such as Palermo's leading construction entrepreneur Francesco Vassallo – a former cart driver hauling sand and stone in a poor district of Palermo. Vassallo was connected to mafiosi like Angelo La Barbera and Tommaso Buscetta. In five years, over 4,000 building licences were signed, some 2,500 in the names of three pensioners who had no connection with construction at all. Developers with close ties to the Mafia were not afraid to use strong-arm tactics to intimidate owners into selling or to clear the way for their projects. The Parliamentary Antimafia Commission noted: It was in Palermo in particular that the phenomenon [of illegal construction] took on dimensions such as not to leave any doubts about the insidious penetration by the Mafia of public administration. The administrative management of Palermo City Council reached unprecedented heights of deliberate non-observation of the law around 1960. References Dickie, John (2004). Cosa Nostra. A history of the Sicilian Mafia, London: Coronet, Jamieson, Alison (2000), The Antimafia. Italy’s Fight Against Organized Crime, London: MacMillan Press Schneider, Jane T. & Peter T. Schneider (2003). Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo, Berkeley: University of California Press Servadio, Gaia (1976), Mafioso. A history of the Mafia from its origins to the present day, London: Secker & Warburg Stille, Alexander (1995). Excellent Cadavers. The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic, New York: Vintage History of the Sicilian Mafia History of Palermo 20th century in Italy 1951 in Italy 1950s in Italy 1960s in Italy 1970s in Italy 1980s in Italy