death_date death_place birth_place birth_date image article_title name
may 13 , 1889 palermo , italy palermo , italy august 10 , 1817 turrisi colonna.gif niccolò turrisi colonna
 niccolò turrisi colonna
niccolò turrisi colonna

niccolò turrisi colonna -lrb- august 10 , 1817 - may 13 , 1889 -rrb- , baron of buonvicino , was a sicilian politician from palermo .
he was a leading landowner and enlightened in the way he ran his business , studying agricultural science .
he was a patriot even before the unification of italy -lrb- -rrb- .
after the annexation of sicily by italy in 1860 , turrisi colonna was made leader of the palermo national guard .
he became a member of the italian senate -lrb- 1865 -- 1872 -rrb- and in the 1880s served twice as mayor of palermo .
in 1864 , turrisi colonna wrote a study , `` public security in sicily '' , in which he described a `` sect of thieves '' that operated across sicily and which is considered to be an early description of the mafia , although he did not mention the term .
this `` sect '' had special signals to recognize each other , had political protection in many regions , and a code of loyalty and non-interaction with the police known as `` umirtà '' or `` omertà '' -lrb- `` humility '' -rrb- .
the sect was mostly rural , comprising plantation wardens and smugglers , among others .
the sect made `` affiliates every day of the brightest young people coming from the rural class , of the guardians of the fields in the palermitan countryside , and of the large number of smugglers ; a sect which gives and receives protection to and from certain men who make a living on traffic and internal commerce .
it is a sect with little or no fear of public bodies , because its members believe that they can easily elude this . ''
turrisi colonna warned in his report that the italian government 's brutal attempts to crush unlawfulness only made the problem worse by alienating the populace .
he seemed to have known what he was talking about , as there was widespread suspicion that he was the protector of some important mafiosi in palermo .
domenico farini , longtime president of the senate , recalled that some members of parliament told him in private in 1876 that turrisi colonna was the head of the mafia .
