Calogero Vizzini (; 24 July 1877 – 10 July 1954), also commonly known as "Don Calò", was a Sicilian Mafia boss of Villalba in the province of Caltanissetta, Sicily. He was considered to be one of the most influential and legendary Mafia bosses of Sicily after World War II until his death in 1954. In the media, Don Calò was often depicted as the "boss of bosses" – although such a position does not exist in the loose structure of Cosa Nostra.
Vizzini was the archetype of the paternalistic "man of honour" of a rural Mafia that disappeared in the 1960s and 1970s. In those days, a mafioso was seen by some as a social intermediary and a man standing for order and peace. During the first stage of his career, he used violence to establish his position; the second stage of his career saw him limit his use of violence, turn to principally legal sources of income, and exercise his power in an open and legitimate manner.
Vizzini is the central character in the history of direct Mafia support for the Allied Forces during the invasion of Sicily in 1943. After World War II, he became the personification of the reinstatement of Cosa Nostra during the Allied occupation and the subsequent restoration of democracy after the repression under Fascist rule. Initially, he supported the Sicilian Independence Movement, but changed allegiance to the Christian Democrat party, when it became clear that Sicilian independence was unfeasible.
When Vizzini died in 1954, thousands of peasants dressed in black and his funeral was attended by high-ranking mafiosi, politicians, and priests. The funeral epitaph stated, "His 'mafia' was not criminal, but stood for respect of the law, defense of all rights, greatness of character. It was love." His rise to power and persistence in power was nevertheless tied to extortion, violence, and murder. His stature as an all-powerful Mafia boss rose to mythical proportions, but historians from the 1990s onwards would assert that his magnitude was exaggerated.
Early years 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. This area in the middle of Sicily, known as the "Vallone", was a poor region where most people lived off subsistence agriculture. His father, Beniamino Vizzini, was a peasant who managed to marry into a slightly more well-off family that owned some land. A member of his mother's family, Giuseppe Scarlata, had risen to high eminence in the Catholic Church. Calogero's brothers, Giovanni and Giuseppe (not to be confused with the bishop of Noto of the same name), , Castello Incantato, 13 January 2016 (retrieved on 13 January 2016) both became priests in Villalba. Calogero Vizzini, however, was semi-literate and did not finish elementary school.Hess, Mafia & Mafiosi, p. 49
The Mafia of Villalba was of relatively recent origin, as it did not go back to the 1860s, considered to be the period when the Mafia emerged around Palermo. It started as a form of private protection and has little to do with large estates as was the case in many other rural areas where many mafiosi started as caretakers and lease-holders (gabelloto or bailiff) for absentee landlords.Sabetti, Village Politics and the Mafia in Sicily, p. xix
In the 1890s, some people, including the young Calogero Vizzini, decided to do something about the absence of peace and security in the countryside. The state police at the time was as much a danger as the brigands. The Villalba Mafia thus emerged as an alternative social regime centred on membership in church-sponsored associations that generated considerable social capital. It later transformed into a protection racket, victimizing villagers and landowners alike through violence, intimidation and omertà.
Don Calò once explained how he saw the Mafia when he was interviewed by one of Italy's most famous journalists, Indro Montanelli, for the Corriere della Sera (30 October 1949):
At one time, Vizzini's criminal dossier included 39 murders, six attempted murders, 13 acts of private violence, 36 robberies, 37 thefts and 63 extortions.Servadio, Mafioso, p. 71Sterling, Octopus, p. 55
Early career 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. Mafiosi who did not tolerate any competition controlled the mills. In the case of Villalba, the mills were some 80 kilometres away. To get the grain safely to the mills over roads infested by bandits was no easy task.Lewis, The Honoured Society, p. 47-48
He arranged protection with the bandit Francesco Paolo Varsallona, whose hide-out was in the Cammarata mountains. Caruso, Da cosa nasce cosa, pp. 7-19 Varsallona, an alleged "man of honour", also supplied manpower to noble landowners to repress farmers' revolts. Vizzini enrolled in Varsallona's band while conducting his cancia business. Both were arrested in 1902 when Varsallona's band finally fell into a trap set up by the police. Vizzini stood trial with the rest of the band for "association to commit a crime" – but he was one of the few to be acquitted.
The episode had few negative consequences. In 1908, 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 Vizzini's uncle. Vizzini held 290 hectares for himself and generously left the rest to the bank to lease out to Catholic peasants.Lupo, History of the Mafia, p. 159
World War I and after By 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Vizzini was the undisputed head of the Mafia in Villalba. The war provided the mafiosi with new opportunities for self-enrichment when the Italian Army requisitioned horses and mules in Sicily for the cavalry and artillery. Vizzini came to an agreement with the Army Commission to delegate the responsibilities to him. He collected a poll tax on the animals whose owners wanted to avoid requisition. He was also 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.Lewis, The Honoured Society, p. 49-50
However, too many horses and mules died of diseases or old age before they even reached the battlefield and the army ordered an inquiry. In 1917, 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. He made his fortune on the black market during World War I, and expanded his activities to the sulphur mines. As a representative of a consortium of sulphur mine operators, Vizzini participated in high-level meetings in Rome and London concerning government subsidies and tariffs, next to such men as Guido Donegani of Montecatini chemical industries and Guido Jung, Finance minister during Benito Mussolini's fascist regime.Lupo, History of the Mafia, pp. 13-14
Don Calò further established his fortune in 1922 when he led disgruntled peasants who grabbed land from the aristocratic absentee landlords. Vizzini bought three estates in the Villalba region; he divided them up and handed them over – allegedly without making a penny, according to some – to a cooperative he had founded.Hess, Mafia & Mafiosi, p. 77 According to a local villager, although every peasant got a plot, Don Calò kept more than 12,000 acres (49 km2) for himself."Villalba Journal; How Don Calo (and Patton) Won the War in Sicily", The New York Times, 24 May 1994
At the time, according to German sociologist , Vizzini could easily have had himself elected as a parliamentary deputy. Nevertheless, he preferred to remain in the background and instead advise voters and elected officials, playing the role of benevolent benefactor, strengthening his clientele and prestige. He 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. Il capo della mafia siciliana ha lasciato un miliardo ai nipoti, La Stampa, 13 July 1954
The authorities, however, had him listed as a dangerous criminal. A 1926 police report described Vizzini as a "dangerous cattle rustler, the Mafia boss of the province linked with cattle rustlers and Mafiosi of other provinces."Badolati & Dodaro, Il Mammasantissima, pp. 25-26 With the rise of Mussolini and Fascist rule, Vizzini's fortunes changed. Mussolini did not tolerate a rival power on Sicily. He appointed Cesare Mori as the prefect of Palermo and granted special powers to persecute the Mafia. Vizzini claimed to have been incarcerated by Mori, but there are no historical records. Don Calò was tried and acquitted on 8 January 1931. However, the police decided to send him to the confinement in Basilicata. He returned to Villalba in 1937 and no one dared to persecute him anymore. Despite the confinement, he was seen regularly in Villalba and Caltanissetta and not being blatantly fascist, he lived his life in peace.Manica, Mafia e politica tra fascismo e postfascismo, p. 253
Alleged support for allied invasion of Sicily
In July 1943, Calogero Vizzini allegedly helped the American army during the invasion of Sicily during World War II (Operation Husky). In the US, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) had recruited mafia support to protect the New York City waterfront from Axis powers sabotage since the US had entered the war in December 1941. The ONI collaborated with Lucky Luciano and his partner Meyer Lansky, a Jewish mobster, in what was called Operation Underworld. The resulting Mafia contacts were also used by the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) – the wartime predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – during the invasion of Sicily. Later, the alliance was maintained in order to check the growing strength of the Italian Communist Party on the island., The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, Alfred W. McCoy.
Popular myth has it that a US Army airplane had flown over Villalba on the day of the invasion and dropped a yellow silk foulard marked with a black L (indicating Luciano). Three US tanks drove into Villalba two days later after a journey of about 50 kilometres through enemy occupied territory. Vizzini then allegedly climbed aboard and drove for six days through western Sicily in support of the advancing US troops of General Patton's Third Division. This would have made it clear to the locals that the Americans depended on the Mafia, who navigated the advancing troops through the intricate mountain terrain and protected the roads from snipers while providing an enthusiastic welcome to the liberators., Time, 5 August 1966, review of the book The Mafia and Politics by Michele Pantaleone, the translation of Mafia e politica, originally published in 1962 in which the legend was first written down.Pantaleone, Mafia and Politics, pp. 54-60Dickie, Cosa Nostra, pp. 235-40
This account of Vizzini and the legend of Luciano's foulard was first published by the journalist Michele Pantaleone, a native of the village of Villalba, in the newspaper L'Ora in October 1958 (and later republished in his 1962 book Mafia e politica, that was translated in English and published as Mafia and Politics in 1966). However, this version was already refuted in 1963 by another Mafia boss, Nick Gentile, who had approached the journalist Felice Chilanti to write his memoirs. Chilanti agreed and interviewed Gentile for L'Ora.Dovizio, Verità o falsificazione?, p. 119–120 According to Gentile, who also worked for the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT):