Salvatore Giuliano was an Italian bandit, who rose to prominence in the disorder that followed the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. In September of that year, Giuliano became an outlaw after shooting and killing a police officer who tried to arrest him for black market food smuggling, at a time when 70 percent of Sicily's food supply was provided by the black market. He maintained a band of subordinates for most of his career. He was a flamboyant, high-profile criminal, attacking the police at least as often as they sought him. In addition, he was a local power-broker in Sicilian politics between 1945 and 1948, including his role as a nominal colonel for the Movement for the Independence of Sicily. He and his band were held legally responsible for the Portella della Ginestra massacre, though there is some doubt about their role in the numerous deaths which occurred.
Mario Scelba was an Italian politician who served as the 33rd prime minister of Italy from February 1954 to July 1955. A founder of the Christian Democracy, Scelba was one of the longest-serving Minister of the Interior in the history of the republic, having served at the Viminale Palace in three distinct terms from 1947 to 1962. A fervent pro-Europeanist, he was also President of the European Parliament from March 1969 to March 1971.
The Sicilian is a novel by American author Mario Puzo. Published in 1984 by Random House Publishing Group (ISBN 0-671-43564-7), it is based on the life of Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano. It is set in the same universe as Puzo's most famous work, The Godfather (1969), and contains characters from The Godfather. It is regarded as The Godfather's literary sequel and is the second book in The Godfather novel series. It was adapted into a film in 1987, though all Godfather references were removed for copyright reasons in the film adaptation.
Ignazio Buttitta was an Italian poet who wrote predominantly in Sicilian.
Francesco Rosi was an Italian film director. His film The Mattei Affair won the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Rosi's films, especially those of the 1960s and 1970s, often appeared to have political messages. While the topics of his later films became less politically oriented and more angled toward literature, he continued to direct until 1997, his last film being the adaptation of Primo Levi's book, The Truce.
Gaspare Pisciotta was a companion of the Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano, and considered to be the co-leader of his outlaw band. He is also the Judas in Giuliano's legend as he betrayed Giuliano and killed him.
The Mattei Affair is a 1972 Italian drama film directed by Francesco Rosi. It depicts the life and mysterious death of Enrico Mattei, an Italian businessman who in the aftermath of World War II managed to avoid the sale of the nascent Italian oil and hydrocarbon industry to US companies and developed them in the Eni, a state-owned oil company which rivaled the "Seven Sisters" for oil and gas deals in Northern African and Middle Eastern countries.
Bernardo Mattarella was an Italian politician for the Christian Democrat party. He was a cabinet minister of Italy several times, becoming one of the most important politicians of his generation.
The Sicilian is a 1987 epic historical crime film directed by Michael Cimino. The film was adapted by Steve Shagan, and later rewritten by Cimino and Gore Vidal from Mario Puzo's 1984 novel of the same name. Christopher Lambert stars as Salvatore Giuliano, the infamous bandit who tried to liberate early 1950s Sicily from Italian rule. The film also stars Terence Stamp, Joss Ackland, John Turturro and Barbara Sukowa.
The Italian parliamentary Antimafia Commission is a bicameral commission of the Italian Parliament, composed of members from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The first commission, formed in 1963, was established as a body of inquiry tasked with investigating the "phenomenon of the [Sicilian] Mafia". Subsequent commissions expanded their scope to investigate all "organized crime of the Mafia type", which included other major criminal organizations in Italy such as the Camorra, the 'Ndrangheta and the Sacra Corona Unita.
Girolamo Li Causi was an Italian politician and a leader of the Italian Communist Party who was a prominent figure in the struggle for land reform and against the Mafia in Sicily. He labelled large estates Sicily's central problem.
The Portella della Ginestra massacre refers to the killing of 11 people and 27 wounded during May Day celebrations in Sicily on 1 May 1947, in the municipality of Piana degli Albanesi. Those held responsible were the bandit and separatist leader Salvatore Giuliano and his gang, although their motives and intentions are still a matter of controversy.
Pietro Scaglione was an Italian magistrate and Chief Prosecutor of Palermo, Sicily. He was killed by the Mafia in 1971.
Francesco Cuccia, also known as Don Ciccio, was a member of the Sicilian Mafia and one-time mayor of Piana dei Greci. He is best known as the Mafia boss who triggered Benito Mussolini’s war on the Mafia, after humiliating him while visiting Piana dei Greci in 1924. He was described by the writer Norman Lewis as a Mafia potentate with an inflamed sense of his own importance. The Sicilian writer Giuseppe Passarello called him "Cuccia il sanguinario".
Salvatore Giuliano is an opera in one act by Lorenzo Ferrero to an Italian-language libretto by Giuseppe Di Leva, which was conceived to be performed in tandem with Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana. The work was commissioned by the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and premiered there on 25 January 1986.
Francesco Renda was an Italian Marxist historian, Communist politician and a university professor.
Giuseppe Casarrubea was an Italian historian and author.
