Italian photographer and photojournalist

Letizia Battaglia (Italian pronunciation::; 5 March 1935 – 13 April 2022) was an Italian photographer and photojournalist. Although her photos do*ent a wide spectrum of Sicilian life, she is best known for her work on the Mafia.

A do*entary film based on her life, Shooting the Mafia, was released in 2019.

Contents

• 1 Early life
• 2 Work
• 3 Death
• 4 Publications
• 5 Exhibitions
• 6 Films
• 7 Awards
• 8 References
• 9 External links

Early life

Battaglia was born in Palermo, Sicily. At the age of 14, her father became irate when she took interest in a boy, and sent her away to boarding school. Battaglia wanted to escape and had ambitions to write. So at 16 she married Franco Stagnitta, who owned his own coffee business and came from a good family. She believed he would allow her to continue her studies, but he wanted her to be a conventional stay-at-home wife, so her writing ambition was somewhat thwarted.

Unhappy in her marriage, she eventually took another lover, though her husband shot at her when he found out. She took their daughters and moved to Milan.

Work

Battaglia took up photojournalism after her divorce in 1971, while raising three daughters. She picked up a camera when she found that she could better sell her articles if they were accompanied by photographs and slowly discovered a p*ion for photography. In 1974, after a period in Milan during which she met her long-time partner Franco Zecchin, she returned to Sicily to work for the left-wing L'Ora newspaper in Palermo until it was forced to close in 1992.

Battaglia took some 600,000 images as she covered the territory for the paper. She do*ented the ferocious internal war of the Mafia, and its *ault on civil society. She sometimes found herself at the scene of four or five different murders in a single day. Battaglia and Zecchin produced many of the iconic images that have come to represent Sicily and the Mafia beyond Italy. She wanted to expose and condemn the Mafia through her photography. She photographed the dead so often that she once said, "Suddenly, I had an archive of blood." She took her photographs of the dead in black and white as she believed it was more respectful, and offered its own silence.

As a result of her photographs, Battaglia spent many years fearing **ination from the Mafia. Even so, she chose not to have bodyguards. In 2017 she told The Guardian that "You no longer knew who your friends or enemies were. In the morning you came out of the house and did not know if you'd come back in the evening".

Battaglia also became involved in women's and environmental issues. For several years she stopped taking pictures and officially entered the world of politics. From 1985 to 1991 she held a seat on the Palermo city council for the Green Party, from 1991 to 1996 she was a Deputy at the Sicilian Regional *embly for The Network. She was instrumental in saving and reviving the historic center of Palermo. For a time she ran a publishing house, Edizioni della Battaglia, and co-founded a monthly journal for women, Mezzocielo. She was involved in working for the rights of women and, most recently, prisoners.

In 1993, when prosecutors in Palermo indicted Giulio Andreotti, who had been Prime Minister of Italy seven times, the police searched Battaglia's archives and found two 1979 photographs of Andreotti with an important Mafioso, Nino Salvo, he had denied knowing. Aside from the accounts of turncoats, these pictures were the only physical evidence of this powerful politician's connections to the Sicilian Mafia. Battaglia herself had forgotten having taken the photograph. Its potential significance was apparent only 15 years after it was taken.

Outside of photography, her other ventures included a women's magazine, a publishing house and a photography school.

Death

Battaglia died at the age of 87 in Cefalù on April 13, 2022. She had been ill for some time.

Publications

• P*ion, Justice, Freedom – Photographs of Sicily. Gordonsville, VA: Aperture, 2003. ISBN:0-89381-888-7.
• Dovere di Cronaca - The Duty to Report., Rome: Peliti *ociati, 2006. With Franco Zecchin. ISBN:88-89412-26-7.
• Just For P*ion. Drago, 2016. ISBN:978-8898565207.
• Anthology. Drago, 2016. ISBN:978-8898565191.

Exhibitions

• Letizia Battaglia. Just For P*ion, MAXXI - National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, Rome, 2016
• Siciliana, Bel Vedere Fotografia, Milan, Italy
• Bildmaterial der Dr.-Erich-Salomon-Preisträgerin 2007 Letizia Battaglia
• Dovere di Cronaca, Festival InterNational Socialist German Workers' Partyonale di Roma, 2006
• Una vita per la Mafia, Orvieto Photography festival, Palazzo dei Sette, Italy, 2009
• Letizia Battaglia: Breaking The Code Of Silence, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, UK, 2014
• Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, Palermo, Sicily, 2016
• Letizia Battaglia, Vintage Prints, Galleria del Cembalo, Rome, Italy, 2022

Films

• Battaglia (2004) – do*entary by Daniela Zanzotto
• Excellent Cadavers (2005) – do*entary based on the 1995 book by Alexander Stille. Battaglia played the role of survivor and p*ionate eyewitness.
• Palermo Shooting (2008) – by Wim Wenders; Battaglia had a cameo appearance as a photographer.
• Shooting the Mafia (2019) – do*entary film directed by Kim Longinotto and produced by Niamh *an

Awards

• 1985: W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography
• 1999: Photography Lifetime Achievement of the Mother Jones International Fund for Do*entary Photography
• 2007: Dr. Erich Salomon Award, a 'lifetime achievement' award of the German Society for Photography (DGPh)
• 2009: Cornell Capa Infinity Award by the International Center of Photography, New York City

References

External links

• Official website
• Testimony of a Keen Witness To Sicily's Enduring Sorrow, The New York Times, December 16, 2001

Members

• List of Sicilian Mafia members
• List of Sicilian Mafia members by city

Meetings

• Grand Hotel des Palmes Mafia meeting 1957

Wars

• First Mafia War (1961–1963)
• Second Mafia War (1981–1983)

M*acres
and bombings

• Portella della Ginestra m*acre (1947)
• Ciaculli bombing (1963)
• Viale Lazio m*acre (1969)
• Circonvallazione m*acre (1982)
• Via Carini m*acre (1982)
• Via Federico Pipitone m*acre (1983)
• Train 904 bombing (1984)
• Pizzolungo bombing (1985)
• Capaci bombing (1992)
• Via D'Amelio bombing (1992)
• Via dei Georgofili bombing (1993)
• Via Palestro m*acre (1993)

Antimafia

• Italian Antimafia Commission (members)
• Direzione Investigativa Antimafia
• State-Mafia Pact
• Addiopizzo
• Pen*o
• List of victims of the Sicilian Mafia

Trials

• 1960s Sicilian Mafia trials
• Maxi Trial (1986–1992)
• Pizza Connection Trial (1985–1986)

Related

• American Cosa Nostra
• Anonima sarda
• Banda della Comasina
• Banda della Magliana
• Basilischi
• Beati Paoli
• Camorra
• Corsican mafia
  • Unione Corse
• Garduña
• Italian brigandage (19th century)
• Sicilian brigandage and rebels (20th century)
• Mala del Brenta
• 'Ndrangheta
• Sacra Corona Unita
• Stidda
• Stuppagghiari
• Vendicatori

• American Cosa Nostra
• Organized crime in Italy
• Mafia bibliography