At the theater the son plays the magistrate father Nino Caponnetto, “Amuninni, a story of love and mafia”

The son, Massimo plays the father, Antonino Caponnetto, the magistrate who founded the Palermo anti-mafia pool in which he called Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino to his sidethen a grieving father-brother who mourns his boys killed by the gangs, one of the most shining public figures of the second half of the twentieth century and with a moving personal human story told in a memorable interview by Gianni Minà: son of a poor family who emigrated from Sicily to Pistoia , soldier at war in Libya, then a banker and student worker to obtain a law degree and take the competitive exam that will take him to the judiciary; in the middle the lifelong love with his girlfriend and then wife Bettina, whose father at the beginning – before becoming a reciprocated affectionate father-in-law – would have wanted a “high-class” marriage for her, “disinherited her and did not provide her with ” (from Minà’s interview).

This is what the son who plays the father says in “Amuninni, story of love and mafia”, the show on stage with free admission on Saturday 11th at 6pm at the Comunità delle Piagge at the Il Pozzo social center in via Alpi and Hervatin 2 in Florence, theatrical adaptation of book by Massimo Caponnetto himself “There was perhaps a time”, published by EdizioniPiagge. The book, published in May 1922 and which in the last year has received various recognitions and literary prizes, is the story – as the author himself explains – “of a love born in a truly distant era, in all respects, but which has been able to transform and change with the times, to the point of impacting history, in one of its most important passages, always remaining simple and authentic”. In the show, Massimo Caponnetto’s story is alternated with musical pieces, written for the occasion and sung by Chiara Riondino.

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The book from which the show is based is therefore a story of family life, affectionate and passionate, but also the fresco of a piece of Italian history, the one marked by the struggle of the State – or rather of the best part of the State – against mafia. The domestic interior is that of the family of Antonino Caponnetto (Caltanissetta 1920-Florence 2002), the Sicilian-Florentine magistrate who was responsible, in 1984, for that leap in quality in the fight against the mafia which was the first Palermo pool (with Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino, Giuseppe Di Lello, Leonardo Guarnotta) dedicated to investigations into large-scale organized crime.

Arrived in Pistoia with his parents as a child, graduated in Law in Florence, magistrate in Prato, and then with higher positions in Florence and Livorno, Nino married Bettina Baldi in 1947, a young woman from the good bourgeoisie of Pistoia. He fell in love with her at first sight at 18. Two years later, having returned from the Libyan war certain that she had forgotten him, he was instead surprised by a letter in which Bettina declared herself to him. Thus begins a great love story that lasted a lifetime. Shy and reserved civil servant, very attached to his wife and three children Riccardo, Antonella and Massimo, at the age of 63, in 1983, Nino will have the strength to leave them to go and lead the education office of Palermo after the assassination of Rocco Chinnici. He will remain there until 1990, returning home “only every now and then, accompanied by an escort”, as Massimo told Repubblica on the occasion of the release of the book, despite the concern of his family, who had “learned from TV” of his transfer : «He had applied without telling us anything, putting personal interests first, as always, a superior ideal, and making oneself available to justice.” Bettina’s only daily consolation was her long phone calls with her husband, for which she prepared by sitting on the sofa, with something to eat in her hand, as if to pretend that he was beside her. Yet, “I never saw her being afraid of her”, Massimo recalled to Repubblica, “not even when a severed lamb’s head and a death’s wreath appeared on the landing of her house in Florence”.

Nino will return permanently to Florence to retire in 1990. Saddened by Falcone’s exclusion from the nomination as his successor, heartbroken, in ’92, by his murdered friends in Capaci and via d’Amelio, however, it is here that he will find the strength to return to the trenches, in a new way. “It’s all over!” he had commented directly at Borsellino’s funeral, only to immediately change his mind and begin a tireless work of testimony around the country and in schools.