Corleonesi

The Corleonesi is the name given to a faction within the Sicilian Mafia that dominated Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and the 1990s. It was called the Corleonesi because its most important leaders came from the town of Corleone, first Luciano Leggio and later Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca Bagarella, Riina’s brother-in-law. The Corleonesi coalition managed to take over the Sicilian Mafia Commission and imposed a quasi-dictatorship over Cosa Nostra, waging war against rival factions (also known as the Second Mafia War) from 1978-1983. The more established Mafia factions in the city of Palermo grossly underestimated the mafiosi from Corleone and often referred to the Corleonesi as i viddani - "the peasants".