Sicily in the 1800
Sicily, including a time Palermo was the capital, was then part of the so-called Kingdom of Two Sicilies, with Naples capital.
Well, in the years when Giacomo was child, the Prosecutor General of the King of the Two Sicilies, in his official report, as described Palermo, already had about two hundred thousand inhabitants:
"Here are forty thousand proletarians,
whose livelihood depends on the case and the whim of the great.
Here is vendon public offices,
it corrupts justice,
is fomenting ignorance of the people;
is also a capital city with its luxury and its corruption,
in Sicily without roads,
without trade, without industries,
with the arrogance of the nobles and the insolence of the mob. "
In this context, social and political
Giacomo since the child began to grow his vocation of
friend of the poor.