Dear readers, apologies for the delay this week. It turns out, writing a draft for a book that is so personally related to me isn’t all that easy after all.
While I write weekly and publish globally, I am just now learning what it takes to write an actual biography — so please be patient with me!
I appreciate your support at every level, and if you could leave a review after each piece/chapter, mentioning what you liked, what you didn’t like and what you want more of.. it will be of great help.
Happy reading, happy Friday!
VIA CORTIGIANI 13
The third of four children, Giuseppe Accardi entered the world on March 4th, 1964, on the top floor of a humble apartment complex situated at Via Cortigiani 13.
The unpretentious building towered over a peripheral neighborhood in Palermo, known as "La Madonna di Tutto il Mondo" to its inhabitants. But to Giuseppe, this unassuming corner of the city would go on to become something more: the most beautiful hood in the world and the place where he learned to play football.
His mother, Francesca Guddo, was a tall, elegant woman with thick black hair characterized by a white tuft sprouting from the front section of her head, just above her forehead.
A typical Sicilian housewife, Franca – as many called her – spent her days catering to her children and attending to Jesus Christ.
As an avid catholic, she’d pray morning and evening, carrying her precious rosary in her pocket at all times. There was no reason on Earth why she’d miss Sunday mass.
Native to the neighborhood one of her ancestors had claimed as their turf many years prior, Francesca married a humble postman with a striking voice who was living with his parents in the local public housing.
Originally from a tiny village in the countryside outside of Palermo, his name was Giovanni Accardi.
He was a charming, stern man with a visceral passion for music and football.
Dedicated to his family’s well-being, he worked from dawn to evening to put food on the table. Giovanni wore gold wire-framed glasses, the type that was en vogue at the time, and he believed education was the cure to poverty – school and culture stood above everything.
Their relationship was unconventional. Francesca belonged to an extremely conservative family that strived to preserve their legacy and lineage by strategically arranging marriages between heirs.
The goal was to form formidable alliances that would allow for absolute control over the family assets without the risk of watering down what their forefathers had built.
Giovanni was a displaced countryman with no wealth – in that day and age, their union was a hard quest.
But despite his foreign essence and living in the projects, Giovanni was able to win the heart of Francesca and subsequently gain a seal of approval from her tough father – Giovanni Guddo – thanks to his own family ties.
It turns out, Giovanni’s brother was a prominent priest named Father Salvatore Accardo, Monsignor of Camporeale, a small township close to his hometown, San Giuseppe Jato.
And to the Guddo’s, being related to a Catholic officer meant closing an eye on the young bachelor’s working class background.
Situated at the feet of the mountains enclosing Palermo, the Madonna di Tutto il Mondo is a quiet residential neighborhood that, once upon a time, long before the city expanded, was a concrete-free farmland.
It was a small rural enclave called Altarello, a place ruled by landowners and farmers that expanded across the southwestern end of the regional capital – far from the idyllic waterfront yet so close to the decadent historical center.
The whole land lot belonged to Giuseppe’s ancestors.
At the turn of the century, they started erecting enough buildings and apartments to house their very large family, their numerous kids and their respective future families.
Soon enough, the plot became engulfed into the city’s jurisdiction, and, as the family expanded, liquidity languished but the sense of belonging grew fonder.
As the core of the neighborhood, the Guddo-Seidita family was revered by its residents.
Their businesses provided work and for this, they were respected and appreciated.
Their presence was ubiquitous – subtle – you knew they were the unofficial local authority. The neighborhood was their playground.
As a result, Giuseppe was born into a convivial atmosphere, where everybody worked to help each other. No matter who you actually came from, people were always ready to lend a hand when it came to raising or feeding children or any other type of problem.
Everybody in the neighborhood knew each other; the concept of “family” didn’t stop at direct bloodline. It extended to all the people who lived in the area. Your cousins were your friends and the friends you weren’t directly related to automatically became your cousin by osmosis.
The community bond was so tight – and the sense of safety that comes from keeping track of who marries who – that people left their doors unlocked all day long, no matter the hour of the day.
In a crime-riddled Palermo, that was a luxury.
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