Consigliere

Consigliere (pronounced kawn-see-lye-re)

(1) A member of a criminal organization or syndicate who serves as an adviser to the leader (associated historically with legal advisors in the Italian Mafia and similar structures in other places).

(2) In modern use, an advisor or confidant.

(3) A surname of Italian origin (originally occupational).

1969 (in common use in English): An un-adapted borrowing of the Italian consigliere (councilor) (the feminine form consigliera), from consiglio (advice; counsel), from the Latin cōnsilium (council) from cōnsulō, the construct being con- (from the preposition cum (with), from the Old Latin com, from the Proto-Italic kom, from the primitive Indo-European ḱóm (next to, at, with, along).  It was cognate with the Proto-Germanic ga- (co-), the Proto-Slavic sъ (with) and the Proto-Germanic hansō.  It was used with certain words to add a notion similar to those conveyed by with, together, or joint or with certain words to intensify their meaning) +‎ sulo (from the primitive Indo-European selh- (to take, to grab)). +‎ -ium (the –ium suffix (used most often to form adjectives) was applied as (1) a nominal suffix (2) a substantivisation of its neuter forms and (3) as an adjectival suffix.  It was associated with the formation of abstract nouns, sometimes denoting offices and groups, a linguistic practice which has long fallen from fashion.  In the New Latin, as the neuter singular morphological suffix, it was the standard suffix to append when forming names for chemical elements).  Consigliere is a noun, the noun plural is consiglieri or (in English) consiglieres.

Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

Consigliere entered general use in 1969 when it appeared in the novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo (1920–1999), the first of what became a series of five (not wholly sequential and the last co-authored) works revolving around a fictional Italian-American Mafia family.  Use spiked after 1972 when the first of three feature film adaptations was released.  Advisors and confidants of course exist in many parts of society but the significance of the use of “consigliere” is the historic baggage of it being associated with mafiosi (in the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure anyone a part of a criminal (mafia-like) association formed by three or more individuals).  So it’s a loaded word although in Italian there are notionally innocuous forms including consigliere comunale (town councillor), consigliere delegato (managing director) and consigliere d'amministrazione (board member).  It Italian, the related forms include the adjective consigliabile (advisable, the plural being consigliabili), the transitive verb consigliare (to advise, to suggest, to recommend, to counsel), the noun & verb consiglio (advise, counsel; council (in the senses of "an assembly", the plural being consigli)) and the adjective (and in Latin a verb) consiliare (board; council (as la sala consiliare used in the sense of "council chamber")

So a consigliere is a trusted advisor or counselor, historically associated with the Italian Mafia but later also with organized crime in general though the suggestion of a link with things Italian (not necessarily Sicilian) remained strong.  Within organized crime, not all consiglieri were legal advisors although in fiction that does seem to be a common role but all in some way offered “behind the scenes” strategic guidance.  Consigliere can be used metaphorically in a non-criminal context but because of connotations, if the individuals involved have some Italian ancestry, there can lead to accusations of “ethnic stereotyping” and the best neutral descriptors are probably adviser (or advisor) or councillor (counselor in US use) and there are also specific versions such as “legal counsel” “political advisor” etc.

Consulente di moda Kim Kardashian (left) with the client Lindsay Lohan (right).  The consulente di moda (fashion advisor) is a specialized fork of the consiglieri and before she became one of the internet’s more remarkable installations, Kim Kardashian (b 1980) was a “personal stylist” & “wardrobe consultant”, her clients including Paris Hilton (b 1981) and Lindsay Lohan (b 1986).

There are similar terms with their own connotations.  "Camarilla" describes a small, secretive group of advisors or influencers who manipulate decisions behind the scenes and is often used in a political context; notable members can be described as an “éminence grise”.  The term "grey eminence" was from the French éminence grise, (plural eminences grises or eminence grises and literally “grey eminence” and the French spelling is sometimes used in the English-speaking world).  It was applied originally to François Leclerc du Tremblay (1577–1638), also known as Père Joseph, a French Capuchin friar who was the confidant and agent of Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), the chief minister of France under Louis XIII (1601–1643; King of France 1610-1643).  The term refers to du Tremblay’s influence over the Cardinal (cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church enjoying the honorific “your eminence”), and the colour of his habit (he wore grey).  Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) sub-titled his biography of Leclerc (L'Éminence Grise (1941)): A Study in Religion and Politics and discussed the nature of both religion & politics, his purpose being to explore the relationship between the two and his work was a kind of warning to those of faith who are led astray by proximity to power.  Use of the term éminence grise suggests a shadowy, backroom operator who avoids publicity, operating in secret if possible yet exercising great influence over decisions, even to the point of being “the power behind the throne”.

In this a gray eminence differs from a king-maker or a svengali in that those designations are applied typically to those who operate in the public view, even flaunting their power and authority.  Probably the closest synonym of the grey eminence is a “puppetmaster” because of the implication of remaining hidden, and although never seen, the strings they pull are if one looks closely enough.  The svengali was named for the hypnotist character Svengali in George du Maurier’s (1834–1896) novel Trilby (1894); Svengali seduced, dominated and manipulated Trilby who was a young, half-Irish girl, transforming her into a great singer but in doing so he made her utterly dependent on him and this ruthlessly he exploited.

From the New York Post, 23 October 2024.

So given all that it was interesting in October 2024 to note the choice of words made by elements of the Murdoch press in reporting the latest legal setback suffered by Rudy Giuliani (b 1944), a politician and now disbarred (struck-off) attorney who first achieved worldwide fame was the mayor of New York City (1994-2001) at the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.  That later would be turned into infamy with antics such as his later (unintended) cameo in a satirical film and his role as legal counsel to MAGA-era (Make America Great Again) Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021), notably his part in the matter of Dominion Voting Systems v Fox News (Delaware Superior Court: N21C-03-257; N21C-11-082) which culminated (thus far) in Fox settling the matter by paying Dominion some US$790 million, the alternative being to continue the case and allow more of Fox’s internal documents to enter the public domain.

In choosing to describe Mr Giuliani as Mr Trump’s “consigliere”, a person or persons unknown within the Murdoch press presumably pondered which noun to use and there certainly were precedents for others to appear, the corporation’s outlets at times having previously described him as “Mr Trump’s personal attorney”, “Head of the Trump legal team” and even “Donald Trump’s cybersecurity advisor”, the last engagement perhaps one of the less expected political appointments of recent decades.  What of course made the use “consigliere” interesting was (1) Mr Giuliani being the son of parents who both were children of Italian immigrants and (2) Mr Trump being a convicted felon so those not of a generous nature might suspect the New York Post was doing a bit of “ethnic stereotyping”.  However, it’s not a unique use because Mr Giuliani has been described as Mr Trump’s “consigliere” by publications which exist at various points on political spectrum including the New York Post (2016), Aljazeera (2018), the Washington Blade (a LGBTQQIAAOP newspaper) (2019), The Economist (2019), the Washington Post (2019), The Nation (2022), Vanity Fair (2022) and Salon.com (2023).  Whether the connotations of the word have become strengthened since Mr Trump gained his unique status as a convicted felon can be debated but the thoughts of the now homeless Mr Giuliani presumably are focused elsewhere.