The Mafia

In the late 19th century the Sicilian Mafia emerged from the breakdown in feudal society and the ingrained distrust of outside authority stemming from centuries of foreign domination. In its earliest years wild speculation in the minds of most people compensated for the lack of real knowledge as to the nature and workings of the shadowy organization. This short treatise, written in 1899 by a professor of law at the University of Rome, and a Sicilian by birth, was meant to clarify the many misconceptions people had at the turn of the 20th century. It is translated into English here for the first time. It is a concise, thorough, and fascinating description of the origins and characteristics of the early Mafia and Mafiosi as Professor Vaccaro understood them, and their rituals and codes, which set them on their way to becoming the multinational criminal enterprise we know today.