After World War II, he became the personification of the reinstatement of Cosa Nostra during the Allied occupation and the subsequent restoration of democracy after the repression under Fascist rule.

[3] Don Calò once explained how he saw the Mafia when he was interviewed by one of Italy's most famous journalists, Indro Montanelli, for the Corriere della Sera (30 October 1949): The fact is that, in every society, there has to be a category of people who straighten things out when situations get complicated.

Vizzini bought three estates in the Villalba region; he divided them up and handed them over – allegedly without making a penny, according to some – to a cooperative he had founded.

[20] In July 1943, Calogero Vizzini allegedly helped the American army during the invasion of Sicily during World War II (Operation Husky).

In the US, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) had recruited mafia support to protect the New York City waterfront from Axis Powers sabotage since the US had entered the war in December 1941.

The resulting Mafia contacts were also used by the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) – the wartime predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – during the invasion of Sicily.

[21] Popular myth has it that a US Army airplane had flown over Villalba on the day of the invasion and dropped a yellow silk foulard marked with a black L (indicating Luciano).

Vizzini then allegedly climbed aboard and drove for six days through western Sicily in support of the advancing US troops of General Patton's Third Division.

This would have made it clear to the locals that the Americans depended on the Mafia, who navigated the advancing troops through the intricate mountain terrain and protected the roads from snipers while providing an enthusiastic welcome to the liberators.

[26] According to Gentile, who also worked for the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT): This is a fairy tale taken from thin air and accepted for various reasons.

The Allied commands themselves already had several intelligence agencies and the fairy tale that these gangsters and Mafia bosses suddenly became fighters in the service of the U.S. Navy or democracy was endorsed, tacitly even by those who actually carried out these activities, but preferred to give credit to 'mafiosi' and ex-gangsters.

A version that is probably closer to the truth is that Vizzini simply led a delegation of locals to meet an Allied patrol whose commander had asked to speak to whoever was in charge.

When Vizzini made it clear that the Italian soldiers had fled and the firefight had been caused by exploding ammunition, the frustrated US army official took his rage out in a stream of obscenities.

[28] The Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT), looking for anti-fascist notables to replace fascist authorities, made Don Calogero Vizzini mayor of Villalba, as well as an Honorary Colonel of the US Army.

[40] Because of his excellent connections, Vizzini also became the 'king' of the rampant post-war black market and arranged to get Villalba's overly inquisitive police chief killed.

Other prominent Mafia bosses like Giuseppe Genco Russo, Gaetano Filippone, Michele Navarra and Francesco Paolo Bontade did not hide their sympathies for the separatists either.

The strategic location of the island and it's naval bases in the Mediterranean provided an essential counterbalance to a potential communist takeover on the Italian mainland.

[49] General Giuseppe Castellano – who negotiated the 1943 Armistice with Italy – and Vizzini met with Trapani politician Virgilio Nasi [it] to offer him the leadership of a movement for Sicilian autonomy with the support of the Mafia.

[11] Vizzini offered to meet with Aldisio – who had been appointed High Commissioner in August 1944 – to solve the island's grain problem, implying he had the power to do so.

During the crucial 1948 elections that would decide on Italy's post-war future, Vizzini and Genco Russo sat at the same table with leading DC politicians, attending an electoral lunch.

He was in a fierce dispute over the lease of the large estate Miccichè of the Trabia family in Palermo, with a peasant cooperative headed by Michele Pantaleone who had founded the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano – PSI) in Villalba.

[58] On 16 September 1944, leaders of the Blocco del popolo (Popular Front) in Sicily, the communist Girolamo Li Causi and Pantaleone, went to speak to the landless labourers at a rally in Villalba, challenging Don Calò in his own personal fiefdom.

[52] In 1949, Vizzini and Italian-American crime boss Lucky Luciano set up a candy factory in Palermo exporting products all over Europe and to the US.

[68]Vizzini's generous and protective manner, the deferential greetings of passers-by, the meekness of those approaching him, and the smiles of gratefulness when he spoke to them, reminded Barzini of a primeval scene: a prince holding court and handing out justice publicly.

However, Barzini also concluded, "[o]f course, the many victims of his reign were not visible, the many corpses found riddled with bullets in the countryside during more than half a century, the widows weeping, the fatherless orphans.

According to Indro Montanelli, Vizzini could easily call the regional president, the prefect, the cardinal-archbishop of Palermo and any parliamentary deputy or mayor of Sicily whenever he felt like it.

[65] According to other sources, he left a patrimony of a billion Italian lire (about US$160,000) to his grandsons, the sons of his sister, including sulphur mines in Gessolungo, land-holdings and a mansion in the centre of Villalba.

[18] Although Vizzini throughout his lifetime acquired extensive land holdings, the Mafia historian Salvatore Lupo considers him to be the undertaker of the large feudal estates rather than the protector of that system.

They were able to exploit the intense land-hunger of the peasants, gain concessions from the landlords in return for limiting the impact of the reform, and make substantial profits from their mediation in land sales.

However, with the death of Vizzini, his old-fashioned traditional rural Mafia slowly passed away to be replaced with a more modern, often urban version of gangsterism involved in cigarette smuggling, drug trafficking and laundering their proceeds in construction and real-estate development.