“I believe that telling the stories of unsolved cases is very important,” says Valsecchi. “There are stories that continue to haunt us for years, because the truth is missing, because the families are waiting for answers, and because we feel that they concern us too. Cinema can draw us into the lives of those involved and help us understand what it means to live with those questions. Of course,” he continues, “we must show respect and have a thorough understanding of what we are telling. Just because a story is famous doesn’t mean it’s already a good film. You have to find a perspective, work out through whose eyes to tell it. And you have to be honest about what we know and what still needs to be clarified. People’s lives aren’t something to be treated lightly.”

The creative process is everything when dealing with stories of bloodshed, especially if they are sensitive and still taking shape. “When a story strikes a chord with me, I try to delve deeper into it, to understand who the people are and what lies behind it. From there, I start to think about a story. If it interests and moves me, I hope it will interest and move the audience too. Today, given the difficulties Italian cinema is facing at the box office, a producer must ask themselves even more keenly what they want to do and why anyone should go and see it. I ask myself this question before I even begin. What strikes me about this story? What might resonate with the audience? Is there an emotion, a conflict, something that will stay with them?” And it is amidst these doubts that, says the producer, “unresolved cases can have great power, but mystery alone is not enough. You have to make the viewer feel just how much that story has changed someone’s life. And work out whether it needs a film, a series, a documentary or a podcast.”

There is a thriving ecosystem of successful media products centred around unsolved cases in Italian news. A news story that has never been closed (such as the Ustica case) allows screenwriters, authors and content creators to continue producing material on the subject. Yet however unresolved the story may remain, “the public expects the narrative to lead somewhere. Even an open ending is fine, provided it sheds further light on the matter. And this also applies to cases considered resolved.” From Garlasco to Ustica, there are countless series, books and podcasts dedicated to these cases. But television, too, is full of in-depth programmes on these cases. “There is a risk that crime reporting will turn into mere entertainment. When every suspicion becomes a revelation, grief ends up becoming a spectacle,” says Valsecchi, who believes that to avoid reaching such a level of cynicism, “we must research, distinguish facts from hypotheses and respect people. As a producer, I always ask myself what my story adds. It’s not enough to choose a case simply because everyone is talking about it.”

Looking at the figures, podcasting is the sector in which the success of true crime is most evident. In 2025, for the third year running, Elisa True Crime was crowned the most listened-to podcast in Italy on Spotify, a record it also shared on the rival platform Apple Podcasts. The allure of true crime convinced Francesca Fagnani to create a ‘Crime’ spin-off of her Rai programme ‘Belve’, in which her interview with the killer Roberto Savi helped reignite the controversy surrounding the ‘Uno bianca’ case. There is also a long list of audiovisual productions focusing on the most notorious, protracted and mysterious cases in our crime news: from the Avetrana murder (Disney Plus) to the Claps case (Rai), via the documentary on the murder of Yara Gambirasio (Netflix) and the miniseries by Stefano Sollima on the ‘Monster of Florence’ (also on Netflix), which is about to launch its second series. What drives a person to become fascinated by crime stories? “We want to understand, and we recognise ourselves in the fears and lives of those involved. The mystery is alluring, but it’s the people who really draw us in. And today, given how difficult it is to attract audiences to cinemas, we have to start with the content itself. A famous case might pique curiosity, but to convince someone to go to the cinema, you need a story that makes them feel something.” On screen, there’s a life violently cut short, with the circumstances still to be fully clarified. In our mouths, however, there’s popcorn.

The award in question is a private initiative, now in its second year, conceived by the publisher Alessandro Gian Maria Ferri together with Silvestro Mucillo. Stefania Nobile received it for her book "Vendere… cara la pelle"; Wanna Marchi for her cookery book "La verità è che io cucino così. ‘Qui non si pesa niente: l’unica misura è l’amore’. Roma Capitale did not award either of them and does not appear to have sponsored the event. However, the ceremony took place on 23 September in the Sala della Protomoteca at the Campidoglio, with over two hundred guests and city councillor Dario Nanni opening the event.

It is of little consequence if a private individual chooses to invent an award and bestow it upon Wanna Marchi. They can call it the International Prize for Culture, the Universal Prize for Literature or whatever takes their fancy. The authority of a private award depends on the authority it manages to establish, and the Italian awards scene has long provided ample material to build up immunity against the awe inspired by plaques, medals, various trinkets and grandiose titles.

I am not particularly interested in determining whether Wanna Marchi has the right to write a recipe book or Stefania Nobile an autobiography. Of course they do. They are free to publish books and receive accolades from whoever chooses to bestow them. Turning this into a sort of perpetual moral ban would be a rather tedious form of sanctimoniousness, as well as giving the two protagonists the role they know best how to play: that of the victims of the self-righteous.

What remains is bad taste, which is as unrestricted as the award itself. In the case of Stefania Nobile, there is also an element that makes the rhetoric of rehabilitation – following the settling of one’s debt to the law – particularly distasteful. The legal proceedings did not end with the convictions relating to teleshopping, for which Nobile completed her sentence in 2013. In October 2025, the judge for preliminary investigations in Milan ratified a plea bargain involving a three-year sentence in the case concerning Gintoneria and the La Malmaison private club; Nobile was permitted to carry out community service as a means of serving her sentence.

The award comes less than a year later. This, too, of course, does not prevent anyone from presenting her with a statuette. It at least spares us the comforting fairy tale of the former sinner who, after many years, returns to society through culture.

However, the matter begins to take on a more serious tone when three words are added: in the Sala della Protomoteca.

Because, in this story, the Campidoglio is not simply the venue where an event was held. The Sala della Protomoteca is an institutional hall, and its value to event organisers lies precisely in this. A photograph taken there is worth more than the same photograph taken in a hotel conference room. An award presented there acquires a certain prestige that its organiser, on their own, would have to build up over the years. Even the phrase used to present the event, ‘culture takes the Capitol by storm’, shows that this value was perfectly understood.

Wanna Marchi understood this better than anyone else.

In the video published after the award ceremony, he recalled the journey “from prison to the Campidoglio” and remarked that “life is strange”. It is a far more astute remark than many of the indignant comments that have appeared in recent hours, because it pinpointed exactly what had happened. The symbolic power of the evening did not stem from the International Culture Prize. It stemmed from the Campidoglio.

Had the same plaque been presented to Wanna Marchi at a conference centre on the Tiburtina, no one would have been able to recount her journey from prison to the Campidoglio. It is likely that no major newspaper would have covered it. The event would have received the same level of media attention as the second edition of a private award organised by a publisher little known to the general public.

The new headquarters changed everything.

This is demonstrated even more clearly by Stefania Nobile, who responded to the criticism first with “Get over it”, then “Go and sulk”, culminating in the magnificent statement that “we are culture, not Pirandello”. She added a sentence that is worth more than any press release: “The more you talk, the more you discredit us, and the higher we’ll rise”.

There is no need to drag Pirandello into this. Nobile is describing a basic marketing mechanism, and he is doing so with remarkable clarity. Controversy generates attention; attention generates visibility; and visibility increases the commercial value of those involved. Every scandalised article becomes part of the promotional campaign. Every outraged person who shares the photograph of the award ceremony contributes to its circulation. From this point of view, ‘get over it’ is a perfectly coherent response.

That is why I find it rather pointless to be scandalised that an award called the ‘Culture’ prize has gone to Wanna Marchi. The name of a private award does not transform its recipient into Benedetto Croce, and there is no ministry tasked with certifying the nobility of such honours. If the organisers deemed it worthwhile to honour Marchi and Nobile, they made a choice that ensured their event received a level of attention they would have struggled to achieve had they honoured some obscure author of a good essay. From their point of view, the operation worked a treat.

The question concerns who provided the most valuable multiplier for the operation.

Roma Capitale stipulates that, in order to secure a Capitoline Hall, an accountability form and a report describing ‘the content, speakers, participants and the programme of the event’ must be submitted. The documentation is processed by the Mayor’s Office and the Internal Ceremonial Department. Councillor Dario Nanni, who had supported the request for the hall, stated after the controversy erupted that he was unaware that Wanna Marchi and Stefania Nobile would be among the award recipients, adding that, had he known, he would not have supported the request.

At this stage, the issue is far less philosophical than it seems. One need only look at the documents submitted to secure the venue and see what they contained. If the names of Marchi and Nobile did not appear in them, it will be interesting to find out when they were added to the programme. If they did appear, it becomes interesting to know the process through which authorisation was granted. There is no need for grand speeches on Western decline: what is needed are the documents.

There remains, however, a general issue, which applies regardless of how things turned out this time. Institutional halls are not merely public buildings equipped with chairs. They contain a far more valuable intangible asset: the reputation of the institution to which they belong. Anyone organising an event at the Campidoglio borrows a part of that reputation, even when the City Council specifies that it is not the organiser and even when there is no formal sponsorship.

That is precisely what happened here. The International Culture Award was presented in the “prestigious Sala della Protomoteca”. The photographs showed Wanna Marchi and Stefania Nobile inside one of the capital’s most iconic venues. Marchi immediately transformed that setting into her own personal narrative: from prison to the Campidoglio.

Go on, give her an award. Give her as many as they care to invent. Freedom also includes the freedom to celebrate people whom others find unpresentable, and it includes the right to create awards in very poor taste.

The Campidoglio is a different matter, because it belongs to everyone and because its name holds a value that can be converted into private prestige.

Wanna Marchi has spent her professional life learning just how important the presentation of what you sell is. On this occasion, the presentation was outstanding. It was provided, for one evening, by the Campidoglio.

Pizzi had photographed Turkish mines, Bedouins on the border between Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and Kurdish refugees on the border between Iraq and Iran. He would later also recall children being trained in guerrilla warfare and a week in prison in Greece, after filming a dissident. The move to Rome was also a financial necessity; his reporting wasn’t enough to make ends meet, and on Via Veneto his photographs were selling well.

He did not, however, join the pack; he preferred to work alone. In an interview with Il Foglio, he said he considered himself an ‘anthropological photographer’: ‘When you walk into a party, whatever the occasion, take a look around first. Don’t start snapping away like a madman. Get a feel for the event, study the characters, find the right pairings. Photography isn’t like that of a tourist who just pulls out their smartphone and snaps away, even if, by a stroke of luck, they might happen to capture an exceptional image. Photography isn’t improvisation but the thought process of the person taking the picture. It’s the result of what you see through the lens and what lies within the person you’re photographing; you have to draw it out from their expressions, their movements, their clothes. If you’re a shallow person, you don’t take photographs – you make ceramics. I call them ceramics.”

He has published in Time, People Magazine and Sunday Express Magazine; he covered the sets of La Dolce Vita and photographed intellectuals, industrialists and politicians. His archive spans the First, Second and Third Republics, alongside images of Italian cinema and foreign stars who have visited Rome. 

Since the 2000s, he has collaborated with Roberto D’Agostino’s Dagospia and has been credited with the photographs in Cafonal. Together with D’Agostino, he published Cafonal: Gli italiani nel mirino di Dagospia in 2008 and Ultra Cafonal: Il peggio di Dagospia in 2010.

The Ministry of Culture has declared its photographic archive to be of cultural interest. In April, Rai Cultura dedicated ‘Profumo di Pizzi’ to it, a four-part docuseries directed by Fabrizio Berruti and Gianluigi De Stefano, available on RaiPlay.

From the world of comics, here is “Il grande potere del Chninkel”, written by Jean Van Hamme and illustrated by Grzegorz Rosiński, published in Italy by Editoriale Cosmo. The narrative unfolds in a fantastical world, somewhere between fantasy and science fiction, illuminated by two suns and ravaged by a seemingly endless war, where three immortal lords vie for dominion over the planet and where, amidst their battles, entire populations exist solely to fight, serve and die. Amongst them are the Chninkel: small, fragile beings reduced to slavery. One need only look at them to immediately sense a visual and narrative kinship with Tolkien’s Hobbits. This is a comic book strongly influenced by the aesthetics and imagery of the 1980s, yet one that retains a surprising modernity even today: a must-read, therefore, if you love Tolkien, but also if you’re looking for an original, surprising and somewhat unconventional take on fantasy.

For the audiovisual sector, this week’s recommendation is an Italian documentary that recounts a surprising story: “La mia Anima ha fretta”, directed by Giuseppe Contarino, a film that recounts the history of the Contea Gentile in Abruzzo and that of its founder, Nicolas Gentile. It is a journey that began with Nicolas’s diagnosis of leukaemia, his determination to make the most of the time he had left, and his love for Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, but which soon became much more: a place to celebrate, certainly, but above all a place to honour great shared values, including friendship, a love of nature and a rediscovery of the simple things in life. The documentary has already enjoyed significant success on the international festival circuit, winning multiple awards (including in Australia and Mexico), and is now seeking a distributor in Italy. The next major screening is scheduled during the 60th edition of Lucca Comics & Games. 

Two distinctive works that shed further light on the world of pop culture, featuring icons and popular myths that help us make sense of the present. Join us next week for Decoder, here on Il Foglio’s channels, for another trio of unmissable titles. 

The new secretary-general of the BIAF, the antique dealer Bruno Botticelli, notes that there hasn’t been this much attention paid to Italian ancient art for years. “There are the expats, who have moved to Italy for tax reasons. They arrive here, and you recognise them by their distinct sense of style: they’re not the typical wealthy Milanese in a knitted jumper. They wear colour combinations we wouldn’t normally pair, and expensive shoes – perhaps blue woven ones – but they’re passionate about the classics, about masterpieces that have stood the test of time.” It’s hard not to see their point: the feeling is that history is regaining its footing in the contemporary art market. The mere opportunity to visit the venue – the magnificent Baroque palace on the Lungarno commissioned by the Corsini family to mark their rise to prominence (and in 1730, a Corsini, Clement XII, would even become Pope) – is reason enough for a trip to Florence. But it is the array of works on display in the galleries that entices even the most frugal of visitors.

Visitors wander through the halls, gazing upwards at the frescoes, which appear as though dissected by the tracks of the 1980s spotlights, and pause at the windows to admire the twilight over the Arno, whilst rowers pass beneath the buildings. From the Old Masters to the fine craftsmanship of the decorative arts, one regrets not being a billionaire – or at least a millionaire – to take home the green-patinated bronze of a sinuous red guenon by Alfredo Biagini (from Virgilio), as well as Balla’s Autosmorfia, a pastel on cardboard (from Gian Enzo Sperone). Not to mention the portrait on cardboard of Raffaele Viviani, drawn by Lorenzo Viani – the ‘madman of Viareggio’ – the protagonist of Quanto splende questo nero, a novel by Marco Amerighi that has just been published (at Antonacci Lapiccirella). And then there is the Spanish door knocker in the shape of a dog (at Cesati), and the glazed terracotta Bambin Gesù by Andrea della Robbia (at Longari Arte).

However, art historian Leonardo Piccinini draws our attention to the unmissable masterpiece, ‘the most anti-classical work in existence’, which cannot be exported and is therefore almost a bargain, on display at Carlo Orsi’s gallery. ‘It is Bartolomeo Passerotti’s Grotesque Couple in Love, from the second half of the sixteenth century in Bologna. It depicts the theme of love in old age and comes from Federico Zeri’s collection. As a leading expert on Mannerism, Zeri saw in this painting a compendium of all the possible perversions of the sixteenth century. Here, the bizarre, the unusual and the unexpected triumph over the uniformity and predictability of the present.”

New Skin is a novel that functions as a Madame Bovary for two; ultimately, the concept behind the mother and daughter remains the same: to attempt to intervene on the surface in order to see if anything can be shifted beneath it, in the realm of fate. Fanny is a Chinese-American immigrant from the generation that witnessed the processes of Americanisation at their peak, when people said ‘anything is possible’ and everything really was possible. Linli, on the other hand, has no ‘American dream’ – nor does she really believe in it all that much.

One of the achievements she boasted about was having weaned me off nappies at six months. Once, in the paediatrician’s waiting room, a worried mother had pointed at me. “You’ve forgotten to put a nappy on your daughter!” she had exclaimed. “She doesn’t need one. She already knows how to wee in the potty.” My mother smiled, proud. All the other mothers were watching us and chuckling amongst themselves. This woman’s mad, they probably thought. Placing a six-month-old on the toilet seat? Such claims were met with incredulity. During my early years, I recall feeling somewhat like a child prodigy: my peers were sitting comfortably amid fresh excrement while squabbling over their building blocks, whereas I went about with a dry, carefree bottom, free from nappies. It is regrettable that my therapist during my teenage years attributed the origin of many of my problems—both in my development and in my relationships—to that early potty training: a forced form of control when a child’s body is not yet ready to handle it. The “child prodigy” narrative thus transformed into a source of trauma. As an adult, I reviewed scholarly literature and found that in China and India it is common practice to teach children to use the potty at six months, whereas in the United States the practice is regarded as a potential developmental trauma. In China, it is simply the norm.

In my view, this is where "New Skin" becomes more compelling than the typical satires on our contemporary obsession with faces and bodies; Wang treats his two hapless heroines with seriousness, revealing a system in which achieving beauty at any cost comes to appear rational. Given that the market now values image a hundred thousand times more than in the past (so much for body positivity!), what is improving one’s image if not the most sensible economic strategy, the best possible use of money, the best return on investment one can give it? Beauty has never been so attainable, nor such a sure source of return on investment: in practical terms, how can one resist the (now achievable) desire to be more beautiful? Perhaps stunningly beautiful? Would I not give in as well if I were twenty? After all, that is what America sells: second chances. And when it comes to second chances, Fanny thinks, you have to approach them with a different outlook; you have to be better than you were before, to make the most of them. Naturally, it comes at a price. If you want a new face, you have to put money into it. That’s the other protagonist of the story: debt. Perhaps it is the very secret essence of the novel; it lies within the mother-daughter relationship in both directions, and you never think of that magic word of contemporary fiction: the horrendous toxic relationship. Fanny is exasperating and horrible; Linli is resentful, dependent and, at times, crueller than is necessary. Running through it all is that unclassifiable electric current that runs through families and which we call love because we don’t know what else to call it.

Firstly, Gaetano Mosca wrote in 1884: ‘In all properly constituted societies, in which there is what is called a government, we see not only that the authority of the latter is exercised in the name of the entire people, or of a ruling aristocracy, or of a single sovereign […] we consistently find another fact: that rulers – that is, those who hold and exercise public power – are always a minority, and that, beneath them, there is a numerous class of people who never truly participate in any way in government, but merely endure it; they may be called the governed” (Sulla teorica dei governi e sul governo parlamentare. Studii storici e sociali, Palermo, Tipografia dello Statuto, 1884. This is the first exposition of the theory of the ruling minority. The second, revised edition appeared under the title Teorica dei governi e governo parlamentare, Milan, Società editrice libraria, 1925). The same author wrote in 1896: “[…] in all societies, ranging from those that are only moderately developed and have barely reached the dawn of civilisation, to the most cultured and powerful, there exist two classes of people: that of the rulers and that of the ruled. The former, which is always the smaller group, fulfils all political functions, monopolises power and enjoys the advantages associated with it; whilst the latter, the larger group, is directed and regulated by the former […] and provides it, at least apparently, with the material means of subsistence and those necessary for the vitality of the political organism” (Elementi di scienza politica, Torino, Fratelli Bocca, 1896; seconda edizione con una seconda parte inedita, 1923. This is the central work for the mature formulation of the theory. The two works are brought together in the edition Gaetano Mosca, Scritti politici, edited by Giorgio Sola, Torino, UTET, 1982, 2 vols.). The political class is therefore the minority that exercises the functions of government, holds power and enjoys the benefits associated with its exercise; the majority is governed.

“In every society there are two classes of people: those who govern and those who are governed. The former, who are always the smaller group, monopolise power and enjoy the advantages that come with it” (Gaetano Mosca, 1896)

According to Vilfredo Pareto, the ‘elected ruling class’ comprises ‘those who, directly or indirectly, play a significant role in government’ (Vilfredo Pareto, Trattato di sociologia generale, Florence, G. Barbèra, 1916, vol. II, chap. XI, § 2032). For Pareto, therefore, the politically relevant category also includes those who exert significant influence over the government without formally holding office, and must be distinguished from the ruling class in general.

Who comprises it and who selects it

Having explained that the concept is rather vague, I shall first examine who makes up the ruling class and, in particular, who selects its members; secondly, how many people it comprises and, therefore, its size and composition; thirdly, what its characteristics are; and finally, how it might be improved. The most clearly defined part of the ruling class is the so-called political class, and therefore mainly the so-called representatives of the people. These are chosen to establish a link between the real country – society – and the legal country – the State. The method by which they are chosen is election. However, strictly speaking, election does not establish a relationship of representation, as a very well-known English parliamentarian, Edmund Burke, observed as early as 1774. Speaking to his constituents in Bristol on 3 November, he said: ‘Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole.’ (“Parliament is a deliberative assembly of a single nation, with a single interest, that of the entire nation”); voters elect a Member of Parliament, but, once elected, that Member is a member of Parliament: their role is not limited to representing the local interests of Bristol. “Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; […] but Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation” (“Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors representing different and conflicting interests; […] but rather a deliberative assembly of a single nation” (Edmund Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol, 3 November 1774, in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, London, Henry G. Bohn, 1854–1856, vol. I, pp. 446–448).

It must now be noted that the linguistic apparatus of democracy consists of terms to which an excess of meaning is usually attributed. They therefore constitute genuine linguistic and conceptual abuses. Democracy, a form of government formerly known as a republic or representative government (in ‘The Federalist Papers’, No. 39, it is stated that a ‘republic’ is a ‘government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people’), does not – as the word might suggest – denote a political system in which the people govern, but rather an oligarchic organisation of power, moderated by periodic elections, with numerous other institutions and checks and balances designed to ensure that the exercise of government is measured and reflective (or controlled). True self-government by the people has never existed (in the Athenian ‘demokratia’, only 10 per cent of the people had the right to participate in decision-making) and could not exist, given both the scale of today’s political systems and the number of collective decisions to be taken.

Even representative democracy is not truly representative, because the term suggests that the people act through their representatives, whereas, in fact, in modern legal systems there is no representation in the strict sense: the representative does not act in the name and on behalf of the represented, nor does he attribute the effects of his own actions to them. Indeed, with the secrecy of the vote and the prohibition of binding mandates, any possible link between the represented and the representative is ruled out. Thirdly, according to conventional wisdom, the representative is chosen (elected) by the represented through a specific procedure called an election, that is, a free act of will. But this term, too, is used with a surplus of meanings. In no country can voters indicate a name of their own choosing on the ballot paper: they vote for a list or a name proposed by parties or other political forces. Only in some cases may they choose one or more names from within the list, indicating a preference. In single-member constituencies or systems with closed lists, the voter merely gives their assent. Nevertheless, the procedure erroneously termed ‘election’ has become established and consists of free, repeated, competitive votes, with so-called universal participation. A fourth overused expression is ‘popular sovereignty’. Sovereignty – the highest power, one that recognises no power superior to itself – is attributed to the people, but is not exercised by them except on a wholly sporadic basis. This is a peculiar concept: that of a sovereign who is such only from time to time, rather rarely. In reality, and more realistically, English law and legal culture speak of ‘parliamentary sovereignty’.

These four linguistic abuses would not be of great significance (there are many others in other fields) were it not for the fact that they fuel periodic messianic expectations on the part of distant great-great-grandchildren of Rousseau who wake up, realise that reality does not correspond to names, propose new forms of the agora, and even find people willing to listen to them. As proof of this observation, one need only consider the number of people in Italy who, having been elected as members of a particular party, have abandoned it by doing what is commonly referred to as ‘switching sides’. In the 2013 parliamentary term, 569 MPs moved from one group or party to another; in the 2018 term, 464; and in the early years of the current parliamentary term, between 2022 and 2025, 59. However, the ruling class is not composed solely of politicians. It also includes top civil servants, members of independent administrative bodies, newspaper editors, leading business figures, and those intellectuals who do not confine themselves to teaching in schools or universities but also direct their ideas towards a wider audience. They, too, form part of a country’s ruling class.

How many are there: the dimensions

The size of the Italian ruling class varies considerably depending on the meaning attributed to the term. Furthermore, the available figures are drawn from research carried out in different years and do not constitute an up-to-date census. A useful representation is that of the concentric circles proposed by Carlo Carboni (La società cinica. Le classi dirigenti italiane nell’epoca dell’antipolitica, Rome–Bari, Laterza, 2008, pp. 7–8). At the centre are around two thousand leaders of the major institutions and organisations; surrounding them, a circle of around six thousand people has access to the organisational and decision-making resources of the institutions. Including regional and sectoral elites, the total reaches 17,000 individuals and may exceed 50,000 if less selective criteria are applied. These are progressively inclusive groups, not quantities to be added together: they describe different levels of concentration and diffusion of power.

Overused expressions. ‘Democracy’ does not refer to a political system in which the people govern. Even representative democracy is not truly democratic, because the representative does not act in the name of and on behalf of the person they represent.

Another approach is to use biographical directories. The study edited by Carlo Carboni (Élite e classi dirigenti in Italia, Rome–Bari, Laterza, 2007) examines some 5,550 biographies taken from Who’s Who; the Eurispes survey, carried out in collaboration with Who’s Who in Italy (Classe dirigente: il profilo del potere in Italia, 2012), analyses 5,560 profiles, highlighting an ageing population, a low number of women, insularity, concentration in Rome and Milan, and the exodus of the most capable individuals abroad. James L. Newell draws on the same source (“La Classe Dirigente”, in Erik Jones and Gianfranco Pasquino (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Italian Politics, Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 3–15, especially p. 7 and note 13, p. 14). His definition encompasses around eight thousand people, corresponding to the entries in the then-current edition of Who’s Who in Italy.

The quality of the ruling class

In the first edition of "Democracy in America", published in 1835, Tocqueville addresses the issue of the calibre of the democratic political class. Equality of conditions and the extension of the franchise do not ensure, he notes, that the most capable men are called upon to govern. His observation stems from the contrast between the qualities of American society and those of its leaders: ‘On my arrival in the United States, I was struck to discover how common merit was amongst the governed and how rare it was amongst the governing’. This observation is followed by an assessment of the decline in the stature of public figures: ‘It is evident that the ranks of American statesmen have shrunk remarkably over the past half-century’ (A. de Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique, first published as Democracy, Part II, Chapter V, ‘On the Choices of the People, and the Instincts of American Democracy in its Choices’, Paris, Pagnerre, 1848, Vol. II, p. 44). The problem lies not merely in voters’ difficulty in recognising the qualities necessary for governance. Tocqueville identifies a deeper tension between the passion for equality and the recognition of intellectual and moral superiority. Democracy may be ill-disposed to reward precisely those qualities that distinguish certain individuals from the majority: “It is not always the ability to choose men of merit that democracy lacks, but the desire and the inclination”. Hence the conclusion that draws a clear distinction between the legitimacy of suffrage and the quality of its outcomes: “Those who regard universal suffrage as a guarantee of sound choices are labouring under a complete delusion. Universal suffrage has other advantages, but not this one” (ibid., p. 45 ff.).

The ruling class also includes senior government officials, newspaper editors, leading business figures and those cultural figures who direct their thoughts towards a wider audience as well

This criticism takes on a particularly scathing tone in the description of the House of Representatives. Tocqueville writes that, upon entering its chamber in Washington, one is struck by “the vulgar appearance of this great assembly”, in which “the eye often searches in vain for a famous man” and where “almost all its members are obscure figures”. The gap between the level of education in society and that of its representatives is expressed in a cutting remark, presented, however, as a reported judgement: ‘In a country where education is almost universally widespread, it is said that the people’s representatives do not always know how to write correctly’ (ibid., ‘Des causes qui peuvent corriger en partie ces instincts de la démocratie’, p. 49). The responsibility for this mediocrity does not, however, lie entirely with the electorate. The willingness of the most capable men to pursue a political career also plays a part. In a society that offers ample opportunities for enrichment, the greatest ambitions may turn towards private enterprise, leaving public office to less gifted figures. Tocqueville puts this observation rather bluntly: “Great talents and great passions generally turn away from power to pursue wealth; and it often happens that people take on the task of managing the fortunes of the state only when they feel themselves ill-equipped to manage their own affairs”. The result therefore stems both from the demand of the electorate and the supply of candidates: “It is to these causes, as much as to the poor choices of democracy, that we must attribute the large number of mediocre men who hold public office”. He concludes: “In the United States, I do not know whether the people would choose the superior men who stand for election; but it is certain that such men do not seek their vote” (ibid., “Public Officials under American Democracy”, p. 57). These pages do not, however, constitute an indiscriminate condemnation of democratic representation. Tocqueville contrasts the mediocrity of the House of Representatives with the quality of the Senate. He sees the difference as stemming primarily from the electoral process: whilst representatives are elected directly, senators are chosen at that time by the state legislatures. The involvement of an elected assembly can, in his view, improve the selection process without severing the link with popular sovereignty.

A different perspective, relating to Italy, is that of Francesco Saverio Nitti, who writes, with regard to men of learning and politics, that ‘one of the most widespread clichés is that learned men rarely possess great political aptitude and that, even more rarely, they are true statesmen. In parliaments, where men of genuine learning are often few and far between, whilst mediocre types abound – lawyers, smooth-talkers, organisers of the working classes, representatives of religious movements, etc., categories of people never guilty of too much erudition – this aphorism has often held true. The common people tend to be suspicious of those who know more and are more capable, yet in free governments they almost always end up being influenced by them. And it is men of great ability who, directly or indirectly, assert themselves. The most important quality of a politician is, without doubt, an understanding of people, their feelings and their passions.

[…] But for men who possess political aptitude and the intelligence and character required to govern the state, nothing is more valuable than learning and erudition. […]; even in our own time, the greatest statesmen have been men of learning. In Italy and Germany, the men who, in the second half of the last century, made the greatest contribution and exerted the most significant influence were Bismarck and Cavour. By studying their actions and their work, one can easily see what principles they held and how it was solely their thorough understanding of the major problems they had to resolve that facilitated their actions. Cavour, above all, was a man of encyclopaedic and profound knowledge. In England, where Parliament has for the longest time been home to distinguished men, the two great figures who for many years led the Liberal and Conservative parties in our time were Gladstone and Salisbury, both men of learning and highly erudite writers. […] In Italy, too, the most distinguished statesmen and the greatest politicians have always been men of learning and scholarship. Cavour, who was the politician most responsible for the unification of Italy, was an economist and a scholar of history and political science. He had spent his entire youth abroad and possessed an admirable knowledge of English and French literature. His studies, his writings and his speeches bear witness to his vast knowledge. The greatest statesmen who lived in Italy and carried out their work there, particularly during the first twenty years of national unity, were almost all men of great learning: Minghetti, an elegant writer, man of letters, jurist and a most refined orator; Sella, a mineralogist, geologist and man of letters as well as a great industrialist; alongside them were great economists such as Francesco Ferrara and scholars, erudite men and jurists such as Silvio Spaventa, Ruggiero Bonghi, Francesco De Sanctis, Massari, de Meis, and so on. Undoubtedly, victorious Piedmont also imposed upon Italy patriots of limited education but of unquestionable integrity, such as Lanza, or of great experience, such as Depretis; yet they always took care to surround themselves, as best they could, with learned and competent men, even if parliamentary demands did not always allow them the best choices. Following those who had been great patriots, though not always great intellects, Giolitti—a practical man with a clear mind, yet unburdened by erudition—toned things down. Yet he was a man of experience and, as Luzzatti said of him, he attained ‘the sublime heights of mediocrity’. In general, the men who enjoyed the highest standing before the rise of Fascism were men of learning, and it was only after Giolitti’s final term in office that the situation degenerated into illiteracy, epitomised by Facta, whose utter ignorance was certainly no guarantee of intelligence and who was even more stupid than he was illiterate. During the long and most dismal period of Fascist rule, very few politicians displayed any measure of intelligence whilst possessing only a modest level of education. The entire nation was plunged into a ridiculous frenzy of blind enthusiasm, which was destined to humiliate and debase it, and ultimately to ruin it. It is to be feared that following the long period of Fascist rule, which has certainly lowered the standard of Italian culture, no less than its dignity, there will for a long time be a prevalence of mediocre men, and indeed of those with little education” (Francesco Saverio Nitti, Scritti Politici. Diario di prigionia. Meditations from Exile, edited by Giuseppe De Cesare, vol. V, Bari, Editori Laterza, 1967).

During the republican period, from 1948 to 2022, there was undoubtedly a decline in the average level of education amongst members of parliament. During the first parliamentary term, which began in 1948, 90–91 per cent were university graduates. In 1996, during the 13th parliamentary term, this figure fell to 68–70 per cent and has remained at that level in recent years. Three caveats should be borne in mind, however. First: these figures relate exclusively to the political class (so-called parliamentary representatives), for whom the Constitution generally stipulates only two requirements: citizenship and a minimum age. Secondly: the crisis facing political parties, which were once veritable schools for selecting and training the political ruling class, thereby partly compensating for the lack of formal education. Thirdly: the fact that these figures relate exclusively to the political class and not to that part of the ruling class which is not involved in party politics, such as businesspeople, journalists and academics.

Linked to this issue is the low level of trust Italians have in the state. LaPolis Uniurb (in collaboration with Demos and Avviso pubblico), in its 28th ‘Citizens and the State’ Observatory report, published in December 2025, found that 6 out of 10 Italians believe democracy has been weakened, that there has been a decline in participation – with the exception of voluntary initiatives – that the rift between society and the state has widened, and that the highest level of trust is reserved solely for the police, whilst political parties enjoy the lowest level of trust, with a gap of 57 points.

Can the ruling class be improved, and if so, how?

“The reality of a people’s free life lies truly in the influence exerted upon them by public opinion and in the quality of the political class that guides them,” observed Benedetto Croce in *Storia d’Europa nel secolo decimonono* (1932) (Rome – Bari, Laterza, 1965, 11th edition, p. 247). Throughout the history of the extension of the franchise, the two aspects of the issue – the competence of voters and the extension of the franchise itself – have long gone hand in hand. First in France, in the first half of the 19th century, and then in Italy, in the second half of that century, it was long believed that a prerequisite for the right to vote and to stand for election was perhaps that of education (qualification-based suffrage), and it was held that, by progressively ensuring compulsory schooling, one could achieve, on the one hand, a better selection of so-called representatives and, on the other, a better-educated society.

More recently, the idea has gained ground that democracy must be accompanied by a certain degree of epistocracy. This viewpoint has been extensively expounded in a book by Jason Brennan, translated into Italian under the title "Contro la democrazia" (Rome, Luiss University Press, 2018). The theme of intellectuals and political experts dates back to the 18th century, when intellectuals such as Condorcet (1743–1794) were engaged in the public sphere. Their involvement subsequently increased: one example is that of Émile Zola in 1898 during the so-called ‘Dreyfus Affair’. Subsequently, the role of experts and scientists, and their involvement as a ruling class, expanded: terms such as ‘public intellectuals’, ‘gurus’ and ‘maître à penser’ came into use, and many scholars have reflected on them (Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, Bologna, il Mulino, 1957, p. 155 ff.; Richard Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, Harvard University Press, 2001, for his critique of abstractness, arrogance and a tendency towards extreme positions). On the other hand, there has been the withdrawal of intellectuals into the ‘ivory tower’ (an expression used by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve to explain the contrasting positions of the committed intellectual, Victor Hugo, and the reclusive intellectual, Alfred de Vigny). Finally, there was the specialisation of scientific and disciplinary fields, already criticised by Max Weber with his famous phrase ‘I am no donkey; I have no field’.

Finally, there is the meritocratic model, of Chinese origin, dating back to the Han dynasty, which gave rise to the development of the principle of merit by the French Enlightenment thinkers, soon followed by English culture, to ensure both equal access to public office and its efficiency. However, meritocracy too has been the subject of criticism, which features prominently in the contemporary debate on inequalities and the crisis of democracy. Its main focus is the transformation of economic, academic and professional success into a judgement on people’s worth: those who attain a high position are considered deserving of their advantages, whilst those who lag behind are led to interpret their situation as a personal failure. From this perspective, the meritocratic promise can help to legitimise social hierarchies, obscuring the significance of one’s starting point.

A precedent is Michael Young’s “The Rise of Meritocracy”, published in 1958. Through a satirical narrative, Young describes a society in which selection based on intelligence and performance generates even more rigid inequalities. The belief that everyone occupies a position commensurate with their abilities makes the hierarchy particularly difficult to challenge: privilege can appear to be the result of a fair selection process (Michael Young, The Rise of Meritocracy, Milan, Edizioni di Comunità, 2014). Michael Sandel has revisited this issue, highlighting its moral and political consequences. In The Tyranny of Merit, the winners’ belief that they owe their success solely to themselves fuels a sense of superiority, whilst defeat takes on the meaning of humiliation for others. The rhetoric of individual advancement thus undermines solidarity and recognition of the contribution made by those in less well-paid or socially prestigious jobs. Resentment towards the elites becomes, in his interpretation, one of the components of the populist reaction (Michael J. Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit: Why We Live in a Society of Winners and Losers, Milan, Feltrinelli, 2021).

Daniel Markovits, on the other hand, has focused on the mechanisms through which meritocracy reproduces privilege. The substantial investments made by the wealthiest families in their children’s education enable them to convert family advantage into academic and professional qualifications. Selection may therefore appear to be based on individual abilities, whilst in fact incorporating profound inequalities in the opportunities to develop them. This system penalises the middle class and subjects even the winners to relentless competition to maintain their position (Daniel Markovits, The Meritocracy Trap, Penguin Press, 2019). In the Italian debate, Mauro Boarelli similarly examines how the language of merit, competition and assessment can obscure the social conditions that determine individuals’ opportunities, with particular attention to education (Mauro Boarelli, Contro l’ideologia del merito, Laterza, 2019). Luca Ricolfi takes a different stance. In La rivoluzione del merito, he defends the recognition of talent and commitment as tools for emancipation, particularly for young people from working-class backgrounds. His argument emphasises the distinction between merit and meritocracy and the risk that criticism of the latter may end up undermining the former. For him, supporting the capable and deserving who lack resources is a prerequisite for social mobility and the fight against hereditary privilege (Luca Ricolfi, La rivoluzione del merito, Rizzoli, 2023). Linked to this discussion are Daron Acemoglu’s recent comments in an interview with Maurizio Ferrera for La Lettura. Acemoglu identifies a shift in social and political balances in the growing centrality of cognitive skills and higher education: “For me, the growth in the social power of the educated classes has played a crucial role in triggering the crisis.” His observation concerns the relationship between the concentration of knowledge, the power of elites and the weakening of the social foundations of democracy. Industrial transformation, globalisation and digital technologies have also made the link between business success and rising wages less direct, hindering the spread of prosperity (Daron Acemoglu, ‘Will democracy prevail?’, interview with Maurizio Ferrera, ‘La Lettura’, Corriere della Sera, 6 September 2026, no. 771).

Finally, a better-educated country is capable of having a more capable ruling class, but this requires not only measures within the education system but also more far-reaching changes across society as a whole to enhance, first and foremost, the prevailing organisational culture.

It is he – long identified as the 24-year-old anarchist Federico Borrell García – who has become the iconic image of the Spanish Civil War. The image has remained etched in the collective memory because, alongside the Republican troops on the front line, there were also those who were capturing the fighting on film. They called him Robert Capa. He had managed to capture the soldier through his lens just as he was falling. Who knows? Perhaps he chose to frame him because of his white shirt and black cartridge belts slung across his chest against the barren backdrop of the Sierra Morena. Or perhaps, as Capa himself recounted many years later during a radio interview, the photograph was simply the result of perfect timing. Chance and coincidence. Because Capa captured the fatal moment of death with millimetre precision, raising his camera above his head, ‘without looking through the viewfinder, as the Republican soldiers were emerging from the trench and being mowed down one after the other by enemy fire’.

In any case, no one before Capa had ever documented with such visual power the sacrifice of an ordinary young man, a campesino wearing rope-soled shoes, at a time when espadrilles were not yet in fashion. No one had managed, through the international press, to transform the report of a battle into a manifesto on the horror of the fratricidal conflict that had broken out in Spain two months earlier.

No one had ever documented the sacrifice of an ordinary young man in this way. A news report that serves as a stark reminder of the horror of the Spanish Civil War

Capa, too, was young, barely in his twenties. Before taking his most famous photograph, "The Falling Soldier", he was a mystery. Afterwards, he became a legend. And he pioneered a genre: photojournalism. The live account of the moment of truth. Or, perhaps, the truth of the moment. Which, at times, does not match the reality of the events as they actually unfolded.

Here lies the paradox of Capa. And of his double. For it is not merely the ambiguity of the pseudonym, behind which, as we know, lay a couple – partners in life and in work. Their names were Endre Erno Friedmann, a Hungarian Jew born in Budapest in 1913, and Gerta Pohorylle, whose stage name was Gerda Taro, also Jewish, a German citizen of Polish origin, born in Stuttgart in 1910. They met in Paris in 1934 while exiled from the advancing threat of Nazism. They seemed made for one another. They were both young, cultured and penniless, both passionate about photography, which at the time was a key medium for depicting reality and the Manichean modernity of black and white. It was he who introduced Gerda to the trade. It was she – as photography historians note – who came up with the winning idea to secure more commissions and sell the photos at a higher price. Together they invented the persona of Robert Capa, a wealthy American photographer based in Paris, so well-established that he could afford a couple of assistants in Europe. It was the two of them, as a pair, who represented him on every front, in every situation, and in every negotiation with illustrated magazines.

The photograph of the militiaman who was fatally shot was first published in France in the magazine Vu on 23 September 1936, then, a month later, in Regards, a news magazine dedicated to photojournalism. But it was only when it appeared in the legendary American magazine Life in July 1937 that the image reached a global audience. The title itself is a summary of the caption provided by Life for the full-page photograph: ‘Robert Capa’s camera captures a Spanish soldier at the very moment he is killed by a bullet to the head on the Cordoba front’.

In the 1930s, photography was still perceived as a direct testimony to reality, almost as irrefutable proof of what had happened. Of course, one could discuss perspective, point of view, the photographic composition and the photographer’s choices. But the reliability of photojournalism was not called into question. Unlike written reports, which were often accused of being propaganda. In the specific case of the Militiaman shot dead, the photograph immediately became an icon: the universal symbol of the struggle against totalitarianism, of the anguish of a Europe that recognised itself in a Spain split in two by the military coup.

Then, in the 1970s, doubts began to surface. The militiaman’s pose was too artificial and perfect. Too ‘theatrical’. Accounts emerged from war correspondents present in Spain suggesting that the iconic photograph ‘The Falling Soldier’ had been staged during a lull in the fighting on the Andalusian front. The anarchist Federico Borrell García is said to have actually died on 5 September 1936 at Cerro Muriano, but behind a tree and not in the open. The arid, barren landscape forming the backdrop to the soldier’s fall does not correspond to the location indicated by Capa. It is said to be in the vicinity of Espejo, a village in the province of Córdoba, 50 kilometres away from Cerro Muriano.

Doubts began to surface in the 1970s. The militiaman’s pose was too artificial and perfect. A staged scene, according to some accounts

In 1975, investigative journalist Phillip Knightley systematically examined what had by then become known as the Capa Affair. In his book The First Casualty – whose title echoes the maxim that truth is the ‘first casualty’ of war – he sparked a controversy over the authenticity, identity and context of The Falling Soldier. A controversy destined never to be resolved. Including the key question: who actually took the photograph?

As recently as this September, the Spanish daily El Diario has revived the theory that the photograph was taken by Gerda Tardo and not by her partner Friedmann, dedicating a lengthy article to the ‘new evidence’ provided by the Andalusian archaeologist and historian Fernando Penco. Penco maintains that the female signature on the iconic image of the war that divided the country ninety years ago can be found in the negative format and other documented details. He has been dedicated to the “Capa case” for twenty-five years, with his research gaining international recognition. His work has also been published by the British newspaper The Telegraph and reviewed by the International Centre of Photography in New York. Penco himself, however, urges caution. Attributing a photograph with certainty is a difficult task, because Friedmann and Taro were working as a pair under Capa’s name. They had set off together from Paris for Catalonia in the summer of ’36, in the aftermath of the military coup. They shared ideals and assignments. They were chasing ‘the news as it happens’, as their friend Henri Cartier-Bresson – whom they had met in Paris in the 1930s – had theorised. Above all, like many anti-fascist activists of the time – intellectuals, writers, artists, journalists and photographers who had flocked to Spain from all over – they had realised that the Civil War was much more than a regional conflict. It was the testing ground for the world war that would soon set Europe ablaze.

It seems that it was Gerda Taro who secured the press passes. Together with Endre Friedmann, they flew to Barcelona. They worked side by side, often on the same fronts. At times, they exchanged cameras and negatives. They also shared a guiding principle: “If the photo isn’t good, it’s because you aren’t close enough”. Thus was born the Capa brand, destined to become a hallmark of quality photojournalism. So much so that the American writer John Steinbeck wrote that “Capa knew what to look for and what to do with it once he’d found it. He knew that you cannot portray war, because it is, above all, an emotion. To be able to photograph that emotion, you had to know it intimately”.

And so it was that Gerda Taro died. By getting too close. By chasing the story as it unfolded. She had courage to spare. She had already demonstrated this in Nazi Germany, where she – from a middle-class family with middle-class connections – had been imprisoned for her activism in the German Communist Party. She managed to escape to Paris thanks to her Polish passport. Without money and, by then, without a homeland.

She died in Spain, in Brunete, a few kilometres west of Madrid, where in July 1937 the Republican army launched a three-week offensive in an attempt to relieve the pressure of Franco’s troops on the capital. It was a fierce battle, fought in the hellish heat of the Meseta Central, across a vast expanse of dust and stones. On 26 July 1937, Gerda, the ‘little blonde’ with her ever-present camera, was travelling, clinging to the running board of a vehicle laden with the wounded. In the chaos of the retreat, a Republican tank collided with the vehicle. Gerda fell beneath the tracks of the friendly fire. She was twenty-six years old.

She died in friendly fire, camera in hand, and her grave was later desecrated by the Nazis. Gerda Taro was consigned to obscurity

Endre Erno was left with a handful of rolls of film, many negatives to develop and the grief of having lost his partner. He was also left with the name ‘Capa’. That brand, born as a brilliant invention by two young men in love and penniless, became the pseudonym that Friedmann bore until his death. Which, for him too, came as a result of a war he had seen all too closely. He was killed by a landmine in Indochina in 1954. He was forty years old.

Gerda Taro was buried in Paris on 1 August 1937, on her twenty-seventh birthday. A huge crowd, largely made up of members of the French Communist Party, accompanied her to the Père-Lachaise cemetery. The poets Pablo Neruda and Louis Aragon delivered the eulogies. The sculptor Alberto Giacometti created a monument for her grave. Then, in 1942, during the Vichy regime, the grave was vandalised by German soldiers: the epitaph was scraped away, and the ‘falcon of light’ sculpted by Giacometti was destroyed.

That scar was never healed. Indeed, it had the effect of a damnatio memoriae. Just as the Nazis had hoped. Little by little, it helped to erase Gerda Taro’s identity. She ended up in the shadows – the ultimate paradox for a photographer. Gerda was no longer recognized as the first female photojournalist to die in war. No longer the pioneer of photojournalism. Instead, she was increasingly seen merely as the partner of Robert Capa, the survivor. The man who, alongside Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour and a few others, founded the Magnum Agency in 1947, which was destined to become the most influential in the world. The man who continued to bear the name and shoulder the weight of the legend on every war front, including the Allied landings in Sicily in 1943 and those in Normandy in 1944.

In Madrid, Spain, where Gerda arrived from Brunete, clutching her stomach with both hands and worrying more about her cameras than her own life, Friedmann-Capa wept. Accounts are unanimous. To pay tribute to her tenacity, to her ability never to back down, he dedicated a book to her, published in the United States in December 1938. It is entitled Death in the Making. It is a photographic account of ‘death in real time’, as Gerda and he had witnessed it during the past year spent side by side in Spain: in the makeshift trenches of the Republic with soldiers in vests; among the militiamen practising shooting on the beaches of Barcelona; in the frozen faces of children clinging to their mothers beneath the aerial bombardments; and in the lecture theatres of Madrid University reduced to machine-gun posts. A sort of visual diary comprising 111 photographs attributed to Robert Capa, 24 to Taro and 13 to his friend David ‘Chim’ Seymour, himself a renowned photojournalist. On the cover, needless to say, is the photograph of the fatally wounded militiaman.

For almost the entire 20th century, Gerda Taro remained a blurred figure. The turning point came with the discovery of the ‘Mexican suitcase’ in 2007. Which, in reality, was not exactly a suitcase. Rather, it consisted of three boxes containing around 4,500 negatives by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour, saved at the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 and rediscovered in Mexico after decades of obscurity. This precious material was handed over to the International Centre of Photography in New York. It enabled the Spanish Civil War to be reconstructed frame by frame, even though the negative of the iconic image – The Falling Soldier – was never found. It did, however, finally allow Friedmann’s photographs to be distinguished from those taken by Taro.

That discovery gave rise to "The Mexican Suitcase", the exhibition held in New York from September 2010 to May 2011. Finally, the 2012 documentary La maleta mexicana, directed by the Anglo-Mexican filmmaker Trisha Ziff, recounts the incredible story of the discovery of the lost film rolls and their journey from Spain to France, on to Mexico and New York. The Mexican Suitcase did not rewrite the Capa legend. However, it introduced Gerda Taro to the general public and restored her to the place she had lost in the history of photography.

“La ragazza con la Leica” by Alina Marazzi, based on the novel of the same name, opened the “Orizzonti” section at the Venice Film Festival.

Then came "La ragazza con la Leica" by Helena Janeczek, winner of the 2018 Strega Prize. A fictionalised biography in which, for the first time, the legend of Capa is told from the perspective of the woman who helped create it. It focuses on Gerda Taro: her professional independence, her political acumen, her restlessness, and the freedom she sought. All the complexity of a young life lived with such intensity. The many shades of grey that lend depth to the black and white of photography.

From Helena Janeczek’s book to Alina Marazzi’s film of the same name. "La ragazza con la Leica" successfully opened the ‘Orizzonti’ section of the Venice Biennale this September. Another piece in the puzzle of reconstructing the duality of Robert Capa’s identity and the duality of his gaze. At least during the Spanish Civil War. Where the photographer’s legend was born, whilst half of him was forgotten.

Perhaps this is even going too far, in the sense that it gives too much credit to individual human beings: if you look them in the eye, you don’t very often find ‘the entire universe’ there; for the most part, you find nothing at all. But yes, at a certain age you realise that individuals (one, two, three – not much more) are better than groups of tens, and that in joining forces – even for noble causes – there is almost always something suspicious or sinister. Is this down to the first strong impressions of childhood and youth?

Their lives were marked by affiliations with communities they had never actively chosen to join. They had simply found themselves there. They had sworn their first vow of fidelity to one another when they married, but it had not been a genuine choice, because even in that vow they had found themselves without fully understanding what they were doing. It was simply not an option not to marry, in the mid-twentieth century, for members of their social class; and since it was no longer the parents who decided whom one would marry, the role of the parents in their case had been played by the small company where both of them had (as it happened) found themselves working. According to the family legend—recounted by my mother with a candour that still moves me—the office manager had seen them together one day at the bar of a café and had remarked, ‘Why don’t you two get married? You make such a lovely couple.’ And they, thoughtlessly, had taken his advice.

In the mid-20th century, it was simply not an option for members of their social class not to have children, and so they had two, spaced out at just the right intervals. Upon becoming a family, the couple found themselves obliged to fulfil a series of social duties for which they had no inclination. At lunches and dinners with the extended family (aunts, cousins, grandparents), nobody liked anybody else; everyone approached these gatherings with a sense of dread and pre-emptive irritation, an irritation that would easily erupt right in the middle of the Event because of a brusque reply, an old grudge, a word spoken out of turn, or even simply because – as I was beginning to realise – when ten to twelve people with no experience of the world gather in the same space, something unpleasant inevitably happens that will spoil everyone’s life for days to come.

In fact, this is how I remember my life as a young boy: a long, gruelling emotional recovery following the scenes I had witnessed or in which I had been involved as the protagonist-victim during a Christmas lunch, a First Communion, or an Easter Monday outing. But no one was so free-thinking as to believe that, to avoid such scenes, it would be enough simply to eliminate the occasions that triggered them – that it would be enough simply to stop seeing one another. It was as if everyone had internalised Kafka’s maxim: ‘It is pointless to shut yourself away at home: you are already in theirs.’ Only later would I learn that, in reality, one could very well shut oneself away at home: but at that time, in that environment, the pull of customs, of the ‘things one must do’, was too powerful, and each time it drew us out. (I would also come to understand something even greater, namely that growing up means, amongst other things, freeing oneself from the agreements that others had drawn up for us before we had reached the age of reason: and this gave rise to an almost sacred notion in my mind of a child’s right to be left in peace, and as I’ve grown older, I’ve found coercion increasingly intolerable – even the loving coercion exerted on those not yet old enough to understand or react – across a vast spectrum ranging from the children I once saw marching in soldiers’ uniforms along the seafront at Los Roques, Venezuela, to the children taken into the centre of Rome to demonstrate for good causes or against bad ones. This is a form of involuntary affiliation from which, fortunately, having grown up in an apolitical environment, I was spared).

I realised rather late that growing up means, amongst other things, freeing oneself from the agreements that others had made on our behalf before we had reached the age of reason

As I observed this unhappy couple who had produced an unhappy family, I must have sensed – even before I realised it – that the couple/family was the first community from which one should escape, and that any anguish endured in solitude was preferable to a life as a couple that had every chance of being, or becoming, distressing.

Beyond the extended family lay the vast world of social relations: not so vast, in reality, but that is how it seemed to us from our micro-middle-class vantage point. The children had to be taken to school, on school trips, to catechism, to Mass, to swimming lessons, to the stadium; We had to pay courtesy calls on acquaintances, be well-mannered guests, learn good manners, correct bad ones, and sit demurely in the dining room of a middle-aged stranger with purple hair whilst outside, under the May sun, an entire generation was indulging in petting. That was the job of parents – which, in those days, meant above all the job of a mother – and it gave rise to yet another endless series of frictions and grievances. My father had no interest in other human beings; no one had ever taught him otherwise; my mother was afraid of them (of people, but also of my father): any interaction could turn into a traumatic experience. That is why we tried to interact with people we knew, however much we despised them: relatives, neighbours on the same landing, certain ‘family friends’ whose lives, opinions and fears we knew next to nothing about, and wanted to know nothing about.

Perhaps that is why what, in theory, should have been pleasures for me – satisfactions of the body, mind or soul – became occasions of suffering. Or perhaps hell really was other people: the teachers, frustrated by a job they clearly did not want to do; the priests and nuns with their senseless, mortuary-like rituals; the black-and-white-clad supporters pitted against the maroon-clad supporters, those monsters of vanity that were the student representatives (we didn’t even like going to school: was there really anyone prepared to devote further hours of their time to it, just to ‘take part in the decision-making process’? There were, there were), schoolmates, catechism classmates or sports mates with their idiotic chatter about absolutely anything (and good heavens, their inability to keep from saying whatever popped into their heads, as if they were oblivious to even the possibility of an inner life that wasn’t verbalised: forty years later, I’ve found this very same flaw among the members of my gym in Turin, especially early in the morning during the calisthenics classes: even in Eden there are snakes).

It is clear enough: their affiliations – my parents had inherited them from their own parents, and so on, going back, if not indefinitely, to that remote era when we lived like sheep in the meadows. All innocent, then, but in order to survive I had to break the chain (“And there is no blade that can sever / the languid chain / generation upon generation”, sings Ferretti in Cronaca montana: oh, but it can be done, indeed it must be done). Above all, my studies served this purpose: to leave behind the affiliations I had not chosen: my partner, family, school, church, football team – and my city, too. Changing cities—stepping into the universal not just with my mind but also with my feet, putting hundreds of kilometres between my past and my future, between the community others had chosen for me and the community of my own choosing—was decisive, vital, so much so that it convinced me this is one of the surest ways not just to grow but to improve: at some point, sooner rather than later, to leave. From that moment on, it has been a long process of shedding, layers of skin shed or torn away, a process less difficult than in the past because I had reached the age of reason, was self-aware and knew that I was capable of choosing my own allegiances.

It was less difficult, at least at first. Because it was simply a matter of attending lectures, studying and sitting exams: another solipsist’s paradise. The city where I was studying, Pisa, was no longer the hyper-political Pisa of the 1960s and 1970s, but almost all the professors teaching us had lived through that era. Some of their comrades had entered parliament or local government; others had become journalists. They had stayed on, and for the most part they were good lecturers. Surprisingly, the academic environment was less mindlessly politicised than it is today, mainly because, at least in the niche I had chosen – literature – there still existed a genuine devotion to old books and old ideas, to Tradition, in short, and a certain healthy tendency to separate one’s political views and activism from one’s academic interests. There were, admittedly, a few fanatics who would spend the class time giving us instructions on what to do at the next anti-NATO demonstration at Camp Darby; but for the rest – to feel satisfied, to justify their existence – it was enough to slap a few ideological labels onto their time-honoured humanities studies (labels that were somewhat childish but harmless, such as ‘towards a materialist study of literature’ and the like), or to haphazardly apply the theories of Marx and Lukács to the poems of the troubadours.

However, here at last are the freedoms I once dreamed of as a young student: university is the place where one can study whatever one wishes, in whatever manner, without having to swear allegiance to a particular method or teacher. There are those who do, of course—the fanatics, those in need of a membership card— “For a materialist approach to study…” – but all you had to do was ignore them. After all, the pressure to be part of a group, to put your name down on a list, to rally under a banner was infinitely less intense than that which my teachers must have endured at my age: I was a happy member of the post-ideological generation. In the faculty hall, the course timetables – listing the names of the lecturers, the subjects and the course titles – hinted at an infinite number of possibilities, at a multitude of things to learn. That was the promise of university, and it is a promise which, for me at least, the university has fully kept.

At university, one was not expected to pledge allegiance to a particular method or teacher. The promise of an infinite number of possibilities and things to learn

Then, of course, that absolute freedom was somewhat diluted by career considerations, and because, as one gets older, one has to declare one’s allegiances, to take one side rather than the other. The task now was no longer to rid oneself of unchosen affiliations but to avoid new, unwanted ones: to dodge, to let others do what we would not want done to us. The following is an incomplete list of opportunities to commit to a community that have been presented to me and that I have managed to avoid: Joining a political party. Oh well. Admission to a Masonic lodge. Oh yes, a dream: to spend a bit of the time I have left amongst elderly men like those who, on Friday evenings in Florence, stroll down Borgo degli Albizi in worn-out blue suits, briefcase slung over their shoulder, on their way to or from their lodge...

‘Doing something’ within my trade association. This is a trend that, when I was a student, had not yet spread to the university: trade associations, these charming little mafias. No, no. “Doing something” within my university. All right, but only what’s strictly necessary: deputy director, not director; secretary, not president. And if not, call in sick, hide away, die without holding any office. The alumni association of my secondary school or my university. Let’s be serious.

Yet one must surely revere someone or something; one must pledge allegiance to something; and as a boy I made this crucial discovery: that I had to pledge my allegiance above all to the dead, or to those far away. Or rather, not simply ‘as a boy’ but from the day when, aged six, I entered the newly opened library in my neighbourhood. This unexpected, unprepared encounter with books worked much like imprinting in ducks: I never looked away again. Not that I became indifferent to the community of the living; not that carving out a niche for myself in the past alienated me from the present, or from an interest in the present: quite the contrary. Yet reading so much, constantly, has developed in me precisely that ambivalent sentiment or that ambivalent nature – I am well aware that this is the most banal quotation in the world: but it is the right one – of which Machiavelli speaks in his letter to Francesco Vettori: the normal, everyday life, spent amongst others, and then the life spent listening to the voice of writers, which is the true life.

Over time, I became a resident of a universe whose existence was unknown to the people who had lived alongside me until I was eighteen, and which, to their misfortune, they would never enter. And that made all the difference.

The article was published in issue 3/2026 of *il Mulino*, dedicated to “Appartenenze”.

A range of female perspectives on the Ten Commandments, which – with humour or bitterness – are reinterpreted, not without a degree of severity, even towards women

Unfortunately, the layout—with its garish, childish colours and scenes straight out of books ‘for young ladies’ (what we’d call Young Adult today)—appeals to entirely the wrong audience, suggesting trivial, romantic and simplistic pop stories. Instead, these are profound, well-reasoned stories that take women’s engagement with the commandment in question very seriously, whilst often straying considerably from the biblical text and giving rise to narratives that are not always easy to unpick in the light of the commandment they illustrate. There is, however, one notable exception: Federica Bosco, whose contribution on “remember to keep holy the Sabbath” strikes a light-hearted tone somewhere between a crime thriller and a romance, pitting three young protagonists—two brothers and a sister by different fathers—against a witch-like grandmother, a wealthy businesswoman, whom they would like to see dead soon so they can pocket her inheritance. Her story is entitled "Nostra signora che sei nell'attico", and on Sundays these grandchildren do not go to Mass, but instead attend a weekly lunch at which they are mocked and mistreated by the terrible old woman and only rarely given a little of the money they so desperately need. After all, does not the Creator too bestow favours upon believers and non-believers alike in a reckless manner, without regard for whether the reward is deserved or not, and whether the sign of the cross, for example, is made with faith and honesty rather than insincerely to elicit sympathy?

Right from the first two commandments – the most difficult ones from which to draw inspiration – Maraini and Baresani choose arduous and contrarian paths. “Thou shalt have no other God but me,” begins the Our Father who art in heaven, and Maraini transforms him into a bizarre winged little girl with a neck as long as a Modigliani figure, who appears at the foot of the bed of a woodcraftswoman, Sara, capable of creating marvellous dolls and puppets but who is perhaps not very accustomed to looking within herself. The child recounts ancient biblical stories and puts her in touch with that mysterious, superior being who, however, it turns out, never answers any of her questions; in short, the child has to fend for herself. Because he has grown disillusioned with his creation: “too much squabbling, too many fights, too many intrigues…”. ‘Well, well,’ Sara reflects, ‘wasn’t it actually he who did all those wicked things?’ There is no answer, and the only god we can turn to is none other than ourselves (this is the little girl’s unwitting lesson); nor is it even a question of women and men, because everyone – absolutely everyone – can rely only on their own inner self. Some readers may note that women are granted an additional opportunity, given that the winged child appeared to a woman and not to a man.

The most challenging task, however, was entrusted to Camilla Baresani: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”. As a child, I used to rack my brains over this second commandment. But what did it mean? Not to swear? Not only that: we really had to be careful not to bring the Creator into the conversation inappropriately, not to drag him into our insignificant difficulties. Yet I also wondered whether we could not even call upon Him when we were sad and a classmate had taken our snack at school. “God will punish you,” I would have liked to say menacingly to the little thief. Yet no: do not utter that name, for heaven’s sake. The Unnameable One could not care less about my snack; He has far more pressing matters to attend to, such as fanning the flames of wars that engulf the planet in order to test the wicked, who remain wicked nonetheless, while the virtuous continue to suffer. Although I may not have used those precise words to myself, something very similar eroded my faith in that Divine Being who did not wish to be disturbed. Returning to the Rizzoli series, how does Baresani navigate this challenging commandment? She handles it skillfully, suggesting that since the King of the World—or rather, of the Worlds—chooses not to be drawn into human affairs, readers might as well leave him alone and instead portray him as a lazy, domineering figure, an opportunistic male of the worst sort. ‘Jasmine Wants It All’ is the title of the story, but the one who truly wants it all without sacrificing anything is the charming Sergio Lenzi, who claims to be in love with her. The one who is madly in love, however, is the beautiful twenty-year-old Jasmine, a pedicurist for the wealthy Mrs Simona Colombo, Sergio’s wife, who has been dazzled by the luxury of the Lenzi household and the admiration shown to her by the master of the house. She soon becomes his mistress—more than a mistress, a slave treated in the finest possible way, confined to a stunning house yet left there for hours on end on her own, buried under designer gifts and various other pleasantries. Her god is Sergio—or rather, Sergio Giovanni (as he insists she call him)—who, however, has made her swear never to mention his name; in short, never to speak to anyone—and I mean absolutely no one—about that relationship. It might seem like the usual ménage à trois found in so many similar stories we’ve heard time and again, but here the perspective is original: it is the girl’s, with her bewildered naivety and her ridiculous yet genuine innocence, which then becomes Simona’s perspective. In fact, it will be the betrayed wife who opens her eyes to the true nature of the man who believed himself to be a god, and Sergio Giovanni Lenzi – or simply Sergio – will thus be torn to shreds. I’ve added that vaudeville-style excess myself, because the story, in reality, is capable of plunging a bloodied knife both into Jasmine’s deprived circumstances – which lead her to dream of her Prince Charming – and into Simona’s seemingly enviable social position, as she throws herself wholeheartedly into her work to protect herself from the collapse of the financial stability she achieved through marriage, yet of which she alone bears the burden, paying for her choice with devastating gloom.

Veronica Raimo’s Sabbie mobili represents an even more unexpected plunge into tragedy, honouring – in its own way – the fourth commandment, ‘honour thy father and thy mother’; or perhaps, in fact, dishonouring it. The mother she portrays is a deranged woman, unworthy of her role yet too unwell to realise it, and she risks ruining her only son, aged nine, who, fatherless, is trying to find his own way in the world. The plot is stripped down to the bare minimum: a tale of unspoken truths, of disorientation, of pain verging on the unbearable, which the writer conveys between the lines with rare mastery and a secret wisdom.

It is the unsettling portrait of a man, Guido Pacher – a Freudian psychoanalyst who seems to understand little about himself and, above all, about women – that Viola Di Grado chooses to use to illustrate the fundamental commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ in her book Questo mondo non è casa. She does not affirm the law but instead adopts a vengeful stance against male power and against men’s inability to truly ‘see’ into a woman’s heart. One must not kill, yet in some cases, in killing, one glimpses a justice that does not come from the Most High, and in this short novel there is great skill in refraining from taking a stance. It is left to the reader to do so, whilst also learning something about the complexity of human nature, both male and female. It is interesting to note that in Italian we have only one word for ‘solitude’, whereas English has two, ‘loneliness’ and ‘solitude’: the endured, excruciating loneliness, and the chosen, positive and wise solitude. It is Pacher who reflects on a line by Marianne Moore: ‘the cure for loneliness is solitude’. In Italian, this is simplified as follows: the cure for loneliness is solitude. Yet it ought to be rendered more complex: the cure for a loneliness one suffers from is a solitude we choose to experience or in which to settle. Yet this is precisely what none of the characters can manage – neither Pacher, nor the wife who left him for another man, nor his rebellious patient. And in this inability to embrace solitude lies the seed of so much human violence.

Regarding the fundamental commandment “Thou shalt not kill”, Viola Di Grado does not opt for an affirmation of the law, but rather for a vindictive opposition to male power

The most feminist story in the collection, however, is that of thirty-year-old Jennifer Guerra, who is, after all, one of the most interesting theorists of new feminism. Yet she does not write about the present day. Her story is set on the eve of the legendary ‘68, and Jennifer had not yet been born. Her protagonist is a shy girl from the provinces, Carla, who moves to Padua on her own to work as a secretary in a factory. The book is in fact titled La fabbrica dei bottoni and is inspired by the sixth commandment: ‘Thou shalt not commit impure acts.’ She has never undone any buttons – at least not those sewn onto men’s trousers – because she feels awkward and timid in her dealings with the opposite sex. She thinks only of defending herself. Then she encounters a group of proto-feminist schoolgirls practising ‘self-help’ – that is, teaching one another about their own bodies, especially the most intimate parts – because only by ‘knowing themselves’ can they wrest control from others, both physically and morally. After thorough psychological preparation, this involves sitting on the floor without knickers, spreading one’s legs in front of a mirror and scrutinising oneself carefully under the guidance of a more experienced woman who recites the names of the various parts of the vagina and what lies within. A decidedly impure act, especially for a religion that could never have imagined such a transgression. The experience marks a rebirth for Carla, who begins to open up not only to herself but to the world; her shame transforms into liberating joy. The narrative recalls the joyful feminist revolution of the 1970s on university campuses and, indeed, the transgressive self-help practices that we believed we were pioneering: could such approaches already have been in vogue in Italy almost a decade earlier?

Jennifer Guerra recounts a decidedly impure act, which transforms shame into self-discovery and liberating happiness

The mood is quite different with “Thou shalt not steal” – a subtly ironic atmosphere that evokes the claustrophobic ambience of Agatha Christie’s many novels, in which the murderer is sought in a hotel, a house or on a ship… In the Hotel of Lost Time, however, there is no murderer; instead, the grave sin is robbing oneself of the time to understand and to comprehend, deceiving oneself and becoming lost in an incurable discontent that only finds the thread of life when it is too late. The narrative flow is beautiful, as is the choice of so many different characters and situations, yet all are in a bind – and the worst part is that this predicament is of their own making. There is no light-heartedness, however, in Come la rosa by Gabriella Genisi, which explores the grave consequences of failing to observe the eighth commandment: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness’. And how could there be any light-heartedness when the subject here is femicide? Genisi drives the narrative forward with relentless clarity. She delves deep into unacceptable feelings and aberrant motivations without complacency or sentimentality. She knows how to reveal a character simply by describing their actions: ‘He wiped the plate clean with a crumb of bread, poured himself another couple of glasses of wine, belched contentedly and went off to sleep’. The avowedly feminist trio among the ten books—all of which are truly worth reading, and which men would do well to read—concludes with Ritanna Armeni and her Sono mia. The commandment is the penultimate one, “thou shalt not covet another man’s wife”, in which the young Tommaso, obsessed with his love for Francesca—who does indeed love him in return—is terrified of losing her, of being betrayed. And so no man must desire Francesca, for she is his alone, nor must she desire other men in the name of her own autonomy. This possessive and misguided love is undoubtedly a dangerous and inevitably violent escalation. Here, as in other stories in this series that address the theme in a more veiled manner, the man’s delusion of superiority is brought to the fore, along with his need for tyrannical control, which finds ready support in the woman’s understanding attitude (‘this is what his love for me has come to’, is the troubling thought, the extremely dangerous conviction that leads to forgiveness rather than immediate escape whilst there is still time).

There is nothing frivolous about Gabriella Genisi’s novel, which is dedicated to the eighth commandment: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness’. It deals with femicide.

I have already written in this newspaper on 10 October last year about Lidia Ravera’s Più dell’amore, which brings the series to a close with a highly critical re-examination of the commandment ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods’ – at a time when many titles in the series were still missing from the list. I shall not repeat myself, except to say that this is a story capable of striking a discordant chord, one of the finest by the Turin-based writer. I shall simply recall that it contrasts a poor girl, who falls in love with a painting, with a very rich and very generous man who, however, would never part with that painting. And the fundamental question the author indirectly poses is: who is more to blame? The one who is so rich as to feel no burden in being generous, or the one who has nothing and takes something from the one who has everything?

Let posterity be the judge, with one regret: the disorganisation and the gaps between them with which these short books were published – books that take on greater significance when read in sequence. The significance of a female perspective that is never taken for granted and rich in insights, for everyone: women, men and non-binary people.

A delightful ‘treasure hunt’ that would have delighted Rota and bears witness to his magical influence on his dearest disciples – an influence also mentioned by another of his protégés from Bari, Maestro Nicola Scardicchio, in an interview with Il Foglio on Christmas Eve 2022.

Is there one discovery you’re particularly proud of?

They have all moved me, and there are hundreds of them. To give you an idea, they take up ninety large files in my library. If I had to name just a few, I would mention the works of Leonardo Vinci, who was an underrated author but whose works are now performed all over the world, and those of Francesco Provenzale, another great forgotten figure.

Salvatore Di Giacomo could not understand how “an artist so highly regarded for his creative work and his prolific teaching” could suffer such aversion that led to his being consigned to oblivion.

He remained forgotten from Provenzale’s death in 1704 right up to the present day, until, thanks to the discoveries made together with the musicologist Dinko Fabris, my invaluable companion on this journey, we rewrote a page of history that restored his status as a leading figure in his field. In July, he staged "Il (Lo) schiavo di sua moglie" at the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca—an opera that had not been performed for 354 years—and it was a major success. On 20 September, he presented another previously unperformed work at the Girolamini: the four-part motet "Quo fugiam, misero", rediscovered in the Oratorian archives.

Has this research been incorporated into the record label’s output?

These are documented on around fifty records: a collection is available on Spotify. Among the most recent recordings is a milestone in comic theatre: the oldest Neapolitan comic intermezzo, attributed to the priest Francesco Antonio Boerio. The DVD is entitled “Bello tiempo passato” and is inspired by the Commedia dell’Arte, featuring four characters who each sing in a different language: Italian, Neapolitan, Spanish and an almost entirely invented Calabrian dialect. The latest CD is “Son regina e sono amante”, a tribute to Niccolò Piccinni, my illustrious fellow countryman, featuring arias from opera buffa and opera seria performed by the soprano Rosa Feola.

How does Rota put it?

I met him when I was fourteen at the Bari Conservatoire, where I graduated in cello, piano and composition. When he retired, we stayed in touch: he was a father figure, a man of insatiable curiosity and immense erudition, who had such a command of Latin and Greek that he could actually speak them. He closely followed my studies and, whenever he travelled abroad, would bring me music books that were impossible to find in Italy at the time. I was also fortunate enough to witness his meetings with Fellini while they were working on soundtracks, as I was living in Rome, where I honed my skills with two renowned teachers: the cellist Giuseppe Selmi and the conductor of the Cappella Giulia, Armando Renzi. Rota then introduced me to Francesco D’Avalos, a Neapolitan composer from a family of ancient nobility, who lived in his family’s immense palace. He struggled to maintain and restore it, but he also hosted the British royal family there. Unfortunately, his city can also be ungrateful and short-sighted, and so has always given him scant recognition.

Why did you move to Naples?

It was for Rota and D’Avalos: a cellist dropped out of Roberto De Simone’s La gatta Cenerentola whilst the tour was stopping off in Zurich, and the two of them sent me to stand in. I stayed on with De Simone for the subsequent Mistero Napolitano as well, and so I developed a passion for exploring the Baroque repertoire. At that time the city was experiencing a remarkable artistic ferment that persisted despite the 1980 earthquake and its aftermath. He devoted himself to musicological research and in 1987 founded the Cappella Pietà de’ Turchini, named after one of the four ancient Neapolitan conservatoires; it was later renamed to its present name, the Cappella Neapolitana.

How much Baroque music still lies hidden in the archives?

There is a great deal of it, scattered all over the world. We have even found examples in the libraries of Ottawa and Münster, but it is important for the city to become more aware of this heritage. And for it to be associated in the collective memory with this vast body of work as well, and not just with traditional Neapolitan songs – the beauty of which I do not dispute.

In short, we live in an age in which taking the time to reflect on things – what Simone Weil described as ‘feeling the existence of the world with one’s whole being’ – is a revolutionary act: perhaps we can learn something from children, who experience the world first and foremost through their eyes, and thus discover that, as the explorer Erling Kagge notes in a fascinating book (Walking: A Subversive Act, Einaudi, 2018), ‘when I look around, I see things of value everywhere’ or, similarly, allow ourselves to be struck by Franco Arminio’s evocative insight: ‘I look at everything as if it were beautiful. And if it isn’t, it means I must look more closely’ (The Care of the Gaze, Bompiani, 2020).

It is an awareness that surfaces repeatedly in the writings of great authors and is described by Cesare Pavese in Dialogues with Leucò: “We know that the surest – and quickest – way to amaze ourselves is to gaze unflinchingly at the very same object. At some point, this object will seem to us – miraculously – as though we had never seen it before”. The unexpected sense of wonder at what we might call the ordinary is the secret voice of a reality that shines most brightly when all is silent. It is at this level – at once elementary and profound – that we discover how silence, the supreme form of respect in the face of being, is at times far more eloquent than words, as the Catalan poet Joan Maragall illustrates in a brief anecdote: During a walk by the sea, he observed that those approaching the horizon, overcome by unexpected wonder, suddenly fell silent: “Two silent sailors came along; they stood before the vast coastline and remained silent for quite some time, side by side. Then one of them, without moving or turning towards his friend, said: ‘Look’.” Maragall comments: “Everything else is just empty talk.”

Kermit lives opposite the dam, surrounded by rusty signs depicting a child with his arms raised just as he is about to be submerged by the water – there is also a warning that reads: danger of drowning, keep away. Nevertheless, Kermit, Ghershon and Schneider proceed regardless, ignoring the warnings and rushing toward it at the sound of the final bell. Upon arriving in front of the dam, after climbing over the hill two and a half times, they speak for the first time. Schneider asks: ‘Who’s died?’. And Kermit: “How should I know?” Schneider: “The headteacher said a boy.” And Ghershon: “Didn’t he say a person?”

It was a subtle and masterful touch – even somewhat in the style of Lansdale (as in Joe R.) – to have come up with this question. This is emphasised to show that, when it is there, even a scrap of fabric is enough to gauge talent. Talent that is never held back, page after page—all 547 of them—of this long novel entitled "Seguendo le tracce" (Giuntina, 22 euros, translated by Shulim Vogelmann), a great story of the sort they used to write. Perhaps it is because Assaf Gavron has translated Philip Roth and Jonathan Safran Foer and has, in some way, internalised that rhythm, those demands, that narrative structure, or for who knows what other reasons, but the novel is different from his previous works, which, whilst not shying away from friction with reality, indeed drew heavily on it to take flight. In one, The Hill, the focus was on Israeli settlers; in another, Hydromania, on Palestinians conquering Israel in the year 2067; and in yet another, The Eighteen Lashes, on a settling of historical scores dating back to the years of the British Mandate in Israel.

Here, Gavron changes tack; he no longer uses the individual to tell the story of the collective, but multiplies the individual by four and recounts the founding of Israel, interweaving it with the present through the story of a village that was once Arab and will become a chic suburb, and entrusting it to the unpleasant voice of Rechavam, a racist psychopath who eliminates unwanted dogs (all of Ghershon, the story’s great procrastinator). He sketches a friendship that begins, grows and expands, amidst falafel chains, reunions in London and ventures into the design of military graves. At one point, Gary Coleman – aka Arnold Drummond – even turns up. At the heart of this friendship, fate explodes in the form of a tragedy so profound that, regardless of what each character had thought or dreamt of themselves up to that point, reality will reshape everything.

It is a novel about unpredictable paths, including those of a romantic relationship. Here there is one such relationship – intermittent, fraught with conflict – which drives Litty and Ghershon apart and brings them back together, and which lasts right up to the final pages, when we are struck by the bitterness of a love that is more unfulfilled than lost. Assaf Gavron has crafted a story that rings true to life. He is aided by the protagonists – all capable of breaking the fourth wall – and a country shaped by destiny.

In her previous book, "Cartagloria" (whose very title invites the reader to enter a distant world with its reference to a liturgical instrument of the Tridentine rite), Matteucci recounts how the death of her father leads the protagonist to question God (embodied in more or less orthodox beliefs and sought after across the globe) about the inevitability of the passing of loved ones; and this new short novel is steeped in the same surreal irrelevance, as it depicts a paradoxical situation: a woman who is hounded by the souls in Purgatory to pray for them with the “tried-and-tested ‘I adore thee, O Holy Cross’”, thereby reducing the time they must spend awaiting Paradise (“No one speaks of the souls in Purgatory; no one imagines the horror of the state of tribulation in which they live; no one worries about their condition as beings who were once alive like us and who, at a certain point, could do nothing but die – and so they died”). This curious narrative device springs to life from the protagonist’s ear, into which the chatter—‘the annoying murmur in the cochlea’—of the souls (from the old newsagent to the most distant relatives, from illustrious writers and musicians to complete strangers) seeking a swifter salvation reaches, and explodes with the discovery of ‘Father Alessio Jandoucheff’s’ invention, the ‘Purgatory Lottery’, a ‘grid of ninety squares listing the types of souls in Purgatory awaiting redemption’ for whom to pray. The redemption of souls, the pleas for help and the apparitions in everyday life (“some knock at the door or the window; others appear suddenly in human form, dressed as they were in life on weekdays; still others are evanescent—that is, clad in rags and moth-eaten furs—and thus cause fear”) These apparitions become, for Matteucci, an opportunity to complement the main thread of the narrative with a web of minute biographies—whether fantastical or real—a splendid gallery of characters who intertwine mysticism with everyday life, bearing witness to the erratic progression of Matteucci’s writing which, as always, begins at one point but then, in an unexpected yet captivating manner, takes the reader on a journey through the imaginative paths of her inspiration. The proudly archaic and ever-shifting language, combined with an original narrative style, make this little book yet another masterpiece by Rosa Matteucci, a writer one should never stop reading, an antidote to the aridity of so much contemporary writing.

Even the conclusion, following a tormented yet admiring tribute to the renegade Arthur Koestler—for Gianni is a communist to his very core, with strong humanitarian and Catholic leanings— but with a mind that keeps sentiment in check in favour of experience; even the ending is once again Chinese, extending to South-East Asia and India, recounting the formation and legendary exploits of the revolutionary elites of the 1920s and 1930s, bringing this meandering yet intimate narrative to a close with intense emotion, and an almost epic touch in its evocation—through Tim Harper’s classic ‘Asia ribelle’ by Tim Harper, of the majority of the planet’s inhabitants rising up against the rule of the colonial empires, led, misled and inspired by Ho Chi Minh, M. N. Roy, Gandhi, Nehru and Chou En-lai, not to mention all the other vagabonds, exiles, fighters and statesmen of the world revolution – a motley crew of adventurers, militants, idealists and assassins who liberated half the world on this side of the ‘colour line’.

Gianni Sofri led a life of discipline and study; study and his methodology are the only true lesson he is willing, with restraint and discretion, to impart. Yet he was a versatile scholar, fickle in his affections – the opposite of a pedant, fortunately for him and for us – a passionate explorer in pursuit of his own intellectual instincts, which led him – for reasons not entirely clear, as he himself admits – to acquire a profound and intense knowledge of the history and geography of the East and Africa. The Normale di Pisa, his academic background, his mentors from Delio Cantimori to Franco Venturi, from Arsenio Frugoni to Ettore Passerin d’Entrèves and Arnaldo Momigliano, his close partnership with Carlo Ginzburg, his forays into bibliomania and bibliophilia, the unbridled imagination fuelled by his book collection, by the determination with which he safeguards and perseveres through every change of residence, every shift in technology, beyond the computer and the use of Google. Everything in his account is linked by politics and international solidarity – the hallmarks of a world that one might say has all but disappeared – ways of feeling, of thinking geographically and of living with grace: the gentle grace of spirit embodied by Gianni Sofri; the political world as it is and as one would wish it to be.

That the government’s not exactly well-conceived Education Decree was primarily propaganda aimed at the right – just as the left’s indignation was merely instrumental propaganda – has already been stated and is clear even to non-Italian speakers. Yet yesterday, La Repubblica carried headlines devoid of factual basis: ‘Parents who do not speak Italian in the firing line’, ‘Children taken away from those who refuse’. This is not true; it is the bipartisan face of populism. Outside the realm of politics, however, there is a cultural absurdity – a denial of our country’s very linguistic memory and of how it was painstakingly built – which is astonishing coming from left-wing politicians and others besides.

The decree does not provide for the removal of children from parents who do not facilitate the use of the Italian language at home – and the Constitutional Court would certainly reject such a provision. But there is not even a ‘right’ in the Constitution to ignore Italian, even setting aside the fact that in Germany, knowledge of the German language is a mandatory requirement for obtaining citizenship. One might argue that this is a task that should be funded by public money, and that is true. But to pass off not knowing Italian as a right is worse than being reactionary; it is simply stupid.

It is astonishing that this should come from the progressive camp: it means they no longer even read Moravia. Or that they are unaware of our country’s linguistic history. That they no longer even read Tullio De Mauro, the great historian of the Italian language, an intellectual of the progressive left, and Minister of Education under Amato. He was the first to explain and clarify the civic – even before the sociological or political – mechanism by which one ‘becomes’ Italian. One emerges from the minority status in which millions of post-war Italians found themselves, and not just in the south. It was also television, yes, after the 1960s (so much for Pasolini’s ‘fireflies’), that ensured all Italians began to speak the language of a united Italy in a way that had not happened for the previous ninety years. They began to speak Italian, at least at a basic level, encouraging their children to use the new language as well. School combined with television, but also a desire for social integration to which all post-war generations can bear witness. De Mauro pointed out that, until 1974, more than half of Italians used only their dialect at home. It was not until the 1980s (was it Berlusconi’s fault?) that Italian became the permanent language in homes as well. In the major cities of the north, it was immigration that led to the dialects dying out first. In Rome, the language had already changed by the sixteenth century, when immigration from Florence and central Italy forced the Romans – who were still speaking like Cola di Rienzo – to change their language altogether. Who knows why they accepted it: could it have been fascism? Do they still read Tullio De Mauro there?

Even The Economist reported on it during the Expo, in an article that recalled with nostalgia and amazement the now-extinct Milanese dialect of Svampa, Jannacci and Strehler – witnesses to a turning point in history that also represented integration. It was not a cataclysm that brought about the change: it was the need for the Milanese (or Turinese) themselves to begin – and gradually succeed – in communicating with the newcomers. But the opposite also happened: dialects and everyday languages began to incorporate words from other sources, or from modernity. It was also a matter of respect and hospitality, of starting to speak the language ‘of everyone’. Consequently, people also ceased speaking dialect at home: Lombard parents, no less than those from the hills around Piacenza, stopped using dialect at the dinner table—precisely to ‘force’ their children to learn Italian, the language of school, the language of everyone. One need only ask an elderly person for confirmation.

Even Concetto Vecchio, however, is stretching the point: “Anyone who emigrated to Switzerland in the 1960s and 1970s knows that only a few parents actually spoke Schweizerdeutsch or German: they would turn up for parent-teacher meetings accompanied by their perfectly bilingual children, and it was the children who acted as interpreters with the teachers and lecturers”. Were they ‘entitled’ to do so? Was it not, rather, a hindrance to their own freedom and integration? Can a left-wing movement – or, to put it more broadly, a conscious and progressive society – really trade cultural and civil progress for an absurd linguistic niqab, just to spite Giorgia Meloni? It is political illiteracy.

The acting is consistently excellent, with touches of irony that are most welcome in these stately, serious works (the libretto by Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi, based on Racine’s Mithridate and probably adapted for Milan by Abbot Parini, is, however, quite beautiful); the costumes, obviously contemporary, caused a major scandal amongst the unsuspecting departed souls, given that at the world premiere the Pontiffs and Romans wore guard-of-the-king’s uniforms, wigs and heeled shoes – in other words, contemporary attire. The only mistake was not ending the first act with the sole duet, the sublime one between Sifare and Aspasia, which is there for that very purpose. For the rest, a simply memorable performance.

On the podium, Riccardo Frizza conducts an orchestra in fine form with great effectiveness and equal support for the stage. Of course, for this repertoire we are now accustomed to historically informed ensembles, though these are impossible for theatres with ‘normal’ resident orchestras. It is no coincidence that the Baroque scene thrives above all in venues that do not have such orchestras – such as the Champs-Élysées or the An der Wien – or in those that have had the foresight to form Baroque ensembles, such as the Zurich Opera House. But Mitridate is, above all, an opera ‘for singers’: and, fortunately, Naples had them. The highlight of the evening was the aria ‘Lungi da te, mio bene’, with the horn player taking to the stage to emphasise its dreamlike quality (a famous trope of the ‘mejo Pizzi’ of the 1980s; in opera, as in fashion and politics, nothing is newer than the old): Mariangela Sicilia sang it, moving the entire theatre to tears. Her excellent Sifare is ably matched by a daring Sara Blanch-Aspasia, in one of those extremely high-pitched and highly ornamented roles that were in vogue in the second half of the eighteenth century, much to the irritation of early-period artists such as Metastasio and Farinelli. The trio of women is completed by Giuliana Gianfaldoni, who sings the role of Ismene almost too well. Among the male voices, Giovanni Sala was not at his best, yet he still delivered a Mitridate of great distinction, nervous tics and all; Franco Fagioli perhaps overuses his chest register slightly, but by the time he reaches ‘Già dagli occhi il velo è tolto’, he truly comes into his own, and the cadenza is one of the longest heard in recent decades. In short, the performance is thoroughly enjoyable.

However, I do not wish to discuss that topic; my knowledge is limited and my interest is minimal, given that, apart from simple common sense, I am at a loss. What interests me is the fact that the transmission of knowledge and learning, as well as the historical tradition of culture, have almost nothing to do with the vast accumulation of data accessible via AI, and instead have a great deal to do with the systematic and comprehensive reading of books, particularly those to which we owe irreplaceable experiences. In the age of Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Gemini and hacking, few seem to reflect on the act of reading books from cover to cover, turning them into a personal experience. What happens to individuals and their social lives when they read Tolstoy and Baudelaire in book form? Without individuals belonging to the human race (everything happens within individuals before it does in society) reading the classics and the so-called ‘sacred’ scriptures, talking about artificial intelligence is a sham and an abstraction.

If there is one thing that should be taught and practised in schools and universities, it is to read at least a dozen books thoroughly. Three ancient classics (for example, Plato, Seneca, the Gospels). Some modern classics up to the nineteenth century (for example, Shakespeare and Rousseau, Leopardi and Melville, Dickinson and Dostoevsky). Finally, a selection of great moralists from the last century, ranging from Freud and Kafka to Musil and Eliot, Auerbach and Simone Weil, Orwell and Primo Levi… These latter authors are referred to as ‘moralists’ because the twentieth century transformed humanity, and there can be no culture or humanity without moral reflection on totalitarian regimes, extermination camps and atomic weapons.

George Steiner, the last of the internationally renowned literary critics, spoke repeatedly at the end of the twentieth century about culture as a bridge between the human and the inhuman. In the introduction to his book of essays Language and Silence, Steiner writes that language has degenerated into subservience to propaganda and advertising in mass cultures – the culture industry and political falsehood: ‘Are we perhaps emerging from a history of verbal dominance, that is, from the classical period of literary expression, to enter a phase of post-linguistic forms or of growing silence?’ What is the current state of literary criticism and the teaching of literature in academia? ‘Never before have scholars read reviews and explanatory texts rather than the literary works themselves (…) the function of criticism is above all to tell us what to read and how to read as whole, non-specialised human beings’.

It is therefore on this act of reading that the fate and survival of cultural tradition now hinge. Centuries of written culture will once again have to pass through the filter of individuals focused on the pages of an open book. Artificial intelligence is the opposite of this. It is a concept that envisions a world in which non-human entities make decisions. Literary works that are no longer read and reread by an individual cease to exist. AI serves no purpose. It is their grave.

As the French are preparing, as is their custom, to ‘Frenchify’ and welcome the best-selling author, someone claims to have discovered that Orélien’s book was written using artificial intelligence. An anonymous user on X wrote that they had used a piece of software, Pangram, which is designed to detect texts and content generated by artificial language models. According to the user, after analysing many passages from C’était ça ou mourir, the software concluded: “it’s 100 per cent AI”. The publisher Grasset immediately declared, in true Trumpian fashion: “fake news” and “conspiracy theory”. The author, interviewed by Libération—which dedicated its front page to him today—explained that he has always loved “creating and writing, so I don’t see why I should resort to a machine”. He also emphasised that the rhythm and imagery of the book are rooted in his Haitian and Caribbean heritage, and that therefore ‘Western AI detection software’ is unable to analyse its stylistic peculiarities. He described it as a ‘hate campaign’ and ‘a racist attack’. It remains unclear from her accusation whether she considers the software or the X user to be racist.

This development, however, prompts reflection, as it may mark only the first wave of both genuine and contrived exposés, of accusations echoing through the corridors of the Ninfeo and the meeting rooms of Segrate, already teeming with jealousy. Authors may soon find themselves compelled to present pen-and-ink notebooks to secure a bottle of Strega, a gesture that could see forgers resurface alongside photographs of manuscripts placed beside copies of Repubblica, much like the Moro case.The real question is: what if the book shortlisted for the Goncourt Prize had actually been written using AI? No prize? Even if readers still like the book? When AI cures cancer, will we say no to the medicines because they aren’t seasoned with the sweat of an oncologist’s brow?

Its success began in Germany. I Lázár by Nelio Biedermann, a student at the University of Zurich, remained on the bestseller lists for around thirty weeks (in Italy, it has just been published by Guanda; we’ll see how it fares on our bestseller lists: for some time now, it’s been impossible to look at them without wincing). The New York Times featured a profile of him, whilst The New Yorker ran an article whose headline referred to him as a ‘Wunderkind’ – a child prodigy. He is able to recount the story of his family, in Hungary from 1900 to 1957, with a sense of curiosity about the past but without any whingeing. Through two world wars, communism, the uprising, and the expropriation of the family castle, which is slowly falling into ruin.

The story of the Lázárs, a family of the Hungarian minor nobility – so detached from the world that Baron Sándor reads the previous day’s newspapers, given how long it takes for them to arrive from Budapest – begins with the birth of Lajos. “The transparent child with eyes as blue as the sea”. The atmosphere is reminiscent of a fairy tale; the reader is immediately drawn in by the young novelist—who is by no means unfamiliar with the craft and its tricks—who asks: “Are you up for it?”. It is freezing outside; the father is deeply dismayed at the sight of the baby, whilst his sister Ilona has no doubts: “He’s a monster”.

The baron, the father, wonders whether the newborn, when his turn comes, will be able to press ‘the dark green nobleman’s ring into the red sealing wax’. The ring with the green stone will feature throughout the novel, confirming that the young writer knows his craft. It will become a hindrance when the Communist officials arrive at the castle to carry out the expropriation. Lajos, who in the meantime has grown and become stronger, has swallowed it to hide it.

Nelio Biedermann does not forget history – several chapters begin with a historical reference or even a date. Yet the book never feels as ponderous as a historical novel. This is particularly true of those written by authors who, having run out of time, add detail upon detail simply to demonstrate that they have studied the subject and taken diligent notes. Most of the time, these details are superfluous.

*I Lázár* moves at a brisk pace, yet it contains all the right details to bring the characters to life. Take Ilona, Lajos’s sister, for example, who heads off to America when hard times come. Their mother, Mária, practises lying – “you never know when it might come in handy” – and inflicts wounds on her arm every day. Almost imperceptible: it is the young servant boy, Pál, who notices them. The servants living on the lower floors observe everything and keep the secret. The children are raised on semolina, and in any case, mealtimes are a torment. Anyone who drops the heavy silver cutlery is dragged into another room and beaten while the guests continue eating. At the age of five, the boy is entrusted to a tutor, a scribe who knows nothing but love letters. That is what he did during the war, and that is what he teaches.

In the profile the New York Times dedicated to him, Nelio Biedermann recounts visiting, with his father, the castles in Hungary that once belonged to his family, who fled in 1957. He began writing during the Covid pandemic: at school, he had won 200 francs for a short story about the end of the world. He spent five years working on this, his first novel.