18. Mazzini Autorizza Furti Incendi Avvelenamenti (Mazzini authorizes theft, arson, and poisoning). This hypothesis is part and parcel of the extravagant idea that Giuseppe Mazzini was the founder of the mafia, a belief still earnestly upheld (Chandler 1976: 14ff). The similarities of the mafia ritual with that of the Carboneria—to which Mazzini belonged—and the pride taken in it by mafiosi, as in the fictional I Beati Paoli, may account for the conflation of the two.

DEFINE: Clarifies that the Mazzini-as-mafia-founder theory is an 'extravagant idea' that survives despite being implausible.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 698