A future socialist leader once joined the Fratuzzi in his youth

Evidence

In a deposition of May 10, Bernardino Verro, a socialist leader of the peasant movement, describes the ritual he had undergone in his youth, sometime in the 1880s, when he joined yet another group of Fraruzzi in Corleone. It differs from all others in the symbols used—the drawing of a skull and the knife—and because it Is the lip rather than a finger which is pierced. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 705

Categorization

• QUESTION: Verro’s trajectory from Fratuzzi member to socialist peasant leader, and the ambiguity of his deposition, might reveal how mafia membership overlapped with political organizing on the left in 1880s Sicily—worth investigating.