What is Corleone known for?

Mario Puzo took the name for Vito Andolini Corleone in his 1969 novel; the films followed in 1972, 1974 and 1990. Italy's primary antimafia documentation centre, opened in 2000 in the historic centre to archive Cosa Nostra cases and victim testimony. Year-round waterfall on the San Leonardo river behind the town, with a medieval aqueduct and two ancient mills in the canyon.

Corleone is a comune in the province of Palermo, Sicily region of Italy, about 59 kilometers from Palermo.

Sicily · Palermo

Corleone

A town of 10,364 in the Palermo hinterland that gave its name to Mario Puzo's Don Vito and now runs Italy's national antimafia documentation centre.

542m

Elevation

59 km / 37 mi

Nearest hub (Palermo)

10,364

Population

Apr–Jun, Sep–Nov

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Borghi Autentici

Why come

Corleone sits at 542 meters on the inner hills of Palermo province, thirty-five kilometers south of the capital, between the Castello Soprano and Castello Sottano that the Arabs and then the Normans held above the town. The name Qurliyūn appears in ninth-century Arab sources; the Hohenstaufen made it a military centre, and a settlement at nearby Contrada Stretto has been dated to the sixth millennium BC. The town carries two reputations. The first is Mario Puzo's, who borrowed the name in 1969 for Don Vito of The Godfather. The second is the one that grew out of the 1980s Corleonesi war: Corleone became the operating base of Cosa Nostra's most violent faction. The CIDMA, the Centro Internazionale di Documentazione sulla Mafia e del Movimento Antimafia, opened in 2000 in the historic centre and is now Italy's primary antimafia archive. The Cascate delle Due Rocche run year-round through a canyon behind the town.

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Gallery

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Known for

CIDMA - Centro Internazionale di Documentazione sulla Mafia e del Movimento Antimafia
Italy's primary antimafia archive and museum, opened 12 December 2000, holding case files, photographs and the testimony of victims.
Cascate delle Due Rocche
Year-round waterfall on the San Leonardo river in a canyon behind the town, with a medieval aqueduct, two old mills and the small Chiesa Madonna delle Due Rocche.
Castello Soprano e Castello Sottano
Two Arab-Norman fortifications from the tenth to thirteenth centuries on rock outcrops above the town, the visual frame of Corleone.
Chiesa Madre di San Martino
Mother church of the town, with canvases by Fra Felice da Sambuca and a marble Madonna del Soccorso of the Gagini school.
Centro storico
Sicilian inland-town layout of stone houses and a hundred churches, with the corso running between the two castle rocks.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Jun, Sep–Nov

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June and September into November are the months the inland hills handle. The Sicani edge is green in spring, gold in autumn, and the waterfall at Due Rocche runs hardest after the winter rains. July and August cross thirty-five degrees and the corso empties between noon and five. December through March is quiet, wet, often cold, with snow possible on the surrounding peaks. The festa for San Leoluca, the patron saint born in Corleone in the tenth century, falls on the first Sunday of March with a procession through the centro storico, the corso filled with the working-town parishioners who have stayed.