The sound of the explosion at 5:58 pm on the A 29 near Capaci sounded like a roar, witnesses said. What was left was a huge crater in the asphalt. The explosives were detonated by remote detonation. By order of the mobster Totò Riina, the assassin watched the street from the top of a hill to precisely time the moment when, on May 23, 1992, the column with Judge Giovanni Falcone toppled the place prepared with 500 kilos of explosives. TNT 23 people survived wounded, Falcone and four of his companions were killed. In Rome, where the judge worked at the time and was barely watched, it would have been easy to ambush him alone. But Cosa Nostra wanted to set an example on Sicilian soil with as many deaths as possible. Shortly afterwards, on July 19, anti-mafia judge Paolo Borsellino was also assassinated. He was Falcone’s friend and his most important ally.
Falcone’s wife Francesca was in the car next to him.
Thirty years later, Italy has not forgotten them, although the country takes time to discover the whole truth about the murders. Every May, the anniversary of the “Capaci Massacre” commemorates Falcone, his tenacious and revolutionary anti-mafia struggle, and the other victims: police officers Vito Schifani, Rocco Dicillo, Antonio Montinari and Falcone’s second wife, Francesca Morvillo, who was with him sitting in the car and journalist Felice Cavallaro was reading the book “Francesca. Storia di un amore in tempo di guerra” (“Francesca. The story of a love in times of war”).
Giovanni Falcone (left) and his friend and ally Paolo Borsellino : Image: photo alliance / dpa
In Milan, too, the cultural scene is all about souvenirs. On one night this week, at the packed Franco Parenti Theater, actor Dario Leone performs his breathtaking solo play “Bum ha i piedi bruciati” (“The tramp burned his feet”). Like many Italians of his generation, Leone, born in 1981, still remembers May 23, 1992. In Italy, the question “What were you doing when Falcone was murdered?” it is part of the collective culture of remembrance. At that time he got the feeling for the first time that something was in the news that also worried him, a child, the actor said recently.
Dario Leone in his play “Bum ha i piedi bruciati” about Giovanni Falcone : Photo: Teatro Franco Parenti
Over the years, the need has grown to tell the story of Falcone and Borsellino, who played football together as boys in Palermo and then set up the first anti-mafia unit there. Leone studied writings, speeches, articles, interviews and testimonies by and about Falcone and was inspired by Luigi Garlando’s book “Per queto mi chiamo Giovanni” (“That’s why my name is Giovanni”). The result is a piece that illuminates with a crescendo of mafia narratives, honors the work of murdered judges, and portrays Falcone in a profound and sensitive way. The Giovanni Falcone Foundation, led by Maria Falcone, supports the production. In 2020, the sister of the anti-mafia judge unsuccessfully tried to take legal action against a Frankfurt pizzeria that called itself “Falcone & Borsellino”, advertised with a bullet-hole menu and a photo of Marlon Brando as best man alongside a photo. of the mafia investigators had hung up. Maria Falcone saw her reputation tarnished. Perhaps the judges would have agreed if they had seen Leone’s play.
The Mafia has become part of the Sicilian landscape
For his story, he takes on the role of a small shopkeeper from Palermo who, like his father and ancestors, gives money to the mafia every month. He only finds the strength to rebel when “Giovanni,” as he always calls Falcone, fundamentally changes society’s view of the mafia. “In Palermo”, he says on stage and in a Sicilian language, “there is a just law and an unjust law. The latter has existed in Sicily for so long that it has become part of the landscape. It’s called Mafia. material and photos from the archive.
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“Giovanni was a boy like any other. His favorite hero was Zorro,” says Leone, jumping into a fake sword attack and yelling, “There are no invincible men!” Shortly after, an old recording of Falcone’s Rai fills the stage: “The mafia is man-made. And like everything that is man-made, it has a beginning and it will also have an end,” he says. At the latest, when Leone takes on the role of mobster Tommaso Buscetta, Falcone’s main witness in Maxi’s trial, the hall holds its breath. In the dim light, his face dimly lit, he explains in a hoarse voice how the Cosa Nostra is organized in the cities of Sicily. There are standing ovations at the end. Also for Salvatore Borsellino, brother of Paolo Borsellino, who enters the scene with emotion. It is scandalous, says the 82-year-old, that Europe has not yet found uniform legislation to combat organized crime. “You will only defeat the evil mafia if you take Italy’s laws as a model. There must finally be an end to downplaying the mafia across Europe!”