Giovanni Falcone (; 18 May 1939 – 23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian Mafia. After a long and distinguished career, culminating in the Maxi Trial in 1986–1987, on 23 May 1992, Falcone was assassinated by the Corleonesi Mafia in the Capaci bombing, on the A29 motorway near the town of Capaci. His life parallels that of his close friend Paolo Borsellino. They both spent their early years in the same neighbourhood in Palermo. Though many of their childhood friends grew up in the Mafia background, both men fought on the other side of the war as prosecuting magistrates. They were both killed in 1992, a few months apart. In recognition of their tireless effort and sacrifice during the anti-mafia trials, they were both awarded the Gold Medal for Civil Valor and were acknowledged as martyrs of the Catholic Church. They were also named as heroes of the last 60 years in the 13 November 2006 issue of Time. Early life Falcone was born in 1939 to a middle-class family in the Via Castrofilippo near the seaport district La Kalsa, a neighbourhood of central Palermo that suffered extensive destruction by aerial attacks during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. His father, Arturo Falcone, the director of a provincial chemical laboratory, was married to Luisa Bentivegna. Giovanni had two older sisters, Anna and Maria. Falcone's parents emphasised the importance of hard work, bravery and patriotism; he later said they 'expected the maximum' from him. At school Falcone would get into fights with larger children if he thought his friends were being picked on. The Mafia was present in the area but quiescent; Tommaso Spadaro, a boy with whom he played ping-pong in the neighbourhood Catholic Action recreation centre, would later become a notorious Mafia smuggler and killer, but mafiosi were not a major presence in his childhood. As boys, Falcone and Borsellino, who were born in the same neighbourhood, played soccer together on the Piazza Magione. Both had classmates who ended up as mafiosi. Falcone grew up at a time when Sicilians did not acknowledge the existence of the Mafia as a coherent organised group; assertions to the contrary by other Italians were often seen as 'attacks from the north'. After