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In discussions about Sicily, one often hears how culturally different the region is from the rest of Italy. "We're not Italian," Sicilians love to say. "We're Sicilian." Indeed, the island has its own government, its own dialect, and, many say, its own mentality. It also has the aspect for which it is perhaps best known: its mafia, Cosa Nostra. That the Sicilian mafia has a tremendous impact on island life has long been established. Through extortion, political corruption and murder, the deeply rooted criminal organization has written its presence in bold. The strong antimafia sentiment that has developed in response to it, however, has only recently been acknowledged for the immense cultural and social impact it has begun to have. Only in the past few decades, to be sure, has the antimafia matured into an organized, nationwide movement based on solid understandings of mafia methods and structure. With increasing influence unlike anything known until recent years, the movement has made significant defeats against the mafia and the broad public resignation that allows it to flourish, instilling the important notion that criminality must no longer be passively accepted. With few exceptions, past antimafia scholarship has focused only on what the movement has done – its individual accomplishments and myriad setbacks – without recognizing what it is doing. Such a narrow focus, that is to say, has excluded wider discourse on the effect Cosa Nostra and the antimafia are having on broader national unity. This thesis sets out, therefore, to provide a new, deeper examination of the mafia and antimafia's dialectical interplay, and the increasingly significant impact that the latter is having on the cultural and ideological connection between Sicily and the rest of Italy. Through an analysis of personal interviews, newspaper and journal articles, anthropological studies, political essays and films, it reviews Sicily's historical relationship with the mainland and considers the fundamentals of Cosa Nostra operations and control. It expounds the significance of important antimafia prosecutions in the 1980s and 1990s, and illustrates their impact in sparking a more potent antimafia movement nationwide. Finally, it looks at the movement's successes and failures across Italy, especially in recent months and years, and demonstrates how the spread of antimafia sentiment has allowed for a new, gradual national unity that early attempts at forced assimilation were never able to provide. Cosa Nostra, it concludes, has colored the lens through which Sicilian culture is considered, and the antimafia movement born in response is emblematic of increasingly apparent common national values.

Reprint of the rev. ed. of 1924. ; "Bibliography of works consulted for this book": v.2, p.[399]-424. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Bibliography of works consulted for this book: v. 2, p. [399]-424. ; Mode of access: Internet.

The documents conserved in the Terracini Jewish Archive of Turin allow the reader to examine the application of the legislation concerning Jewish communities during the period of time starting from the Napoleonic domination until the Italian unity. My research focuses in particular on the notarial deeds and judicial documents relating to the property of the synagogue and the cemetery of the Jewish community of Mondovì. Under the rule of France the Jewish people living in Piedmont were allowed to become real estate owners and the plots of land where the Jewish cemetery was located and the house that hosted the synagogue in Mondovì were allotted to the Jewish community. During the Restoration, the ban to become real estate property was introduced again. Even if the Jewish people of Mondovì had bought from its owner the house of the synagogue and they had obtained from the French administration the property of the plots of land of the cemetery, they were not anymore recognized as owners. After the emancipation of the Jewish population and the Italian unity, the Jewish community of Mondovì claimed its rights on those real estate properties: my essay would focus on the exam of the archive documents that show how the legislation concerning real estate property for Jewish people was applied over time. ; I documenti conservati presso l'Archivio Ebraico Terracini testimoniano l'evoluzione nel tempo dell'applicazione della legislazione che riguardava la vita delle comunità ebraiche. Il contributo si concentra in particolare sullo studio dei documenti notarili e processuali relativi alla proprietà della sinagoga e del cimitero ebraico nel periodo che va dalla dominazione napoleonica all'unità d'Italia. Durante il periodo napoleonico, agli ebrei residenti nei territori controllati dai francesi venne applicata la legislazione francese che aveva permesso loro di divenire proprietari immobiliari. Per questa ragione, alla Università israelitica di Mondovì fu attribuita la proprietà della parte di immobile che ospitava la sinagoga e del terreno adibito a cimitero israelitico. Dopo la Restaurazione, però, venne reintrodotto il divieto di accesso alla proprietà immobiliare per gli ebrei del Regno di Sardegna. Per questa ragione, sebbene la Comunità avesse comprato dal proprietario l'edificio della Sinagoga e avesse ottenuto dall'amministrazione francese la proprietà del terreno del cimitero, non vennero più considerati come proprietari. Dopo l'emancipazione ebraica del 1848 e con l'unità italiana, la comunità ebraica monregalese rivendicò i suoi diritti di proprietà su tali beni immobili: il mio studio mira a mostrare, attraverso l'analisi dei documenti archivistici, l'evoluzione nel tempo dell'applicazione delle regole relative all'accesso alla proprietà immobiliare per la comunità ebraica monregalese.