Bernardo Mattarella (15 September 1905 – 1 March 1971) was an Italian politician for the Christian Democrat party (DC). He was a cabinet minister of Italy several times, becoming one of the most important politicians of his generation.
He was the father of Piersanti and Sergio Mattarella, who both went on to become important politicians in their own right; Sergio has been the President of the Italian Republic since 3 February 2015, and Piersanti was President of the Regional Government of Sicily prior to being assassinated in 1980 by the Mafia.
Early life and political career Bernardo Mattarella was born in Castellammare del Golfo, in the province of Trapani in western Sicily, as the eldest of seven children in a family of humble origins. He was the son of Santo Mattarella, a sailor, and Caterina Di Falco.Bolignani, Bernardo Mattarella: biografia politica di un cattolico siciliano, p. 11 In 1924, he became the secretary of the Italian People's Party (PPI), the predecessor of the Christian Democrat party (DC), in Castellammare. , portale "Alcide De Gasperi nella storia d'Europa" (Accessed 8 June 2011)
An anti-fascist, he graduated in law in Palermo, where he lived until the Allied invasion of Sicily. He moved to Rome, where he took part in the founding of the DC in May 1943 with Alcide De Gasperi. After the invasion of Sicily by allied forces in July 1943, he moved back to Palermo where he became one of the co-founders of the DC on the island and was nominated in the municipal council of Palermo by the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT).
Positions in the Italian Government Mattarella held the position of Deputy Minister for Public Education in the governments led by Ivanoe Bonomi (1944–1945). In June 1946, he was elected to the Italian Constituent Assembly and in 1948 to the new Republican Parliament. He would be re-elected in 1953, 1958, 1963 and 1968.
In 1953, after having been Minister of the Merchant Navy under De Gasperi's short-lived government, he became Minister of Transportation, a position he maintained until 1955. Later he was Minister of Foreign Trade and Minister of Post and Communications. A favourable evaluation of his work as the Minister of Foreign Trade and of Post and Communications is expressed in Guido Carli's memories.Carli, G. (1996) Cinquant'anni di vita italiana, Laterza, pp. 119 and 147 In 1962 he was again Minister of Transportation and, in the following year, of Agriculture and Forests. In 1963–66 he was again Minister of Foreign Trades.
Attitude towards Sicilian separatism Mattarella was the main opponent of the Sicilian separatism, which had some influence in the years following the end of World War II. He expressed his concern in an article published in 1944 attacking the leader of the separatists, Andrea Finocchiaro Aprile: "This man speaks of democracy, but he has the grave fault of having gathered and tried to strengthen the most dangerous and oppressing organization which, for long years, has afflicted our land."Popolo e Libertà, 3 June 1944
Accusations of links with the Mafia Mattarella has been accused several times of having links with the Sicilian Mafia. These accusations were always rejected in court. The alleged links between Mattarella and the Mafia are described in several reports and books. According to a report of the section of the Communist Party of Trapani, which was reproduced in the final report of the Antimafia Commission in 1976, Mattarella had an excellent relationship with the Mafia boss of Alcamo, Vincenzo Rimi. Relazione conclusiva, Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sul fenomeno della mafia in Sicilia, Rome 1976, p. 813-815Casarrubea, "'Fra' diavolo' e il governo nero", p. 84 The Communist minority of the Parliamentary Antimafia Commission described Mattarella as the man "who had striven to absorb Mafia forces into the Christian Democrats so as to use them as an instrument of power."Orlando, Fighting the Mafia and Renewing Sicilian Culture, p. 47
He was accused of having approached Calogero Vizzini, supposedly the most influential Mafia boss at the time to abandon the Sicilian separatists and join the Christian Democrats. The accusation was made by the Italian communists on the basis of an article that Mattarella published on the national Christian democrat newspaper, Il Popolo, on 24 September 1944. This article does not contain any invitation neither to Vizzini nor to the Mafia to join the Christian Democrats. On the contrary, the article accused two families of the town of Villalba (Vizzini and Cipolla) of being responsible of the violence in that town. The article was addressed to those who had voted for the separatists, which were invited to change their vote.See e.g. the article of Li Causi, leader of the Sicilian communists, in their newspaper La voce comunista, on 21 July 1946
In a letter to Luigi Sturzo, written shortly after the election of the Constituent Assembly of Italy in 1946, Mattarella wrote about the electoral and political influence of the Mafia: "The electoral fight has been hard and tiring, but it has granted us the result of the full failure of the Mafia: it has been defeated by the state ballot, which has freed electors from old style pressures, which have been now and then renewed."Letter of 29 June 1946. See De Marco, Sturzo e la Sicilia nel secondo dopoguerra (1943–1959), S.E.I., Torino 1996, 47 According to a report of the Carabinieri on the electoral campaign of 1946 in Salemi, Mattarella gathered with known mafiosi, among them Ignazio Salvo, one of the Salvo cousins who became intermediates between the Mafia and the DC.Hess, Mafia & mafiosi, p. 159 Deaglio, Il raccolto rosso, 1982–2010, p. 137Dickie, pp. 423–24
Mattarella supported Vito Ciancimino – the first Italian politician to be found guilty of Mafia membership. Ciancimino became a protégé of Mattarella, who supported his political and financial career. In 1950 Ciancimino obtained concessions for all railway transport inside Palermo. The three other firms that had made a bid were put out of the game, because Ciancimino's bid was accompanied by a letter of Mattarella, who was then Minister of Transports. Relazione conclusiva, Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sul fenomeno della mafia in Sicilia, Rome 1976, p. 223-224Servadio, pp. 207–8Chubb, Judith (1982) Patronage, power, and poverty in southern Italy, Cambridge University Press, , p. 145
Portella della Ginestra massacre He was accused of being one of the men behind the Portella della Ginestra massacre, when 11 persons were killed and 33 wounded during May Day celebrations in Sicily on 1 May 1947. The bloodbath was perpetrated by the bandit Salvatore Giuliano who was possibly backed by the Mafia. In the Portella della Ginestra massacre trial in 1950–51 in Viterbo, Giuliano's right-hand man Gaspare Pisciotta said: "Those who have made promises to us are called Bernardo Mattarella, Prince Alliata, the monarchist MP Marchesano and also Signor Scelba, Minister for Home Affairs ... it was Marchesano, Prince Alliata and Bernardo Mattarella who ordered the massacre of Portella di Ginestra. Before the massacre they met Giuliano..." Mattarella, Alliata and Marchesano were declared innocent by the Court of Appeal of Palermo, at a trial which dealt with their alleged role in the event.Servadio, pp. 128–9, which is actually inaccurate on this point, as Mattarella was never put under investigation nor under trial for the Portella della Ginestra bloodbath. In the trial, the accused persons were Alliata, Marchesano and Cusumano, who had been accused by Giuseppe Montalbano, a communist member of Parliament (Audition of on. Giuseppe Montalbano before the Parliamentary Commission of Enquiry on Mafia in Sicily – Report on the relation between Mafia and banditry, approved on 10 February 1972, document XXIII n. 2-sexies).
The Court of Viterbo decided that Pisciotta had made false accusations. In his final statement the public prosecutor affirmed that Pisciotta was unreliable and that his accusations against Scelba and Mattarella were untrustworthy. Tito Parlatore, L'eccidio di Portella della ginestra, requisitoria pronunziata al processo celebrato a Viterbo dinanzi alla Corte d'Assise, Roma: Senza editore, 1954, pp. 178–195 and 318–331 Strage di Portella. Appello 1956. Parte seconda, Blog di Giuseppe Casarrubea, 6 August 2008 During the trial, Giuliano's mother and some members of the gang said that Pisciotta's statements were part of a plot designed to put the investigations on the wrong track.Sheet 491 of the minutes of the hearing of 24 July 1951, when Maria Lombardo (Giuliano’s mother) said that Mr. Crisafulli (Pisciotta's attorney) had asked her to be part of the plot. This was confirmed before the Parliamentary Antimafia Commission by two more members of the gang, who had joined Pisciotta in this plot.Proceedings of the Parliamentary Commission for the enquiry of the phenomenon of Mafia: Camera dei Deputati – Commissione parlamentare di inchiesta sul fenomeno della mafia in Sicilia – Report on the relation between Mafia and banditry, approved on 10 February 1972 (document XXIII n. 2-sexies), p. 569 (audition of Frank Mannino, inmate, member of the Giuliano gang) and p. 639 (audition of Antonino Terranova, inmate, member of the Giuliano gang). "It was simply an infamous act that even the toughness of the political game cannot justify," Mattarella later said about the accusation.Servadio, p. 159
According to some sources, he had opposed the constitution of the Parliamentary Antimafia Commission in 1958.Servadio, p. 197 Others maintain that he had been the only Sicilian minister in the Government of the time who was favourable to its constitution. In an interview in the newspaper Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, he put forward several proposals that influenced the constitution of the Commission in 1963.See the proceedings of the colloquium Cattolici, Chiesa e mafia, University of Messina, 27–29 November 2003
Accusations by Danilo Dolci
The Antimafia activist Danilo Dolci also accused Mattarella of collusion with the Mafia. Dolci had been gathering evidence on the links between the Mafia and politicians for the Antimafia Commission, which was established in 1963. At a press conference in September 1965, he presented dozen of testimonies of people who had supposedly seen Mattarella meeting with leading mafiosi.Bess, Michael (1993), Realism, utopia, and the mushroom cloud: four activist intellectuals and their strategies for peace, 1945–1989, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, , pp. 194–97 Danilo Dolci e la dimensione utopica , di Livio Ghersi (accessed 2 March 2011) Mattarella sued Dolci and his assistant Alasia for libel. Mattarella's lawsuit for libel allowed Dolci "ampia facoltà di prova", meaning that the defendant would have been declared innocent if he had been able to show that he had offended the plaintiff on the basis of true evidence. In the ensuing two-year trial, dozens of witnesses were heard and many documents were considered. Dolci made an application for an amnesty, but was sentenced to two years imprisonment for libel. He never served the verdict, because of a general pardon.