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Salvatore Giuliano ( in popular culture, due to stories pertaining to him helping the poor villagers in his area. BIOGRAPHY Early life Salvatore Giuliano was born in Montelepre within the Province Of Palermo as the fourth child of Salvatore and Maria Giuliano, as a child he was nicknamed ''Turiddu'' or ''Turi''. He had a decent primary education, but then went to work on his father's land at the age of thirteen. He transported olive oil and worked as a telephone repairman and on road construction. Giuliano was due to be called up to the Italian army, but the Allied Invasion Of Sicily prevented his actual enlistment. He became involved in the wartime black market and was armed in case of attacks from bandits. Rise to infamy massacre.]] On September 2 , 1943 , he killed a Sicilian Carabiniere at a checkpoint near Quattro Molini while transporting stolen grain. He left his identity papers at the scene and was wounded when another officer shot him as he was running away. His family sent him to Palermo to have the bullet removed. In late December, a number of residents of Montelepre, including Giuliano's father, were arrested during a police raid. Giuliano helped some of them escape from prison in Monreale , and a number of the freed men stayed with him. In the Sagana Mountains , Giuliano collected a gang of approximately fifty bandits, criminals, deserters, and homeless men under his leadership and gave them military-style marksmanship training. The gang took to robbery and burglary for the money they needed for food and weapons. When carabinieri came to look for them, they were met with accurate submachinegun fire. He also joined a Sicilian separatist group, Movement For The Independence Of Sicily (MIS), with close ties to the Mafia and led small-scale attacks on government and police targets in the name of this movement. His actions continued post-war, and he supported the MIS and the similar MASCA with funds for the 1946 elections, in which both groups did poorly. Reputedly, Giuliano himself would have liked to have seen Sicily become a state within the United States of America. He sent president Harry S. Truman a letter in which he urged him to annex Sicily. Giuliano also fostered a number of myths around himself. One tale tells how he discovered a postal worker was stealing letters that contained money Sicilian families had sent to their relatives in the USA; he killed the postal worker and assured the letters continued to their correct destinations. When he robbed the duchess of Pratameno , he left her with her wedding ring and borrowed a book she was reading; he returned it later with compliments. He fostered cooperation of poor tenant farmers by sending them money and food. In , ''Primitive Rebels'', chapter "Millenarianism III", Norton, 1965, p.105 Decline and death Giuliano continued to work against socialist groups whenever he had the opportunity but by 1948 his popular support was ebbing. Locals and even the Mafia were less willing to aid Giuliano and helped the police, despite Giuliano's tendency to kill suspected informers. Giuliano dared police by sending them boisterous letters about himself and dining in Palermo restaurants and leaving a note about his presence with a tip. The reward for his capture was doubled, and a special police force was instituted to suppress banditry. 300 carabinieri attacked his mountain stronghold, but most of Giuliano's gang escaped. On August 14 1949 Giuliano's men exploded mines under a convoy of police vehicles near the Bellolampo barracks outside Palermo, killing seven Carabinieri and wounding eleven.Servadio, ''Mafioso'', p. 128-29 As a result the Italian government dispatched an additional 1000 troops to Western Sicily, with all troops under the command of Colonel Ugo Luca. On , Giuliano's lieutenant, claimed later that police had promised him a Pardon and reward if he would kill Giuliano. Executioner , Time, April 30, 1951 Giuliano's mother Maria reportedly believed this story. Pisciotta died four years later in prison from poisoning, after ingesting 20 centigrams of strychnine. The Big Mouth , Time, February 22, 1954 At the trial for the , Prince Alliata, the monarchist MP Marchesano and also Signor Scelba , Minister for Home Affairs … it was Marchesano, Prince Alliata and Bernardo Mattarella who ordered the massacre of Portella di Ginestra. Before the massacre they met Giuliano…" However the MPs Mattarella, Alliata and Marchesano were declared innocent by the Court of Appeal of Palermo, at a trial which dealt with their alleged role in the event.Servadio, ''Mafioso'', p. 128-29 DRAMATIZATIONS A film of his life, '' Salvatore Giuliano '', was directed by Francesco Rosi in 1961. Novelist Mario Puzo published '' The Sicilian '', a dramatized version of Giuliano's life, in 1984. The book was made into a film in 1987 , directed by Michael Cimino and starring Christopher Lambert as Giuliano. Probably the most significant work to date on Giuliano is Professor Billy Jaynes Chandler's ''King of the Mountain'', published in 1988 by Northern Illinois University Press. Also useful is ''God Protect Me From my Friends"''(1956) (published as ''Bandit'' in the USA), a biography of Giuliano by Gavin Maxwell . REFERENCES
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