The Potter's Field

3–4 with acoppolaon his head: The coppola is a typical Sicilian beret made of cloth and with a short visor.

4 Totò Riina: Savatore (“Totò”) Riina (born 1930) is the former leader of the infamous Corleonesi clan of the Sicilian Mafia and became the capo di tutt’i capi (“boss of bosses”) in the early 1980s. Riina’s faction was responsible for the spectactular murders of the anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino (both in 1992), crimes that led to a serious crackdown on the Mafia and ultimately the arrest of Riina in 1993. Riina, one of whose nicknames is La Belva, or “The Beast,” is known to be particularly bloodthirsty and violent.

4 Bernardo Provenzano for vice president, one of the Caruana brothers for foreign minister, Leoluca Bagarella at Defense: Provenzano (born 1932), another prominent member of the Corleonesi clan, became Riina’s de facto successor until his capture in 2006. Alfonso Caruana (born 1946), along with his brothers Gerlando and Pasquale, ran a vast international network of drug trafficking, shifting their bases from Sicily to Canada to Venezuela and back to Canada by way of Switzerland and London (hence the “foreign minister” post in Montalbano’s dream); he was captured in 1998 and convicted in Canada, then extradited to Italy in 2004, where he had already been twice convicted in absentia, and where he still awaits final sentencing. Leoluca Bagarella (born 1932), another Corleonese and Riina’s brother-in-law, was arrested in 1995, ultimately convicted for multiple murders, and is currently serving a life sentence.

9 a “white death”—the shorthand used by journalists when someone suddenly disappears without so much as saying goodbye: Literal translation of the Italian morte bianca.

17 Montalbano recalled having seen something similar in a famous painting. Brueghel? Bosch?: The painting is The Blind Leading the Blind (1568), by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, at the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples. It is inspired by a statement by Jesus Christ in the Gospels (Matthew 15:13–14 and Luke 6:39–40): “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into the ditch?” (Gospel of Luke)

17’u critaru: Sicilian for il cretaio, or “the clay field.” From creta (crita in Sicilian), which means “clay.”

40 Don’t you like Guttuso?: Renato Guttuso (1911–1987) was a Sicilian-born painter and passionate anti-Fascist and Communist who rose to prominence after the Second World War.

54A joyous start is the best of guides, as Matteo Maria Boiardo famously said: Matteo Maria Boiardo (1440–1494), a poet of the Italian Renaissance who thrived at the court of the dukes of Este in Ferrara, is best known for writing the chivalric verse romance Orlando Innamorato, first published in 1495.

67 He committed a massacre ofnunnati—newborns, that is:Nunnatu, Sicilian for neonato, or “newborn” (also called cicirella in certain other parts of Sicily), is a tiny newborn fish available only at certain times of the year. Whitebait.

68purpiteddro a strascinasali: Baby octopus cooked in salted water and dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.

68aggravated, as the ancient Romans used to say: From the Latin ad + gravare, “to make heavy.”

95 His eye fell upon a book by Andrea Camilleri . . . a popular version of the Passion of Christ: Cf. Andrea Camilleri, La scomparsa di Patò (Milan: Mondadori, 2000).

149 “I’m coming too,” . . . “No, you stay here”: A wry reference to the 1968 pop hit single “Vengo anch’io. No tu no” by Vincenzo Jannacci (born 1935), whose title Camilleri cites verbatim in this brief exchange between Montalbano and Fazio.