Calogero Bagarella (; January 14, 1935 – December 10, 1969) was an Italian criminal and member of the

Sicilian Mafia The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa nostra (, ; "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia-terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sicily a ...

. He was from the town of

Corleone Corleone (; scn, Cunigghiuni or ) is an Italian town and ''comune'' of roughly 11,158 inhabitants in the Metropolitan City of Palermo, in Sicily. Several Mafia bosses have come from Corleone, including Tommy Gagliano, Gaetano Reina, Jack Dragn ...

and belonged to the Mafia clan of

Corleonesi The Corleonesi Mafia clan was a faction within the Corleone family of the Sicilian Mafia, formed in the 1970s. Notable leaders included Luciano Leggio, Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Provenzano, and Leoluca Bagarella. Corleonesi affiliates were n ...

Biography

Calogero Bagarella was born in

to a family of Mafiosi that gave Cosa Nostra various affiliates. He was the second son of Salvatore Bagarella and Lucia Mondello, who moved to the town of Corleone after marriage. This union produced six children which other than Calogero, included Giuseppe,

Leoluca Leoluca, also Leone Luca, Leo Luke of Corleone, Saint Leoluca, or Luke of Sicily (c. 815 – c. 915) was the abbot and wonderworker of the monastery of Mount Mula in Calabria, and a founder of Italo-Greek monasticism in southern Italy. He is vene ...

, Antonietta and Maria Giovanna. The family lived without any problems for a short while, until Salvatore Bagarella was sent to confinement in

Northern Italy Northern Italy ( it, Italia settentrionale, it, Nord Italia, label=none, it, Alta Italia, label=none or just it, Nord, label=none) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative regions ...

from 1963 to 1968 for Mafia-related crimes. Calogero's brother, Giuseppe would eventually meet the same fate, eventually dying in prison in 1972. His mother was thus forced to work from home to support the family, while the children went to school. As a boy, Calogero worked at a mill with his childhood friend Bernardo Provenzano, but barely managed to earn enough to take a little flour home to his family. From the second half of the 1950s, Calogero Bagarella became affiliated with the Corleonesi clan headed by the doctor,

Michele Navarra Michele Navarra (; 5 January 1905 – 2 August 1958) was an Italian member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was a qualified physician and headed the Mafia family from the town of Corleone in Sicily. He was known as u patri nostru'' (our father) ...

and was a lieutenant of Navarra's right-hand man Luciano Leggio along with Bernardo Provenzano and

Salvatore Riina Salvatore Riina (; 16 November 1930 – 17 November 2017), called (, Totò being the diminutive of Salvatore), was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia, known for a ruthless murder campaign that reached a peak in the early 1990s ...

. In fact, Bagarella was the third most important figure in the Leggio faction of the Corleonesi, behind Leggio and Riina. From 1958 to 1963, Bagarella fought in the internal clan war against his former boss, Michele Navarra. Zingales, ''Provenzano: il re di cosa nostra '', p. 162 After Navarra was murdered on August 2, 1958, Bagarella became known as one of the most fearsome and ruthless killers in all of

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

. He was tried in absentia and acquitted of all charges laid against him at the trial which took place after the First Mafia War at

Bari Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy a ...

on June 11, 1969. On December 10, 1969, Bagarella was killed in an attack on Mafia boss

Michele Cavataio Michele Cavataio (18 March 1929 – 10 December 1969), also known as ''Il cobra'' (The cobra) was an Italian mobster and powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of the Acquasanta mandamento in Palermo and was a member of the first S ...

, the boss of the Acquasanta quarter in the Viale Lazio in

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

, known as the

Viale Lazio massacre The Viale Lazio massacre on 10 December 1969 was a settling of accounts in the Sicilian Mafia. Mafia boss Michele Cavataio and three men were killed in the Viale Lazio in Palermo, Sicily, by a Mafia hit squad. The bloodbath marked the end of a ' ...

.Stille, ''Excellent Cadavers'', p. 104Mafia Boss Provenzano Accused of 1969 Palermo Murders
Bloomberg, November 29, 2007 He was part of a Mafia hit-squad consisting of Bernardo Provenzano, Emanuele D’Agostino and

Gaetano Grado Gaetano Grado (born in Palermo, 8 March 1943) is an Italian mafioso from Palermo, Sicily. He was a member of the Santa Maria di Gesù family under Stefano Bontade until his arrest, after which he became a justice collaborator. Biography Gaetano G ...

of Stefano Bontade’s Santa Maria di Gesù Family and Damiano Caruso, a soldier of

Giuseppe Di Cristina Giuseppe Di Cristina (April 22, 1923 – May 30, 1978) was a powerful mafioso from Riesi in the province of Caltanissetta, Sicily, southern Italy. Di Cristina, nicknamed “la tigre’’ (the tiger), was born into a traditional Mafia family, ...

, the Mafia boss of

Riesi Riesi is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Caltanissetta in the Italian region Sicily, located about southeast of Palermo and about south of Caltanissetta. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 11,678 and an area of .All de ...

.Servadio, ''Mafioso'', p. 228-30 After Bagarella's death, his younger brother Leoluca became one of the most famous and ruthless killers in Sicily. Bagarella was very close to Salvatore Riina and Bernaro Provenzano since childhood. It was discovered after his death that his girlfriend was Arcangela Riina, one of the younger sisters of Salvatore. Riina, on the other hand, was also the boyfriend of Bagarella's younger sister Antonietta, whom he eventually married in 1974.

References

Books

* *Servadio, Gaia (1976), ''Mafioso. A history of the Mafia from its origins to the present day'', London: Secker & Warburg * Stille, Alexander (1995). ''

Excellent Cadavers ''Excellent Cadavers'' is a 1995 non-fiction book by American author Alexander Stille about the Sicilian Mafia, concentrating on magistrate Giovanni Falcone's fight against the Mafia and his 1992 assassination. Book title The name of the book ...

. The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic'', New York: Vintage * Zingales, Leone (2001).
Provenzano: il re di cosa nostra: la vera storia dell'ultimo "padrino"
', Cosenza: Pellegrini Editore {{DEFAULTSORT:Bagarella, Calegero 1935 births 1969 deaths Sicilian Mafiosi Corleonesi Murdered Mafiosi Deaths by firearm in Italy