The Ballad of Luciano Leggio (Finale) -- "Was he the author or the director?"

Luciano Leggio on trial.  "Leggio sat in his prison cells across Italy, moving his killers like pawns across the chessboard of Sicily, picking up judges and prosecutors and journalists and politicians. And knocking them down one by one as it suited his agenda."

This, Part 3 of our trawl through The Ballad of Luciano Leggio, concludes a partial, but poetic, recounting of Leggio's grim and horrific  Biography.

       Stanza XX, the Ballad's last verse, provides a suitably obscure "big finish" to a very public life, which was nonetheless "institutionally" shrouded in mystery.

I truly wish I could have uncovered a musical performance of this lay,  but sadly the melody must be left to the reader's imagination.  Perhaps it sounded like This.

XI.

Navarra, intantu, teniri vulia

di capu mafiusu lu pristiggiu

ca jornu doppu jornu si stintia

la cuncurrenza di Luciano Liggiu

percio’tra li du coschi mafiusi

cuminciaru tichetti e autri abusi

XII.

Ppi Navarra assai brutta si cunchiusi

Ca lu rivali sonterra lu stisi;

Centedeci pallottuli chiummusi

in corpu cci cintrau, tutti, precisi

mentri, nta n’automobili, passava

ccu Gianni Russu ca l’accimpagnava

Dr. Michele Navarra in death. "110 bullets entered him . . . all well-aimed."

XIII.

Diddu dilitti non si cuntentava

Liggiu, ch’era assitatu di cummannu,

e Corleoni na notti assaltava

cc la so banda, siminannu dannu:

ogni seguaci di don Michilinu

vinni ammassatu, comu un beccaccinu!

Spotted Starling of Sicily.

XIV.

Mariu e Giuvanni, fratelli Marinu

Ninu Streva e Giuvanni Pruvinzanu

Fidiil a lu difuntu malandrinu,

Foru tutti sparati, a mmanu a mmanu;

e n’antri vinti morti, certamenti

cci foru a Corleoni a ddu presenti.

Pietro Scaglione,  Italian magistrate and Chief Prosecutor of Palermo, Sicily.  Killed by the Mafia in 1971.  [1]

XX.

Di Scaglioni, lu judici ammazzatu

di Mauro de Mauro, giornalista,

di lu quisturi Manganu, sparatu

cchi sapi Liggiu?  Auturi fu o rigista

o puru di sti fatti iddu e nuccenti

e no sappi ppi daveru nenti?

Mauro de Mauro, Journalist, L'Ora, Palermo. He had stumbled on an amazing scoop.  [2]

Translation:

XI.  In the meantime Navarra wanted to keep/the prestige of the mafia boss/as day after day he felt/the rivalry with Luciano Liggio:/and so between the two cosche mafiose/started quarrels and other abuses./

XII.  It finished up badly for Navarra/as his rival killed him/110 bullets entered his body, all well-aimed/as he was passing by in a car/with Gianni Russo, who sometimes accompanied him./

XIII.  Liggio was not content with/this deed as he was thirsty with power/and assaulted Corleone one night/with his gang, disseminating murder:/all followers of Navarra were killed/like small birds./

XIV.  Mario and Giovanni, the Marino brothers/Nino Streva and Giovanni Provenzanu/the faithful of the dead Mafioso/were all, little by little, killed:/and certainly there were another/twenty dead at Corleone at that time./

XX.  What does Liggio know about the Scaglione/the murdered Judge? Or Mauro de Mauro,/the journalist, or the policeman Mangano,/who was shot at?  Was he the author or the director?/or of these deeds is he innocent/and really doesn’t know anything?/

Calogero Comaianni, Leggio's first victim, except for various murdered birds.  (See Stanza III)

Gaia Servadio (then Mrs. William Mostyn-Owen), author of Mafioso, shopping in London with her daughter, 1968.

[1]  Pietro Scaglione (March 2, 1906- May 5, 1971)  "On the morning of May 5, 1971, the Mafia called police headquarters in Palermo. “A shooting has happened in Via dei Cipressi,” said an anonymous voice. “Maybe two are dead.”  Within minutes the Flying Squad pulled into the cypress-lined road that leads to the Cappuccini cemetery. There, agents found an official state car blocking the entrance to the necropolis. Two bullet-riddled bodies were pulled out and rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. When the shocking news spread that the city’s Chief Public Prosecutor, Pietro Scaglione, was killed along with his driver, many observers felt confirmed in their suspicion that the city’s highest magistrate was mafioso. After all, they reasoned, the Mafia only murders its own.Pietro Scaglione’s forty-three-year career spanned the evolution of the Cosa Nostra from rural phenomenon to international menace. Rising through the judicial ranks to take the top post at the Palace of Justice in 1962, he waded through the murky waters of Sicilian conspiracies: super-bandit Salvatore Giuliano’s involvement in the Portella della Ginestra massacre of 1947, the police slaughter of Ciaculli in 1963. But Judge Scaglione tended to sit on his findings--some said deliberately--and often needed to be goaded into prosecuting a case."

[2]  Mauro De Mauro (September 6, 1921 – Disappeared, September 16, 1970) was an Italian journalist. He disappeared in September 1970 and his body has not yet been found. His disappearance and probable death remains one of the unsolved mysteries in Italian history.  Several explanations for his disappearance are current. One is related to the death of the president of Italy's state-owned oil and gas conglomerate ENI, Enrico Mattei. Another is that De Mauro had discovered drug trafficking between Sicily and the United States, and a third with the Golpe Borghese a planned right-wing coup d'état (the plan failed in December 1970). Apparently De Mauro was convinced that he had got hold of a story of a lifetime. Before his disappearance he told colleagues at the newspaper L'Ora, “I have a scoop that is going to shake Italy.”  

Ballad of Luciano Leggio excerpted from :

Gaia Servado:  Mafioso.  New York, Dell, 1976

Reader Note:  See also Here, Parts 1 and 2

The Ballad Of Luciano Leggio, Part 2

Luciano Leggio

IV.

Ppi ddu dilittu non cci vinni data

nudda cunnanna ca non cci fu prova

e Luciano fici la so entrata

nta la famigghia di la mafia nova

suttapostu a Navarra, lu dutturi,

comu killer, fidatu esecuturi.

V.

In cuntrata Strasattuintantu, mori

Stanislau Punzu, un ottimu camperi

siccu allampatu ccu ncorpu a lu cori

e l’assassinu e’ ignotu fucileri;

Luciano Liggiu vosi, ad ogni costu

Susiturirlu e ottinni lu so postu

Placido Rizzotto, sindiclista

VI. 

L’inicaricu trimedu cc appi tostu

di Micheli Navarra, lu piccotu,

di siquisttrari e teniri nascostu

lu paisanu Placidu Rizzottu:

nascostu, si’, ma ca non fussi vivu

nt’on lucali d’entrata affattu privu.

VII.

E Lucianu Liggiu, sinsitivu

e a la so capu sempri ubbidienti,

sense mancu sapirilu mutivu

e Rizzotto ammazzu, immediatamenti

e a lu so corpu sipultura tocca

nta na spacca profunna di la Rocca.

Murdered kidnapping victim, Palermo, Sicily

Translation:

IV.  For this crime he did not get/any sentence, as there was no proof/and Luciano made his entrance/into the family of the new Mafia/under Navarra, the doctor,/as a killer, trusted executioner./

V.  At the locality of Strassata then/Stanislao Punzu died, an excellent campiere/lean, thin, his heart in the right place/and the murderer is an unknown gunman;/Luciano Liggio wanted it at all costs/to substitute for him, and got the job./

VI.   Soon the picciotto had the terrible mandate/from Michele Navarra to kidnap and keep hidden/Placido Rizzotto [1], the peasant/yes, hidden, but that he should not be alive/

VII.  And sensible Luciano Liggio/always obedient to his chief/without even knowing the reason/killed Rizzotto at once/and it happened that his body got/inside the deep hole of the Rocca./

La Rocca, Cefalu, Sicily 

[1]  Placido Rizzotto (January 2, 1914 – March 10, 1948) was an Italian socialist peasant and trade union leader from Corleone, who was assassinated by Sicilian Mafia boss Luciano Leggio. Pieces of Rizzotto's mutilated body were discovered two years later at the bottom of a cliff with his limbs chained up, and a bullet hole in his head. When he was killed, Rizzotto was doing activist work with farm laborers, trying to help them take over unfarmed land on large estates in the area.

From Gaia Servado:  Mafioso.  New York, Dell, 1976

Lupara

The Ballad of Luciano Leggio

Luciano Leggio (1925-1993)

Excerpts from “The Ballad of Luciano Leggio”, Pt. 1:

“Liggio has even had the honor of being the subject of a ballad called ‘The Prince of the Mafia’.  In it we find the usage of the word ‘Killer’, by now adopted by the Sicilian dialect  whenever referring to the Mafia:

‘Signori miei, voglio raccontarvi la complete storia del capo mafia siciliano Luciano Leggio (dento Liggio):

I.

Quanno muriu Calogero Lo Bui

Lu cupu di la mafia lucali

a Corlionici fu un fui fui

pp’acquistari ddu titulu . . . riali:

ma cci appi cchiu putiri e fermu pusu

dori Micheli Navarra, mafiusu

II.

. . .  Luciano Liggiu ancora era un mucciusu

un carrusiddu a chinnicianni appena

siccu arruganti, agili mpignusu

di pruvatu curaggiu e longa lena

ca spurtusava, ccu la so pistol

un palancuni ca nta l’aria vola

III.

Ma la so puverta’ non lu consola

e cuminciau la vita di banditu

ccussi’, a vint’anni, dopo bona scola . . .

addivintau assassin rifinutu

ed ammazzu la guardian giurata

Calogeru Calajanni numinata

(Il Colajanni fu ucciso perche’ aveva denuncito Liggio per un furto di covoni di grani e l’aveva fatto rinchuudere in prigione.)”

Corleone (Sicilian: Cunigghiuni), Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy, pop. 12,000.

Translation:

“Good people, I want to tell you the complete story of the Sicilian head of the Mafia, Luciano Leggio (called Liggio):

I.  When Calogero Lo Bui, head/of the local Mafia died/at Corleone there was a rush/to conquer the ‘royal’ title:/but  the one who had real power and strength/was Don Michele Navarra, the Mafioso./

II.  . . . Luciano Liggio was still a boy/a youngster of fifteen only/lean, arrogant, agile and overbearing/of great courage and energy/who killed with his pistol/a bird which flies in the air./

III.  He was not consoled by his poverty/and started the life of a bandit/and so, at twenty, after a good school/he became a refined murderer/and killed a guard/called Calogero Colajanni/

(Colaganni was killed because he had denounced Liggio for a theft of wheat and had him locked up.)”

Michele Navarra (1905-1955) aka "'u patri nostru" ("our father").

From Gaia Servado:  Mafioso.  New York, Dell, 1976