Michele Navarra
Encyclopedia
Michele Navarra was a powerful member of the Sicilian
Mafia
. He was a qualified physician
and headed the Mafia Family from the town of Corleone
. He was known as 'u patri nostru (our father).
(Sicily
) in a middle class
family; his father was a small landowner, a land surveyor
and teacher at the local agrarian school. He studied at the University of Palermo
, first engineering and later medicine, getting his degree in 1929. He served in the Italian army until 1942, reaching the rank of captain. He became the boss of Corleone in 1943, succeeding Calogero Lo Bue.
Navarra was the old fashioned type of Mafia boss: genteel, well dressed, but ferocious. He did not murder people himself, but delegated the work. From 1944-48, when he took over command of the Mafia in town, there had been 57 murders in Corleone. By skilful manipulation of the Mafia network of mutual aid and graft, he occupied several key positions in the establishment of Corleone, had powerful political connections an enjoyed a remarkable high prestige. He became the official medical adviser to the Ferrovie dello Stato
(Italian State Railways), which was offered to him when, in public competition, he was the only candidate.
(Operation Husky) in 1943, the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT) granted Navarra the right to collect the military vehicles abandoned by the Italian
army. Navarra used these to start a trucking company, which was vital to some of his operations involving the theft of livestock. In 1946 Navarra became the top doctor at the hospital in Corleone after his predecessor, Dr. Nicolosi, was conveniently murdered. A new large modern hospital in Corleone would stand empty from 1952 to 1958 and was only put into service after the death of Navarra, the director of the old one.
Navarra used his positions as director of the hospital to increase his power. In Corleone people still talk of the blind electors of Navarra : on election day hundreds of men and women were struck blind ; they pretended to have lost their sight. He issued certificates to the effect that they were blind or short-sighted and therefore had to be assisted in the act of voting in order to enable Navarra’s men to accompany them into the polling booth and check their ballot.
For a while Navarra sympathized with the Sicilian separatist movement, but he soon joined the Christian Democrat party in 1948.
got his start, first in cattle rustling and clandestine butchering and subsequently as estate guard (campiere), before becoming a lease holder (gabelloto
) of the estate at the age of 20, the youngest ever. When Leggio murdered the Socialist trade union leader Placido Rizzotto
in March 1948, Navarra made sure to dispose of the only witness, Giuseppe Letizia, an 11 year-old shepherd. His father took the shocked boy to the hospital ran by Navarra. The boy talked about the murder but died after an injection. Navarra was blamed by the press for killing the boy and thus eliminating a witness.
Navarra was arrested for his involvement in the murder, but not convicted. He was sent into compulsory internal exile in Gioiosa Ionica
, (Reggio Calabria), for five years. However, thanks to his contacts with friendly politicians, he returned to Corleone in 1949. In Calabria he established close relationships with charismatic 'Ndrangheta boss Antonio Macrì
.
Conflicts of interest between Navarra and Leggio also arose over to a plan to dam the Belice
river at the Piano della Scala near Corleone. Those who controlled the water supply throughout the neighbourhood of Corleone resented the plan. Springs in Sicily are private property and their exploitation, yielding large profits, is traditionally associated with Mafia power. Navarra represented the vested interests of those opposed to the dam, while Leggio favoured the construction of the dam. He expected to gain a monopoly of haulage work in connection with its construction.
Navarra tried to have Leggio killed in the summer of 1958. Leggio was invited by Navarra to meet him at an estate but instead he found fifteen armed men there. The hitmen hired for the task did a poor job and Leggio escaped with just minor injuries. The event left Leggio and his followers with the knowledge that they were as good as dead if they did not strike back soon.
Leggio thus became the boss of the Corleone Mafia. Among Navarra's suspected killers were Bernardo Provenzano
and Salvatore "Totò" Riina
. Riina became the leading Mafioso in 1974 after the imprisonment of Leggio. His Corleonesi
would continue to take over the Sicilian Mafia in the Second Mafia War
in the 1980s.
Navarra was the kind of Mafioso who was more interested in power than money. He left his widow a few plots of land and part of a house. The Antimafia Commission
remarked that “the small size of his estate shows that Navarra has always aimed at power, rather than at money for its own sake … He often spent more than he brought in, both in his medical activities and in his career as Mafioso.”
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
. He was a qualified physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
and headed the Mafia Family from the town of Corleone
Corleone
Corleone is a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy....
. He was known as 'u patri nostru (our father).
Early career
Navarra was born in CorleoneCorleone
Corleone is a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy....
(Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
) in a middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
family; his father was a small landowner, a land surveyor
Surveying
See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...
and teacher at the local agrarian school. He studied at the University of Palermo
University of Palermo
The University of Palermo is a university located in Palermo, Italy, and founded in 1806. It is organized in 12 Faculties.-History:The University of Palermo was officially founded in 1806, although its earliest roots date back to 1498 when medicine and law were taught there...
, first engineering and later medicine, getting his degree in 1929. He served in the Italian army until 1942, reaching the rank of captain. He became the boss of Corleone in 1943, succeeding Calogero Lo Bue.
Navarra was the old fashioned type of Mafia boss: genteel, well dressed, but ferocious. He did not murder people himself, but delegated the work. From 1944-48, when he took over command of the Mafia in town, there had been 57 murders in Corleone. By skilful manipulation of the Mafia network of mutual aid and graft, he occupied several key positions in the establishment of Corleone, had powerful political connections an enjoyed a remarkable high prestige. He became the official medical adviser to the Ferrovie dello Stato
Ferrovie dello Stato
Ferrovie dello Stato is a government-owned holding which manage infrastructure and service on the Italian rail network. The subsidiary Trenitalia is the main rail operator in Italy.-Organization:Ferrovie dello Stato subsidiaries are:...
(Italian State Railways), which was offered to him when, in public competition, he was the only candidate.
Rising power
Following the allied invasion of Sicily in World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
(Operation Husky) in 1943, the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT) granted Navarra the right to collect the military vehicles abandoned by the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
army. Navarra used these to start a trucking company, which was vital to some of his operations involving the theft of livestock. In 1946 Navarra became the top doctor at the hospital in Corleone after his predecessor, Dr. Nicolosi, was conveniently murdered. A new large modern hospital in Corleone would stand empty from 1952 to 1958 and was only put into service after the death of Navarra, the director of the old one.
Navarra used his positions as director of the hospital to increase his power. In Corleone people still talk of the blind electors of Navarra : on election day hundreds of men and women were struck blind ; they pretended to have lost their sight. He issued certificates to the effect that they were blind or short-sighted and therefore had to be assisted in the act of voting in order to enable Navarra’s men to accompany them into the polling booth and check their ballot.
For a while Navarra sympathized with the Sicilian separatist movement, but he soon joined the Christian Democrat party in 1948.
Rizzotto murder
Under tutelage of Navarra, the young and upcoming Mafioso Luciano LeggioLuciano Leggio
Luciano Leggio was an Italian criminal and leading figure of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the head of the Corleonesi, the Mafia faction that originated in the town of Corleone...
got his start, first in cattle rustling and clandestine butchering and subsequently as estate guard (campiere), before becoming a lease holder (gabelloto
Gabelloto
In Sicily, a gabelloto was a person who rented farmland for short-term use. They were rural entrepreneurs who leased the lands from aristocrats more attracted to the comforts of the city.Many gabelloti were associated with, if not members of, the Mafia...
) of the estate at the age of 20, the youngest ever. When Leggio murdered the Socialist trade union leader Placido Rizzotto
Placido Rizzotto
Placido Rizzotto 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...
in March 1948, Navarra made sure to dispose of the only witness, Giuseppe Letizia, an 11 year-old shepherd. His father took the shocked boy to the hospital ran by Navarra. The boy talked about the murder but died after an injection. Navarra was blamed by the press for killing the boy and thus eliminating a witness.
Navarra was arrested for his involvement in the murder, but not convicted. He was sent into compulsory internal exile in Gioiosa Ionica
Gioiosa Ionica
Gioiosa Ionica is a town and comune in Italy in the province of Reggio Calabria, region of Calabria. It lies near the east coast of Calabria and covers an area of 35 km²....
, (Reggio Calabria), for five years. However, thanks to his contacts with friendly politicians, he returned to Corleone in 1949. In Calabria he established close relationships with charismatic 'Ndrangheta boss Antonio Macrì
Antonio Macrì
Antonio Macrì , popularly known as Zzi 'ntoni, was a historical and charismatic boss of the 'Ndrangheta, a criminal and mafia-type organisation in Calabria, Italy...
.
Conflict with Leggio
Meanwhile his former underling Leggio developed his own rackets, independently from Navarra – transport, smuggling stolen cattle and selling the meat on Palermo’s wholesale market. From 1953-1958 Corleone recorded 153 Mafia related murders.Conflicts of interest between Navarra and Leggio also arose over to a plan to dam the Belice
Belice
The Belice is a river, 77 km in length, of western Sicily. From its main source near Piana degli Albanesi it runs south and west for 45.5 km as the Belice Destra until it is joined on the left by its secondary branch, the 42 km Belice Sinistro , which rises on the slopes of Rocca Busambra...
river at the Piano della Scala near Corleone. Those who controlled the water supply throughout the neighbourhood of Corleone resented the plan. Springs in Sicily are private property and their exploitation, yielding large profits, is traditionally associated with Mafia power. Navarra represented the vested interests of those opposed to the dam, while Leggio favoured the construction of the dam. He expected to gain a monopoly of haulage work in connection with its construction.
Navarra tried to have Leggio killed in the summer of 1958. Leggio was invited by Navarra to meet him at an estate but instead he found fifteen armed men there. The hitmen hired for the task did a poor job and Leggio escaped with just minor injuries. The event left Leggio and his followers with the knowledge that they were as good as dead if they did not strike back soon.
Assassination
A few weeks later, on August 2, 1958, Navarra and a fellow doctor (who was not a Mafia member) were both shot to death on an isolated country road as they drove home in Navarra's car. The car was blocked on the open road by two other vehicles and riddled by submachine-gun bullets. A few weeks later, on September 6, three men known as friends of Navarra were killed in a raid at Corleone. Reciprocal killings went on until 1963 and Leggio had to disappear having been condemned for the killing of Navarra.Leggio thus became the boss of the Corleone Mafia. Among Navarra's suspected killers were Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and is suspected of having been the head of the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the village of Corleone, and de facto capo di tutti capi of the entire Sicilian Mafia until his arrest in 2006.His nickname is Binnu u tratturi...
and Salvatore "Totò" Riina
Salvatore Riina
Salvatore "Totò" Riina is a member of the Sicilian Mafia who became the most powerful member of the criminal organization in the early 1980s. Fellow mobsters nicknamed him The Beast due to his violent nature, or sometimes The Short One due to his diminutive stature...
. Riina became the leading Mafioso in 1974 after the imprisonment of Leggio. His Corleonesi
Corleonesi
The Corleonesi is the name given to a faction within the Sicilian Mafia that dominated Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and the 1990s. It was called the Corleonesi because its most important leaders came from the town of Corleone, first Luciano Leggio and later Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca...
would continue to take over the Sicilian Mafia in the Second Mafia War
Second Mafia War
The Second Mafia War was a conflict within the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place in the early 1980s. As with any criminal organization, the history of the Sicilian Mafia is replete with conflicts and power struggles, and the violence that results from them, but these are generally localised and...
in the 1980s.
Navarra was the kind of Mafioso who was more interested in power than money. He left his widow a few plots of land and part of a house. The Antimafia Commission
Antimafia Commission
The Italian Antimafia Commission is a bicameral commission of the Italian Parliament, composed of members from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate . The Antimafia Commission is a commission of inquiry into, initially, the “phenomenon of the Mafia”...
remarked that “the small size of his estate shows that Navarra has always aimed at power, rather than at money for its own sake … He often spent more than he brought in, both in his medical activities and in his career as Mafioso.”
Sources
- Arlacchi, PinoPino ArlacchiGiuseppe Arlacchi, also known as Pino, is an Italian sociologist and is well known worldwide for his studies and essays about the Mafia...
(1988). Mafia Business. The Mafia Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-285197-7 - Dickie, John (2004). Cosa Nostra. A history of the Sicilian Mafia, London: Coronet, ISBN 0-340-82435-2
- Hess, Henner (1998). Mafia & Mafiosi: Origin, Power, and Myth, London: Hurst & Co Publishers, ISBN 1-85065-500-6 (Review)
- Lewis, Norman (1964/2003). The Honoured Society: The Sicilian Mafia Observed, London: Eland, ISBN 0-907871-48-8
- Paoli, Letizia (2003). Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style, New York: Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-515724-9 (Review)
- Schneider, Jane T. & Peter T. Schneider (2003). Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo, Berkeley: University of California Press ISBN 0-520-23609-2
- Servadio, Gaia (1976), Mafioso. A history of the Mafia from its origins to the present day, London: Secker & Warburg ISBN 0-436-44700-2
- Stille, AlexanderAlexander StilleAlexander Stille is an American author and journalist. He is the son of Ugo Stille, a well-known Italian journalist and a former editor of Italy's Milan-based Corriere della Sera newspaper. Alexander Stille graduated from Yale and later the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism...
(1995). Excellent Cadavers. The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic, Vintage ISBN 0-09-959491-9