Renato Gutusso (1911-1987), The Vucciria, 1974

A section of Guttuso's "Vucciria" hanging in the Steri Palace

A monk rings a bell (auto da fe- act of faith) to announce those doomed to die

Yesterday afternoon, I walked along the Piazza Marina looking for Renato Guttuso's iconic painting of Palermo's Vucciria Market. It's housed in a quiet room on the third floor of the Palazzo Steri where the Inquisition in Sicily carried out one brutal execution after another in the Phillippine Prisons below. The Inquisition has been described as a reactionary machine that  destroyed the freedom of expression of any independence movement that threatened the Catholic Church's grand design. Any movement that valued the principles of participatory democracy or equal rights among social classes was made a victim to this shadow state. Thousands of victims deteriorated in the prison cells of the Pallazo Steri as they awaited torture and death.Many were women accused of witchcraft. The prisoners etched elaborate human drawings,scribblings and graffiti into the limestone walls, leaving behind traces of the prison's horrors… and in some cases evidence of Stockholm Syndrome - expressions of absolute faith to the church.


And what of Gutusso's "Vucciria"? It seems oddly displaced in this fortressed palace. Gutusso was publicly anti-fascist, a devoted communist, and recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize.He was also seriously anti mafia and dedicated himself to openly  opposing the flagrant abuse of power he witnessed by the Cosa Nostra, Mussolinni and the Italian royalty. I was surprised to learn that Salvo Lima, remembered as Cosa Nostra's Ambassador to Rome, had a valuable preliminary sketch of Gutusso's Vucciria hanging on the wall of his villa near the beach in Mondello… Lima chose to hang this sketch near a photograph of himself with Bobby, Jack and Ted Kennedy.

Graffiti on the wall of the Steri prison

Apparently the mafia has expanded its markets. In 2009, a multi-million dollar archive of art was forfeited to the Italian government after a leading mafia financier, Beniamino Zappia was arrested for extradition for financial crimes and gangsterism. Among the confiscated art were paintings by Guttuso (and Salvador Dali, Boldini and Giorgio de Chirico). This seize is just one example of contemporary trends in crime syndicates. The mafia now extends its cutting edge knowledge of modern currency laundering to global art markets (perhaps with the hope of refining it's stereo-typic bad taste).