Vittorio De Sica was an Italian film director and actor, a leading figure in the neorealist movement.
Alberto Sordi was an Italian actor, voice actor, singer, comedian, director and screenwriter.
Mario Alberto Ettore Monicelli was an Italian film director and screenwriter and one of the masters of the Commedia all'Italiana. He was nominated six times for an Oscar, and was awarded the Golden Lion for his career.
Bernardo Provenzano was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia clan known as the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the town of Corleone, and de facto the boss of bosses. His nickname was Binnu u tratturi because, in the words of one informant, "he mows people down." Another nickname was il ragioniere due to his apparently subtle and low-key approach to running his crime empire, at least in contrast to some of his more violent predecessors.
Leoluca Bagarella is an Italian criminal and member of the Sicilian Mafia. He is from the town of Corleone. Following Salvatore Riina's arrest in early 1993, Bagarella became the head of the stragist strategy faction, opposing another faction commanded by the successor designate Bernardo Provenzano, creating a real rift in Cosa Nostra. Bagarella was captured in 1995, having been a fugitive for four years, and sentenced to life imprisonment for Mafia association and multiple murders.
Benedetto Santapaola, better known as Nitto, is a prominent mafioso from Catania, the main city and industrial centre on Sicily's east coast. His nickname is il cacciatore, because of his passion for shooting game. He is currently in jail serving 4 life sentences.
Il Marchese del Grillo is a 1981 Italian comedic motion picture directed by Mario Monicelli, starring Alberto Sordi as the title character. The film depicts early nineteenth-century episodes in the life of a nobleman in Rome. Loosely based on folkloric accounts of the real Onofrio del Grillo, this character plays a number of pranks, one even involving Pope Pius VII. The famous line Io sò io, e voi non siete un cazzo, is appropriated from Belli's 1831 sonnet, "The Sovrans of the Old World".
Commedia all'italiana or Italian-style comedy is an Italian film genre born in Italy in the 1950s and developed in the 1960s and 1970s. It is widely considered to have started with Mario Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street in 1958, and derives its name from the title of Pietro Germi's Divorce Italian Style (1961). According to most of the critics, La Terrazza (1980) by Ettore Scola is the last work considered part of the Commedia all'italiana.
Giuseppe Musolino, also known as the "Brigante Musolino" or the "King of Aspromonte", was an Italian brigand and folk hero.
The Scientific Cardplayer, also known as The Scopone Game, is a 1973 Italian comedy-drama film directed by Luigi Comencini. The screenplay was written by Rodolfo Sonego.
Mario Fabbrocino was a powerful Italian crime boss of the Camorra – the Neapolitan mafia.
The Spartacus Maxi-Trial(Italian: Processo Spartacus) was a series of criminal trials, each specifically directed against the activities of the powerful Casalesi clan of the Camorra. The trial was opened at the Corte d'Assise of Santa Maria Capua Vetere in Caserta. It was named after the historical gladiator, Spartacus, and so named in recognition of the need to fight a revolt in the Casalesi clan's territory. The trial was initially chaired by its president, Catello Marano on 1 July 1998. It continued just over ten years, until its final verdict was eventually read on 19 June 2008.
Salvatore Riina, called Totò 'u Curtu, was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia, known for a ruthless murder campaign that reached a peak in the early 1990s with the assassinations of Antimafia Commission prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, resulting in widespread public outcry and a major crackdown by the authorities. He was also known by the nicknames la belva and il capo dei capi.
Regina Coeli is the best known prison in the city of Rome. Previously a Catholic convent, it was built in 1654 in the rione of Trastevere. It started to serve as a prison in 1881.
Fumo di Londra is a 1966 Italian comedy film written, directed and starred by Alberto Sordi. For his performance Sordi won the David di Donatello for Best Actor.
Mid-Century Loves is a 1954 Italian anthology historical melodrama film consisting of five segments directed by Glauco Pellegrini, Pietro Germi, Mario Chiari, Roberto Rossellini and Antonio Pietrangeli.
An Italian in America is a 1967 Commedia all'italiana film co-written and directed by Alberto Sordi and starring the same Sordi opposite Vittorio De Sica. Screenwriter Rodolfo Sonego was inspired for the plot by the participation of one of his friends, the painter Salvatore Scarpitta, to the NBC program This Is Your Life.
The term State-Mafia Pact defines the negotiation between important Italian functionaries and Cosa Nostra members, that began after the period of the 1992 and 1993 terror attacks by the Sicilian Mafia with the aim to reach a deal and so to stop the attacks. In summary, the supposed cornerstone of the deal was the end of the so-called "massacres season" in return for detention measures attenuation expected by Italian article 41-bis, thanks to which Antimafia pool led by Giovanni Falcone condemned hundreds of mafia members to the so-called "hard prison regime". The negotiation hypothesis has been the subject of long judicial investigations—not yet concluded—and some journalistic investigations.
Mario Milano is an Italian Catholic bishop. He currently holds the title of Archbishop-Bishop Emeritus of Aversa, having been granted the personal title of archbishop, and is the former Archbishop of Sant'Angelo dei Lombardi-Conza-Nusco-Bisaccia.
