martial law and the violent suppression of the Fasci, Colajanni broke with Crispi and wrote the book Gli avvenimenti di Sicilia e le loro cause on the events in Sicily, which put the main blame on Crispi. The disorders were not the product of a revolutionary plot, but Crispi chose to believe otherwise. On the basis of dubious documents and reports, Crispi claimed that there was an organised conspiracy to separate Sicily from Italy; the leaders of the Fasci conspired with the clerics and were financed by French gold, and war and invasion were looming. Disillusioned by the spread of violence in Sicily, to which he believed the Socialist party's discourse of class struggle had contributed, Colajanni reverted in 1894 to his original republicanism. On April 12, 1895, he took part in the founding congress of the Italian Republican Party (Partito Repubblicano Italiano). Against the Mafia A recurring theme of his political engagement was the struggle to overcome the economic contrast between North and South of Italy, through a reform of society, but also of the state through federalism. His contribution the socio-political definition of the Southern question was substantial, in particular with the volumes Settentrionali e meridionali (Northern and southern, published in 1898) and Nel regno della mafia (In the realm of the Mafia, published in 1900). Colajanni identified the root of the backwardness of Sicily in power groups of landowners of the rural estates and the Mafia, which were closely connected to each other and in a close relationship with public administration on the island. This connection was well established had become normal practice from 1876 onwards. The only hope to change the situation lay in an autonomist-federalist reform of the state. In 1900, Colajanni wrote a j’accuse directed at the magistracy, the police, and the government in relation to the trial about the 1893 murder of Emanuele Notarbartolo, the ex-mayor of Palermo and ex-governor of the Bank of Sicily. Notarbartolo had been killed on the instruction of Raffaele Palizzolo, a member of parliament and a director of the Bank of Sicily, in revenge for exposing a swindle using the bank's money. Palizzolo was allegedly involved with the Sicilian Mafia. The Italian government, Colajanni wrote, has done everything to consolidate the Mafia and render it omnipotent. “To fight and destroy the reign of the Mafia, it is necessary that the Italian government ceases to be the king of