Franchetti's study is crucial to chronology in two respects. First, it pinpoints the beginning of the nineteenth century as the moment of the mafia's first appearance. Before then feudalism was still dominant: "The landlords' bravi... did not abstain from extortion to their own advantage; nor was there any shortage of crooks who put their industry into practice on their own account; and mutual violence among the gentry took place in an absence of rules. Yet, in spite of these occasional disturbances, the use of force remained for the most part limited and subject to certain regulations" ( 1974: 89). It requires a process of democratization, as Franchetti says, for the conditions which might generate a true mafia to arise, and this process—lasting over a hundred years—did not begin until the end of the eighteenth century.

XREF: Connects to broader theory of state formation and how democratization or weak states create space for organized crime.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 245