Historic Sicilian Saga Reveals Mafia’s Clandestine Beginnings

Sicilian Avengers by Luigi Natoli

Fans of epic, swashbuckling adventure are in for a treat! With the arrival of Sicilian Avengers by Luigi Natoli — translated for the first time in English by Stephen Riggio — the intrigues of an eighteenth century Sicilian noble family and the secret sect dedicated to protecting the people finally reaches a wider reading audience it so richly deserves.

First published in serial form between 1909 and 1910 under the title The Beati Paoli, the two volume 1971 Italian edition featured an introduction by Umberto Eco. For this English edition, an academic introduction by Maurizio Barbato and an afterword by Eco help frame the literary importance of Natoli’s work as both a work of historical and — as Eco believes it more resembles — popular fiction. Readers will want to read both, as they are hugely instructive in explaining how the Beati Paoli are considered (in some corners) the forerunners to the Sicilian Mafia (utterly fascinating!).

In a nine-chapter prologue, Natoli introduces readers to turn-of-the-century Palermo and the machinations of a powerful aristocrat, Don Raimondo Albamonte, brother to the popular and powerful Duke of Motta. When the duke dies in battle far from home, Raimondo’s innate wickedness propels him in a diabolical plot to replace his brother — despite the birth of the duke’s son and rightful heir, Emanuele. Raimondo stews, thinking he will forever be an “ill-fated younger brother, a number, a subject, before that little being, whose cradle was topped by a ducal crown.” But the war-like nature of the Albamonte brothers — one on the battlefield and one in the shadows — is a fuse that, once lit, will explode into a future conflict. As Raimondo reflects on his nephew’s birth, “didn’t the ancients say that the future rested on the knees of Jupiter?”

The story then moves forward fifteen years as the residents of Palermo prepare to welcome their new king, Victor Amadeus, and pageantry abounds as the city, both high and low born, turns out in style. Trotting into the city is a young man, Blasco da Castiglione, an orphan in search of himself. He seeks out a Catholic priest, Father Giovanni, who knows more than he lets on, but indulges Blasco’s need “to know everything about the mystery of my birth, of my childhood shrouded in shadow.”

Natoli’s descriptions of Palermo and life as it was lived in 1713 are both opulent and true-to-history. Readers may feel they have stepped into an Alexander Dumas novel, with its coterie of cavaliers and strutting princes all looking to climb the social ladder, swords flashing in the sunny streets as duels break out when honor is at stake. Just as Blasco makes his way into the court of the Duke of Motta — the Raimondo of the prologue — he falls headfirst into love with the duke’s much younger wife, the Duchess Gabriella. Natoli’s presentation of this love story is that of a different era (written in 1909), so readers might consider scenes between Blasco and Gabriella dated. But it is high, popular fiction and for that, it is a rousing (if doomed) romance like Romeo and Juliet.

Blasco is first recruited by the Raimondo to work in his protective detail, but as his feelings for Gabriella deepen, his principles call him away before he transgresses further. For the duchess, who also falls desperately, his painful departure triggers violent emotions that will carry implications neither can foretell. Meanwhile, Blasco continues to search for his real name and identity, with the help of a friend and mentor, Coriolano della Floresta, another cavalier at court with secrets of his own.

The Duke of Motta, however, begins to receive mysterious and threatening letters hinting that someone knows about his past … and the stolen inheritance that belongs to someone else. He sets his resolute henchman, Matteo Lo Vecchio, to find who is sending the letters and eliminate anyone who knows what he did fifteen years previously … all of which could end his reign and bring him to shame, justice and death. Here the first whispers of the “Beati Paoli” float upon the crisp Palermo air, giving Raimondo the only sense of vulnerability he has felt in his life.

“How did they arise? From where? It was a mystery,” a super-secret organization of hooded members who protect Palermo’s poor and weak against the “masters of the State” who lord their wealth and power over those less fortunate. The Beati Paoli form the main action of this sprawling novel, with intrigues and ambushes in darkened alleys all adding up to a great deal of fun. Soon, Blasco is brought into their plans to bring Raimondo to justice … but will the price be too high for Blasco, who still loves Gabriella? Either way, the Beati Paoli will not be stopped:

“They were a State within the State, formidable because it was hidden, terrify because it passed judgment without appeal, punished without mercy, struck without failing…They were everywhere, heard everything, knew everything, yet no one knew where they were or where they met.”

Sicilian Avengers is the quintessential hero’s journey, and Blasco is an eminently likable protagonist, soon torn between his love for Gabriella and that of a pure, tender-hearted young nun named Violante. Natoli creates several heart-stopping set pieces — including a terrifying auto-da-fé in the city square — that keep the pages turning. English readers will rejoice at the reappearance of this obscure epic that teases up the birth of the Mafia while it thrills the heart. Highly recommend.