Angelo Annaloro of Philadelphia, known as Angelo Bruno, who was born in Villalba.

The Italian journalist Luigi Barzini, who claimed to know Calogero Vizzini well, described his stature and daily life in Villalba in his book The Italians:.

Calogero Vizzini listened, then called one of his henchmen, gave a few orders, and summoned the next petitioner.

Calogero Vizzini was squat with skinny legs and a protruding stomach.

Calogero Vizzini always wore tinted spectacles, as you can see on photographs.

Calogero Vizzini's mouth was always open, with his lower lip hanging out.

Calogero Vizzini looked dim-witted, for those who did not know him.

Calogero Vizzini's power was not restricted to just his hometown but reached the high offices on Sicily as well.

Calogero Vizzini always tried to 'accommodate' matters and bring people to reason, that is to say, in the way he had decided how people and things should be.

Don Calo Calogero Vizzini died on 10 July 1954, at the age of 76, while entering Villalba in an ambulance that was transporting him home from a clinic in Palermo.

An elegy for Calogero Vizzini was pinned to the church door.

Calogero Vizzini showed with words and deeds that his Mafia was not criminal.

Calogero Vizzini left approximately two billion lire worth of sulphur, land, houses and varied investments.

However, her parents lived in the United States and brought her over, and Calogero Vizzini did not want to leave his native Villalba.

Calogero Vizzini did make sure that local peasants got their share of land, once he had secured his cut.

When land-reform was finally enacted in 1950, mafiosi like Calogero Vizzini were in a position to perform their traditional role of brokerage between the peasants, the landlords, and the state.

Don Calo Calogero Vizzini was the archetype of the paternalistic "man of honour" of a bygone age, that of a rural and semi-feudal Sicily that existed until the 1960s, where a mafioso was seen by some as a social intermediary and a man standing for order and peace.

Calogero Vizzini represented a Mafia that controlled power and did not let power control them, according to German sociologist Henner Hess.