Abstract

The author addresses the issue of place names, consecrated to the memory of the judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, to observe the public impact of the Republican crisis (1989-1994) on local communities. In particular he analyzes the mafia massacres of 1992 in order to understand how the medial nature of the «historical present» affected the composition of a civic territoriality in the second Republic. In the second part of the article the author, on the one hand, focuses on public history practices and journalistic controversies regarding the choice of place names, on the other hand, he experiences an e-research exploiting the cybernetic infrastructure of public administration. From the comparison of data emerges the protagonism of the southern municipalities. Through the cult of the innocent victims of the mafia, they open the way to an all-Italian civilian anti-mafia religion.