Vincenzo Muccioli was the charismatic leader of a drug rehab community in Italy, curing heroin addiction by offering community support and craft training in a model farm. His followers regarded him as a saviour though he did practice ‘tough love’ on the addict inmates. How tough only became evident after a brutally beaten dead body turned up in 1989, followed by horror stories emerging of the use of electric cattle prods, of inmates forced into freezers, possible suicides and tales of other bodies.
He was charged over the body as an accessory though he said he had not known of the murder and was given a suspended sentence. A later court action in 1995 threatened him with a 20 year prison sentence. 4 days later he was dead.
When he started the centre in 1978, he proclaimed himself a medium, identified with Christ and preached a humble life of poverty. By his death, he lived in a luxury villa, in a garden with peacocks and pink flamingos, drove a Mercedes and had a personal staff that included a liveried butler. His son now runs the centre, charging $50k a year and it’s a $50 million business.
A Netflix documentary 5 part series “SanPa: lights and darkness of San Patrignano” relates the tale.
Muccioli, born 6 January 1934, was a Sun Capricorn opposition Pluto square Jupiter opposition Uranus – ambitious, controlling, super-confident, an innovator. Not above dispensing with social niceties to get what he wanted with Jupiter Pluto. A Cardinal Grand Cross is bubbling over with initiative, assertive to the nth degree, determined to succeed. But tending to live a life full of revolving crises.
His nasty streak came from a Mars Saturn in Aquarius, which wouldn’t be above tolerating cruel treatment. His North Node in Aquarius would devote him to a cause.
His Sun was trine Neptune with his Virgo Moon possibly conjunct Neptune – lending him his ‘spiritual’ aura and slippery tendencies. He also had a couple of quincunxes – Pluto to Venus in Aquarius; and Neptune to Saturn – a curious mix of ascetic and sensual.
The early years of the commune had tr Pluto moving in hard aspect round his Grand Cross boosting his Jupiterian streak. But it was the triple conjunction in Capricorn which was his undoing from 1990 to 1995.
His creative, not always well-balanced, 7th harmonic of the spiritual seeker was notable though with overtones of ruthlessness and brutality; as was his breakthrough genius 13H.
Power corrupts, spiritual power more than most. The end justifies the means can be a Capricornian flaw.
Fuller details below:
Add On: The son Andrea Muccioli, 25 September 1964, still runs the centre. In a recent interview about the documentary series he said: “It is fiction pure and simple.”
“Of course there was violence in San Patrignano, we are talking about a war. A war that, however, was won with the power of love”.
For Andrea, his father’s biggest mistake was “wanting to save everyone”.
About the tape secretly recorded by his driver in which Vincenzo says uncomfortable people should be eliminated, Andrea dismisses it with the thought that it was “Bar chatter, that’s what my father was like, he often exceeded his language.”
About the trial: My father was convinced that he could manage everything in his favour thanks to the media power he had. Eventually he fell ill, and depression strangled him. “I have to die for San Patrignano to continue living” he confessed to me”.
Pa seen through rose-coloured glasses clearly.
Andrea is a different personality type with only one Cardinal sign, his Libra Sun. He’s mainly Fixed with his Moon Jupiter in indulgent Taurus in a head-in-the-clouds opposition to Neptune square Venus in Leo widely opposition Saturn in Aquarius. Enduring, stubborn, can turn on the charm when need be, acquisitive. Jupiter Neptune can accompany delusional spiritual leanings or an overly optimistic view of life – and in his case involving family with his Moon tied in. He’s lacking his father’s drive and initiative.
Down in his midpoints there is a starker story with his father’s cruel Mars Saturn conjunction mirrored in Andrea’s Saturn/Mars midpoint being square his Venus and in aspect to his Sun; with his Mars conjunct his Pluto/Node and his Jupiter square his Mars/Pluto. So he’s not unfamiliar with darker impulses himself.
His relationship chart with his father is very chained together and, under a veneer of affection, is cold with resentment bubbling way below the surface. There’s a composite Sun opposition Venus square Saturn opposition Pluto; with an ‘adventurous’ Mars square Jupiter.
Andrea’s personal chart isn’t looking too cheerful with a ‘shocking’ Solar Arc Mars conjunct his Sun now and Solar Arc Sun square his Saturn in 2022 throwing up setbacks and discouragement.