Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy. It is one of the five Italian autonomous regions, in Southern Italy along with surrounding minor islands, officially referred to as Regione Siciliana.
Paolo Borsellino was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. He was killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, 57 days after his friend and fellow Antimafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone was assassinated in Capaci. He is considered to be one of the most important magistrates killed by the Sicilian Mafia and he is remembered as one of the main symbols of the battle of the State against the Mafia. Both Borsellino and Falcone were named as heroes of the last 60 years in the November 13, 2006, issue of Time Magazine. Forty-seven people were convicted in connection with his murder, but the entire case was discredited by the revelations of Gaspare Spatuzza.
Cesare Mori was a prefect (prefetto) before and during the Fascist period in Italy. He is known in Italy as the "Iron Prefect" because of his iron-fisted campaigns against the Mafia in Sicily in the second half of the 1920s.
Salvatore "Totò" Cuffaro is a convicted criminal, formerly an Italian politician, former President of Sicily, has served an almost 5-year jail sentence for aiding Cosa Nostra. He has earned the nickname "Vasa Vasa" for his tendency to kiss all and sundry – he claims that he has kissed a quarter of all the people on the island.
Calogero "Don Calò" Vizzini was a historical Sicilian Mafia boss of Villalba in the Province of Caltanissetta, Sicily. 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. In the media, he was often depicted as the "boss of bosses" – although such a position does not exist in the loose structure of the Cosa Nostra.
Leoluca Orlando, is an Italian politician, current Mayor of Palermo. He was also mayor of the city in 1985–1990 and 1993–2000 and President of Italian Federation of American Football (FIDAF). He is best known for his strong opposition to the Sicilian Mafia, but also for his vocal criticism of Giovanni Falcone, a leading prosecuting magistrate murdered by Cosa Nostra in 1992.
Bernardo Mattarella was an Italian politician for the Christian Democrat party. He has been Minister of Italy several times, becoming one of the most important politician of his generation.
Cesare Terranova was an Italian judge and politician from Sicily notable for his anti-Mafia stance. From 1958 until 1971 Terranova was an examining magistrate at the Palermo prosecuting office. He was one of the first to seriously investigate the Mafia and the financial operations of Cosa Nostra. He was killed by the Mafia in 1979. Cesare Terranova can be considered the predecessor of the magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino who were also killed by the Mafia in 1992.
Over four days, between October 12–16, 1957, the American gangster Joseph Bonanno allegedly attended a series of meetings between some high-level Sicilian and American mafiosi in the Grand Hotel et des Palmes in Palermo, Sicily – the most splendid in town at the time. The so-called 1957 Palermo Mafia summit has become a legendary landmark in the international illegal heroin trade in popular Mafia non-fiction. The question is if it ever took place. The details of it are still shrouded in mystery. According to some, one of the main topics on the agenda was the organisation of the heroin trade on an international basis. The FBI believed it was this meeting that established the Bonanno crime family in the heroin trade.
Danilo Dolci was an Italian social activist, sociologist, popular educator and poet. He is best known for his opposition to poverty, social exclusion and the Mafia on Sicily, and is considered to be one of the protagonists of the non-violence movement in Italy. He became known as the "Gandhi of Sicily".
Salvatore Pappalardo STD JUD was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who was Archbishop of Palermo for over 25 years, from 1970 to 1996. He was the first senior clergyman from Sicily to speak out against the Mafia, breaking its code of omertà.
Paolo Romeo STL JCD is a Cardinal and Archbishop emeritus of Palermo. He was appointed to the see of Palermo by Pope Benedict XVI on 19 December 2006.
Ernesto Ruffini was an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Palermo from 1945 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946 by Pope Pius XII.
This article is about a specific political party. For the general Sicilian independence movement, see Sicilian nationalism
Addiopizzo is a grassroots movement established in Sicily to build a community of businesses and consumers who refuse to pay "pizzo" – Mafia extortion money. It is a grassroots social-conscience motivated consumer movement analogous to Fair Trade. The group, led by a generation whose adolescence was characterized by the murders of anti-Mafia judges, journalists and businessmen, operates in the Palermo and Catania metropolitan areas, traditionally Mafia strongholds.
Lirio Abbate is an Italian journalist of the weekly news magazine L'espresso. Before was a correspondent in Sicily for the news agency ANSA and La Stampa newspaper.
Silvio Milazzo was an Italian Christian Democrat politician and the President of the Regional Government of Sicily from 1958-1960.
Raffaele Ganci is a member of the Italian Mafia in Sicily from the Noce neighbourhood in Palermo. He was considered to be the right-hand man of Cosa Nostra boss Totò Riina and sat on the Sicilian Mafia Commission.
Rosario Naimo is a member of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Saro or Saruzzo. He was seen as an important go-between for the Sicilian and American Mafia, closely related with the Gambino crime family. He is a man of honour from the Tommaso Natale-Cardillo Mafia family that later became part of San Lorenzo family.
