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.
Regarding Andrea Muccioli, I must add for clarity he stepped down from leadership of San Patrignano already in 2011, so what ever he passes in coming year or so isn’t necessarily or even likely tied to community. Otherwise, Marjory’s reading on his chart and relationship with his father stands.
I think he mentions this in the documentary, too, and it’s definitely reported elsewhere, but he mostly didn’t grow up with his father. The farm that became San Patrignano was given to Muccioli and his wife as a wedding gift by his father-in-law, but apparently, he liked the country life much better than his wife, who’d mostly stay “in town” with his sons. I think that they only became closer during “Chains Trial”, which was, in a way, a precedent, since Italian Law hadn’t really established what kind of methods used in therapeutic work would be against personal liberty. Andrea was studying Law at the time, and did complete his degree with a thesis on subject.
The fact that Andrea was more interested in “business side” of San Patrignano is very visible on his chart, too. He seems to have been a very effective fundraiser, which I find is common for Libra Sun/Leo Venus types. They are likable and can be incredibly charming. I also suspect his Taurus Moon/Jupiter conjunction squaring Venus is very tight, because he seems to like “finer things in life”. Apparently (and these are words of his wife) he was effectively fired by Morattis particularly due to having spend vast sums of money on renovation of the villa both him and his father before him lived, but also general expenses (restaurants, travel and so on). That said, he might not have been as good a business manager he leads people to believe in the documentary. It seems that since he is gone, San Patrignano managing directors have effectively turned their funding mostly to productive activity based, while when Andrea Muccioli was in charge, money mostly came from donations.
I have to say that in the document, Andrea Muccioli comes across as extremely “lawyery” (Libra Sun/Virgo Mercury combination tends to do that), too. His responses to questions about his father are blanket denials when the facts are not entirely deniable (as the recording of Vincenzo Muccioli discussing killing people which his driver Walter Delogu recorded). In that sense, I find the testimonial of Fabio Cantelli, who was first a guest and then a press officer at the time of Maranzano Trial much more compelling. He does not gloss over instances of psychological abuse – such as having been tested for AIDS in 1985, but only told he was in fact positive by Muccioli several years later, when he had an “outside” girlfriend. Yet, he says he was deeply hurt he was only told Muccioli was very ill – maybe in coma? -, because he truly loved the man. He tells, on screen, that he found it hard to tell the press they did not have “punitive units”, when they indeed had those. There’s footage of him looking extremely uncomfortable, too. His ultimate reason for leaving was Moratti funded study inflating San Patrignano success rate. He said he was convinced the community would have survived even if they’d come clear with the truth and made necessary changes.
I am a Capricorn Moon and Venus, we can be very icy, decisive people, very hardline and I myself have had to watch this tendency all my life.
I am American who spent time at San Patrignano, visiting, in 2017. My tour was with a lovely 32-year-old American man who was a resident there because his mom made the extra effort for him. He was finally getting the help after many rehabs in the US. I talked to the medical doctor there who also had been a heroin addict at one time. (FYI, Solaia, they do allow anti-depressants for those who need it after a period of sobriety, and they do give therapy.) There are 1300 residents of San Patrignano, 1000 of them males. Most common addiction: cocaine. They stay for 3 years. Realize they make the commitment to stay that long because they want their sobriety to last. The thing that really impressed me is that addicted mothers live with their children in the center, as we have so few enlightened programs like that in the United States. When I was there, there were groups from Scotland, Canada and Turkey looking to replicate the program. You must commit to a 2-year stay, and you get trained for a job to go out in the working world. While the people at San Patrignano were giving me a tour for special events, they may have been trying to put on the best light. The woodworking, wallpapering and bakery workshops of the village pay for themselves and support residential stays in the community. If it is a $50,000 charge for a 3-year stay, that’s a bargain. The trades that are developed San Patrignano are sold to outside world to make money for the treatment. They make purses for Chanel. The residents are happy, and I don’t think it’s fake. I agree with what Marjory said the other day about good people have shadow sides, and Vincenzo may be one such person, but San Patrignano certainly shows more light than darkness. Thank you Solaia for clarifying the descriptions of Marjory. I don’t have a Netflix account, so I won’t see it. My understanding was that Vincenzo was a wealthy hotel owner in Rimini before he started the place. If he and the place were that bad, as it sounds in your description, it wouldn’t be replicated around the world. In the US, we have rehabs that charge $30,000 a month and often don’t work. Sensationalist titles such as The Bloody Scandal of Italy’s Rehab Cult are designed to shock, not to tell the truth. SanPs has more than a 70% success rate. American rehabs have more like 20-30% success and charge ~$30,000 for a month. Rehab is very tricky and hard on the victims who have tried so many times. When you have more than 20 people living or working together, there will always be some not so good things going on, no matter how enlightened the ideals of the place.
@JAS, yes, it’s completely normal to have a non-paying workplaces where, for questioning things, you get delegated to an unit with no external supervision where your boss beats you up on daily bases. Sorry I’m being sarcastic here, but this is what happened in the community in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Initially, Muccioli did chain people to dog houses. There are photos taken by carabinieri who raided the place of this. Later, within the community, there were “punitive” units, led by other ex-addicts (many of whom were actual criminals still “doing time” delegated to the community by Italian court system), whose violence was tolerated and even encouraged (Muccioli believed in “fatherly” approach). Muccioli got convicted for letting this happen on 1st grade, too, but died (of what exactly, even best part of his family didn’t know) before 2nd grade judgement that would have been definitive.
So, what you saw in 2017 (and frankly, the fact they are giving tours like this to visitors showcasing their “guest” is problematic to say the least, these are vulnerable people who should be granted enhanced privacy) isn’t what happened in the 1980’s or even 1990’s. Things definitely got better even in the 1980’s with actual qualified people, some of whom were “kids” who’d lived in community and studied (I think the doctor you spoke with is Antonio Boschini, who even “ex-guest” very critical of Muccioli seem to respect) getting involved and more “transparent” after Maranzano Trial.
Still, a lot of what happened was and still is glossed over. They’ve never admitted, for instance, lack of internal oversight for the first 20 years of the community (they had to develop this to get an UN NGO status around the turn of Millenium). They’ve never come clear on University of Bologna Study funded by Morattis, which inflated “success rate” by not taking re-admissions on account, either.
Most importantly, you never hear of people who never needed their help or their “failures” from them. Having lived in Italy from late 1990’s to mid 2000’s, one could already see the “heroin epidemic” was over (which is why San Patrignano is now allowing people from abroad, at the height of this all, they literally had people queuing to be admitted). My Ex had an older siblings born in the 1960’s, who’d had several classmates caught up in this. Some were dead by the time, but there were also people my Ex called “tossici storici”, ‘ancient junkie’. People who’d either quit, or were doing recreational heroin, much like recreational coke, but had jobs and in many cases families. I had really, really hard time believing in this, given I came from a country that was just in the midst of a devastating heroin wave due to Russian route having made it more accessible. But I started hearing of these people from elsewhere, and actually briefly worked for a guy who’d been “a junkie” too.
And then there were “lifers” of communities. My ex-MIL was and I guess still is close friend with a lady whose brother was admitted to San Patrignano and other communities several times since his late teens. The issue was he never learnt to live in “real society”. As is often the case of inmates, he got institutionalized. Ultimately, he committed suicide in the early 2000’s, I think he was 38 at the time (this struck me).
Overall, I would like to stretch some things seen in San Patrignano were and are not unique in Italian society. A random person getting money and power just because they were at a right place at the right time with the right people is not unique. Lacking oversight on institutions js not unique. What’s maybe unique is making this incompetence “a model” and touting it for decades.
And oh, another thing I doubt casual visitors to Italy realize, because they see good food, good company, stylish people, despite maybe having seen a mafia movie or two: It’s a very violent society. This is actually alluded to in the documentary, many of the early “guests” had been part of violent (even terrorist) Far Left and Far Right groups. It’s widely thought Italian Secret Services at least turned a blind eye on organized crime pushing heroin, and might have participated, too, in diffusion (this was done in The US by FBI, so it’s easy to believe). Even people in “polite society” don’t always condemn the violence in the way they would in English speaking World. Domestic violence in particular was much more acceptable, even by educated, well-to-do people very recently, in Italy than Europe in general. I can’t count the times I was left completely floored by people I respected advocating “tough love”, that to sounded more like abuse. I also was completely gaslighted. Fortunately, a couple of friends with an authority on issue were on my side, and being amazing people they are, have since changed things in their environment.
Sad about that lady’s brother….I was married many years to a polydrug addict, so I’m familiar with the pain it brings to families and the violence that takes over the drug users, and the denial, the lies and the failed attempts to quit. His quitting could never last more than 6 months. Like everyone, he never thought he’d become addicted. (He never went to treatment, denied to his family that he was using. I divorced him; he died) There is no perfect solution. I’m sorry, but I think there is a hidden reason (a malevolent one–give more power and money to the drug dealers) that people want to malign San Patrignano. To triumph over addiction is really difficult, and treatment fails so often. A friend of mine was forced to stay in rehab for a year, after 4 other attempts each lasting 30 days. She describes the treatment as harsh, at every treatment place, but it seems to have finally stuck after one year. She has hope now, which she didn’t have before. She almost died a few times. I am no advocate of tough love. Muccioli sounds like Icarus, but his intentions were good ones. We have many people who are like Icarus in the world today. Chaining people that is horrible, but there’s more to the story of what happened before. It takes a brain a long time to recover from being rewired from drug use, if ever. Of course any institution with more than 20 people is going to have institutional flaws. In the 80s, drug treatment was unchartered territory for everyone, so of course the miracles that Muccioli thought possible were not possible.
Just to explain more, my ex-husband’s polydrug addiction included many different types of drugs, since you need a multitude of drugs to offset withdrawal, except not heroin or meth. Because he didn’t use those, it helped him deny that his drug use was problematic for him. By the way, your insights into astrology are especially insightful, a welcome addiction to Marjorie’s.
“addition” not addiction…..but I do kind of have an addiction to this website…..as many do, too.
San Patrignano’s view (written 2 years ago) on why harm reduction, only, policy is inadequate “This isn’t a matter of opposing life-saving measures, it’s a matter of expecting more: we all expect that everyone whose life is saved by a defibrillator gets comprehensive cardiac care of adequate quality, intensity and duration.”
“At some point you need to help build a life after you’ve saved one.”
The filmmaker had to sensationalize to sell it to Netflix, which is probably why it is an unbalanced view. This is San Pa’s press release: https://www.sanpatrignano.org/en/press-release-by-the-community-of-san-patrignano-on-the-netflix-series-sanpa-sins-of-the-savior/
(This is where American treatments fail, lack of followup, although there are half-way houses, the drug dealers stake their territories right near the halfway houses, and it works.)
From a visitor, there is nothing cult-like about this place. I am angry that it is being maligned so.
@JAS, sorry about your ex-husband, too. That said, there definitely are ways of dealing with addiction that fall between American often non-approach and closing people in for 3 (!) years. While this might have, and still does, work for people who are younger without an education
and/or have to be removed from a destructive social environment, such as organized crime, it’s not particularly useful in most case. Generally speaking, in Europe, we now employ more low-threshold treatment programs. In Nordic countries, particularly, there’s a very strong awareness on avoiding
institutionalization that really encompasses all sectors of life. We really value our right to be part of society, and will generally speaking have very high threshold in taking that away from the others.
As for San Patrignano, if you’d bother to watch the documentary, there actually isn’t anyone there who claims it’s a cult now. The most critical voice you hear of it now is an ex-guest who was in San Patrignano in the early 1990’s, and was beaten by his “group leader” at one work group, but found the experience in another completely different, and has become a counselor himself. And his argument is the structure is too big, and won’t therefore work for most people. Otherwise, they are really concentrating to the 1980’s and the 1990’s, and often from a standpoint of how Italian society, politicians, judicial system and media in particular failed those guests whose personal experience wasn’t healing.
My personal opinion, based on news clips on documentary is that there was a definitive, cultish strain there during Muccioli’s time. You have all these clips with crying “guests” and their parents who obviously think only Muccioli can save them or their loved ones. This is obviously the kind of behavior which would have lead trained therapist to sever ties to patient even in the 1980’s. However, very high profile public figures (including Indro Montanelli, the most respected journalist of the country) normalized it for Muccioli and San Patrignano. Their major donor Letizia Moratti was Chairwoman of Board of Rai, the public broadcaster during Maranzano trial, and while journalists say she was too intelligent to outright “push” stories, puff pieces on San Patrignano did happen.
And as I said, this hasn’t been issued adequately by current management. Antonio Boschini, for instance, says, at the very beginning something like “if our roots were molded, would we have survived for 40 years?” Well, I rewatched this piece to check his name after I learned Morattis ALONE (not to mention other donors) had poured 238 million euros to build community in 25 years, most of it in the 1980’s to build the infrastructure and start professional labs. Maybe that had more to do with the survival of the community through investigations than anything else.
Thank you for covering this! Muccioli’s, and his community’s, San Patrignano’s, story is quite something, and the Netflix documentary series is extremely captivating. Even if I lived in Italy and actually knew of people who’d been to the community, and spent my first longer period in the country in 1994, I knew surprisingly little of how “Sanpa” came to be.
I don’t want to give too much away of the documentary, but it gives away some very surprising sides of Muccioli’s character, the final twist being almost in the end. I think that in many aspects, he is very classic Capricorn Sun man I’d expect of his generation – born in heydey of Fascism, in a town that would become set of Fellini’s “Amarcord”. The Virgo Moon is also very much there – he chose to work the land, this was what he loved. The surprise, I’d say, comes from his Aquarius planets and Aries Uranus opposition to Jupiter. Overall, I definitely think he started with good intentions, in fact, the community started as him looking after a daughter of friends who’d become an addict. Many of the early “guests” to Sanpa, the ones he personally looked after, interviewed in the documentary also seem to be literally saved by him and become people able to help others.
The issues rose from the fact that Muccioli didn’t have any formal education in any field needed to run a growing community. He didn’t believe in pharmaceutic solutions, which were maybe limited in the 1970’s, but became more refined even at his time. Nowadays, I think there would not be a medical professional suggesting quitting opiods cold turkey simply for horrible strain it would put to their system. He didn’t believe in psychotherapy, either, while it’s now evident young people who came from a well to do solid families in Milan and had been hooked almost by chance definitely had different needs than, let’s say, young people from The South who’d never seen anything but violence. And he definitely hadn’t tools to manage a community of 500, 1000, 1500 people who were supposedly taught a trade.
And the community grew fast in the 1980’s thanks to prominent donors. The role of Gianmarco and Letizia Moratti was vital. Gianmarco was son of Angelo Moratti, who founded Saras, the biggest private oil refinary company in Italian market, and was the owner of Inter FC in the 1960’s, when it dominated European scene. Letizia was his wife who went to politics. It’s said they donated over 230 million euros to San Patrignano between the early 1980’s and 2011. This helped with the exponential growth. I remember, from talk of my Milanese friends, how Gianmarco was always viewed as not the brightest bulb. Letizia is immensely brighter, and made it all the way to Mayor of Milan, but, I looked this up, has some Sadge “always look on the bright side” astrology, so would have glossed over certain things.
Richard Nixon was another flawed personality born under Capricorn.
We all know how that played out for him, in the long term.
Thanks Marjorie. The dark side of Capricorn theme is fascinating this week. Also all the “damaged” nature of influential people with talent and drive. I see the cruelty and coldness in this chart, and the Mars/Saturn signature at it’s worst.
Out of curiosity I looked up L. Ron Hubbard’s chart, 13th March 1911. His life story, and the invention of Scientology, is quite extraordinary too. There’s a Uranus/Mars conjunction square Saturn, Pluto square Sun, and Jupiter trine Neptune which you might expect in a “spiritual” leader I suppose. There are many questions around his mental health throughout his life.
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, 11 December 1931, is Sagittarius, but has a stellium in Capricorn – Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Saturn. Saturn opposes Pluto in Cancer, and squares Uranus in Aries. His Saturn/Pluto is across the 2nd and 8th houses which makes sense of his baroque finances and love of acquisitions. Talk of murder plots and accusations of fraud and conspiracy also weave in and out of his story. All these individuals have what we might call challenging aspects, which seem to be both a source of drive and power, yet unravelling in the end.
How about his son’s chart, Andrea Muccioli born on September 25, 1964 in Rimini, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. No birth time found. I’m interested in intergenerational salient points too
Wow, interesting relationship chart with Pa. I’m pushed for time now, having had to sally forth for vaccination which took a chunk out of the day. But will add on tomorrow.
@Geraldine, wow, I’m looking forward to this addition, too. I can say that while watching the documentary, I got a strong feeling that Vincenzo Muccioli was a Capricorn Sun, and that Andrea is a Libra Sun. This is unusual, because I’m not, generally speaking, good at picking Sun signs and would not make a party game out of it. But they gave me very strong vibe of these signs.
Thank you all for your comments, and @Solaia, yes, there are potent vibes radiating from this place, it is like turning a siever upside down….Now, 2022 looks like a ‘crazy wisdom’ year for Andrea and the community, for many positive & negative reasons….The ‘natural’ aftermath of Netflix effect I guess!
a molecular sieve, we are in chemistry here for sure!