Historic Sicilian saga reveals Mafia’s clandestine beginnings
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 18th 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...