Roberto Calvi Part 1

7.12: ROBERTO CALVI

One of Italy’s preeminent financiers, Calvi was called “God’s banker” because of his work with Banco Ambrosiano, which was associated with the Istituto per le Opere di Religione - better known as the Vatican Bank. Embroiled in one of the country’s biggest financial scandals, the exposure of Calvi’s misdeeds shed light on the extent to which the Church traded in, or was at least associated with, dirty money. But his connections to the darker side of life in Italy went beyond financial skullduggery. He was a member of a shadowy Masonic lodge with political designs, a cult-like underground organization whose weird initiation rite we dramatize in this week’s episode.

Part 1 of a three-part series.