Via dei Georgofili bombing

Via dei Georgofili bombing
Part of Sicilian Mafia
The Torre dei Pulci, the main target of the bombing
Location Florence, Italy
Date 27 May 1993
Attack type
 Car bombing
Weapon Explosives
Deaths Five
Suspected perpetrator
 Sicilian Mafia

The via dei Georgofili bombing (Italian: Strage di via dei Georgofili) was a terrorist attack carried out by the Sicilian Mafia very early in the morning on 27 May 1993 outside the Uffizi in Florence, Italy.

From May to August 1993, five car bomb attacks in Rome, Florence and Milan killed ten people and injured dozens.[1] In addition to the Uffizi, the targets were two venerable Roman churches — San Giovanni in Laterano and San Giorgio in Velabro – and a modern art gallery in Milan. A powerful bomb also exploded near the home of a television talk-show host, Maurizio Costanzo, a vocal Mafia opponent. Costanzo escaped unharmed.[1]

The via dei Georgofili bombing was carried out with a Fiat Fiorino packed full of explosives, parked near the Torre dei Pulci, between the Uffizi museum and the Arno River. The edifice was the seat of the Accademia dei Georgofili. The large explosion caused the death of five people: Angela Fiume (36 years old), employee and caretaker of the Accademia; her husband Fabrizio Nencioni (39 years old), policeman; their daughters Caterina Nencioni (only fifty days old); and Nadia Nencioni (nine years old); and Dario Capolicchio (22 years old), a junior student at the architecture class at the university. 48 other people were injured by the blast. The tower and other buildings were destroyed and others damaged, including the Uffizi Gallery, where three paintings were heavily damaged or destroyed, including Adoration of the Shepherds (1620) by Gerard van Honthorst (later partially recovered).[2]

The massacre was ordered by the Corleonesi mafia clan, led by Totò Riina, in response to the application of the article 41-bis law, by which jailed mafiosi were isolated and put under severe restrictive measures. On 27 July, the bombing was followed by another two: in Rome, near the churches of St. John Lateran and San Giorgio al Velabro; and in via Palestro in Milan, which killed five people.

The choice to hit cultural and church targets was partly to destabilize the Italian government, but also because the Mafia felt that the Roman Catholic Church had abrogated an unwritten hands-off policy toward traditional organized crime in Southern Italy.[1] Later, pentito Gaspare Spatuzza claimed to have repented for his participation in the incidents.[3]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Tagliabue, John (15 July 1994). "Bombings Laid to Mafia War on Italy and Church". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
  2. ↑ Delavaux, Celine (2012). The Impossible Museum: The Best Art You'll Never See. Prestel. pp. 86–9. ISBN 9783791347158.
  3. ↑ Bravi, Alessandra. "Spatuzza: Firenze, perdono E cita Dell'Utri e il premier". Il Corriere della Sera. RCS.

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