In Santi Caleca‘s photograph there is a blonde woman, nearly forty, smiling with a pair of flip-flops in her hand on via Giulia in Rome: she is Letizia Battaglia and we are in 1972. It may seem like a simple photograph, but it is instead an image that carries within it an element that would distinguish the human and professional affairs of Letizia Battaglia: a typically feminine courage (nomen omen). Santi Caleca was in those years the companion of the photographer who had (first act of courage) divorced her husband and also, temporarily, Palermo, to begin a new life under the sign of the eighth art (second act of courage that she would always repeat: «I became a photographer at thirty-nine» and «finally I belonged to myself»).
Santi Caleca, “Letizia in via Giulia”, 1972, © Santi Caleca, courtesy Museo Civico San Domenico, Forlì
Works 1970-2020 is, in fact, the title of the great retrospective dedicated to her by the Museo Civico San Domenico in Forlì which traces the entire career of Letizia Battaglia, thanks to a comprehensive chronological journey and above all surprising because one discovers that Letizia Battaglia was Palermo but not only. Created with the curatorship of Walter Guadagnini and in collaboration with Archivio Letizia Battaglia, the exhibition unfolds through more than 200 images that compose a luminous mosaic of the professional activity and more personal experiences of the photographer. A mosaic entirely in black and white divided into seven chapters (plus an informative room) which, among the recognizable constants, have that of bringing us closer to her photographs following one of her mantras: everything must be photographed «from very close up, at the distance of a punch or a caress».
Letizia Battaglia, “Works: 1970-2020”, installation view at Museo Civico San Domenico, 2025. Ph. Emanuele Rambaldi, courtesy Museo Civico San Domenico, Forlì
Those who are legitimately accustomed to Letizia Battaglia’s shots set in Palermo during the mafia wars will be surprised to see that the photographer began as a journalist and reporter of social customs. Her photographic debut, which occurred as we have seen well past thirty, concerns shots and articles, created in collaboration with her companion Santi Caleca who was also a photographer, mainly in Milan. This is an important passage in Letizia Battaglia’s life, well beyond the chronicle and biographical data: in Palermo, the young and beautiful adolescent was confined at home by a jealous and protective father and therefore an escape route in the ʽ50s could be marriage. But, as the photographer recounts firsthand, the marriage was a failure in terms of building the couple and, therefore, Letizia Battaglia achieved her longed-for personal freedom with another man (Caleca) and in another city (Milan). Her photographic style and also her editorial articles did not lack criticism of social conformism and the hope for a true feminine revolution of customs. And again, as it can be seen in the strip of images dedicated to workers’ assemblies or Milanese cultural circles, in the presence of Dario Fo, Franca Rame or Pier Paolo Pasolini, the fascination that culturally progressive ideas emanated on her united with that sensation of having to live against the current.
Letizia Battaglia, “Boris Giuliano, head of the Flying Squad, at the scene of a murder in Piazza del Carmine”, Palermo., 1978, © Archivio Letizia Battaglia, courtesy Museo Civico San Domenico, Forlì
Her debut in judicial photography occurred in Genoa in 1974 (at thirty-nine years old, as already mentioned), with some images of the trial of Nico Azzi, a Milanese militant of the far-right terrorist galaxy. The following year a great turning point: the return to Palermo to the editorial office of L’Ora, a progressive daily newspaper strongly committed to the theme of anti-mafia. Regarding this role, she declared: «I go toward the city, toward the Palermo of the alleyways, with all its contradictions and with my two-hundred-thousand-lire Pentax around my neck». The first photos in Battaglia style began to be published, depicting the inhabitants of the dilapidated and poor houses of Palermo’s historic center, with many children also present, emaciated by hunger and poverty, humble mothers disheveled by a daily life impregnated with degradation, working children who had never known a classroom, newborns with fingers bitten by rats, all photographed by Letizia Battaglia who entered their homes, «always making herself known». From the Milan of cultural affirmation and the advancing claim of sexual freedom, Letizia Battaglia was catapulted into her childhood, seen however with the gaze, the aperture, the light and the timing of a mature woman. If the pose of the protagonists of her photographs set in Milan is that of those who smile and claim with an irreverent gaze their social conquests, in Palermo the attitude of those portrayed in photos is marked by the absence of a future. Yet, the photographer approaches these people at caress distance, as stated in her principles.
Letizia Battaglia, “The arrest of the ferocious mafia boss Leoluca Bagarella”, Palermo, 1979, © Archivio Letizia Battaglia, courtesy Museo Civico San Domenico, Forlì
The third section of this exhibition, comprising photographs of the mafia straddling the ʽ70s and ʽ80s decades, is surely the most well-known part of Letizia Battaglia’s professional journey. The motionless bodies on the ground of the many murdered during the repeated mafia wars that shook Palermo scroll by as in a slow-motion film. «Not only was I the only woman photographer at the newspaper L’Ora, but also the only woman photographer and, when I went to crime scenes, the cordon would block me preventing me from passing», she declares in the video that, shortly before the end of the exhibition path, accompanies the show. «I would start yelling and they would let me pass. After a while, I passed thanks to the complicity of Boris Giuliano», who became a somewhat involuntary subject of numerous photographs by Letizia Battaglia, until he too was killed by Leoluca Bagarella (in turn photographed with an angry expression). It is known from other direct testimonies that Letizia Battaglia did not want to photograph the body of the Head of Palermo’s Mobile Squad «so as not to show the mafia that body weakened by assassination».
Letizia Battaglia, “Judge Giovanni Falcone at the funeral of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, killed by the Mafia.”, Palermo, 1982, © Archivio Letizia Battaglia, courtesy Museo Civico San Domenico, Forlì
Her profession intersected with direct engagement in the world of anti-mafia with Giovanni Falcone, the judge Cesare Terranova, with references to Peppino Impastato, whose mother Felicia always declared her to be a very courageous woman (the adjective returns as a kind of leitmotif) for having been capable of leaving the mafia universe, and especially with the photograph of the current President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella lifting the body of the then president of the Sicilian Region, and brother, Piersanti. She used the wide angle and therefore gave some photographs an unexpected artistic connotation, recalling – unintentionally – elements of Mario Giacomelli’s aesthetics and other art photographers, also thanks to the perpetual use of black and white. The documentation of this daily slaughter is enriched by firsthand captions that are all pieces of a historical, social and political mosaic that seems without hope.
Letizia Battaglia, “Cala neighborhood. The little girl with the ball”, Palermo, 1980, © Archivio Letizia Battaglia, courtesy Museo Civico San Domenico, Forlì
Indeed, the fourth section of the exhibition moves away from images of the mafia to exalt Letizia Battaglia’s ability to tell the story of Palermo and Sicily, through shots that capture moments of popular and religious devotion, festive, grotesque (after all, her friendship with Franco Moresco, the Palermitan director of surreal black and white, is long-standing), famous personalities such as Leonardo Sciascia, Goffredo Fofi, Mauro Rostagno and, even, exponents of Palermo high society with a vague Leopard-like flavor. But the photographer’s imprint returns vigorously in the photographs portraying the beloved dilapidated alleys of the historic center. The boys with guns or soccer balls in hand become the preferred subjects of her gaze, and the photographs resume the tragic luminosity of previous years. «No one ever threw the ball toward them, I did it many times and on one occasion the ball was caught by a magnificent little girl with the dream of the future imprinted in her beautiful eyes»: thus was born the superb photograph of the little girl from the Cala neighborhood with a ball in her right hand while her left arm rises horizontally above her head. Her activity as a photographer, in this period, was accompanied by the founding of a cultural magazine, Grandevu, whose subtitle was “Grandeurs and baseness of the city of Palermo” which beautifully summarizes the relationship between the photographer and the beloved and hated city (as well as her taste for linguistic games, grandeur + rendez-vous).
Letizia Battaglia, “Via Pindemonte. Carnival celebration at the psychiatric hospital.”, Palermo, 1986, © Archivio Letizia Battaglia, courtesy Museo Civico San Domenico, Forlì
«The innocents and the beautiful mad people of Palermo» are the protagonists of a very interesting photographic and human project, carried forward by the photographer always in an attempt to distance herself from the stamp of mafia photographer. As she had always done in the past entering the houses of the alleys of the historic center, similarly Battaglia enters the rooms and common spaces of the Real Casa dei Matti of Palermo, giving us photographs with proximity elevated to supreme power. The faces and bodies of the patients of the facility are catapulted toward the observer’s gaze with a load of suffering mixed with involuntary wonder, with results that manage to include aesthetic and artistic elements recalling warm Felliniesque figures.
Letizia Battaglia, “Lizzie in a shelter on 47th Street. New York, USA”, 1985, © Archivio Letizia Battaglia, courtesy Museo Civico San Domenico, Forlì
The first, well-deserved international recognitions began to arrive and, concurrently, the photographer dedicated herself to new photographic, political and cultural projects. Turkey, Egypt, Yugoslavia, USSR, Madrid, Scotland, Ireland, New York and Texas are some destinations of the international trips from the ʽ80s, yet the style remains unmistakable: the children depicted recall the less fortunate corners of Palermo and the people portrayed in happy moments recall the joy of Sicilian festivals. In Palermo, her invincible root, Letizia Battaglia immersed herself in politics during the so-called Palermo Spring period, strongly believed in the project of an International Photography Center in the heart of the Zisa, founded another publishing house, entirely feminine, Mezzocielo (of which some editorial volumes are displayed in the room that also includes an intense video about the photographer).
Letizia Battaglia, “Works: 1970-2020”, installation view at Museo Civico San Domenico, 2025. Ph. Emanuele Rambaldi, courtesy Museo Civico San Domenico, Forlì
In the 2000s decade Letizia Battaglia continued to document her city and especially its protagonists, oscillating between a renewed civic passion, the usual gaze on the smallest ones and a return to Milanese origins with new female nudes. It is impossible to forget where one comes from and, therefore, the photographer gives us a superb portrait of Rosaria Schifani, the widow of agent Vito who died in the attack on Giovanni Falcone and became famous in the media for her moving ‘homily’ during the funeral of the five martyrs of Capaci. Vertical and almost cut in two, the gaze full of silent pain and especially luminous dignity of Mrs. Schifani can seal the fifty years of activity of Letizia Battaglia. The exhibition is accompanied by the eponymous catalog published by Dario Cimorelli Editore.
Info:
Letizia Battaglia. Works: 1970-2020
18/10/2025 – 11/01/2026
Museo Civico San Domenico
Piazza Saffi, 8 – Forlì
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I am Giovanni Crotti, born in 1968, and I feel obliged to thank writing because it drives my life. I cultivate within me multitudes that lead me to investigate, know, and deepen every cultural and creative expression, and then write about it, always trying to be clear and documented in the contents.
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