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Italian photographer and photojournalist (1935–2022) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Letizia Battaglia (Italian pronunciation: [leˈtittsja batˈtaʎʎa]; 5 March 1935 – 13 April 2022) was an Italian photographer and photojournalist.[1][6] Although her photos document a wide spectrum of Sicilian life, she is best known for her work on the Mafia.
Letizia Battaglia | |
|---|---|
Battaglia and Franco Zecchin in Mondello (1987) | |
| Born | 5 March 1935 |
| Died | 13 April 2022 (aged 87) Cefalù, Italy |
| Occupation(s) | Photographer, photojournalist, politician |
| Political party | Greens (1989–91) The Network (1991–99) SEL (2012–16) |
| Spouse |
Franco Stagnitta
(m. 1951; div. 1971) |
| Partner | Franco Zecchin (1974–2022) |
| Children | 3 |
| Awards |
|
A documentary film based on her life, Shooting the Mafia, was released in 2019.[7]
Battaglia was born in Palermo, Sicily. At the age of 14, her father became irate when she took interest in a boy, and sent her away to boarding school.[8] Battaglia wanted to escape and had ambitions to write. So at 16, she married Franco Stagnitta, who owned his own coffee business and came from a good family. She believed he would allow her to continue her studies, but he wanted her to be a conventional stay-at-home wife, so her writing ambition was somewhat thwarted.[1][8]
Unhappy in her marriage, she eventually took another lover, though her husband shot at her when he found out. She took their daughters and moved to Milan.[8]
Battaglia took up photojournalism after her divorce in 1971, while raising three daughters. She picked up a camera when she found that she could better sell her articles if they were accompanied by photographs and slowly discovered a passion for photography. In 1974, after a period in Milan during which she met her long-time partner Franco Zecchin, she returned to Sicily to work for the left-wing L'Ora newspaper in Palermo until it was forced to close in 1992.[9]
Battaglia took some 600,000 images as she covered the territory for the paper. She documented the ferocious internal war of the Mafia and its assault on civil society. She sometimes found herself at the scene of four or five different murders in a single day. Battaglia and Zecchin produced many of the iconic images that have come to represent Sicily and the Mafia beyond Italy. She wanted to expose and condemn the Mafia through her photography.[8] She photographed the dead so often that she once said, "Suddenly, I had an archive of blood."[10] She took her photographs of the dead in black and white as she believed it was more respectful, and offered its own silence.[8]
As a result of her photographs, Battaglia spent many years fearing assassination from the Mafia. Even so, she chose not to have bodyguards. In 2017 she told The Guardian that "You no longer knew who your friends or enemies were. In the morning you came out of the house and did not know if you'd come back in the evening".[8]
Battaglia also became involved in women's and environmental issues. For several years she stopped taking pictures and officially entered the world of politics. From 1985 to 1991 she held a seat on the Palermo city council for the Green Party, and from 1991 to 1996 she was a Deputy at the Sicilian Regional Assembly for The Network. She was instrumental in saving and reviving the historic centre of Palermo. For a time she ran a publishing house, Edizioni della Battaglia, and co-founded a monthly journal for women, Mezzocielo. She was involved in working for the rights of women and, most recently, prisoners.[8]
In 1993, when prosecutors in Palermo indicted Giulio Andreotti, who had been Prime Minister of Italy seven times, the police searched Battaglia's archives and found two 1979 photographs of Andreotti with an important Mafioso, Nino Salvo, whom he had denied knowing. Aside from the accounts of turncoats, these pictures were the only physical evidence of this powerful politician's connections to the Sicilian Mafia. Battaglia herself had forgotten having taken the photograph. Its potential significance was apparent only 15 years after it was taken.[9][10]
Outside of photography, her other ventures included a women's magazine, a publishing house and a photography school.[8]
Battaglia died at the age of 87 in Cefalù on April 13, 2022. She had been ill for some time.[11][12][13]
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