Corleone family

The Corleone Family is a fictitious Sicilian Mafia family settled in New York City. The family was created by Mario Puzo and appears in his 1969 novel The Godfather. It is said that the Corleone family is inspired by the real-life Borgia family from Renaissance Italy in the late 15th century.

Compared with the real-life Five Families of organized crime, the Corleone family draws comparisons with the Genovese and Bonanno crime families.

Early Corleone history

The Corleone crime family traces its roots to 1920, when Vito Corleone assassinated Little Italy's padrone, Don Fanucci, and took over Fanucci's territory along with fellow hoodlums Genco Abbandando, Peter Clemenza and Salvatore Tessio. Shortly afterward, he founded the Genco Pura Olive Oil Company as a front for his criminal activities. Around 1925, Vito formally organized the family, with Genco as his consigliere and Pete and Sal as caporegimes. They became the most powerful crime family in New York after defeating Salvatore Maranzano during the Olive Oil War in the early 1930s. It was during this time that Vito's eldest son, Santino, made his reputation and eventually became a capo himself. Upon becoming successful, the family moved to a compound in Long Beach.

Crime family

A crime family is a unit of an organized crime syndicate, particularly the Mafia (both in Sicily and in the United States), often operating within a specific geographic territory.

Origins

The origins of the term come from the Sicilian Mafia. In the Sicilian language, the word cosca, which literally translates into artichoke (a vegetable whose multiple layers surround and protect a vital core), is also used for clan. In the early days of the Mafia, loose groups of bandits organized themselves into associations that over time became more organized, and they adopted the term based on both of its meanings.

As the Mafia was imported into the United States in the late 19th century, the English translation of the word cosca was more at clan or family.

The term can be a point of confusion, especially in popular culture and Hollywood, because in the truest sense, crime families are not necessarily blood families who happen to be involved in criminal activity, and not necessarily based on blood relationships. In Sicily and America, most Mafia bosses are not related to their predecessors. Films like The Godfather and a spate of late-1980s "Mafia princess" movies underscore this confusion.

Corleone

Corleone (Italian pronunciation: [korleˈoːne]), (Sicilian: Cunigghiuni) is a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy.

Several Mafia bosses have come from Corleone, including Tommy Gagliano, Jack Dragna, Giuseppe Morello, Michele Navarra, Luciano Leggio, Leoluca Bagarella, Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano. It is also the birthplace of several fictional characters in The Godfather, most notably Vito (Andolini) Corleone.

The local mafia clan, the Corleonesi, led the Mafia in the 1980s and 1990s, and were the most violent and ruthless Mafia clan ever to take control of the organization.

Corleone municipality has an area of 22,912 hectares (56,620 acres) with a population density of 49 inhabitants per square kilometer. It is located in an inland area of the mountain, in the valley between the "Rocca ri Maschi", the "Castello Soprano" and the "Castello Sottano". Corleone is located at 542 metres (1,778 ft) above sea level.

Corleone (disambiguation)

Corleone may refer to:

Corleone (album)

Corleone is the first studio album of Lacrim, French rapper of Algerian origin.

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