The Calabrians believe in the story of the three knights.

Osso, Mastrosso and Carcagnosso
31 MAGGIO 2015 ~ VANIAREJULIAN

If we want to speak regarding a social phenomenon we have to start from a fundamental basis: its origin and its history. But also if we want to introduce the origins under a historical aspect of life we can revisit the earliest times, when history is mixed with myth, and so we go back to 1412. It is the myth of “Osso, Mastrosso e Carcagnosso”.

The three men were members of Guardugna, an association of military order, founded in Toledo, , almost monastic, equipped with strict rules. It was so powerful that it could influence the Spanish political system in those years.[1] In this association they worked and acted according to the same customs and rituals accepted by all. Untill one day they decided to avenge the violated honour of their sister with an act of blood, killing those who had caused such a disgrace to their family. Osso, Mastrosso and Carcagnosso, due to the action of revenge, paying their debt to justice, were convicted and imprisoned in the far island of Favignana, within an Aragonese fortress used as a prison. At that time Favignana was Spanish territory, where now some prison cells have been found which seen to have been used as a place of torture. In the small island of the Aegean archipelago, the three prisoners remained for almost thirty years, just for the singular period of twenty-nine years, eleven months and twenty-nine days; then they come out from the bowels of the Spanish penitentiary at the dawn of the thirtieth year. However, during this long period, in the three protagonists something had inexorably changed. The three knights of this legend came out of prison in the guise of new men, repositories of knowledge, rituals, customs and symbols that were different between them but they were all linked by a common thread: the honour and the code of silence. The legend ends with the separation of these three men. Osso remained in Sicily, and here he laid the foundation of the Cosa Nostra structure, Mastrosso crossed the Straits of Messina to found the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria and finally Carcagnosso went to the lands of the ancient “Campania felix“, where he founded the structure of the Camorra.

The curious legend of Osso, Mastrosso and Carcagnosso should be free from the dangerous atmosphere of myth that might make it unfairly fascinating and giving it a meaning that goes beyond its reach, in other words the result of the creative imagination. This legend, in fact, would have served to establish the myth of the genesis of the three criminal organizations, thereby giving them dignity with roots going back centuries. It tries to create even a real genealogy that would lose in the past six centuries of human history. The story of the three brothers of Toledo is further characterized by a direct reference to the epic of chivalry and its religious traditions. Those references are often dotted with numerous superstitions, which would merge with the “social rules”; later it is these which would make the Cosa Nostra, the Camorra and the ‘Ndrangheta so fearsome and dangerous, organizations in possession of real behavioural written codes. Furthermore, in “Osso, Mastrosso and Carcagnosso” there are specific references to Masonic awesomeness, which have helped create more mystery for centuries with their secret initiation rites and with their affiliation symbols. All that with the use of graphic images which are typical of religious holy cards, designed to emphasize a certain parallelism between the three Spanish knights of the XV century and today’s Mafiosi.

Today as they were yesterday they claim to track some justification down both to their rules, through the pages of Scripture, and some of their actions, interpreting in their own way the conduct of certain saints. In this way if thought, reported and written words and phrases in completely different contexts are altered, together with the legend awesomeness, the criminal and mafia reality will never be separated from its truest and most authentic essence, characterized by violence and the worst abuses.