The photographers who captured Italy and the Italian Mafia
Today, we know Italy as an overwhelming tourist hotspot. Influencers flock to the Amalfi Coast to shoot one-of-a-kind content, tourist groups conduct pilgrimages to Rome, and families from everywhere make the most of Italy’s slopes and snow-capped peaks.
But not too long ago, the country wasn’t like this. In fact, it was far from what we see today. For centuries, Italy was a land of deep poverty, divided into small kingdoms and regions, often ruled by foreign powers. Unlike other European countries, it only became a unified nation in 1861, much later than most European countries, and even after unification, there were huge divides between the North and the South. Many Italians, especially in the southernmost tips of ‘The Boot’, struggled to survive for decades, facing hunger, poor healthcare, and a lack of opportunity.
This didn’t improve much after the devastating losses of World War II, when the country was left in chaos. Bombed cities, political instability, and an economy in ruins created fertile grounds for a plague that continues to grip the nation: the rise of the Mafia. Despite some improvements, this corrupt organisation continues to suffocate the country, but back then, in the 1940s and 1950s, it shaped daily life in a profound way.
Yet, despite the hardships, Italy’s beauty and the Italian people’s resilience became a powerful source of inspiration for artists, designers, writers, and, most notably, photographers. Two of the most iconic names who came to be known for their talents, especially the documentation of Italy at its lowest points, are Henri Cartier-Bresson and Letizia Battaglia.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Although Cartier-Bresson was French, he was deeply fascinated by the socio-political changes that rocked Italy after the war concluded. This led him to travel through the country to document the everyday lives of ordinary Italians. Known as one of the most important photojournalists of the 20th century, nicknamed ‘the eye of the century’, Cartier-Bresson had developed a characteristically poetic way of photographing ordinary people in candid and unfiltered moments.
Take, for example, his photo Oliveto, Basilicata. A black-and-white shot, it captures the bleak reality of the time: a sunken-faced mother trying to calm her screaming child, but there is no light in her eyes, as a doctor administers medicine to the child. At the time, infant mortality was very high, and the introduction of modern medicine was, quite literally, life-changing. Religious imagery also seems to flow through many of his works, which is unsurprising given the religious fervence of Italians. In fact, this photo recalls Michelangelo’s sculpture, Pietà, in the way the mother cradles her child.
In St Roch Pilgrimage, the photographer captures a religious procession: townspeople dressed in dark clothes, their figures cast in shadow, contrasted against the white garments of religious leaders. At the front, young girls carry sacks filled with money—a powerful symbol of how, despite their poverty, Italian peasants remained deeply devout, never hesitating to donate their hard-earned savings, even when they had nothing to keep going.
What makes his work stand out is not just the technical skill but also the emotional depth of his photographs. His time in Lucania (today’s Basilicata region) left a deep mark on him. In a 1974 letter, he wrote about his departure from the region to a friend, saying: “me laisse une tristesse, car me sens si attaché au pays et aux gens que nous avons connu [leaves me sad, because I feel so attached to the country and the people we have met].” For him, photography was never just about observing others; it was about connecting with them.
Letizia Battaglia
In a similar vein, Letizia Battaglia was a pioneering photographer who came after Cartier-Bresson and was deeply inspired by his work. But there was a key difference: she was Italian, born and raised in Palermo, Sicily, and she grew up documenting her own people, right at the height of the Mafia rule in the 1970s. Battaglia was fearless, always arriving at crime scenes just minutes after yet another person was shot, sometimes when the blood was still warm. She got up close and personal with the violence, saying she worked from the distance “of a punch or a caress”. Despite facing multiple death threats from Mafia members for her relentless photojournalism, which hit the front pages of national newspapers, nothing could stop her.
One of the most striking photos by Battaglia is Near the Church of Santa Chiara. The Killer’s Game, which shows a little boy hidden behind a street wall, pointing a gun fiercely. This haunting photograph perfectly captures how violence had seeped into every pocket of society—even into the way children played. This child clearly believed that handling a real gun was a normal, everyday part of life, which, for the modern-day viewer, is deeply unsettling to comprehend.
Another unforgettable image is The Desk of Giorgio Boris Giuliano on the Day of His Assassination. Giuliano was the head of the Palermo Mobile Squad, gunned down by the Mafia in 1979. Battaglia’s photograph doesn’t show the violence itself, as so many of her other works do, but rather the aftermath, which is almost more chilling as the space feels empty and still. The image of Giuliano’s office desk, looking as if he had just stepped out for a moment, becomes a devastating relic when you realise he’s never coming back. The carpet of wilting roses spread across his desk makes it clear that this is now a site of mourning.
Overall, both Cartier-Bresson and Battaglia used their exquisite skill and craft to transform photography from a simple art form into a powerful tool of storytelling and elicit political change. Their images hide nothing from the viewer and confront us with everything we don’t see on the postcards.
