L'avvocato del diavolo

Devil’s Advocate
This paper examines the «imperatives of the reasoning» concerning the mafia under the fascism. We are before a rather reticent rhetoric (ancient and contemporary) on the nature of the mafia which pretends to explain in apodictic form what it is not. The lawyers play a fundamental role in the creation and maintenance of the imperatives of the reasoning on the mafia, because of the same nature of their profession. They are distant but near to their assisted and this «specific ambiguity» characterizes the position of the lawyer within the judicial stage. The lawyer is, for his nature, the man of a faction, he is not obliged to the truth; on the contrary he is faithful to the duty of loyalty and honesty to his client and must be indifferent to the social and political effects of the judgment. Of course both for the lawyers and their clients, the mafia didn’t exist and if it existed it was another thing. The paper is about «this other thing», i.e. mafia’s ability to harness both verbal communication and lawyers work in order to put up an identity fit to play on the public scene.