Vito Cascioferro - Early Life

Early Life

Although many sources have identified him as a native of the rural town of Bisacquino where he was raised, he was actually born in the city of Palermo. His parents, Accursio Cascioferro and Santa Ippolito, were poor and illiterate. The family moved to Bisacquino, when his father became a campiere (an armed guard) with the local landlord, Baron Antonino Inglese, a notorious usurper of state-owned land. The position of campiere often involved Mafiosi. According to other sources, at an early age the family moved to Sambuca Zabat, where he lived for approximately 24 years before relocating to Bisacquino, his recognized power base in the Mafia.

Cascioferro never went to any school. When still young, Cascioferro married a teacher from Bisacquino, Brigida Giaccone, who instructed him how to read and write. He was inducted into the Mafia in the 1880s. He worked as a revenue collector as a young adult, using the position as a cover to carry out his protection racket. His criminal record began with an assault in 1884 and progressed through extortion, arson and menacing, and eventually to the kidnapping of the 19-year old Baroness Clorinda Peritelli di Valpetrosa in June 1898, for which he received a three-year sentence.