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.

When is the best time to visit Corleone?

Apr–Jun, Sep–Nov. 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.

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

How do I get to Corleone?

From Palermo, Corleone is roughly 59 km by road.

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.

Known for

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

When to visit

Best · Apr–Jun, Sep–Nov

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

The festa: Leoluca di Corleone, 1 March

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.

The Sunday letter

We haven’t written Corleone’s letter yet.

One town every Sunday, with the photo, the food, the festa. Be there when this one comes up. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.

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What to see

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.

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Living here

Population 10,364
Off the beaten pathi
Pharmacy in town
High school within a 30-minute drive
Train station in the comune
Nearest airport Sicily, 3 h 16 min drive
Regional capital Palermo, 1 h 10 min drive

Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

Recognised as

The numbers

Elevation: 542 m
Population: 10,364
Surface area: 229.46 km²

On the map

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These figures were compiled from public directories — ISTAT, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata — and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.

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