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

Retrospective (Norman Douglas)

Glancing back I note that on this date twenty years ago—namely on Christmas Eve, 1924—I was staying at Syracuse. Twenty years:what can have happened during that long stretch of time? It is a blank at first; a blank, and then a blur. Suddenly the memories crawl out of chaos and disentangle themselves from one another.  Yes, a good deal was crammed into those years—deaths of old friends and the making of some few new ones; trips to Tunis and Greece and Austria, to India and Syria and Tanganyika; the writing of books; a lawsuit or two; that infernal rheumatism.

        In Syracuse the hotel up at the Latomia dei Cappuccini was most comfortable, one of the best, at the moment in the kingdom.  Nothing was lacking, nothing amiss.  And I grudged myself nothing.  If what is meant to be serious work, like the writing of that pamphlet on Maurice Magnus, has to be done, then good food and attentive service are essential;  these and uninterrupted quiet.  Hence the visit to Syracuse where one was a complete stranger.  This day, then, twenty years ago, the booklet was finished and typed on that handy but otherwise unsatisfactory Blick.

From Late Harvest. London, Lindsay Drummond, 1946. 

Reader Note:  Click on images to enlarge.

Ronald Firbank: Two Excerpts For A Sunday Morning (The Kibble Mirror)

    

 

 

      “When we were first married,” she said, “I was very, very wretched.  I would weep, weep, weep at night!  And in the morning, often my maid would have to put my pillow-case out upon the window-ledge to dry.  Fortunately, it was in Sicily, so it never took long.” 

-- Vainglory (1915)

  

      

     To watch the trees slip past in the dusk was entrancing quite.  In a meadow a shepardess with one white wether stood up and waved her crook.

     “Poor Palmer seems completely worn out.”
The maid stirred slightly at her name.

“When Greek meets Greek, miss,” she asked informingly, “can you tell me what they’re supposed to do?”

“Since we’re all English,” Miss O’Brookomore replied, “I don’t think it matters. . . . “

-- Inclinations (1916)