Corleonesi

Corleonesi affiliates were not restricted to mafiosi of Corleone. The Corleone Mafia bosses initiated "men of honour", not necessarily from Corleone, whose status was kept hidden from the other members of the Corleone cosca and other Mafia families. Members of other Mafia families who sided with Riina and Provenzano were considered Corleonesi as well, forming a coalition that dominated the Mafia in the 1980s until 2006, that can be considered as a kind of parallel Cosa Nostra, according to the pentito (Mafia turncoat) Leonardo Messina. (Giovanni Brusca from the San Giuseppe Jato Mafia family was a prominent member of the Corleonesi faction for example) The pentito Antonino Calderone provided first-hand accounts of the leaders of the Corleonesi: Luciano Leggio, Totò Riina and Bernardo Provenzano. About Leggio, Calderone said: "He liked to kill. He had a way of looking at people that could frighten anyone, even us mafiosi. The smallest thing set him off, and then a strange light would appear in his eyes that created silence around him. When you were in his company you had to be careful about how you spoke. The wrong tone of voice, a misconstrued word, and all of a sudden that silence. Everything would instantly be hushed, uneasy, and you could smell death in the air."

In the 1970s, the Sicilian Mafia Commission was increasingly dominated by a coalition led by Riina and Provenzano that was opposed primarily by Gaetano Badalamenti, Stefano Bontade and Salvatore Inzerillo. Tensions between different coalitions increased. Riina and Provenzano secretly formed an alliance of mafiosi in different families, cutting across clan divisions, in defiance of the rules concerning loyalty in Cosa Nostra. This secretive inter-family group became known as the Corleonesi. The wing headed by Badalamenti and Bontade defended the existing balance of power between the single Mafia families and the Commission, while the Corleonesi tried to centralize decision making. Amongst those who aligned themselves with the Corleonesi were Palermo bosses Giuseppe Calò (boss of Porta Nuova), Filippo Marchese (boss of Corso Dei Mille) and Rosario Riccobono (boss of Partanna Mondello). In 1977, Riina managed to have Badalamenti expelled from the Commission and subsequently exiled from the Mafia and Sicily altogether. His place was taken by Michele "The Pope" Greco, who was also aligned with Riina. Greco, like Calò, Marchese and Riccobono, kept his alliance secret from the likes of Bontade and Inzerillo. Gradually, the bosses of Palermo and their men were isolated.

The Corleonesi faction, led by Riina, also adopted an aggressive campaign of political assassination that flagrantly broke the mafia's own rules – which required unanimous Commission approval before killing any public official. Between 1979 and 1983, they systematically eliminated roughly fifteen judges, prosecutors, and police officers who were beginning to build serious cases against the Sicilian Mafia and its heroin trade. The targets were carefully chosen: law enforcement figures like police captain Boris Giuliano and Carabinieri captain Emanuele Basile, who were investigating heroin trafficking operations; judges like Cesare Terranova and Rocco Chinnici, who led anti-mafia investigations; and politicians who posed a reformist threat, including regional president Piersanti Mattarella and Communist Party leader Pio La Torre. The most audacious killing was that of General Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa, the government's own high commissioner against the Mafia.

In the 1990s a division emerged among the Corleonesi, following the arrest of Totò Riina on January 15, 1993. By the time of his arrest in January 1993, Riina had become a power-crazed dictator whose reign of terror eventually disgusted even some of the hard-core Corleonesi. Initially, Leoluca Bagarella, Riina's brother-in-law, took over the command of the Corleonesi, instigating a series of bombings against several tourist spots on the Italian mainland – the Via dei Georgofili bombing in Florence, Via Palestro massacre in Milan and the Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano and Via San Teodoro in Rome, which left 10 people dead and 93 injured. These attacks also caused severe damage. Riina's arrest triggered a succession struggle between two Corleonesi rivals: Provenzano, his longtime lieutenant, and Bagarella. Provenzano moved swiftly to seize the top position, though only by agreeing to consult Bagarella before dealing with other clan leaders. The rivalry soon hardened into a deeper strategic divide – Bagarella pushing to maintain Riina's brutal campaign of violence, while Provenzano favoured a quieter, more cautious approach.