Wine and Gunpowder

The Palazzo Bellini in the historic Kalsa quarter of Palermo was a monumental 17th-century baroque fortress of honey-colored tuff stone, adorned with wrought-iron balconies, marble courtyards, and grand carved archways displaying the heraldic raven of the Bellini dynasty. At eight on a chilly autumn evening, dozens of armored black sedans congested the cobblestone piazza outside the palazzo, discharging sixty armed Caporegimes, consiglieres, and veteran soldiers of the Bellini syndicate into…