The Italian mafia plotted to blow up the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa among other monuments in the country. “Imagine if Italy was to wake up and find the Tower of Pisa no longer existed,” mafia informant Gioacchino La Barbera cited late mafia chief Nino Gioe as saying.

Tourists throng the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Rome

Other targets that had been considered were the Papal Archbasilica of St John Lateran in Rome, the church of San Giorgio in Velabro in Roma and the Georgofili Academy in Florence, La Barbera testified at a trial on Thursday.

At the trial, jailed mafia boss Toto Riina and other Sicilian mafia bosses were in the dock, along with former police bosses and senior politicians on charges of negotiating a secret non-aggression pact in the early 1990s.

The Sicilian mafia had also plotted to blow up the current Italian Senate speaker and former anti-mafia prosecutor
Pietro Grasso.

It wanted to target the police captain who arrested Riina, Sergio Di Caprio as well as prominent politicians, including former justice minister Claudio Martelli, La Barbera said.