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The memory of landscapes

Taking the images of the research project Corpi di Reato ("Corpora Delicti") as a starting point, Marco Belpoliti examines the wounds — many of them invisible — inflicted on the Italian landscape by the Mafia.

This article was originally published in Domus 963 / November 2012

What memories do places retain of the things that happened in them? Try going to Quarto, near Genoa, to see the rocks from which Garibaldi's thousand Red Shirts set sail on their great adventure; or to Via Caetani, in Rome, where the dead body of the politician Aldo Moro was found abandoned in the boot of a car. In both places there is a plaque, a monument, an object and an inscription, to record what happened on that spot, years, decades, a century ago. Are these places impervious to memory, or do they keep it as a part of their identity?

It is a question hard to answer, yet it needs to be asked when looking at these photographs by Tommaso Bonaventura and Alessandro Imbriaco, realised for the research project curated by Fabio Severo. They represent places where a Mafia-style crime was committed — hence the title of the project, Corpi di Reato ("Corpora Delicti"). It could be a murder, building speculation, a house where a criminal at large has lived, or one still inhabited by a mobster; a whole suburb with a clan of gangsters ensconced in it; or courtrooms, archives of court cases, bunkers, legal evidence, statues of slain judges. These places, spaces and buildings, framed by the lens of Bonaventura and Imbriaco, are intended to indicate not just a criminal act, but also a visual presence: the Mafia is here, all around us. At one time, the photographs that portrayed this criminal association represented the murders of eminent figures and Sicilian landscapes: old-fashioned images that confirmed clichés; photographs of customs and traditions, sedimented in the eyes of the whole country. But then, after the slaughters it wrought during the 1990s, the Mafia emerged from its customary landscape of palm trees, olive groves, cliffs, dry-stone walls, donkeys, cloth caps, moustachioed men, black-clad women, portraits of criminal absconders, bandits and so on, and moved into a sort of invisibility.

Top: For years the Ionian-Reggio
’ndrangheta clans have been
infiltrating public contracts
in the Cinisi region, including bids
for the modernisation of
Highway 106. They have a
widespread grip on every
stage of these works: from
concrete to labour, site
supplies, sub-contracting
and equipment hire. This
abandoned road-building site
on the 106 Ionica Highway, in
Calabria, was seized in 2007
under a court order, after the
collapse of a tunnel caused
by the use of low-strength
concrete. In a tapped phone
conversation, Vincenzo
Capozza, director of Anas (the
Italian Roads Authority) said:
“The inverted arch should
have followed the face, and
the tunnels should have been
at 50 metres… If these things
are underestimated, this is
what happens.” He went on
to prepare a strategy to avoid
responsibility: “No, we’ll
blame the mountain, that’s for
sure, it’s obvious…” Capozza
has since been arrested and
the road-building site is still
unfinished. Above: Cinisi. The
stretch of the Palermo-Trapani
railway where the corpse
of Peppino Impastato was
found, 9 May 1978 — Top: For years the Ionian-Reggio ’ndrangheta clans have been infiltrating public contracts in the Cinisi region, including bids for the modernisation of Highway 106. They have a widespread grip on every stage of these works: from concrete to labour, site supplies, sub-contracting and equipment hire. This abandoned road-building site on the 106 Ionica Highway, in Calabria, was seized in 2007 under a court order, after the collapse of a tunnel caused by the use of low-strength concrete. In a tapped phone conversation, Vincenzo Capozza, director of Anas (the Italian Roads Authority) said: “The inverted arch should have followed the face, and the tunnels should have been at 50 metres… If these things are underestimated, this is what happens.” He went on to prepare a strategy to avoid responsibility: “No, we’ll blame the mountain, that’s for sure, it’s obvious…” Capozza has since been arrested and the road-building site is still unfinished. Above: Cinisi. The stretch of the Palermo-Trapani railway where the corpse of Peppino Impastato was found, 9 May 1978

As Fabio Severo says, this type of criminality — but other similar organisations too — has become a scattered, multiform reality. After changing face, it has become steadily more integrated into the political and economic landscape of Italy. Having explored this aspect, Bonaventura and Imbriaco came to the conclusion that they could — and should — shift their attention to the corpora delicti: landscapes and places. They rightly assume that these must have retained a memory, or at least some visible trace, of the criminal acts perpetrated in them. They ventured into a shadowy zone, where things appear in their transitoriness, ambivalence and ambiguity. They delved into a landscape that is inhabited by all of us, in order to extract visions of what happened and still happens there.

The sanctuary of the
Madonna di Polsi in San Luca,
Calabria. Every year in the
autumn, ’ndrangheta bosses
from all over Italy and abroad
gather at this 12th-century
sanctuary situated near San
Luca, one of the Calabria
Mafia’s main strongholds,
to agree on strategies and
make decisions. Accounts
of Mafia meetings in this
sanctuary, in the depths of
the Aspromonte Mountains,
date back at least to 1903 — The sanctuary of the Madonna di Polsi in San Luca, Calabria. Every year in the autumn, ’ndrangheta bosses from all over Italy and abroad gather at this 12th-century sanctuary situated near San Luca, one of the Calabria Mafia’s main strongholds, to agree on strategies and make decisions. Accounts of Mafia meetings in this sanctuary, in the depths of the Aspromonte Mountains, date back at least to 1903

Thus we are shown a playground in Milan's suburbs, a space where children can run around happily, jumping on and off seesaws and slides, with neither they nor their parents knowing that buried beneath that place is toxic waste or the remains of Mafia-style building speculation. Or concrete plinths at the bottom of a valley, solitary sentries recording a clan's attempt to erect an unauthorised building, now under distraint pending judicial investigation. What seems to be a natural spot — a riverbed — is disfigured by piers that would have supported a road.

After the slaughters in the 1990s, the Mafia has become a scattered, multiform reality

Documents relating to
the maxi-trial conducted
in Palermo, stored at the
International Centre for Mafia
Documentation (CIDMA)
in Corleone. Held between
10 February 1986 and 16
December 1987 in a fortified
courtroom at Ucciardone
Prison, the trial concerned
474 accused, 119 tried in their
absence, 360 found guilty
and sentenced to a total of
2,665 years’ imprisonment,
plus 19 life sentences handed
down to a number of bosses,
including Michele Greco and
the fugitives Salvatore Riina
and Bernardo Provenzano.
The trial of first instance
involved 349 hearings in 22
months, 35 days of council
chamber sittings, and 6,901
pages of drafted sentence
motivations. Subsequent
stages of judgement
continued until 1992 — Documents relating to the maxi-trial conducted in Palermo, stored at the International Centre for Mafia Documentation (CIDMA) in Corleone. Held between 10 February 1986 and 16 December 1987 in a fortified courtroom at Ucciardone Prison, the trial concerned 474 accused, 119 tried in their absence, 360 found guilty and sentenced to a total of 2,665 years’ imprisonment, plus 19 life sentences handed down to a number of bosses, including Michele Greco and the fugitives Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano. The trial of first instance involved 349 hearings in 22 months, 35 days of council chamber sittings, and 6,901 pages of drafted sentence motivations. Subsequent stages of judgement continued until 1992

If you look carefully at the places captured by the lens of these two photographers, be it a quarry, an apartment building, a group of high-rises, a middle-class home, a street, a town, an isolated farmhouse, a historic monument, you realise that what they are intended to seize and submit to our visual scrutiny are indeed "bodies". Not, of course, in flesh and bones, but composed of inert matter: gravel, earth, cement, glass or whatever. They are living — or dying — parts of our landscape that are the country's real body: its physical form as Pier Paolo Pasolini understood it. As a poet, he described Italy as a living body, a throbbing reality of towns perched on hilltops, cultivated fields, tenements on the edge of the city, minute soccer fields, open spaces along rivers, sandy banks and beaches. Italy is first and foremost its landscape. Lovely or ugly as it may be, it doesn't matter. It is a living organism, mangled over the past century and a half by the rapacious and virulent actions of builders, speculators, gangsters, criminals, Mafiosi and Camorra racketeers.

Statues of magistrates
Giovanni Falcone and Paolo
Borsellino, by Palermo-based
sculptor Tommaso Domina.
Unveiled in Via Libertà in
Palermo in the summer of
2010, they were vandalised by
unknown delinquents less than
24 hours later. The statues
were subsequently relocated
to the atrium of the Palermo
Law Courts — Statues of magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, by Palermo-based sculptor Tommaso Domina. Unveiled in Via Libertà in Palermo in the summer of 2010, they were vandalised by unknown delinquents less than 24 hours later. The statues were subsequently relocated to the atrium of the Palermo Law Courts

Bonaventura and Imbriaco unreel this landscape before our astonished eyes: country lanes, estuaries, seashores, promontories, crags, mountains, cultivated fields, council rooms, records offices, entrances to public buildings, courtrooms, courtyards, unauthorised constructions, temporary buildings, shacks, motorway intersections, guardhouses, bars, canteens and conference rooms. In each of these spaces — whether open or closed — something happened that concerns, questions and disturbs us. And yet all these images convey a sense of normality.

In 1980 the family
of boss Raffaele Cutolo
bought the Castello Mediceo
in Ottaviano (Naples)
and converted it into the
headquarters of the Nuova
Camorra Organizzata. The
castle (also called Palazzo
del Principe) was confiscated
in 1991 and requisitioned for
the Ottaviano Town Council — In 1980 the family of boss Raffaele Cutolo bought the Castello Mediceo in Ottaviano (Naples) and converted it into the headquarters of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata. The castle (also called Palazzo del Principe) was confiscated in 1991 and requisitioned for the Ottaviano Town Council

The shots are anonymous. Even if in every photo one perceives a determination to look, and thus to show, to an extent that goes beyond the image itself, normality seems to dominate. But these images are question marks. We feel interrogated by this everyday normality. Do you know what happened here? Who lived in that shack? Who lives in that building? Who uses this road every day? The invisibility of places and actions is transformed into a kind of visual archaeology that gradually strikes and disturbs us as we stare at the snapshots.

Via Salieri in Buccinasco,
Milan. Police reconstructions
indicate that the two
bazookas found in 2005 in
the vicinity of this street were
used by the ’ndrangheta mob
to blow up the car of Milanbased
public prosecutor
Alberto Nobili — Via Salieri in Buccinasco, Milan. Police reconstructions indicate that the two bazookas found in 2005 in the vicinity of this street were used by the ’ndrangheta mob to blow up the car of Milanbased public prosecutor Alberto Nobili

Isn't that a quiet suburban road just like the one where I live? And those houses, haven't I seen them before? Didn't I take my son to a playground like that one? Recognising the places and spaces depicted as part of our landscape relieves the photograph of its purpose as a mere document and rings an alarm bell, shaking us out of our indifference and acquiescence. The Mafia issue can be photographed like this, by giving shape to the "grey zone", as Primo Levi called it, that surrounds us and in which, like it or not, we are immersed. The invisible has suddenly become visible, and all of us are there, in those photos, in that landscape. Just look. Marco Belpoliti, essayist and writer

Via Boito in Giussano, 30
km north of Milan. The maxitrial
named “Infinito”, against
infiltration by Mafia clans in
North Italy, revealed that the
family of boss Antonio Stagno
owned several apartments
in this street, inhabited by
various associates and used
for meetings of senior clan
members — Via Boito in Giussano, 30 km north of Milan. The maxitrial named “Infinito”, against infiltration by Mafia clans in North Italy, revealed that the family of boss Antonio Stagno owned several apartments in this street, inhabited by various associates and used for meetings of senior clan members

The Buccinasco Più housing
development on the outskirts
of Milan. Work began at the
end of 2004; in July 2008,
members of the Barbaro-
Papalia clan who worked
on building sites in the area
were arrested. According to
magistrates, polluted earth
was used as infill for roads
in the district and even for
the playground on the Spina
Verde housing complex.
The Barbaro clan’s trucks
operated under the protection
of companies belonging
to Lombard entrepreneur
Maurizio Luraghi, who was
sentenced in 2010 for having
associations with organised
crime. In March 2012, the sentence has been annulled and the process reinstated — The Buccinasco Più housing development on the outskirts of Milan. Work began at the end of 2004; in July 2008, members of the Barbaro- Papalia clan who worked on building sites in the area were arrested. According to magistrates, polluted earth was used as infill for roads in the district and even for the playground on the Spina Verde housing complex. The Barbaro clan’s trucks operated under the protection of companies belonging to Lombard entrepreneur Maurizio Luraghi, who was sentenced in 2010 for having associations with organised crime. In March 2012, the sentence has been annulled and the process reinstated

The ex-servicemen and
war veterans’ association
at San Vittore Olona, near
Milan. Here, on 14 July
2008, Carmelo Novella, the
then head of the Lombard
’ndrangheta mob, was slain
by two killers hired by the
Reggio Calabria bosses
following his push for greater
autonomy. The Novella
homicide marked the start of
the “Infinito” investigation,
which in 2011 led to the
arrest of around 300
members of the Lombard
wing of ’ndrangheta — The ex-servicemen and war veterans’ association at San Vittore Olona, near Milan. Here, on 14 July 2008, Carmelo Novella, the then head of the Lombard ’ndrangheta mob, was slain by two killers hired by the Reggio Calabria bosses following his push for greater autonomy. The Novella homicide marked the start of the “Infinito” investigation, which in 2011 led to the arrest of around 300 members of the Lombard wing of ’ndrangheta

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The memory of landscapes

Taking the images of the research project Corpi di Reato ("Corpora Delicti") as a starting point, Marco Belpoliti examines the wounds — many of them invisible — inflicted on the Italian landscape by the Mafia.

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