Niccolò Turrisi Colonna (August 10, 1817 – May 13, 1889), Baron of Gorgo and Bonvicino, was a Sicilian politician from Palermo. He was a leading landowner and enlightened in the way he ran his business, studying agricultural science. He was a patriot even before the unification of Italy ( it, il Risorgimento). After the annexation of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

by Italy in 1860, Turrisi Colonna was made leader of the Palermo National Guard. He became a member of the Italian Senate (1865) and in the 1880s served twice as mayor of Palermo.Lupo, ''History of the Mafia'', pp. 43-44 In 1864, Turrisi Colonna wrote a study, ''Public Security in Sicily'', in which he described a "sect of thieves" that operated across Sicily and which is considered to be an early description of

the Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

, although he did not mention the term. This "sect" had special signals to recognize each other, had political protection in many regions, and a code of loyalty and non-interaction with the police known as ''umirtà'' or ''

omertà Omertà (, ) is a Southern Italian code of silence and code of honor and conduct that places importance on silence in the face of questioning by authorities or outsiders; non-cooperation with authorities, the government, or outsiders, especiall ...

'' ("humility").Dickie, ''Cosa Nostra'', pp. 39-46 The sect was mostly rural, comprising plantation wardens and smugglers, among others. The sect made "affiliates every day of the brightest young people coming from the rural class, of the guardians of the fields in the Palermitan countryside, and of the large number of smugglers; a sect which gives and receives protection to and from certain men who make a living on traffic and internal commerce. It is a sect with little or no fear of public bodies, because its members believe that they can easily elude this."Paoli, ''Mafia Brotherhoods'', p. 33 Turrisi Colonna warned in his report that the Italian government's brutal attempts to crush unlawfulness only made the problem worse by alienating the populace. He seemed to have known what he was talking about, as there was widespread suspicion that he was the protector of some important Mafiosi in Palermo.

Domenico Farini Domenico Farini (2 July 1834 – 18 January 1900) was an Italian soldier and statesman, who was President of the Italian Senate from 1887 to 1898. He was the son of politician Luigi Carlo Farini. Biography Farini was born at Montescudolo, in the ...

, longtime president of the Senate, recalled that some members of Parliament told him in private in 1876 that Turrisi Colonna was the head of the Mafia.

References

*Dickie, John (2004). ''Cosa Nostra. A history of the Sicilian Mafia'', London: Coronet, *Lupo, Salvatore (2009). ''History of the Mafia'', New York: Columbia University Press, *Paoli, Letizia (2003).
Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style
', New York: Oxford University Press

by Klaus Von Lampe)

by Alexandra V. Orlova) {{DEFAULTSORT:Turrisi Colonna, Niccolo 1817 births 1889 deaths Members of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy Mayors of Palermo 19th-century Italian politicians Barons of Italy