The Ties of Courage dedicated to Falcone and Borsellino

Press Release

The Sign of Rebirth – The Uffizi in Palermo
May 23 – July 19, 2026
Open daily from 10 AM to 7 PM, with additional special openings
Museo del Presente Giovanni Falcone e Paolo Borsellino
Fondazione Falcone
Via Lincoln 71, Palermo

Between 1992 and 1993, Cosa Nostra placed the blindest violence at the center of its system of intimidation and deadly communication, using the worst possible instrument: car bombs.

The massacres of Capaci and Via D’Amelio in 1992, followed the next year by the bombings of Via dei Georgofili in Florence, Via Palestro in Milan, and finally Rome, were catastrophic events that deeply marked the collective conscience of the nation, attempting to mutilate democracy through pain and terror.

Over time, however, extraordinary examples of civil, cultural, and social reaction emerged: true signs of rebirth.

The first sign of rebirth, if it can be summarized this way, was the Maxi Trial against Cosa Nostra, both for its extraordinary democratic and judicial significance and for its impact on the city’s identity through the construction of the Aula Bunker courtroom. Palermo, broadcast daily on national television and covered by newspapers, transformed from the immoral capital of the mafia into a capital of courage and anti-mafia resistance.

The second sign of rebirth for an entire national community came through the white sheets hung from windows and balconies immediately after the massacres of Capaci and Via D’Amelio, bearing handwritten messages declaring: “Palermo belongs to us, not to Cosa Nostra.”

Finally, the restored and recovered works of art became examples of an extreme, patient, careful, and enlightened rebirth in response to the 1993 terrorist attacks in Via dei Georgofili, as well as those in Rome and Milan’s Via Palestro.

This third sign of rebirth passes through one of humanity’s greatest heritages of beauty. These restored artworks of the past became symbols of resilience for an entire nation and now point toward the path that must continue to be followed: beauty triumphs and the mafia loses.

The works on display, all from the Uffizi Galleries, include Adoration of the Magi by Gherardo delle Notti (circa 1620), together with Bartolomeo Manfredi’s masterpieces The Card Players and Concert, alongside seventeenth-century copies. These works embody the wound left by mafia violence upon beauty itself: they are scarred works of art.

Alongside them stands the important “Risarcimento” collection, whose works on paper represent a remarkable example of civic participation within the art world. Collectors such as Giuliano Gori and the Counts Panza di Biumo did not seek publicity when, in the mid-1990s, they called upon contemporary artists including Christo, Paladino, Arman, Isgrò, and Rauschenberg, among many others. Rather, theirs was the urgent desire to create a political, aesthetic, and poetic act against the ugliness of mafia violence.

This initiative, which brought together artists and collectors within a single civic vision, also represented a small revolution in the historiography of twentieth-century art.

Together, the restored paintings of the past and the works from the “Risarcimento” collection displayed here become a mirror through which Italy may reflect on what it was and what it now has the duty to continue to be: better, freer, and more courageous, with young people and schools forming the front line of a democratic project free from mafia blackmail and the economic terror imposed by criminal organizations.

Forever.

Together with the Museo del Presente Giovanni Falcone e Paolo Borsellino, numerous institutional partners and representatives from the worlds of enterprise, industry, and labor have made this project possible. Alongside the Fondazione Falcone are the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry for Sport and Youth, the Ministries of Justice, Interior and Defense, the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission, the Italian Youth Agency, the Fondazione Federico II, the Sicilian Region, the Sicilian Regional Assembly, the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the City of Palermo, the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, and above all the Uffizi Galleries.

Among the leading social and corporate partners helping make the museum project and its development throughout Italy possible are ENI, Mitsubishi Electric Italia, Fondazione Conad, Plank, EDRA, Campeggi, Viabizzuno, Finollo, Alcea Spa, Scent Company, Confcommercio, CISL, Filca CISL, PressR3, Eikon, Ceramiche Nicolò Giuliano, the National Alpini Association of Bergamo, and the National Alpini Association of Val San Martino.

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The Ties of Courage

Together with the historic Genoese company Finollo, partner of the Fondazione Falcone, an exclusive special project has been launched, dedicated to the passion that magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino shared for ties.

Falcone was an extraordinary collector of duck figurines of various materials and sizes, symbolizing the value of “mistakes” — errors that, when shared, help communities grow and progress. Borsellino, on the other hand, deeply loved cycling, the wind, and steep climbs. These two symbols — the duck and the bicycle — have been embroidered onto Finollo’s special-edition ties in support of the cultural project.

Proceeds from the sale of these special ties will contribute to the development of cultural, design, contemporary art, urban recovery, and tailoring projects in Genoa and Liguria. Among these initiatives is the collaboration with Associazione Aria, which has long worked with the women’s prison of Pontedecimo. The project, curated by Alessandro de Lisi together with Francesca Linke and Matteo Morra, will be officially presented on May 23, anniversary of the Capaci massacre.