But it’s not them I want to focus on right now. I’m concerned about the consumers of journalism – readers, viewers and listeners. Their numbers are dwindling, becoming minuscule indeed. I’d like us to cherish them, even that sensational average 9 per cent audience share of the most ridiculous ‘truth-telling’ programme in the whole world – you know the one I’m talking about. And everyone knows their own audience, favours them and would never want to let them down. Yet I’d also like to guillotine them one by one, sneer at them, insult them politely, mock them mercilessly – these ‘investigative journalism’ addicts, a ludicrous genre that fancies itself objective, independent and sovereign. But just how gullible, know-it-all, angry, ridiculous, indignant and feeble-minded are certain dear friends – viewers near and far – who allow themselves to be taken in by a troglodyte who reviews his own work and calls it a ‘masterpiece’ under a false name, who allows himself to be polled, believes himself a leader, abandons a close friend to prison on Ferragosto and clings to his reputation as a victim of the system and of censorship, when in fact he is a protégé of Telemeloni and his officials, who are incapable even of telling him to get lost with his chats. I once thought that a newspaper was like an umbrella – a tool that nobody uses for personal purposes any more, an elegant accessory to one’s demeanour, a mark of bourgeois or working-class distinction: it has become the devalued, occasional head-cover that you snatch from a street vendor when it rains or the sun beats down, going hand in hand with social media and ‘flip-flop’ TV – these two scoundrels of the news world that we’d gladly do without, apart from tennis, football and the news, ‘Italy on a bed of shelled clams’, as Paolo would say if he were a shareholder.

Of the 190 Italian prisons, there are currently 64,773 inmates. This represents overcrowding of 139.5 per cent compared to available capacity, with peaks of 149 per cent in several prisons. The prison population is predominantly male, accounting for up to 95 per cent of the total, with 20,307 foreign nationals (31.5 per cent): those who, according to the Meloni government, should be serving their sentences in their own countries, yet whom we continue to detain here. Fifteen per cent of prisoners suffer from treatable psychiatric disorders (around 6,000 people). Furthermore, widespread depression and the use of psychotropic drugs have been reported. In 2025, there were 80 suicides in Italian prisons, whilst 89 deaths were attributed to other causes. So far this year, as of 30 June, there have been 36 suicides and 89 deaths from other causes.

To find worse figures, one has to go back to the three-year period 2010–2013, which ended with Italy being found guilty by the European Court of Human Rights of violating Article 3 of the Convention – the provision prohibiting torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. At the time, around 4,000 appeals were lodged by prisoners, whilst in 2025 alone, the number of complaints upheld by the Italian Supervisory Courts – that is, those which a judge examined and deemed to be well-founded – stood at 6,539 (12 per cent more than in 2024). Since then, the State has had to compensate 35,710 people (with one day’s reduction in their sentence for every 10 days spent in prison, or 8 euros per day in cases where the sentence had already been served) for having detained them in degrading conditions. Faced with these figures, which bear witness to our country’s constant and ongoing violation of the rules of international law and the Constitution, governments tend to justify themselves by citing the need for security. The famous ‘lock them up and throw away the key’. This is followed by an ever-increasing number of criminal offences, aggravating circumstances and harsher sentences. But does all this really serve to increase security? The figures suggest not.

Of the 63,499 people in prison as at 31 December 2025, only 25,921 – 40.8 per cent – were serving their first prison sentence, whilst 45.9 per cent had previously been imprisoned between one and four times, 10.6 per cent between five and nine times, and 2.7 per cent more than ten times. Almost six out of ten people in prison, therefore, had been there before. The CNEL adds a statistic that should guide any policy in this area: 68.4 per cent of those who did not undertake any work whilst in prison reoffend, compared with 2 per cent of those who were placed on a work programme. A prison system that fails to comply with the law and to establish pathways to reintegration does not promote public safety, and it does so at a cost of around 3.5 billion a year.

Although building new prisons is not the solution (whereas deflationary policies are), since the current government launched its new prison plan, the number of available places has fallen by 537 rather than increasing. Prime Minister Meloni and Justice Minister Nordio have repeatedly announced an increase of ten thousand places. However, after four years in government, the regulatory capacity stands at just 46 more places than in 2022. Meanwhile, the number of prisoners has risen by 10,000: from 56,225 in October 2022 to the current figure of 65,009.

Partly in response to this situation, two months ago the Meloni government enacted a new ‘deflationary’ law establishing a fundamental legal principle: drug addicts are sick and must be treated. They should therefore be in rehabilitation centres rather than in prison. This is a major achievement for a right-wing government that is often heavy-handed and illiberal. However, despite this entirely justified principle, the stated intention is far from being put into practice. Since the announcement (once again) of 10,000 places being made available, the outlook has shifted to a “clearly multi-year prospect”: with the 19 million allocated, perhaps by 2027 a maximum of 600 drug-addicted prisoners might find a place in a rehabilitation centre.

In the wake of this disaster, some Forza Italia MPs have secured the approval of a fact-finding inquiry into the state of prisons. This marks an important realisation on the part of the majority. However, it has infuriated the very most hardline faction within the government. Giusi Bartolozzi, former chief of staff to Carlo Nordio and now legal adviser to the Minister for European Affairs, Tommaso Foti, has responded. Sharing the post in which Forza Italia MP Calderone celebrated the green light for the inquiry, Bartolozzi wrote: “Perhaps Mr Calderone has switched to the opposition and I haven’t realised it…”. A quip which, in essence, challenges the decision by a majority party to call for a fact-finding inquiry into a sector governed by that very same majority. With disastrous results from both a humanitarian and a security perspective which, at least for today, cannot be hidden behind bars.

What was your first experience on a film set like?

Perhaps this was partly down to the red hair he inherited from his paternal grandfather, a Neapolitan with Norman roots: his ancestors were from Alcamo in Sicily. When I was seven, I was cast in Siro Marcellini’s “Lola Colt – Face to Face with El Diablo”. I, Pablito, died in the arms of Lola Falana. I also appeared in “The Four of the Ave Maria” alongside my mum, my sister and my brother, playing the part of a Scottish family.

When did he start out in television?

I had a small part in the 1968 film "Odissea", in which I played the blind poet Demodocus, and a major role in "Giovanni ed Elviruccia", a TV drama starring Paolo Panelli and Bice Valori, which is well worth watching again, not least for Morricone’s wonderful score.

Why did Leone choose it?

Perhaps he’d seen me in “Lola Colt”. And Timmy’s older sister, who was the first to be killed by the bandits, is actually my sister. Simona was eighteen, but she was initially turned down because she turned up for the audition dressed in the style of the time: a miniskirt, a headband, and heavy make-up. The agent suggested she come back without make-up and with her hair in plaits. So they took her on.

What do you remember about the filming?

We were filming in Almería, in the desert area of Tabernas where they’d set up the McBain ranch. It took over an hour to get there from the hotel where the crew were staying. I was the youngest and therefore the most pampered. In the massacre scene, I come out of the house when Frank and his men have already killed the others. Leone would say to me: “Now go, but you don’t know what will happen to you – they might kill you too.”

The child is standing in front of Frank and the close-ups alternate.

Fonda had to spit, but didn’t know how. What’s more, the desert climate had dried out his throat, so they got him some liquorice sticks and he spent a while practising until he managed to spit. Leone was keen to get it right.

After the massacre, Jill – played by Claudia Cardinale – arrives and stares in horror at your corpses.

Her wonderful scent has stayed with me; even at the hotel I could tell where she’d been. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a mishap: as I’d been standing motionless in the sun filming that scene all morning, I suffered heatstroke and was hospitalised for two days. My mother kept me company, but Fonda also came to visit me with his wife, and a prop master built me a rocking horse on the spot. I would have loved to take it home with me, but I don’t know what became of it. I still regret it.

How did he perform at school?

For a year and a half, they provided me with a private tutor.

Did her mother encourage her?

Without ever pushing things too far. There wasn’t the media hype there is today, where you feel like a star just for having been on “Big Brother”. I also acted alongside Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Zeffirelli’s “La bisbetica domata”, but I didn’t boast about it. I remember instead the July heat, dressed as a pageboy, at the De Laurentiis Studios on the Pontina.

Was he happy with Bud Spencer?

What’s more, I had been a fan of his ever since I had seen “Lo chiamavano Trinità…” at the Supercinema. Working with him felt like a dream come true. A refined filmmaker and a gentle, kind giant. He used to call me “the redhead”.

At the age of seventeen, he starred alongside Johnny Dorelli in Luigi Zampa’s “Il mostro”, a rather bitter film.

Based on a screenplay by Sergio Donati. A fine, underrated film. Dorelli was brilliant; he could do everything – he even provided the voice-over for me. The music was by Morricone there too.

Why did he stop?

I could have chosen to carry on, but I simply didn’t, even though I enjoyed it. There was just one time I felt embarrassed: it was in “San Pasquale Baylonne, Protector of Women”, one of those comedies that were popular at the time. I emerged, dusted with flour and completely naked, from a cupboard where I had been secretly flirting with Giuliana De Sio, who was making her debut. I felt uncomfortable, with the film crew and the onlookers from the village, Posta Fibreno, all standing round watching.

What career have you chosen?

I am a dental technician; I work with my wife, who is a doctor, and I formerly served as a diving instructor as a hobby. I’ve never boasted about my past: it was only when social media became widespread that people started getting in touch. A month ago, I was invited to Torella dei Lombardi, the birthplace of Sergio Leone’s father, where they’ve set up a museum. I gave him an original still from “Once Upon a Time in the West”. A piece of my heart that my mother had kept safe. When I look back at the photos of me acting alongside Henry Fonda, I can still hear Morricone’s music playing on set. Many years later, I became friends with Maria, Ennio’s sister, who passed away a few months ago. My wife used to play burraco with her. Come to think of it, what a small world it is.

Their stories take different paths, yet they often intersect, as happened at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, at the legendary Sun Studio: the birthplace of American rock and roll and a veritable temple where the records of both these artists came to life. Elvis would soon become an image even before he was a name: the figure etched into television, cinema, iconic outfits, cars and his beloved home, Graceland. For Johnny Cash, however, one must drive towards eastern Arkansas, where Dyess appears amidst a flat expanse of fields and roads. The white house where Cash was born and spent his childhood is emblematic of this artist precisely because it embodies his austere nature, in stark contrast to the black he always wore.

And whilst Elvis and Cash are often remembered as opposites – the King and the Man in Black, glitz and darkness, spectacle and conscience – what emerges when you look at them more closely is how both built their greatness by taking different Southern voices and transforming them into something capable of travelling the world. Both also discovered the dark side of their rise to fame, amid addiction and loneliness. Both started from nothing, only to become immortal icons. And, above all, both still represent two mirrors of America today: illustrating the possibility of starting from nothing and becoming huge, still resonating across the globe, and becoming symbols of the endless stories of a country capable of continually reinventing its own myths.

Second problem: the director, Gabriela Carrizo, is not a director at all, but a choreographer (of the famous Belgian company Peeping Tom, incidentally). She therefore conceives of "Carmen" as an endless ballet in which the characters’ doubles perform mysterious actions, whilst the chorus remains largely standing motionless in a line. It is unclear what Carrizo’s vision of "Carmen" is, and if she has one, it is rather confused; the main merit of the production lies in Tom Visser’s lighting, which creates scenes reminiscent of Goya’s paintings amidst a setting that is mostly pitch-black, as if the power had gone out – which does not seem very much in keeping with the ‘quelque chose de gai’ that Bizet had in mind when he conceived his sun-drenched Mediterranean. As is often the case when they don’t work, ‘modern’ productions end up as mere pretty pictures, much like those of ‘traditional’ set-design-focused directors: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The singers are left to their own devices. Asmik Grigorian dished out the usual buckets of charisma, but it’s not entirely clear where her Carmen is heading; Jonathan Tetelman plays the usual testosterone-fuelled, verismo-style José, albeit sung a little better than usual; Davide Luciano is a good Escamillo and Kristina Mkhitaryan a dreadful Micaëla, with the mitigating factor that her lungs simply aren’t up to the catatonic pauses in the ‘human lungs’ aria.

And so we come to Teodor Currentzis conducting his excellent Utopia Orchestra, and he is good, very good, absolutely brilliant – verging on virtuosity. There are moments that literally make you jump out of your seat, for example “Les tringles des sistres”, where the accelerando, taken to a fever pitch, can only be compared to Abbado (though Teresa Berganza wasn’t obliged to shout like Grigorian). The problem – or rather, the critical issue – is, however, that whilst many moments taken individually are splendid, the performance as a whole is not; and above all, Currentzis seems to lack an overarching interpretative vision, apart from showing us just how cool he is – but we already knew that. In general, it seems to me that anyone approaching "Carmen" today cannot avoid tackling the stylistic challenges of this work, starting with the fact that it is by no means an opera but an "opéra-comique", with all that that entails. I would recommend reading Patrick Taïeb’s essay on Célestine Galli-Marié, the first performer of the role – though, of course, it hasn’t been translated into Italian – which is illuminating in many respects. Meanwhile, this Carmen – so self-referential and yet so highly acclaimed, apart from the ritual boos directed at the director – brings to mind what Wagner said of poor Meyerbeer: “Wirkungen ohne Ursachen”, effects without causes.

Just like in films from the Reagan era, here too there are almost exclusively teenagers, who neither protest nor fight nor compromise with their parents. They simply ignore them. The few adults are teenagers who’ve aged terribly, and who, incidentally, lust after their daughters’ boyfriends. Decidedly frivolous people. Here’s the problem: how do you distinguish fantasy from reality if no one teaches you? Having taken a fair few knocks themselves, the grown-ups ought to be able to explain the difference between an open door and a closed one. But when there’s so much money, such huge swimming pools, and cocaine everywhere, who fancies giving or listening to lectures? Who bothers to grow up or help others grow up? Everything seems open, within easy reach. So reality takes its revenge. Because what is forgotten does not disappear but spreads. It’s the same logic as a sick body which, by pretending to be healthy, becomes even sicker and infects those around it. If there are no longer any cemeteries, the whole city becomes one – villas, drawing rooms and parties included. California in those years had banished grief from school records. Censoring it, however, has the sole consequence of losing control over it. If the killer preys on the most perfect of lineages, it is because the score there had remained unsettled for too long. Even the golden age, if you dig deep enough, is made of bones.

But the data in question is, paradoxically, difficult to handle even for the right, because the fact that Italy is much safer than the right often portrays it to be is a small time bomb ticking beneath the framework that has underpinned its security measures for years: Italy is unsafe; there is too much trouble, too much crime, too many disasters, too many dangers; and because of all these problems, we need tighter restrictions, new criminal offences, harsher penalties, new security measures and new security decrees. The figures provided by the Ministry of the Interior demonstrate unequivocally that the sense of insecurity in Italy is largely the result of a psychosis fuelled by the left, from the opposition, and the right fails to govern, from within government, because it is accustomed to responding to questions on security by relying, as it always has, more on perceived security than on actual security; and it does not take much to realise, as we have already written in these columns, that if you train voters to regard the parameters of perceived security as the only ones to be considered when discussing security, you will inevitably end up governing by relying more on perceived data than on actual figures. One might argue that the fall in crime is precisely due to the government’s crackdown on security, but if you take a broader view and examine crime trends, you will see that the reduction in many offences is a long-term structural trend that has been affecting Italy for years. Examples: between 2013 and 2019, reported offences fell from around 2.9 million to 2.302 million – a 20 per cent drop over six years. But even the opposition cannot get away with claiming that the 10 per cent decline in 2026 is simply a continuation of a trend that has always been in place. That is not the case. After the Covid pandemic, crime rates began to rise again, and this increase continued until 2024.

The recent reversal began in 2025, when crime fell by 1.8 per cent, and accelerated sharply in the first half of 2026. The government cannot, therefore, take credit for the historic decline in Italian crime, which began long before Meloni, but the opposition cannot pretend that the reversal recorded over the last eighteen months does not exist. A second statistic that puts the prophets of doom in a difficult position concerns a very sensitive issue: femicides. In 2022, 130 women were murdered; in 2023, 120 according to the Interior Ministry’s figures; in 2024, 118; and in 2025, 97. These figures are still very high, but they point to a truth that few have the courage to state explicitly: in less than three years, the number of women killed has fallen by around a quarter. It is more difficult to determine the extent to which awareness-raising campaigns, active policies, prevention measures, legislation and public policies have contributed to this, but the figure stands. Here and throughout, we use the term ‘femicide’ in its current sense, bearing in mind that the new criminal offence only came into force at the end of 2025 and that the previous data series are not perfectly comparable. In the first half of 2026, the report presented today by the Ministry of the Interior will reveal another significant figure: the number of victims remains high at 34, but this is 37 per cent lower than last year, when the figure stood at 54 after six months. Discussing the results of the fight against femicide is controversial because, for some, presenting the figures is seen as an attempt to downplay the issue, lower the threshold of public concern or normalise it – when it is clear that highlighting improving trends can also have another effect: demonstrating that change is possible. A similar argument can, in essence, be made regarding another interesting figure from the Interior Ministry’s report, which concerns arrivals by sea. When it comes to curbing irregular immigration, the centre-right government can claim mixed results. The first full year under the Meloni government was 2023, when there was a surge in arrivals: up 50 per cent on 2022, from 105,000 to 158,000.

Following the disaster of 2023, however, things really did change. Landings fell from 157,651 to 66,617 in 2024, a drop of 58 per cent. They remained virtually unchanged in 2025, at 66,316. And in the first half of 2026, they plummeted further from 30,060 to 14,388, a fall of 52.1 per cent. The Interior Ministry’s report attributes part of this result to cooperation with Libya and Tunisia and records 275,463 departures prevented between 2023 and June 2026. The issue is clear. If the left, as it did when Sánchez presented figures showing that Spain’s repatriation record was better than Italy’s, wishes to criticise the centre-right government for being ineffective, it should have the courage to say what it lacks the strength to say: we need to take a tougher line on irregular migrants. If, on the other hand, the right were to draw any lessons from what has happened in recent years with regard to irregular immigration, it should have the courage to admit that landings do not follow a long-term trend, like murders, but are volatile, depending on many factors, including routes, the situation in North Africa, agreements with transit countries, the ability of local authorities to prevent departures, and shifts towards other Mediterranean routes (side note: the Ministry of the Interior points out that in the first half of 2026 there were 4,432 repatriations: +34.3 per cent, but the figures must be put into context: in 2018 there were 6,820 forced returns, in 2019 7,054, and in 2025 the report indicates a total of 6,772 returns – good figures, but no better than those already recorded in the past). Good news, as we know, often takes us by surprise, frightens us and catches us unprepared; and the good news in recent months has also taken the right-wing government by surprise, when it found itself having to come to terms with positive developments that have come about thanks to the use of tools which the right has always opposed (the record tax revenues recorded by the state as a result of the fight against tax evasion were achieved through the widespread use of digital payment tracking, which the right has always demonised, before coming to power and adopting these measures itself).

But if a piece of good news takes us by surprise, frightens us or makes us feel uneasy, rather than hiding it – even at the cost of feeling disoriented – that news deserves to be examined, understood and analysed; and if it serves to challenge our own certainties, so much the better. Good news does exist, even if it is frightening, and to try to focus a little less on perception and a little more on reality, we must sooner or later resign ourselves to considering not only comforting bad news but also disorienting and formidable good news as newsworthy enough to be published prominently, in the knowledge that today’s pessimists, as Giuliano Ferrara suggests, are not well-informed optimists but are, often, ill-informed pessimists, sometimes even misled by their own followers.

A thorn in the side of those in power

Pierluigi Battista’s book is a splendid stone thrown into a pond. The author throws caution to the wind and, in this powerful and necessary book, does not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is an uncomfortable exposé, much like Ranucci’s books. (continued on page two)

His latest literary work is not strong with the weak nor weak with the strong, but shows no favour to anyone. Within its pages, the oxen have not yet bolted, and it is well known that there is none so deaf as those whose eyes are lined with ham, and that it is better to be alone than in bad company. A thorn in the side of power. (Pierluigi Battista)

Roger Scruton’s successor

At last we have Roger Scruton’s successor, and he’s Italian: Camillo Langone, whose book "Il vero conservatore" (Liberilibri) hits the bookshops this autumn. Our distinguished contributor is even better than the English philosopher, first and foremost because, rather than riding horses, he eats them (in the delightful chapter ‘Meat’ you’ll find a list of rather reactionary foods: ‘fried salami, cotechino, veal tongue, tripe, snails, liver, sliced heart, horse pesto...’. More relevant than Joseph de Maistre, more useful than Alain Finkielkraut, more conservative than anyone else. (Camillo Langone)

A profile of the wheeler-dealers

In short, if these mythical figures known as ‘fixers’ really did exist, the novel “Hanno vinto loro” provides a composite sketch of them. It is the newspapers of the time that paint a picture of them, alongside the account of an eleven-year-old boy who is forced to spend his afternoons with one of these fixers. The year is 2001: the year of the G8 summit in Genoa, the Twin Towers and, in short, Berlusconi’s longest-serving government. The eleven-year-old, raised in a strict, moralistic family that had lost its connection to the Italian Communist Party, is told the inside story behind Italy’s great mysteries. But how much of it is true? And above all, who actually won? (Giulio Silvano)

It is unrivalled in Italy

A book on cinema – note the modesty of the title “Nuovo cinema Mancuso” – which outshines Orson Welles, and which Cahiers du Cinéma have tried in every way to sabotage and challenge. It is unrivalled in Italy, and abroad they envy us for it – those spiteful, jealous lot. Excellent beach reading – avoid Capalbio, too many self-styled “cinema artists”. Under the parasol, it replaces idle chatter. Passionate in its joys – alas, rare – and above all in its grudges that stretch to infinity. Even if you never go to the cinema, it looks splendid in your bicycle basket. Tucked away next to a Hermès scarf. (Mariarosa Mancuso)

As good as Nick Hornby

Shall I compare myself to a Sally Rooney, but a funny one? Why not. I’ve written three fine books on contemporary emotions, complete with a catalogue of tics and neuroses. Antonio Pascale told me I was a female Woody Allen when I made my debut. Let me explain what love has become in this century: it’s not a god but a demon, and unlike Sally, I also make an effort for the reader: to lighten the load, to free them from their burdens. My style isn’t lacklustre. Like Nick Hornby – that’s right, I really do resemble Nick Hornby, now that I think about it. (Ester Viola)

What style, what elegance

I don’t know the author, but he’s a giant. Masneri’s “Paradiso” (Adelphi) is the greatest Italian novel of the post-war period, of the twentieth century – perhaps since Dante. Sublime prose, with a touch of irony that Flaubert could only dream of. I’ve read it three times and cried twice. Give it as a gift; pass it down to your children. And what style, what elegance, what moral (and, one senses, physical) stature. A brilliant read, whether in Cefalù or Pomezia. Would you like me to make it sound more professional?

At the Mykola Kulish Theatre, on the evening before the invasion, “Forever and a Day More” was staged – a play in which it was up to the audience to choose the ending

Everyone in the room knew what might happen – if not that very night, then soon; if not a matter of hours, then days. The decision to opt for a happy ending is perhaps more a human choice than a military one. “It was an incredible evening; some journalists even wrote that it seemed like witchcraft. The director, Serhii Pavljuk, did a brilliant job.” And in the midst of her excitement as she described it, Alena added: “Then we woke up to the sound of explosions – the war had begun.” The fiction on the theatre stage the night before had given way to a staggering, surreal reality: hard to put into words, especially in a place like Kherson, where fiction ended and reality began – harsh, pervasive, ready to disrupt everyone’s lives, even those who had taken part in the staging of "Per sempre e un giorno in più"; never has a title been more fitting for that last night of peace.

Alena is a poet; during the occupation, she led the city’s literary resistance: “My son saved me.” She always carried him with her

In war, you cease to be who you were the day before. This applies to people, and it applies to buildings. The Mykola Kulish Theatre became a place of refuge and a centre of resistance, where ordinary citizens, actors, directors, sound and lighting technicians, scriptwriters and set designers gathered, lived and organised themselves. In the theatre’s basement, many of the posters that Ukrainians displayed on the streets of Kherson were created to tell the Russians that they were not welcome and had to leave. The theatre’s director, Oleksandr Knyha, was abducted in the early days of the invasion whilst in his hometown, Oleshki, on the left bank of the River Dnipro, which remains under occupation to this day. “He was taken to a basement, where the Russians asked him to collaborate,” says Alena, who has dedicated a book, “Kherson under Occupation”, to the story of the theatre and its director. Oleksandr Knyha was released, but his hometown of Oleshki remains under occupation, at the mercy of Moscow’s decisions, paralysed and destroyed; it is home to around a thousand people – a thousand survivors held hostage amidst the ruins, without hospitals and with no alternatives. In the midst of the war, Alena, too, ceased to be the person she had been until the day before: “I decided to stay in Kherson, with my husband and my son.” The baby, Dobromir, had been born in January and Alena still needed to regain her strength – she’d had some complications – but her decision to stay was dictated not by her health, but by her determination not to abandon Kherson. Dobromir skips around us; he’s now quite at home in the makeshift theatre that his mother and the old Mykola Kulish troupe are looking after. He’s a lively child, a child of war, who has grown up with the sound of drones and explosions to the point where he no longer takes any notice of them.

In war, you cease to be what you were the day before. This applies to both people and buildings: protests against Moscow were organised at the theatre

Alena lets him play on his own; she doesn’t want her anxiety to rub off on him, so she lets him run about the rooms of the building. “Until recently, I used to let him play in the streets, but then one day, in a small playground near our home, we found a landmine. I can’t let him go out like that anymore.” That’s how she’s got used to being a mother; her first few months were spent under occupation, and her pram, with tiny Dobromir sleeping inside it, also served as a cover. When Alena recounts how she used to wander the streets of Kherson during the months of the invasion, it feels as though you’re right there with her. Her name even ended up on a ‘traitors’ list – a chat group containing full names where someone even posted a photo of Dobromir’s little feet covered in blue and yellow socks. Blonde, with a gentle gaze and very youthful features, an unarmed poet, with her child running around her and showering her with attention – in Moscow’s definition, Alena, too, is one of the ‘Ukrainian Nazis’. In the Kremlin, anyone who betrays is a Nazi; nowhere is the term further removed from its historical meaning than in Russia. Alena betrayed, and she did so proudly. She sought out betrayal on the streets of Kherson. “I used to wander round the city’s cafés, taking Dobromir with me – whom she calls Dobromirchyk, in keeping with the sweet-sounding tendency in many Slavic languages to use diminutives – My husband is a firefighter and sometimes had to work for two days on the trot, so I’d go back and forth across the city with the child. We used to live in the city centre, but it soon filled up with Russians, so we moved a little further out, where my parents were also living.”

In those days, there were quite a few residents of Kherson trying to sabotage the occupiers. One of the reasons Ukrainian soldiers managed to liberate the city was also down to the internal resistance movement: it is difficult to liberate a territory where every citizen could be an enemy spy. There are some, there have been some and there still are some, but the majority of Kherson’s inhabitants were waiting for liberation and carrying out small, everyday acts to ensure that the Ukraine that remained – the Ukraine they felt in their hearts – was not suffocated within that occupied space. Alena, too, was among those building this resistance; with her young child, she did not take part in the protests, nor did she go to the theatre’s basement to draw posters against the occupiers, but she would take the bus to a venue in the city centre to join Zoom meetings and discuss Ukrainian culture. “I didn’t take taxis; I made do with whatever public transport was left. I felt safer that way – in those days we feared the Russians were running the taxi services and it could be dangerous. So I’d go into the city centre and hold online literary meetings.” She spoke about Ukrainian culture, and it might seem like a trivial matter to go to a café to discuss books, but it isn’t if the books being discussed are in a banned language: “People from various parts of Ukraine were connected via Zoom; in Kherson, there was almost no internet anywhere, so sometimes I used the Russians’ networks. Once, a poet from Ivano-Frankivsk started saying: ‘We must kill the Russians just as they kill us’.” A statement which, when uttered in Ivano-Frankivsk, in western Ukraine, represents a widely held view that can be voiced openly, could have cost him imprisonment, a conviction and even his life in Kherson. “The situation was telling: I could see the Russian soldiers right at that moment whilst he was speaking; I could see them sitting in the restaurant next to the café where I was sitting. I was taking part in the conversation; I was wearing headphones and no one could hear what they were saying on the other end, but you could tell from my reactions. I was lucky to be sitting in a café full of people I knew.” Not the café owners, but someone had mentioned Alena’s name to the Russians; moreover, some of her conversations with other authors were posted on YouTube, so tracking her down and finding out what she thought wasn’t difficult.

Alena had been managing the literary scene since the occupation: “At a certain point, I realised I would have to start thinking about what to do in case the Russians came to take me away. My husband worked almost all night; he wouldn’t have got there in time for Dobromir, so I just hoped that if it happened, I’d have time to warn my parents.” The fact that the war and the occupation might not seem real is a recurring theme in the accounts of many Ukrainians. Having lived through, suffered and endured these events does not make this feeling any less strange; the horror seems too unreal to have actually been experienced, despite the nightmares and the wounds, and Alena admits: “I felt a certain sense of responsibility; even when I found out I’d been put on the list of traitors, I carried on with my online meetings. It was as if I wasn’t fully aware of what was happening, even though I was convinced I was, because in that life under occupation, in that slow suffocation of an entire city, I was right in the thick of it. Sometimes I imagined that their weapons were made of plastic, like toys. That’s how my mind works, even though horrible things were happening around me and I knew it.” There were stairwells used as torture chambers; there were Ukrainians who were searched during the night, even just to check their tattoos. “My husband was once called out to put out a fire set on a woman’s body; she was completely naked, with the clothes that had been stripped from her still lying beside her, whilst she was burning.” It was hard not to know: “It was as if you were sitting at home, in your living room, and suddenly someone came in and wanted to make you feel like a stranger.” The whole of Kherson’s life during those eight months of occupation was then brought to the stage.

The Mykola Kulish School is now located in one of the most heavily targeted areas of Kherson; drones circle around it, harassing it; many windows are broken, and parts of the walls have been destroyed. For this reason, after a few months, the company decided to move most of its performances to the school, which no longer functions as a school – lessons are still all online – but has been reborn as a theatre, thanks to a hall with a stage that, whilst lacking the trappings of a true historic theatre, allows theatrical activities to continue. Many plays about the war and the occupation are being staged, and not just those set in Kherson. One of the first productions staged after the liberation was about a refugee from the Donbas, who recounted her decision to leave, to abandon the territories where Moscow has moved in and cast a shadow over everything. “We lived through it; they cut off our communications and the internet. They had closed the banks so that we couldn’t withdraw cash. In September, the Russians tried to open a Russian school and had also set up a job centre; they wanted people to work for them.” Memories from that dark period have begun to resurface, and at the theatre, Ukrainians also want to see their own history and their present reflected. “Reflective pieces, veterans’ stories, accounts from the occupied territories. We currently have two productions running: ‘Hero for a Day’, written and performed by an actor who was wounded and tells the story of a friend of his who died on the very first day of the war, on the front line. Then there’s ‘Nel seminterrato’, also by a veteran. We continue to stage the classics; sometimes we blend them with current events – we’ve combined Hemingway with the tragedy of the explosion at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station. We do most of our rehearsals online, to minimise risks and because many of us live outside Kherson.”

The first time the Mykola Kulish Theatre reopened after the occupation, a lady went up to Alena and asked her: “Please, don’t stop.” And they haven’t stopped. On stage in uniform, on stage with grief, on stage with drones. There is a secret that Alena does not hold back; she does not confess it aloud, but it slips out as she speaks: Kherson survived because it held on to Ukraine within itself, whilst Russia hung up its flags, imposed its anthems, its schools and its roubles – in the corners of the city, in private conversations, on public transport, in socks hidden inside shoes – Ukraine survived and was preserved. Now that Kherson is free – even if it has been reduced to ashes, even if it has been struck down, even if at times it lies reeling – what the inhabitants are asking for is this: let’s talk about ourselves, let’s take to the stage, let’s shout out our name, our pain, what saved us; let’s take ourselves to the theatre. It is a necessary moment of self-centredness; the present, or what has just passed, takes to the stage.

The reality of the occupation is now taking to the stage; Kherson asks: let’s talk about ourselves, let’s put on a show. A necessary act of self-centredness

Alena hears that sound in the distance – the motor of a scooter buzzing like a drone. She grows worried, pricks up her ears towards the sky and runs off after saying: ‘I think they didn’t take me away back then because I was always with my son; they thought I was just a mother out and about with a child.’ He saved her; she runs off to save him. It’s not just drones that make that drone-like noise: a tractor appears in the distance round the bend. At the theatre in Kherson, there’s even a chance to have a laugh.

Ranucci expects, at most, a warning – which at Rai is the equivalent of a light smacking for the naughty child of the moment. That noble section of the organisation which believes, “He’ll step aside. It’s too much”, is deluding itself, and it’s a pity. The only person who today faces the genuine challenge of figuring out who is hosting "Report" is the director of Current Affairs, Paolo Corsini, who stands out as the doyen of the profession: he was mocked by Ranucci (along with Lavitola) and now has to deal with Ranucci with the elegance of a profession that, within 24 hours, forgets insults and wrongs – that ‘let’s focus on making a good news programme, a good show’ attitude. Ranucci keeps repeating, “They want to get rid of me from Rai; if they do, they’ll prove they’ve caved in to politics.” Do you know how this might end? If Ranucci doesn’t leave, they’ll say Rossi must go, for failing to rein him in. The blame on Rossi and the fallout on Ranucci.

And in the meantime, enough of the mudslinging. Or is that asking too much? “Ranucci is innocent until proven guilty,” the MP reiterates. “I do wonder, though, what would have happened to any politician with a friend like Lavitola. Shall we recall the mind-boggling motorway service station story?” That was when Renzi found himself in the eye of the storm, again due to Report’s ‘scoop’. “The truth about the motorway service station incident has yet to be revealed, and we’ll see what happens following important decisions such as the declassification of documents covered by state secrecy. The rather sensational Ranucci case highlights how, in Italy, we’re used to double standards. I’m interested in the political angle of the issue – because, for the rest, it’s been discussed far too much, for far too many days. Firstly: the weakness of the ruling class. In recent years, we have replaced politics with manufactured outrage. We no longer manage problems and processes, but at best the attention of the moment. Secondly: the right and the left must be called to order.”

What do you mean? “I’ll start with my own coalition: enough of championing the ‘Report’ method, enough of defending the demagogue of the moment. I’d advise changing the agenda. Let’s think about inadequate wages and high petrol prices. These are the problems facing Italians, who are unfortunately infected by a widespread virus of Jacobinism. It will be just like with Di Pietro: once Ranucci is gone, they’ll find a new follower to latch onto. If there is a lesson to be learnt, it is that, once again, there is no such thing as a supposedly paradisiacal civil society ready to redeem a supposedly sinful political society. By constantly belittling those involved in politics, we end up spinning out of control. The Left must open its eyes.” Nobody is doing so: from the M5S to the AVS, right through to the PD in disarray. “We’re here. If my friends in the PD return to professing and practising political autonomy – by stopping mocking those who engage in politics, and avoiding self-proclaimed saviours – the centre-left will rediscover the rule of law. As for the bloodthirsty right, which rides the wave of punitive justice according to its objectives of the day: let’s avoid the rolling heads that do nothing but strengthen Ranucci. A self-proclaimed martyr. Salvini and Gasparri are playing right into his hands more than anyone else. What is needed, if anything, is a RAI that is up to the task, capable of handling the matter with corporate professionalism: we are still paying the price for the mistakes and horrors of recent years, during which we have not even managed to elect a president who commands public trust. From a public service broadcaster, Rai has become a political battleground, which has undermined its programming and led to a loss of viewers. The programmes in the schedule have been turned into blunt weapons wielded by one faction against another: now Rai’s management must do its job and take responsibility, without waiting for directives from politicians. This, too, is an issue.” And as for Ranucci? He has compared himself to Moro, Falcone and Borsellino. “A saying comes to mind: ‘Joke with the foot soldiers, but leave the saints alone’.”

A journalist is not a judge and should not have to wait for a verdict to report what they know. Nor does an acquittal automatically prove that a report was false: journalistic truth and legal truth do not always coincide. The problem arises when the media narrative, which gives enormous prominence to the opening of a case file, a search or a person’s inclusion on the list of suspects, then devotes infinitely less space to the case being dropped or an acquittal. In the pages of "Report", the legal developments in its own investigations are, quite rightly, recorded. But then one must also take the other side of the coin into account. If a case file opened following an episode becomes a stamp of approval for the journalistic work, a closed case file cannot be reduced to a footnote. The best evidence of this problem is that “Report” itself has pages dedicated to acquittals that followed cases it had covered: from the State-Mafia negotiations to the Enoteca d’Italia scandal.

The Eni-Nigeria case is the best way to explain to those who have forgotten what we are talking about. For years, Opl 245 was portrayed as one of the major international corruption scandals, an alleged massive bribe of over a billion dollars linked to a Nigerian oil field. The programme ‘Report’ covered the story. However, the trial concluded in March 2021 with the acquittal of all fifteen defendants, including Eni and Shell, Claudio Descalzi and Paolo Scaroni, ‘because the offence did not exist’. In July 2022, after the Attorney General’s Office withdrew its appeal, the acquittals became final. This does not mean that it was unlawful to investigate or report on the allegations. It means that the grand criminal theory around which a devastating public narrative had built up did not stand up to judicial scrutiny. And reputations do not automatically return to their previous state. It is worth adding, so as not to replace one narrative with another, that in June 2026, prosecutors Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro were also definitively acquitted of the charge of having withheld evidence favourable to the defendants: therefore, not even this subsequent proceeding can now be used to discredit the original investigation. The essential facts remain: fifteen defendants, fifteen acquittals and no corruption proven in the Opl 245 trial.

Mario Mori is another name that helps to illustrate the mechanism. “Report” devoted a great deal of coverage to the so-called State-Mafia negotiations, culminating in the special “Le menti raffinatissime” and the subsequent “Il vertice delle stragi”. This is a subject in which there are historical facts, grey areas and legitimate questions. But there are also court rulings. Mori, Antonio Subranni and Giuseppe De Donno, who were convicted at first instance, were acquitted on appeal, and in April 2023 the Court of Cassation made the acquittals final. It is incorrect to claim that the ruling has erased every contact, every initiative or every historical fact reconstructed over the years. It is correct to say that the prosecution’s case, which attributed criminal responsibility to ROS officers, did not hold up. And here the contrast with the television programme’s narrative is worth noting: when it aired “Il vertice delle stragi” in 2021, “Report” announced its intention to investigate the role of state officials in the events surrounding the massacres of 1992–93. Two years later, the Supreme Court ruled out the criminal liability of the ROS officers. In the public consciousness, however, the stigma of the ‘negotiations’ has proved far more enduring than the acquittal. For Mori, there is also a second chapter, often confused with the first: the failure to capture Bernardo Provenzano in Mezzojuso in 1995. Mori and Colonel Mauro Obinu stood trial for aggravated aiding and abetting the Mafia: according to the prosecution, they had failed to act despite the fact that the information received via Luigi Ilardo could have led to the boss. They were acquitted at first instance and on appeal; in June 2017, the Court of Cassation made the acquittal final, rejecting the prosecution’s appeal. The grounds for the appeal were “because the act does not constitute a criminal offence”. The judgements also contain critical assessments of the investigative decisions: these must not be concealed. But neither can we overlook the final chapter of the story. The principle of due process does not require us to forget the suspicions: it requires us to remember how they were resolved.

The state and the Mafia: in the public consciousness, the stigma of the ‘negotiations’ has proved far more enduring than the acquittal

Then there are the diamonds. In 2016, in its programme “Occhio al portafoglio”, “Report” exposed the sale, via banks, of investment diamonds at prices far above market value. The affair led to legal proceedings, fines and a massive legal dispute. Maurizio Sacchi, owner of Diamond Private Investment, faced criminal charges and even spent months in prison. In 2026, however, the Court of Cassation acquitted him of the charge of being one of the masterminds behind the massive scam: “the charge is unfounded”. Here, we must keep two truths in mind. Sacchi’s criminal acquittal is a major development and dismisses the criminal charges against him; at the same time, the competition authority sanctions for unfair commercial practices—confirmed through administrative proceedings—remain in place, and the banks have reimbursed clients approximately 1.2 billion. So it is not that ‘Report’ was right about everything, nor that ‘Report’ had made it all up. The problem lies in the asymmetry between the personalised nature of the accusation on television and the far lesser impact of the acquittal.

The same applies to a story that has now been all but forgotten: Enoteca d’Italia. In 2005, “Report” devoted its “In vino veritas” segment to the management of the Sienese organisation, at a time marked by serious allegations. Twelve years later, the defendants – including former president Pier Domenico Garrone – were acquitted. The same page of “Report” would later state, unequivocally: “Enoteca d’Italia case: all acquitted”. In 2021, the Rome Court of Appeal upheld the acquittals of all the defendants, declaring the prosecution’s appeal inadmissible. It is good that “Report” reported on the outcome. But this is precisely the point: the episode of the accusations remains in the public memory through images, faces and headlines; the acquittal comes twelve years later, when the public’s attention has moved on. The judicial exoneration lacks the same dramatic impact as the initial allegations.

The case of the face masks and Domenico Arcuri’s special commission requires even greater precision. “Report” devoted several features to Covid-19 emergency supplies, including those purchased by the special commission led by Arcuri. For years, there has been talk of a massive, opaque deal involving over 800 million items purchased from China for around 1.25 billion euros. Arcuri was acquitted in January 2025 of the charge of abuse of office, but not on the merits of the case: the offence had been repealed and the ruling was that the act is no longer classified as a criminal offence under the law. It would be incorrect to use that verdict as proof that all the allegations were unfounded. But it would also be incorrect to omit the fact that the original charges of corruption and embezzlement against him had already been dismissed, and that on 31 March 2026 the Court of Rome acquitted Antonio Fabbrocini, Arcuri’s former right-hand man, whilst the Italian intermediaries were also cleared of the charges. The final legal picture is therefore far less set in stone than the one that has become entrenched in public opinion over the years of the face-mask case.

An asymmetry. The principle of due process does not require us to forget the suspects: it requires us to remember what became of them

And so we come to the last three years. In December 2023, “Report” and Il Fatto Quotidiano brought to light the case of the painting by Rutilio Manetti in Vittorio Sgarbi’s possession. The public prosecutor’s office launched an investigation following the journalistic reports: “Report” itself subsequently highlighted this on its website. In the meantime, some of the original allegations were dropped; on the remaining charge – money laundering – Sgarbi was acquitted on 16 February 2026. The public prosecutor’s office had sought a sentence of three years and four months. It would be simplistic to conclude that every detail of the journalistic investigation was false: there remains a complex story regarding the painting’s provenance and alterations, as well as testimonies that warranted verification. But it is precisely this case that highlights the asymmetry: if ‘the investigation begins after “Report”’ becomes a validation of the work carried out, then ‘the trial ends in an acquittal’ must carry equal weight in the historical record.

In January 2025, “Il Signor D” returned to the subject of Marcello Dell’Utri and the 1993 Mafia massacres, placing great emphasis on the fact that Dell’Utri was still under investigation in Florence as part of the inquiry into the alleged hidden instigators. On 15 January 2026, the investigating magistrate in Florence dismissed the case; the news was made public on 4 June. The judge noted the lack of concrete evidence regarding the alleged direct links between Cosa Nostra, Silvio Berlusconi and Marcello Dell’Utri. It was the sixth time the case had been dismissed in thirty years of investigations into the alleged hidden masterminds. ‘Report’ had not fabricated the file: the file did indeed exist, and reporting on its existence was perfectly legitimate. But the existence of an investigation is not proof that the investigative hypothesis is well-founded. It is precisely this distinction that journalism should make clear, even when the prosecution’s account is compelling and irresistibly compelling for television.

In Pioltello, even greater caution is required because the trial is not yet over. In its 8 October 2023 episode of “L’ultima fermata”, “Report” revisits the 2018 rail disaster: three deaths and over two hundred people injured or suffering psychological trauma. In February 2025, however, the first-instance trial concluded with just one conviction and eight acquittals, including that of the former CEO of RFI, Maurizio Gentile, and RFI itself. The judgement ruled out evidence of culpable acts or omissions on the part of senior management, stating that they could not have known the condition of the rail joint that caused the accident. The public prosecutor’s office lodged an appeal, and the appeal proceedings began in 2026. There is therefore no definitive truth to be used against “Report”. There is, however, a lesson to be learnt: there is a huge gulf between reporting a maintenance problem that actually existed and attributing criminal liability for it to senior management.

Just a few days separate one episode from another legal outcome. On 19 January 2025, whilst discussing the Strait Bridge and the figure of Pietro Ciucci, “Report” also revisits his years at ANAS and the collapse of the Scorciavacche viaduct in Sicily. Eleven days later, on 30 January, Ciucci and two ANAS executives were acquitted ‘on the grounds that they did not commit the offence’ of inducing the giving or promising of benefits, for which the prosecution had sought a four-year sentence for Ciucci. Here too, the facts must not be distorted in the opposite direction: the viaduct did indeed collapse, and other charges in the case were dropped due to the statute of limitations. But using the existence of a pending trial as a building block to shape a person’s public profile carries an obvious risk: that eleven days later, the courts might say something very different.

Then there are the corrections, which sometimes illustrate the method even better than major investigations. The report “Il candidato al contrario” of 10 December 2023 included a claim regarding Minister Adolfo Urso’s alleged membership of Freemasonry. Urso denied this. On the official page for the ‘Report’ programme, the programme then states that the minister’s denial is taken as fact for the purposes of the broadcast and adds its regret for the distress caused to the person concerned. It is a necessary correction, and ‘Report’ should be credited for making it. But it also shows just how dangerous it is to give airtime to such a serious accusation regarding someone’s identity when the fact-checking does not allow it to be fully substantiated. The correction is necessary; it cannot erase the first impression, which on television is almost always the one that sticks.

One might add the Bambino Gesù Hospital. In March 2025, as part of “Patti chiari”, “Report” revisited the deeply tragic death of Lisa Federico following her bone marrow transplant. The programme’s website subsequently had to note that on 20 May 2025, the investigating magistrate had dismissed the case against Professor Franco Locatelli. This, too, does not mean that the journalists’ questions about the case were illegitimate, nor does it erase the family’s grief and unanswered questions. It does, however, serve as a reminder of a rule: when a person becomes the subject of public scrutiny in the context of a criminal investigation, the dismissal of the case is not a mere formality but an integral part of the news story.

None of this gives anyone the right to portray “Report” as the epitome of all that is wrong with Italian journalism. That would be the exact opposite of what is being criticised here. “Report” has produced important investigations, brought true facts to light, forced institutions and companies to respond, and disturbed powers that would have preferred not to be disturbed. And not all the controversies surrounding Ranucci are well-founded: a lawsuit does not prove that a report is defamatory, just as an investigation does not prove that an interviewee is guilty. The principle of due process, if taken seriously, applies to journalists too. One cannot criticise “Report” for treating a notice of investigation as a conviction and then treat a lawsuit against “Report” as a conviction of Ranucci.

The problem lies in the cycle that can develop between journalism and the justice system: a programme puts forward a hypothesis; the hypothesis attracts attention and is sometimes included in a case file; the opening of the case file is reported in the media as confirmation of the investigation’s importance; the suspect is identified for years by the charge against them; when acquittal is granted, the mechanism that had amplified the suspicion no longer works. There is no need for conspiracies between journalists and magistrates to see this. The normal dynamics of news reporting are enough: the charge is new, dramatic and telegenic; the acquittal is belated, technical and unspectacular. For those caught up in it, however, the damage to their reputation is very real. And there is also cultural damage: accustoming the public to viewing an investigation as the first step towards a guilty verdict rather than what it actually is – namely, a hypothesis that has yet to be proven.

“Report” uses legitimate yet extremely powerful narrative tools: editing, probing questions, silences, a succession of documents, and sources that add pieces to the puzzle. The viewer does not merely receive information: they receive a constructed narrative. This is the language of television, and there is nothing scandalous about it. It becomes a problem when that construction visually eliminates the conditional form that may still survive grammatically. One can say “according to the prosecution”, “is alleged to have”, “is under investigation for”, whilst simultaneously conveying a sense of moral certainty. It is here that investigative journalism risks turning into oracular journalism: not in the desire to conduct investigations, but in the difficulty of truly leaving room for doubt.

Those with short memories therefore do not need a catalogue of acts of revenge against “Report”. What is needed is to recall the outcomes. Eni-Nigeria: all acquitted. Mori on the negotiations: definitively acquitted. Mori and Obinu on Provenzano: definitive acquittal. Sacchi on the diamonds: acquitted by the Court of Cassation, in a commercial case where penalties and reimbursements remain. Enoteca d’Italia: all acquitted. The face mask case: Arcuri’s technical acquittal, the previous dismissals of charges relating to corruption and embezzlement, and the subsequent acquittals. Sgarbi: acquitted of the last remaining charge. Dell’Utri: case dismissed regarding the 1993 bombings. Pioltello: eight acquittals at first instance and an appeal still pending. Ciucci: acquitted in the Scorciavacche proceedings. Locatelli: case dismissed. Urso: the programme “Report” itself acknowledges his denial regarding Freemasonry. These are not identical cases; they do not carry the same weight, and it would be incorrect to treat them all on the same footing. It is precisely their diversity, however, that reveals the constant: suspicion enjoys a more intense media life than any subsequent refutation.

Remember the outcomes. Eni-Nigeria: all acquitted; Enoteca d’Italia: all acquitted; Locatelli: case dismissed

The damage caused by this method cannot, therefore, be measured by counting how many “Report” investigations are “wrong” – an impossible and, indeed, foolish task. It is measured in terms of asymmetry. An accusation can take up an hour of prime-time television and haunt a person’s name for ten years; an acquittal may take twenty seconds. An anonymous source can build a negative reputation in a matter of minutes; a 300-page judgment dismantling the accusation arrives when no one can remember where it all began. A public prosecutor’s office opening a case file following a television programme generates a headline; one closing the case years later produces a brief news item. The first news item confirms, in the media narrative, the value of the investigation; the second rarely leads to a revision of the previous narrative. And it is in this disproportion that the real pillory is created: not necessarily in the falsity of what is reported, but in the practical impossibility for the accused, when they are in the right, to achieve the same narrative power with which they were originally accused.

The solution is not to muzzle “Report”, place it under supervision, standardise it or turn every mistake into a political pretext. That would be worse than the problem itself. It is to demand a simple rule from such a powerful programme: the same curiosity about exculpatory evidence as about incriminating evidence; adequate space for follow-up reports when they overturn the narrative; greater care in distinguishing fact from hypothesis and hypothesis from insinuation; less complacency in presenting the opening of a judicial inquiry as a badge of journalistic valour. And perhaps a very simple rule for television: when a report has given great prominence to an accusation against a person and that accusation is subsequently dropped or results in an acquittal, revisit the story with the same clarity with which it was first reported.

Recognise that a news agency can make mistakes, a source can make mistakes, and even ‘Report’ can make mistakes

Ultimately, the issue is not about Ranucci. It concerns a concept of journalism. The best journalism is not that which never accuses and never makes mistakes because it never takes risks. It is the kind that takes risks, accuses when it has grounds to do so, but retains enough scepticism to recognise that a public prosecutor’s office can make mistakes, a source can make mistakes, a witness can make mistakes and, of course, ‘Report’ can make mistakes too. Credibility is not lost by admitting a mistake. It is lost when one insists that one’s own version be exempt from the very scrutiny one demands of others. Recalling acquittals, cases being dropped and corrections does not mean waging war on ‘Report’. It means applying to ‘Report’ the principle that ‘Report’ has applied to everyone else for thirty years: no power should be considered untouchable. Not even the power of those who report on the untouchables.

But the Plaza in Rome is now rather tempting to a close associate of Trump’s, the legendary Paolo Zampolli of the Dolceforno family, his ‘special representative for global partnerships’, who is negotiating with ‘Giuseppi’ to take it over. The story – involving property, people, and perhaps even a touch of politics – is a gripping one and perhaps warrants a summary. It is well known that the Plaza in Rome, the grand hotel on Via del Corso, belongs to the Paladino family, namely the family of the partner of former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, with whom Zampolli enjoys a friendly rapport. It is also known that the hotel – a five-star establishment, just like its son-in-law – is not in the best of shape: the company is in debt; Paladino, the father-in-law, got into trouble for failing to pay tourist tax (an offence subsequently decriminalised under the Conte II government – ‘graduidamende’). The hotel is now up for sale. The Paladinos are asking for 325 million euros, and Zampolli, acting as an intermediary for a mysterious client of his, is only offering 299 – “because at least 100 is needed to renovate it”, he said, speaking with the expertise of a property developer (perhaps a nice superbonus will come along!).

Compared to the original Plaza, the Roman Plaza has always had a somewhat secondary reputation; in fact, it’s to the American one as lumpfish roe is to caviar, or Kimbo coffee is to Illy (the former being what we all put into the latter’s metal container); Mind you, we’re not talking about trashy imitations, like the ‘Cala di Volpe’ hotel recently spotted in a Calabrian suburb, which clearly gives a nod to the original on the Costa Smeralda. The Italian Plaza is rather like Rome’s Harry’s Bar, which bears no resemblance to its Venetian counterpart; yet it has never risen to the legendary status or allure of the grand hotels on Via Veneto, nor does it possess the decadent charm of those linked not to their function but to the national events that took place there: the nearby Raphaël, with its ‘little coins’ scandal involving Craxi, or the distant Ergife, with its grand socialist congresses…

And yet even the ‘Succedaneo’ has a glorious, indeed most glorious, history, just like all these outposts of humanity that are hotels, whether luxury or otherwise. A few years ago, I managed to speak to the long-serving concierge, Mr Luigi Esposito, who had worked there, at the ‘Succedaneo’, since 1943 – for a lifetime. He told me he’d served none other than Pietro Mascagni, the composer of "Cavalleria rusticana". He lived permanently in room 114, on the first floor. “His hair was very white, and his wife used to apply powder to her scalp, perhaps as a result of an operation that had left her disabled.” The maestro used to conduct in a black shirt – a far cry from Beatrice Venezi. So, upon his death in 1945, after the fall of Fascism, and in a country that had suddenly become entirely anti-Fascist, a sober – indeed, extremely sober – ceremony was held in the church of San Carlo opposite. The Prime Minister, Ferruccio Parri, denied him a state funeral. Beniamino Gigli, another musical star who also lived at the Plaza, moved by compassion, promptly organised a performance of "Cavalleria" in no time at all, rounding up young musicians. In short, here too, we are not talking about the splendour of Verdi’s funeral at the Hôtel et de Milan – with 300,000 people in attendance, ‘Va’ Pensiero’ conducted by Toscanini, and, beforehand, straw laid on the Milanese cobblestones to muffle the traffic noise for the dying maestro. No grand funeral for Mascagni. Just ‘He dwelt, lived and worked, and passed into immortality’, reads a plaque on the façade, featuring his large head.

However, a very different sort of funeral was held for another of the hotel’s distinguished guests. John Pierpont Morgan, better known as J. P., the most famous banker of all time, who had died here on 31 March 1913 (after all, the Plaza’s genius loci has its roots in banking: the building was originally constructed in 1837 as the residence of a certain Count Antonio Lozano, but soon became a bank branch. It was not until 1860 that it was transformed into the Grande Albergo Roma, before becoming the Plaza for good).

But back to Morgan: he often visited the Italian capital to treat bouts of depression (he was quite neurotic, as I think is also evident in the series “The Gilded Age” about the nouveau riche in late nineteenth-century America), and on this occasion he was also suffering from stomach ache. He arrived in the spring of ’13, having cut short a trip to Egypt where who knows what he’d eaten. As usual, he took the royal suite, at $500 a day, and as was customary, the lobby was soon thronged with antique dealers and touts (Morgan, like all the wealthy Americans of the time, was a maniacal collector of European artefacts: it is estimated that in twenty years he had bought 20,000 antiquities, as well as having established the famous library in New York that still bears his name today). This billionaire, a sort of Elon Musk of his day – if Musk were interested in collecting anything at all – was also, like Musk, blessed with a fortunate disposition to look after him: he had, in fact, survived the sinking of the Titanic (which he owned) a year earlier, having decided at the last minute not to board, thus giving rise to one of the first juicy conspiracy theories – much like the Jews who didn’t go to the office on 11 September.

But he will meet his end in the Italian capital all the same, as will happen to other illustrious travellers, perhaps after a hearty meal, such as James Gandolfini – alias Tony Soprano – who perished in Rome a hundred years later in the summer of 2013, or as in Peter Greenaway’s film "The Belly of an Architect" (1987), featuring yet another American with intestinal problems in Rome.

At the Plaza, J. P. Morgan is attended to by Professor Giuseppe Bastianelli, a distinguished local gastroenterologist, and Dr Allen Starr, a New York-based neurologist. When his condition worsened, the doctors planned to organise a private train to take him to Paris or London, but the Freccia service did not yet exist; delays were perhaps even worse than they are today under Salvini, and in any case the patient was unfit for transport. He thus died on 31 March: following this illustrious death, 4,000 letters of condolence arrived at the Plaza; the New York Stock Exchange closed for two hours in mourning. A military guard of honour was posted in front of Via del Corso; then the body was finally transported by train to Paris, and on to Le Havre, from where it was embarked onto the transatlantic liner France, also part of the family’s fleet. In New York, in front of the newly built Morgan Library, five thousand scarlet roses were laid. Le Figaro declared: “No American has ever received such signs of respect from Europe; no one would have deserved such a tribute.”

Today, there is no trace left in the hotel of this whole affair, in the enormous, musty, gloomy hall with its ornate lunettes, which was designed by the star architect Armando Brasini, the inventor of the 1930s ‘barocchetto’ style; once again, a mere substitute: the man who wanted to be the Duce’s favourite, yet the Duce always preferred Piacentini instead. Designer of the Flaminio Bridge, the zoo entrance (and immediately ‘Marisol’ springs to mind), and the church in Piazza Euclide, truncated in the Parioli district. Then came the decorator to the wealthy classes, Lorenzo Mongiardino – or ‘Renzo’, as everyone called him. The result is the grand hall, always with that ‘family chapel’ feel characteristic of his work, along with heavy brocades, polished wood and creaking parquet flooring, station clocks, chandeliers, and a pure white marble lion welcoming visitors at the foot of the grand staircase – a work attributed to none other than Canova. There is no shortage of the counterpoint provided by the layers of restoration work accumulated over the years, the vintage trinkets, and the occasional Teuco shower with its limescale deposits in the rooms. Reviews are poor, averaging 3.3 out of five stars on TripAdvisor, with comments that are at times indignant, complaining about the dilapidated state of the facilities. There is an air of decadence, reminiscent of those once-glorious hotels at the end of their days, such as the Miramonti in Cortina.

In short, Zampolli would never go there to sleep, that much is clear: instead, he always ‘heads down’ to the glittering Bulgari nearby, in Piazza Augusto Imperatore, all marble and bustling amongst the underwear and limoncello shops of the restricted traffic zone (but the ‘underwearisation’ of the city – of cities – is inexorable: the restaurant on the Plaza’s ‘roof’ overlooks the dome of the Unione Militare, transformed into a futuristic, prestigious H&M building. Meanwhile, in the nearby Palazzo Verospi, formerly the headquarters of the Hunting Club, there is now a luxurious Zara Man store).

Mutatis mutandis (and mutande), clinging desperately to this five-star status (how hotel stars are awarded is an Italian mystery even greater than Ustica, or whether to say ‘arancini’ or ‘arancine’), and in its somewhat mysterious nature – particularly to Romans – the Roman Plaza was for years also a strategic secret outpost for many discerning travellers or those simply mindful of their money. Particularly Milanese guests, who could make a great impression on the occasional acquaintance at little cost; there was, in fact, a special rate of less than 100 euros for a twin room for single use. I believe that rate has now vanished, amid the massive surge in hotel prices and the resulting upheaval in market segments that took place in Italy following the Covid pandemic, which saw hotels closed for more than two years, only to reopen to a new clientele now consisting entirely of Chinese, Arabs and Americans.

But first, the Plaza Romano also attracted a specific category of travellers – literary agents – who benefited from the discount. Just like at the Locarno, another epicentre of Rome’s intellectual hotel scene, with a touch of the literary world (Alain Elkann set a novel there; literary get-togethers are even held on the terrace on the evening of the Strega Prize): but prices have risen so much that almost no locals can afford to stay there any more. On the other hand – typical Italian ingenuity – in the immediate vicinity of these outposts, Locarno foremost among them, B&Bs have sprung up that allow their guests, literary or otherwise, to sneak over there in the morning for breakfast and pretend they’ve spent the night there in grand style, with any unsuspecting guests (before sneaking back to the B&B).

In other eras, in some respects more glorious, people did indeed sneak about, of course, but with entirely different problems and budgets: other memories of the Plaza Hotel are linked to Gianni De Michelis, who lived, worked and loved here (without dying there, unlike Mascagni). The Italian politician who inspired the most imitations and had the most nicknames (“Il Doge”, “Falstaff”, “Big Gianni”, “Ciccio Ballerino”, “L’Onto”) stayed in room 409-10, “two adjoining rooms, one with a sitting area and one single”, as Esposito always put it. Two rooms, twice the socialist chaos, just like Craxi at the neighbouring, more famous – or infamous – Raphaël.

Different scenes, different dances. Whilst New York had the "Black and White Ball", organised by the author of "A sangue fredddo", here we had the disco-loving author of "Dove andiamo a ballare questa sera". Whilst Babe Paley and Marella Agnelli were there, here were De Michelis’s secretary Barbara Ceolin and the secretary Giorgio Casadei (“Who, the ballroom dancer?”, Andreotti once asked), along with various hangers-on and young ladies in their prime. Lory Del Santo was also staying at the Plaza. Meanwhile, Cossiga was a regular, as a patron of the San Carlo theatre and its masses. At one point, he appointed Gigino Esposito a Commander of the Order of the Republic (“And when are you coming to collect this honour?”, he would say on the private line connected to the hotel).

But Esposito had, above all, become De Michelis’s personal valet and jack-of-all-trades, like those assistants in British films who may have served as a lord’s aides-de-camp during the war, and then continued to follow their lord even in peacetime. Gigino was seen at congresses, parties and PSI meetings, always at Lord De Michelis’s side. So he sorted out visits, dealt with correspondence, ran errands, arranged barber appointments and fittings at Caraceni. He was so close to and inseparable from his client that at one point he too was arrested, by transitive association, during that ‘joyful’ era of handcuffs, in that ‘Pride’ of the notice of investigation that was Tangentopoli. The charge: having kept ‘De Michelis’s diaries’, predating the ‘red diaries’ of Borsellino & co. ‘Yes, I had them, those diaries, but there was nothing written in them. Just rubbish,’ he told me. But, rubbish or not, he still ended up spending three months under house arrest, and he got off lightly, ‘thanks to a prostate problem’.

But the most tragic and well-known manifestation of the Plaza’s ‘handcuff karma’ occurred on 17 June 1983, when Enzo Tortora was taken from his room at 4 o’clock in the morning. “Room 224, a small single room. Sometimes he’d even take a room without an en-suite bathroom.” Tortora was then taken from the Plaza – in full view of the cameras, and in handcuffs – to the police station on Via in Selci, in the Monti district, accused of being a drug dealer and a member of the Camorra by the three ‘tenors’ of the turncoats: Giovanni Pandico, Pasquale Barra, known as ‘’o animale’, and Gianni Melluso, ‘il bello’. We all know how it ended. It was not until 2024 that a plaque was affixed to the hotel, commemorating the TV presenter’s wrongful arrest. And recently, the Chamber of Deputies approved a “National Enzo Tortora Day in memory of the victims of miscarriages of justice” to be held on 17 June. The Five Star Movement, the PD and the AVS abstained. Meanwhile, if you wanted to find real Camorra members or mafiosi, they were right there in the hotel, on the doorstep. Don Vito Ciancimino “was under house arrest in room 401 on the fourth floor and was forbidden from going down to the lobby, but sometimes he would sneak out via a corridor”. There were also mafia figures from the world of cinema, with Francesco Rosi filming some scenes from "Dimenticare Palermo" there. More recently, however, the Netflix adaptation of "The Leopard" was presented there.

But above all, the history and chronicles of the ‘substitute’ Plaza would be incomplete without book launches. These may be either ‘top-tier’ events or, once again, ‘substitute’ ones – that sub-category of books which do not exist on the real market, but which are nevertheless printed, bought by relatives and friends, and, above all, launched (the real market is that of book launches, certainly not that of reading). And so, at the Plaza, the events surrounding Bruno Vespa’s best-selling books coexisted with other publications and events, particularly award ceremonies. In 2019, the newspapers spoke of a ‘Plaza pact’ intended to secure the appointments of the directors of Rai’s news programmes ahead of the European elections. This pact, whether real or legendary, was reportedly signed during the launch of the book "Sua maestà il Tg1. 10 direttori svelano 30 anni di segreti", written by the journalist Ida Peritore, with a foreword by Vincenzo Mollica. Almost 10 years on, I checked Amazon: not a single review. Zero. Not even one for the author, or the writer of the foreword, or Sigfrido Ranucci under a pseudonym. Who knows whether another Conte – who has nothing to do with Giuseppi – will ever have presented, or intends to present, her books at the Plaza: the legendary Claudia, a shrewd young woman connected to the world of book launches, of those Roman awards unknown to the rest of the peninsula, or even to the rest of the neighbourhood, such as the ‘Margutta La via delle Arti’, which is held right at the Plaza; and rumoured at one time to have been linked to the Minister of the Interior, Piantedosi, and who now has her own programme on Rai (Her Majesty Rai).

Meanwhile, at the original Plaza – the one in New York – the landmark “Plaza Accord” was signed on 22 September 1985, under which the United States agreed to devalue the dollar, which had become too expensive in international trade, particularly for its Asian partners. Here in Italy, we have to make do with the Rai news programme’s “Plaza Accord”. And whilst the “Plaza Accord” is accompanied by photos of the then Treasury Secretary James Baker in a room full of Japanese envoys, the Roman Plaza agreement is marked by a snapshot of Senator Antonio Razzi, surrounded by Asians. Razzi, the one with the thick head of hair, like De Michelis. The one who used to dance, just like De Michelis. But he didn’t actually live at the Plaza; he was just passing through, for the book. Once again, no Black & White Ball. And the Asians around him looked more like tourists – specifically, the sort who attend conferences. At the Roman Plaza, the makeshift Plaza – oh well.

And so, in the name of good taste, various data centre builders have started calling in architectural firms to make these robot concentration camps look less repulsive. The aim is to give them a hipster makeover, to make them resemble those Silicon Valley campuses with their organic rooftop vegetable patches and table tennis tables in the conference rooms, to make them indistinguishable from any art museum or university library, to plant a few decorative saplings and a flowerbed around them. To make them blend more ‘organically’ with the surrounding area, to hide them, to apply a bit of architectural make-up. In a county in Virginia, the local council, having seen the plans for a data centre, asked for windows to be fitted – fake ones, because electronic brains prefer the dark – so that from the outside it looks like any ordinary office block, whilst inside it resembles the set of a science-fiction film. Some builders, for an extra charge, even suggest cladding them in aged bricks, so they immediately look like a warehouse converted into a start-up in Brooklyn’s harbour area. After all, this is the land of Hollywood, of gilded plastic decorations in the East Wing, of fake Venices in Nevada – Palladian on the outside, a row of computers and blue lights on the inside, a frigid, intensive server farm. Because appearance matters too.

But the World Cup wasn’t the success of a man in love with football, as it turned out shortly afterwards. It was an experiment: look, investors, at how I can milk football and rake in the cash. And it can be milked even further if you jump on board; now TV rights are worth more because more adverts can be squeezed in, there are ever more clients willing to spend a fortune to be part of the show, I can overturn suspensions for key players, just so as not to diminish the appeal; I’ve created 104 Super Bowls. Then, once the stage was set, his plan became clear: to sell shares in the World Cup to private investors, turning it into a perpetual money-making machine, even if it meant multiplying the number of World Cups, teams, matches and commercial breaks. It’s something quite different from sport, but now that football has demonstrated its full capacity to generate revenue when exploited with cynicism and contempt for the game itself, Infantino wanted to press on, to take it to extremes. He stepped into the sun, and the wax melted. That plan was too much: football, whilst certainly a business machine, does have its limits; it belongs to the people who follow it.

And so, little by little, everyone backed out: UEFA, for the second time, appeared to be the champion of the people’s football (a feat already achieved by the founders of the so-called Super League, behind which – would you believe it – Infantino was found to be), the confederations rebelled, his closest allies distanced themselves, and those who had documents tucked away – because Infantino’s all well and good, but if he goes too far, here they are – brought them out. And so, one scandal after another, Gianni remains standing, but with fewer and fewer shoulders to lean on. He pleaded with Trump in every possible way to back him. Trump was the only friend he had left (along with a few shameless federations) and, in the end, he wrote a post saying that sacking Infantino was a mistake. But it seemed more like the kiss of death than a show of support. After all, the downward spiral began during the World Cup, when Trump himself said he’d phoned Infantino to have Balogun’s suspension lifted. Someone should have told him to stop. But Gianni, who in March risks meeting the same fate as Icarus, also saw himself as Daedalus and took his own advice.

“We used to play together even back in nursery school, in the garden at home, and in the churchyard. Our brother Fabio, who is five years older than us, used to bring the ball. If we rewind the tape, we reckon we realised at the same time that kicking a ball around could become a lucrative profession. Perhaps in our second year with Brescia’s Primavera team, certainly when we earned our first salary in Serie C.”

Wingers or central midfielders, with an innate preference for the right flank…

“Yes, we’ve always played not only together, but also side by side, never straying far from one another, right up until that fateful 6 November 2002, when Parma beat Brescia 4–3 – the match that would go down in history as the ‘twins’ clash’.”

Emanuele on one side and Antonio on the other. Carletto Mazzone, who was managing Brescia, wanted to suggest to his neighbour across the road – Cesare Prandelli – that they play them in two different zones. He feared that this head-to-head clash might degenerate into a fratricidal feud and, as such, be rather uneducational…

“We were excited and also a bit embarrassed to find ourselves in that unusual situation, but when the referee got things underway, neither of us held back, even when we happened to be going for the same ball. After all, we were two fiercely competitive little flies, but we always went for the ball… We never hurt anyone…”.

No one, no one – I’ll ask Emanuele, because, if I remember correctly…

“I remember it very well. Manuel Rui Costa had feinted to move the ball; I caught his foot squarely, he fell and broke his shoulder, but it was an accident, not a deliberate act.”

Speaking of Rui Costa, he really did treat you both like the apple of his eye…

“His praise filled us with pride. At the end of a Fiorentina v Brescia match many years ago, he said in the heat of the moment that there were two of us, but we seemed like ten. And that every time one of us went down, the other would step up, and if the second one went down too, the first would step up again. On the pitch, he’d felt as though he was going mad.”

Ronaldo ‘The Phenomenon’ has gone one better…

“Unlike Rui Costa, he waited until the end of their respective careers to reveal to the world that we had been his nightmare. Two brothers, but they seemed like at least five, racing at two thousand an hour, and he’d find them right on his heels wherever he decided to go.”

Do you have a reputation to live up to? Were you really that good?

“Perhaps too much has been said about our limitations and the fairy tale of the lookalike brothers, and too little about what we were capable of achieving. Wherever we went, we played practically the entire season, and that cannot be a coincidence. Without false modesty, we believe we were ahead of our time and, in our own way, pioneers. Twenty-five years ago, we played with the very intensity that is so fashionable these days. We’d make hard tackles and win back the ball time and time again. Anyone who does that today is hailed as a national treasure to be preserved. We were simply the selfless practitioners of the footballing art of making do.”

The identical twin resemblance, which had created a unique and inimitable footballing duo, was on the verge of turning into a highly risky ploy…

“Mircea Lucescu, during half-time in a heated match between Perugia and Brescia, when one of us had been booked, suggested we swap shirts. Fortunately, we managed to talk him out of it.”

The best moments? Emanuele recalls Brescia’s last-day survival, after a terribly complicated season. Antonio recalls that derby won 3–1 by Lazio, which went down in history not only for Di Canio’s goal – provocatively celebrated beneath the Curva Sud – but also for the competitive fervour of the twins on the pitch, who became the very embodiment of the spirit and heart of the city derby…

“It was the highlight, the madness, the most wonderful moment. We’ll always remember the warmth radiating from the stands, that unique atmosphere, the joy in the eyes of Mr Papadopulo and all my teammates, and Di Canio shouting his joy like a young fan. An unforgettable experience.”

The best footballer who has ever played alongside you …

“Roberto Baggio resided on the Mount Olympus of football’s elite. At Brescia, he was regarded and treated with the deference and respect due to a footballing god…”

Could you explain this with an example…

“You should know that one fine day, the late Vittorio Mero brought his dog along to watch training. Mazzone flew into a rage. He said that, come what may, he never wanted to see that dog again. A week goes by and once again a dog makes an appearance on the touchline. Mazzone is on the verge of a fit of rage right there and then. The truth comes out in a flash. The players pointed out to the manager that it was Baggio’s dog. Mazzone went from anger to a knowing smile in an instant. And he asked the groundsmen to feed the ‘Divine Ponytail’s’ dog.”

Has football changed over the last quarter of a century?

“VAR has put every foul under the microscope. These days, every challenge carries the risk of a sending-off. Take Paolo Maldini, for example: his speciality was defensive sliding tackles, from which he regularly emerged unscathed. Nowadays, a single still image is enough to prove that, as well as the ball, you’ve caught the opponent’s foot, and you’ll find yourself on a red card or conceding a penalty. Not to mention the ‘step on foot’, commonly known as a stomp. It happens in everyday life too, but in football terms it has become an offence worthy of papal excommunication.”

So what are you up to now? Do you live in the same house?

“No, Antonio lives on Lake Garda, Emanuele in Milan, but we have remained each other’s mirror image. We are still in football. We are both coaches. After a distinguished career – spanning assistant coaching, first-team management, Serie D and Serie C – we are currently out of work, but we are taking it in our stride. In September and October, the first heads will start to roll, and two managerial posts will certainly become available, just for us. It’s so certain that one needn’t even feel embarrassed about being a bit of a jinx.”

Any dreams you’d like to fulfil?

“We would be delighted to manage one of the teams we have championed and fought for. If we were to take it a step further, the dream of dreams would be to manage a Serie A team together. Just imagine how wonderful that would be! Identical twins sitting side by side on the same bench. It would be the icing on the cake of a life lived in perfect harmony, racing at full speed, always close to where the other was, without ever stopping to work out who was running faster or was the better player. We found ourselves on opposite sides in just one match, but beyond the media hype and newspaper headlines, we weren’t even opponents on that one occasion.”

Two thousandths of a second. A time so brief that it is almost impossible to imagine. And yet, it was precisely those two thousandths – that difference between 4.997 and 4.995 seconds – that changed the outcome of Paris 2024 for Matteo Zurloni, world champion in sport climbing: “When I think back to the Olympics, that’s the first image that springs to mind. In the end, though, I remember Paris with a smile because I was lucky enough to represent my sport in front of a huge audience. My discipline is decided by thousandths of a second – that’s part of the beauty of it.” His relationship with climbing began even before little Matteo could walk: “As a child, I used to spend my holidays in Campitello di Fassa, in Trentino. I was still too small, so I’d climb onto Dad’s shoulders and together we’d go for long walks amidst the beautiful Dolomites.” It was right there that his curiosity was sparked for what would become not only his sport, but the most important part of his life: “I was intrigued by these little coloured dots climbing the mountains. That’s where, you could say, that desire to give it a go was born; I’d also discovered that the mountains had been my grandfather’s world, as he’d served in the Alpine troops. I dedicated my Year 9 school project to him and his hikes.”

Over the years, rock climbing has given way to the wall, and above all to speed, so that I could devote myself entirely to speed climbing, the fastest discipline in climbing, which involves completing a route – the path to follow on the wall – in the shortest possible time: “I saw Ludovico Fissali at Tokyo 2021 and decided to commit myself fully and give my all to this sport. I wanted to experience those same emotions, both positive and negative.” Adrenaline and calm. Speed and precision. Sensations that are at times contrasting, but which characterise climbing, where the mind plays a fundamental role: “You can never have everything under control. It’s important to find mental focus during competitions, which is why I’m also being supported by a sports psychologist.” Today, he is the leading athlete of the Italian national team – and beyond. Despite being just 24 years old, Matteo has already won gold at the 2023 World Championships in Bern and at the recent Italian Championships, as well as silver at the 2024 European Championships, and he is the current European record holder. His goal now is California: “I think about it a lot. I’d like to try and make up for those two thousandths of a second and share this wonderful sport. I’m sure it will capture the hearts of the spectators.”

Los Angeles’ beaches will not only provide the backdrop for Olympic climbing. For the first time in history, the LA28 organising committee has also included a Paralympic sport in the Games – a new challenge for the Italian delegation, which will be supported by Allianz throughout its Olympic and Paralympic journey. Among them is Lucia Capovilla, a multiple world champion, born without her left forearm in 1993. As a child, she tried her hand at many sports before focusing on climbing: “It was climbing that chose me. Our relationship has evolved over time and has meant so many things to me; first and foremost, it has allowed me to make the most of every part of my body. Every day brings a new stimulus that allows me to find a sense of well-being within myself, both through movement and through self-discovery.” The early days weren’t exactly easy: “At first, when I was climbing, the skin around my elbow would hurt. My grandmother came up with the idea of sewing me a makeshift protector – a bit like the precursor to what I use today.” At the recent World Cup in Innsbruck, Lucia won her third career gold medal: “I’m filled with nothing but positive emotions; I’ve managed to rediscover the right feelings – that fluidity and serenity that only this sport can give me, where I can truly enjoy what I’m doing. I just focus on climbing and living in the moment.” The same feelings she’ll be trying to recapture in two years’ time with that new challenge. Hers, and not just hers.

There are various questions – and they do not necessarily lead to negative answers: the pitch will have the final say. For a while, it was believed that Monza’s rise was inextricably linked to the figures of Cav. and Galliani – always them – who had embarked on a fine sporting experiment in their twilight years following their decades of success at Milan. The sale of the club, just a few weeks after its first relegation to Serie B, seemed to reinforce this hypothesis, raising the spectre of a potential break-up. Instead, within a few months, Monza were back at the top, now run by an American investment fund – as is increasingly the case with clubs in our country – and aiming for a concrete, structural revival. The firm in question is called Beckett Layne Ventures (BLV), which specialises in investment, strategic consultancy and sports management: Lauren Crampsie, the current chair of the Brianza-based club, had worked at Chelsea alongside BLV’s founder between 2022 and 2023. It was the complex transition phase between the Abramovich era and the American era. The two executives oversaw the club’s strategic restructuring, from rebranding to the sponsorship package. That experience led to the decision to strike out on their own, applying the Chelsea model to a smaller, more manageable club.

Monza has neither Lake Como nor the history of Venice. Before Berlusconi, it was a typical provincial town, with a deeply felt footballing identity that was nonetheless confined to the local area: the new owners, however, recognised untapped business potential. Its proximity to Milan, the global appeal of Formula 1, and the media buzz surrounding Cav’s tenure, which remains significant. To get off to a good start in Italy, Crampsie has chosen to put its trust in Mauro Baldissoni: not only is he currently general manager of a major club like Roma, but he held that role during James Pallotta’s tenure. He knows what it means to work with an American board, bringing together two different worlds within the same club. In Monza, as the new chief executive, it was no coincidence that he immediately brought Burdisso – a former Giallorossi defender – with him, and today he is starting afresh with Juric in charge: it was Juric who introduced him to the press a few days ago, with the shared understanding that the Biancorossi are still a work in progress. Both in terms of the transfer market and the stadium – because the club’s plans also include the multifunctional modernisation of the Brianteo.

There is still a month of negotiations to go; so far, there have been few changes to the squad – apart from a few promising youngsters – and between now and 1 September, it is reasonable to expect more than a few high-calibre signings. At the same time, the relegation two years ago had been marred by injuries, and that same group of players, without any further upheavals, proved they could win back their place in Serie A on the pitch – albeit with some difficulty, right up to the final decisive match. This was no mean feat, and one that supporters now view with curiosity: betting on Monza as a sustainable footballing ecosystem is no small challenge at such a high level. And it’s different from that of the other two newly promoted sides we’ve discussed. There are many unknowns, but one additional certainty: compared to Frosinone and Venezia, the Brianza-based side already know how to secure survival. In fact, two in a row. On this point, Pessina may well be right: we mustn’t write them off straight away. It wasn’t just the Cavaliere’s influence, evidently.

Yesterday, in addition to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth – who stated that conditions on board the aircraft carrier had been ‘completely misrepresented’ – US Central Command published several headlines on X – many of Iranian origin – to refute the report: “These are FALSE reports,” it wrote. “The sailors and marines of the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group remain resilient and determined after more than 260 days at sea, 10,000 sorties and 1.5 million pounds of ammunition expended. No crew member on board the aircraft carrier has died, and the sole sailor who fell overboard on 3 August was recovered quickly and safely. The misinformation circulating widely about the Abraham Lincoln’s historic deployment does a disservice to our men and women in uniform and their loved ones.” Back in March, some Iranian social media accounts had circulated a video of a ship on fire, passing it off as the USS Abraham Lincoln struck by an Iranian attack: “Artificial intelligence can be very dangerous; we must be very careful,” US President Donald Trump had said in response to questions from journalists about the unverified reports published by Iranian sources.

Yet criticism of the appalling conditions on board the ship is not limited to state media and accounts linked to Tehran: this week, even the military-focused publications Navy Times and Stars and Stripes devoted considerable space to accounts from personnel on the aircraft carrier, citing the concerns of family members who met with senior US Navy officials in San Diego on Thursday. One sailor reportedly sent a message to his wife saying: “I hope I don’t wake up tomorrow”, whilst another allegedly attempted to throw himself overboard following several extensions to his tour of duty. The wife of another sailor recounted that her husband had prevented another crew member from jumping into the water, grabbing him and pulling him back onto the deck.  

In early August, MS Now spoke to around ten family members “who say they are extremely concerned about morale, safety and conditions on board the ship. They described a crew under severe strain from the demands of an unexpectedly long mission, whilst President Donald Trump continues to extend his military campaign against Iran with no clear end in sight”.  The prolonged time at sea is reportedly taking its toll on the mental health of some sailors; many have spoken of the constant noise from the ship’s engines and from aircraft taking off and landing, Commander Joseph Hontz, a spokesperson for the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, acknowledged that the Lincoln’s flight deck had handled over 10,000 flight sorties in the last eight months and that “over 250 days on mission pose a challenge for the crew and their equipment”.

Even Democrats in Congress have spoken out; Mike Levin wrote on X: "Mouldy showers, broken toilets, a laundry facility out of action for weeks, long periods without hot water, a meal reduced to half a cup of rice and two tortillas. (...) These men and women enlisted to serve their country. The least their country owes them is hot water, a working toilet and a proper meal.” Senator Richard Blumenthal has asked the Navy to provide clarification on the conditions on board the aircraft carrier, which “has been deployed for over 250 days” without being able to dock “for over 200 days, setting a record for the number of consecutive days at sea”.

Despite denials from the Administration, an exclusive report in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal revealed that the US military is reportedly preparing to send a new aircraft carrier to the Middle East to replace the Lincoln. According to some officials who spoke to the American newspaper, this is believed to be the USS George Washington, which left the port of Da Nang in Vietnam last week and is currently in the Strait of Malacca with its strike group.  Also yesterday, Trump ordered the Navy to dismantle the system for launching fighter aircraft from aircraft carriers and to revert to the use of steam catapults: Trump has been promising this decision for ten years, and since then the Navy’s top brass have opposed it, arguing that it would cost billions of dollars and force the Navy’s most advanced ships to revert to a system that requires more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain.

German operations of this kind will therefore remain targeted and, in practice, “will occur more rarely than regularly”. Schindler agrees that the reform will aim to create German intelligence services which, whilst remaining defensive, will be less naive. For years, particularly in the field of counter-terrorism, German agencies have been criticised for their reliance on tips-offs from international partners. This situation is not due to incompetence, but to the German legal framework. “In principle, the exchange of intelligence – particularly regarding security – is not a bad thing; on the contrary, it is excellent and should be the case,” Schindler points out, “but it is not a strategy for Germany’s security, because none of these services – British, French, Israeli or American – has the remit to guarantee security in Germany. So we must also be as effective as possible on our own”, whilst recognising that cooperation remains vital and always necessary. After all, the expert adds, we must also “hopefully be able to pass on something useful to other services in turn, so that we may then receive something in return”.

The threat landscape facing Germany is highly complex. “Since 2014, and particularly since 2022, Russian operations in Germany and across Europe have become increasingly aggressive,” confirms Schindler, who also points to the intensification of hybrid activities by countries such as Iran. The domestic threat has increased across the entire spectrum: on the one hand, the neo-Nazi far right; on the other, the Islamist threat. “We have taken the strategic decision – not just Germany, but Europe and, ultimately, the Western world – to no longer combat terrorism at its source. We have withdrawn from Afghanistan, we have withdrawn from West Africa, and we have partially withdrawn from East Africa,” explains Schindler, and now “it is not illogical that we must do much more here”, at home. In the fight against radical Islamism, the reform could make a significant difference. Of course, judicial shortcomings, such as in the case of the attack on Berlin Pride in July, cannot be attributed to the work of the intelligence services. But in other cases, things could change: “Identifying someone you do not know, who is becoming radicalised, is only possible if you can use artificial intelligence and analyse big data. This is what the reform should allow,” Schindler explains. Facilitating the work of the agencies in the face of Germany’s restrictive data and privacy regulations is, in fact, one of the crucial steps. The new law is already sparking political debate and, as the director of the CEP himself points out, will have to face challenges before the Constitutional Court. The final text of the reform is therefore not yet settled. One new development is the possibility for the BND to resort to ‘kinetic means’, that is, the use of physical force. However, this is an exception reserved for situations of extreme self-defence and war. In short, the German intelligence services will not become agencies with a licence to kill in peacetime. In the near future, Berlin will not be able to carry out any Mossad-style ‘pager operations’.

Since Assad’s fall in December 2024, Israeli forces have been deployed along the Syrian border, beyond the demilitarised zone established in 1974, crossing the border and taking control of a strip of territory approximately 15 kilometres deep, along which they have set up nine military posts. The aim is to ensure the demilitarisation of the region and to prevent the formation of terrorist cells linked to Islamic extremism or Hezbollah. For the authorities in Damascus and the UN, however, this constitutes an illegal and violent operation against local residents.

The most organised group amongst the Israeli settlers who have targeted Syria is that of the so-called ‘Pioneers of Bashan’. The last time its members attempted to enter Syria was three days ago, and on that occasion too they were intercepted and turned back by the Israeli military themselves. The IDF says that many of those who are captured return shortly afterwards to make a fresh attempt to cross the border. “The police aren’t doing their job as they should, because if someone is arrested and released on the same day, and returns the next day, we haven’t achieved anything,” explains another reservist on Tsahal radio. “We’ve tried to explain this to them: you’re interfering with our work. Three years of reserve duty, and what am I doing? Getting Israeli citizens out of Syria?”

The settlers insist that the Syrian territories of Quneitra, Daraa and Suwayda form part of Bashan, a biblical region of Greater Israel to be cultivated and annexed to the Jewish state. In early July, a post on X from the pioneers’ account urged the reclamation of Syria’s southern regions: “This year, the wheat harvest in the Quneitra district amounted to 2,000 tonnes. Once this land is cultivated by Jewish pioneers rather than by Sunnis who support Hamas, the harvest will be even greater. Much of the region is already under IDF control; let the pioneers get to work there.”

The push by settlers in Syria exploits the Israeli government’s deep aversion to the new authorities in Damascus. On Thursday, the Minister for the Diaspora, Amichai Chikli, stated that “Syria is Gaza on steroids, and that will be the next war, without a shadow of a doubt. There is no way to avoid it’. Military operations are continuing despite the fact that the Syrian president, Ahmed al Sharaa – under pressure from the United States – has said he is willing to negotiate directly with Israel to resolve the issue of the southern borders. Arbitrary arrests by the IDF between Quneitra and Daraa are continuing, with ground incursions numbering around thirty since the start of August alone. In the village of Abidin, well beyond the UN-recognised buffer zone, residents placed boulders along the roads two days ago to block Israeli tanks. IDF bulldozers removed them a few hours later and, in retaliation, destroyed the farmers’ olive trees, arresting some of them and releasing them shortly afterwards.

Axios journalist Barak Ravid recounted an anecdote about the latest meeting between US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu in Washington. Trump asked the Israeli Prime Minister how the polls were looking ahead of the October election, and Netanyahu’s hesitation was reportedly interrupted by an Israeli official who broke the awkward silence by saying: “He’ll win.” The polls do not suggest this, as yet. Clashes between the political establishment and the military are weighing on the vote, as are Qusra, the unpunished settlers, the siege and the soldiers standing idly by. 

Footage broadcast by the Spanish public broadcaster TVE shows several hundred sub-Saharan migrants attempting to advance from the high ground, which is being monitored by dozens of police officers and members of the Royal Moroccan Gendarmerie, as well as by drones. Meanwhile, military vehicles are deployed on the Spanish side of the border. According to TVE, at least 110 people have been arrested following the clashes.

Tighter controls following the surge at the end of July

According to sources at the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, following the influx on 30 and 31 July, when around 80,000 people entered Ceuta, controls have been further tightened. There are currently 880 National Police officers deployed, 270 more than at the end of July; 714 Civil Guard officers, nearly 200 more, as well as a unit of 45 riot police officers, who are joining those already deployed, and 20 specialists from the Central Brigade for Immigration and Borders, to examine applications for international protection that may be submitted by migrants remaining in the exclave. Around 2,000 army personnel also remain deployed. Meanwhile, on the Moroccan side of the border, a total of 5,000 officers are reported to have been deployed, according to local media reports.

According to estimates by the security forces, there are still around 5,000 irregular migrants in the city, whilst an average of 200 voluntary repatriations to Morocco are recorded each day.

Article currently being updated

In Ceuta, however, efforts are under way to deal with the July crisis as best as possible, with the pessimistic realisation that it may not be the last, but at least the hope that the next one will not come so soon. The emergency is not over. According to the Ministry of the Interior, 5,000 migrants remain in the city; local authorities put the figure at 9,000. As reported in the local press, it has not been possible to begin identification procedures because there is a lack not only of resources but even of the physical space required to carry out the necessary formalities. Plans are being considered to use the football pitch or the large sorting area at Loma Colmenar, designed to manage the flow of vehicles facing long waits to cross the border with Morocco (the customs posts at Ceuta and Melilla, which Morocco opens and closes for questionable reasons, are among the most sensitive issues dividing the two countries). And Morocco is adding insult to injury: the Ministry of the Interior accuses Madrid of bureaucratic delays in returning the minors, whilst the National Human Rights Council (which reports to the government in Rabat) accuses the Spanish police of mistreating migrants. Meanwhile, the pro-establishment press – such as the newspaper Le 360, which, at the height of the crisis two weeks ago, published articles asserting Moroccan sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla – is now publishing satirical cartoons depicting the Civil Guard keeping people in cages described as ‘waiting rooms’.

In a city where migratory pressure is typically high, the temporary reception centre is at full capacity and there are plans to build a hotspot in the surrounding area. Other emergency camps have sprung up in the meantime, and more will need to be built. Where they already exist, residents are protesting. Where there are plans to build them, residents are protesting. A case in point is the makeshift camp in the La Reina neighbourhood, which can no longer cope. This is what the neighbourhood representative told the local media – not an elderly man named José López, but the young Abdellah Mustafa. They have mainly taken in young women, many of whom have a history of violence. There are now plans to move them to a disused factory, but the new neighbours do not seem particularly pleased. Healthcare facilities are also under pressure. The Medical Association and the sector’s trade unions have already warned of the risk of infectious diseases breaking out due to overcrowding and poor hygiene.

Comisiones Obreras, Spain’s historic and largest trade union, which describes itself as ‘internationalist, multi-ethnic and multicultural’, feels the need to emphasise this in its statement: ‘This risk does not stem from people’s nationality, but from their material living conditions, such as the lack of adequate housing and sanitation facilities’. In short, no ideological bias, but real problems. Problems in the face of which the absence of two key ministers is glaringly obvious. Pedro Sánchez visited Ceuta before going on holiday. Fernando Grande-Marlaska, the Minister of the Interior, visited and was met with boos. Margarita Robles (Defence) visited, showing and finding more empathy (her conversation with the elderly woman who was crying and saying she was afraid went viral). But after two weeks, Ministers Elma Saiz and Mónica García have still not been seen. The former, as well as being the government’s spokesperson, heads the Ministry for Inclusion and Migration and has only just announced that she will be in Ceuta next Monday. The other – who entered government via grassroots activism, first with Podemos and then with Sumar – is the Minister for Health. She has denied there is a health emergency, but says she too will soon be travelling to Ceuta. In short, the matter will be discussed after mid-August.

Italy had just signed the Schengen Agreement – the world’s largest area of free movement, now covering over 450 million people – after Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands had already done so, and before Spain, Portugal and Greece followed suit in 1992. Even if it had wanted to, therefore, Spain at that time could not have suspended Schengen out of fear that some of the Albanian refugees, having passed through Italy, might reach its borders. But the Italian government’s response to the 60,000 in Ceuta is anomalous: a) as Italy has never before resorted to suspending Schengen except for reasons of international security during the G7 and G8 summits; And b) given how far Ceuta is from our coasts. This fear of massive illegal landings – which will not happen – smacks heavily of electoral posturing and has little to do with reality, not least because the 60,000 in Ceuta dwindled to a few thousand within a matter of days. Italy, which has the Albanian exodus behind it and faces an urgent need for immigrants simply to stay afloat – speaking of the sea and landings – would do well to have a firmer grasp of reality. But was the Albanian exodus really an exodus? To answer this, let us consider the key components of the Albanian presence in Italy, namely: a) Albanians who currently reside legally in Italy, and b) Albanians who have, over time, obtained Italian citizenship.

At the start of 2025, there were 414,000 Albanians legally resident in Italy, having peaked at 488,000 in 2014. However, between 2014 and 2024, over 320,000 Albanians acquired Italian citizenship. It is therefore clear that the decline of 74,000 in the number of Albanians residing in Italy between 2014 and 2024 occurred precisely because a growing number of them had, in the meantime, acquired Italian citizenship. This is so true that the number of Albanians who acquired Italian citizenship between 2014 and 2024 is four to five times greater than the decline in the number of Albanians legally resident in Italy during that period. However, the tally of Albanians who have acquired Italian citizenship must also include all the years prior to 2014 and the year 2025 itself, for which we have only an estimate of at least 200,000 Italian citizenships acquired in total by immigrants in Italy. Based on all the available information (data, but not limited to this) on the subject, it is reasonable to estimate that Albanians have acquired Italian citizenship at least 460,000 times – 140,000 more than the 320,000 instances of citizenship acquisition recorded for the 2014–2024 period, for which precise data are available. Adding this second figure to the number of Albanians legally resident in Italy, it is immediately apparent that just under 900,000 Albanians have chosen Italy, either because they live there legally or because they have acquired Italian citizenship.

In this particular breakdown, Albania is surpassed only by Romania and is almost on a par with Morocco. However, whilst Romania has as many as 1.1 million Romanian citizens legally resident in Italy, fewer than 200,000 of them have acquired Italian citizenship: and the significant difference between the two figures indicates a low propensity amongst Romanians residing in Italy to acquire Italian citizenship, as they evidently prefer the prospect of returning to their homeland as soon as the conditions allow – which almost always coincide with the money saved whilst working in Italy, sufficient to set up a business in Romania. The situation is quite different for Albania: in fact, there are more cases of Albanians acquiring Italian citizenship than there are Albanians residing in Italy – a disparity that is symbolic rather than purely quantitative, as it indicates a strong inclination amongst Albanians, once the necessary time or conditions have been met, to acquire Italian citizenship and become Italian. A trend opposite to that of Romanians, and instead similar to the propensity to acquire Italian citizenship, can be observed among immigrants from Morocco. Emigration from Morocco to Italy is also significant, estimated at just under 850,000 people, divided almost equally between Moroccans legally resident in Italy and Moroccans who have acquired Italian citizenship over time.

But Morocco has a population of 38 million, Romania has almost 22 million, whilst Albania has just 2.7 million inhabitants. And it is in relation to the populations of their respective countries that the differences between immigrants to Italy from these same countries become enormous. This is because Moroccans in Italy – including both those residing there and those who have acquired Italian citizenship – account for 2.3 per cent of Morocco’s population; Romanians in Italy account for 5.8 per cent of Romania’s population, whilst Albanians in Italy account for as much as 32 per cent of Albania’s population: an entirely different order of magnitude. And whilst the first two percentages simply suggest considerable emigration to Italy (that from Morocco being more long-term, that from Romania more temporary), the percentage for Albania suggests not merely massive emigration but something which, if not quite an exodus, certainly shares some of its characteristics: starting, in fact, with the fact that Albanian emigrants in Italy show a very strong inclination to become Italian, acquiring Italian citizenship as soon as they are able to do so.

So – yes – it was certainly no coincidence that, back in 1991, the two ships overflowing with Albanians loomed on the horizon as they approached the port and the city of Brindisi, an event later depicted in Gianni Amelio’s 1994 film “Lamerica”. It was no coincidence because Albanian emigration has never stopped, and the number has risen from 10,000 people back then to almost 900,000 today. Not too many for Italy, which needs immigrants, but perhaps too many for Albania. For it is hard to imagine that Albania, with a population of 2.7 million, can afford to lose – as it did in the three-year period 2022–2024, the most recent year for which data is available, as many as 110,000 citizens renounced their Albanian citizenship to acquire Italian citizenship – without, moreover, the Albanian population residing in Italy having decreased in the meantime by even a tenth of that figure – so it is clear that the flow of Albanians to Italy is far from over. A flow which, were it to continue in the future as it has done to date, would risk resulting in a veritable depletion of Albania’s resources, particularly its finest productive and reproductive forces. And Albania has every reason to be very careful about its approach to migration policy, because the statistics since the end of communism speak a clear language to its governments and ruling classes. With the end of the Hoxha era, Albania’s population has in fact fallen from 3.3 million at that time to 2.7 million today, representing a loss of almost 20 per cent of the population, entirely attributable to emigration and, in particular – if not exclusively – to emigration to Italy. Emigration, which has undoubtedly helped Albania emerge from communism by enabling a balance between resources and population that would otherwise have been far more problematic, could in the long run condemn Albania to a state of decline if it were to erode the country’s best human resources to an unsustainable extent. And, at least from an Italian perspective, this is precisely what could happen. Because, as we have seen, Albanian emigration to Italy tends to be permanent – emigration with no return.

Another indicator of this aspect of Albanian emigration to Italy is its very strong territorial and regional concentration. It is worth noting that of the nearly 900,000 Albanians generally living in Italy, 65 per cent are in the North, 26 per cent in the Centre and only 9 per cent in the South. Such a marked preference for the North and, conversely, such a low preference for the South – and for the islands in particular, where just over 1 per cent of Albanians in Italy live – is a sign of the long-term settlement nature of Albanian immigration, with migrants seeking stable jobs, employment and activities in order to put down roots in Italy as firmly as possible. In this sense, indeed, the geographical distribution of Albanians in Italy – whilst showing us the extent to which they are seeking to settle in our country – also serves as a fairly accurate reflection of the highly uneven appeal exerted by Italy’s regional economic and productive systems on the workforce arriving from abroad. The Gjader repatriation centre for irregular migrants in Albania – so controversial, debated, opposed and obstructed – cannot but be viewed in the context of everything we have said so far: a form of collaboration, specifically regarding migration flows, between two governments and two countries, Italy and Albania, which cannot follow separate paths, but must, on the issue of migration – and not only migration – adopt certain agreed economic and social planning guidelines. The country that relies most heavily on Italy for its migration flows is also the one that Italy has singled out to deter illegal immigration – as those seeking to enter Europe cannot expect to make their way there if they end up in a non-EU country awaiting extradition.

The key point to understand is that the exodus from Albania to Italy is not in Albania’s interests, nor is it in Italy’s interests. What is needed is a broader-ranging strategy that cannot focus solely on migration flows from Albania to Italy; it must regulate those flows without depriving Albania of its resources. The exodus is a thing of the past. Today, we have agreements in which emigration is a component that brings mutual benefits. True. And the government is moving along these lines. But, frankly, there is a world of difference between this approach and suspending the Schengen Agreement for Ceuta.

This novel is thus characterised by a dual structure, but such pairs frequently feature in Jaeggy’s works, as in "Proleterka", featuring a young woman and the man she believes to be her father during a cruise; in "Le statue d’acqua", where Katrin and Beeklam proceed in a shared detachment from reality; or in the harrowing tale "I fratelli", where the two characters are engulfed in the coils of violence. Given the autobiographical inspiration behind her works—more or less veiled in a constant game of concealment—the persistent choice of this narrative structure invites us to interpret the possible personal implications and to trace in these couples a projection of Fleur Jaeggy and the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann, a friend (“we’d met in a bar. She was sitting on a stool. She seemed protected by a shield that made her untouchable. We spoke. By chance. Until we became friends. True friends. Perhaps it is the only friendship I regret’), but also a key figure in her writing (“She left her mark on my life. She proofread the drafts of my first book with generosity and love. She was the one who encouraged me to keep writing”).

Adelphi, which has all of Fleur Jaeggy’s works in its catalogue, has recently published "Gli ultimi giorni di Ingeborg" (a volume that launched the new aesthetic of the ‘I microgrammi’ series), three prose pieces by the writer centred on this relationship which, spanning different periods of their time together, vividly capture the nature of a bond that helped shape Jaeggy’s writing. In these short texts, she seems to unite—with the magic characteristic of great literature—life and work, biographical events and the way in which these are immortalised on the page. Indeed, one finds the origin of that detachment which shapes Jaeggy’s perspective (“I try to make everything more distant; even the way I write the words must be frozen; I try to strip the sentences bare. ‘It’s a way of keeping things at a distance,’ she once said”), the ironic perspective through which she attempts to come to terms with reality (“Once, when I was eight, my grandmother asked me, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up? And I replied, ‘I want to die’”, as recounted in the story “I Am the Brother of XX”), but also his relationships with contemporary Italian and foreign writers (from Italo Calvino to Uwe Johnson, for example, whom he met whilst on holiday in Forte dei Marmi).

In the cover photograph, taken in Vienna in 1970 by Roberto Calasso – director of Adelphi until his death and husband of Fleur Jaeggy – Bachmann’s gaze stands out as she looks, with a faint smile and lively eyes, at Jaeggy; a snapshot which, in its stillness, fully captures their bond. In her first work of prose, "La casa dell’acqua salata", Jaeggy recounts the 1971 holiday: setting off from Rome in an Alfa Romeo 2600, staying in a house in Forte dei Marmi with two Jehovah’s Witness housekeepers who seem to have stepped out of one of Jaeggy’s stories, and with days marked by a strict yet pleasant routine (“The same thing every day. A little time at the seaside. A bit in the sun. Ingeborg was a brilliant swimmer. Anyone who fancied it had breakfast: a stick of celery and something else. In the afternoon, everyone went to their own room and met up for tea. In the evening, we had dinner at home. And then late-night chats”) – interrupted by encounters that were not always thrilling, such as Calvino’s awkward visit (“He didn’t speak. He just stood there. We’d agreed: if he doesn’t speak, neither will we. It didn’t take much for Ingeborg to fall silent. After perhaps a quarter of an hour, Calvino said: ‘Er… ahem’”). Whilst the second story focuses on a visit to Vienna and the place, Klagenfurt, where Bachmann is buried, the final, poignant piece of prose that gives the volume its title reconstructs the last days of the Austrian writer’s life, spent in a sterile ward at Sant’Eugenio Hospital in Rome (“She makes a gesture as if to blow me a kiss. I shall never forget the look in her eyes. A gaze full of tenderness, heart-rending”) following extremely severe burns which, it seems, were caused by a cigarette left burning in her home. In her search for information and in her questions to the doctors, Jaeggy seems, for a moment, to let her guard down and reveal her true self in the most transparent way, as if the account of her friend’s death required words as clear as those of the Desert Fathers, whose austere wisdom illuminates the final two pages of this story, the absolute pinnacle of Jaeggy’s work and, probably, the origin of everything that followed: a style of writing that sought, through its forms and silences, to recount the unfathomable, to draw closer to the tranquillity with which death is honoured.

“I loved her, and perhaps it’s true, ‘Wir haben es schön gehabt’,” writes Jaeggy as he brings the story to a close. “We had a lot of fun” is what these words mean in German and, perhaps, that is the whole of Jaeggy’s mystery.

In short, individualism has never been in vogue politically. The structure of power is, in fact, inherently anti-individualist. The individual is an irreducible point of resistance against which power tends to crash, and which it must therefore somehow crush (in a more or less gentle, subtle or violent manner, depending on the historical era). Today, however, in the West, individualism is undergoing a dramatic phase for another reason, one far more alarming than the political one. The matter could be summarised as follows: for the individual to be an individual, they must be free; otherwise, they are not. And since freedom is a risk – a multifaceted risk that presents itself in different guises each time – and since Western citizens, particularly Europeans, are no longer willing to take any risks at all, the individual loses its centrality entirely. Indeed, since anything that constitutes a risk must be removed from a society that seeks ever greater security, the very idea of the individual is, in itself, a dangerous one.

Covid, which has returned to the fore in recent days with Fauci’s hearings, has been a vivid illustration of this situation. Between accepting a certain degree of risk in exchange for a guarantee of freedom, and absolute security accompanied by the deprivation of the most basic freedoms, the latter path was chosen with overwhelming support and without hesitation. But that is merely the overarching evidence of a general state of the individual’s devaluation, of their ‘fading into the background’, which appears to be an inevitable condition of our societies. Ageing societies, in fact, by their very nature, become gregarious societies; they seek fewer conflicts, greater stability and tranquillity. Those who are ageing value nothing more highly than security, and it is only natural that this should be the case. But these values trickle down the age spectrum, which becomes numbed by such a situation, and which then reveals its most practical and tangible side in the colossal public debt weighing down on these very societies, condemning them to a de facto state of paralysis. People work and govern without any real drive, merely to repay the debt through exorbitant taxation that strips citizens of a large part of the fruits of their own labour. It is impossible to be an individualist ‘simply’ in economic terms!

At the same time, the capitalist system – which has long been the means by which individuals have managed to channelling a significant part of their unique aspirations and to exercise self-determination in freedom through economic activity, and which in turn has grown through the plurality of decisions and desires of increasingly liberated individuals – has a growing need for predictability and substitutability. In other words, no longer a total freedom in which only the individual can be the protagonist, but rather experiential phantoms – those horrendous ‘experiences’ – to be managed and administered within a framework of managed freedom (though always with the possibility of some form of guarantee and assurance at one’s fingertips).

It is also necessary to clarify one point. We are not referring here to that ‘methodological individualism’ which lies at the conceptual heart of every guarantee of political, social and economic freedom. That premise is an ‘epistemological law’ that will always remain valid, as a bulwark against any oppressive, statist or socialist-leaning delusion. What concerns us here is the individual as an ‘existential possibility’ of a single subject. Such individualism calls for ‘heroism’, which obviously does not necessarily have anything to do with the act of war, but with the exceptional act – that is, one that breaks with the norm, that takes one by surprise, that takes a risk not so much for the sake of it, but in an attempt to draw closer to the truth of oneself as an individual, precisely.

The myth of being ‘free to live our lives as we please’ has never been so widespread. And yet never before has all this taken place along such common, such identical paths. Never has the process of imitation amongst people – partly due to the technical structures within which we spend so much of our lives, namely social media in general – been so pervasive and all-encompassing. Never in history have so many people who claim to live their lives as entirely free individuals resembled one another so closely. What room, then, remains for us to be individuals?

It is the widespread tendency towards ‘mosquito-isation’ that one can already experience by tweeting or leaving a poorly worded comment on an Instagram post, from which, on the other hand, those who get the hashtag right (‘the triumph of a clear conscience at zero cost and zero mileage’) may benefit; those who show empathy (branded by Cruciani as the ‘unbearable sentimentality’ of Western society); and, above all, those who are properly outraged, because outrage is the “national sport of imbeciles, practised all year round, requiring no special equipment, involving no personal risk and offering an excellent return in terms of self-esteem” – and what’s more: you can do it without getting off the sofa, “all it takes is a thumb and three lines of comment”.

Crucianism is irritating, vulgar and right-wing; it would like to award a medal to the jeweller who opens fire; it supports nuclear power; it regards coming out as a cunning way ‘to attract attention’; it plays the song ‘Everybody viva el duche’, mocks the antifa who cry ‘authoritarian backlash’ when they’re evicted from the community centre where they don’t pay bills or rent but do good deeds (like the Franciscans, Cruciani notes, who do, however, have to pay for electricity and water); Crucianism takes pleasure in causing offence; whilst pretending to feign, it says what many think but do not say because, according to the presenter-dictator, censorship today ‘manages itself’ and there is no longer any need for a body tasked with enforcing it; ‘Crucianism’ is a factory of freaks who have no right to make demands, from the Brazilian with tattoos on his face to Nico Taurus the swinger, from Mauro Zanasi the flat-Earther to the late Richard Benson, who was – as we believe – the world’s fastest guitarist and the greatest poet of the dwarves.

Cruciani is the yang, just as his reluctant radio partner David Parenzo (“who has an unbelievable capacity to endure evil”) is the yin: they are the Batman and Robin of the “utterly wretched, deeply hated and dearly loved” programme which, at 6.30 pm on Radio 24, sets out on its constitutional mission to get on people’s nerves; a programme that “proudly” boasts of never having promoted a song, but at most of having pilloried a few (Bella ciao: ‘finished, dead, useless’) whilst using hard rock merely as a backdrop for Cruciani’s rants. You can target him with any form of body shaming (see dictionary entry) – he never takes offence anyway.

It’s the other side of the Italian moon, the opposite of Zerocalcare’s – by the way, the presenter asks, at what age does one stop being young in this country? – and of certain guests who also frequently appear on La Zanzara, such as Annarita Briganti, the ‘patriarch hunter’, another sport that can be practised even at an amateur level, especially where patriarchy no longer exists.

If the book has worked as a parlour game – optimising the purchase because your (former) friends have changed, and it can always be reused – spare a grateful thought for the masters of Crux: Gianfranco Funari, “the pioneer”, and Franco Califano, philosopher of “Tutto il resto è noia”. If anyone asks you who they were, do not resort to mansplaining. Refer them to Wikipedia, or send them straight home.

The terrible thing about force is that it appears to us as something we cannot resist, the law of an inescapable necessity

This ambiguity of power – the fact that it is something which necessarily determines us, even if we do not want it to, and at the same time something we go along with because it sets us free – is never an either/or situation or a Manichaean alternative, as both determinists and moralists would have us believe, but rather a tension that is a permanent feature of our lives, one that profoundly shapes our existence in the world.

The problem arises when we discover – and we discover it all too soon, the hard way – that there are forces from which we cannot escape, and this impossibility of escape accompanies the very sense of our existence like a muffled basso continuo, determining the ‘quality’ and ‘tone’ of our self-awareness. This is an existential realisation, one that affects us personally, but which can lead to the metaphysical suspicion that the whole of human life depends on factors which people illusorily believe they can control, yet by which they are in fact completely dominated.

Simone Weil demonstrates this with poignant clarity in her essay on “L’Iliade poema della forza”, written between 1939 and 1941. The great Homeric poem is said to express, with an intensity of vision that remains unrivalled, a definitive truth: that ‘force turns anyone who is subject to it into a thing […], in the most literal sense of the word, because it transforms them into a corpse’. This effect of petrification that force produces on a man who is subject to it – that is, on all men, not only those defeated in battle, but also the victors – does not necessarily coincide with physical death, for it also affects those who continue to live, but no longer as ‘living flesh’, rather as a dead thing.

For Simone Weil, the Iliad expresses a definitive truth: “force reduces anyone who is subject to it to a thing”

This dominion of force ‘extends as far as that of nature’: as in the case of the maternal love nurtured by Niobe, who, exhausted after the death of her twelve sons—left unburied at the behest of the gods— ‘thought of eating when she was weary of tears’, having been rendered ‘incapable even of feeling her own misery’, subject to a command ‘just as cold [...] and harsh as if it were exerted by inert matter’. That same force “crushes just as mercilessly” those who fall under its yoke as it “mercilessly intoxicates those who possess it or believe they possess it”. Not only Hector, but Achilles too; not only Achilles, but Priam as well; not only the Trojans, but the Achaeans too: “by virtue of being blind, fate establishes a sort of justice, blind itself”, and those who kill will in turn be killed with equal measure. It is called Nemesis. That in which ‘executioners and victims are equally innocent’, like brothers in the same misery.

For the protagonists of the Iliad, being aware of death as the sole destiny – as the very ‘future’ of life – means something quite different from the mere acceptance of the natural finitude of existence: rather, it means living ‘subjugated to the yoke of war’, driven by a genuine ‘need for death’, like the need for a terrible fulfilment, in which only destruction can bring liberation from the constant fear that petrifies the passage of life. Thus, although they are still alive, these men belong to ‘a race distinct from that of the living’, having fallen, as they have, to the level of inert matter, pure passivity driven by the impetus of blind forces.

And yet – and here Weil’s perspective becomes poignantly delicate – in the Iliad there resounds, almost imperceptibly, a ‘note’ of pure and touching regret for what force will lead to destruction. The note of love ‘of the son for his parents and of the father and mother for their son’, or that of conjugal love; the note of friendship between comrades-in-arms and – ‘an even greater miracle’ – that of the friendship which can bind even mortal enemies together. This ‘bitterness that springs from tenderness’, this profound regret for what is lost but might have been lived, is what makes one feel the rare ‘moments of grace’ in the poem, and even more so in the fate of force. Everything that ‘escapes the dominion of force’ in the soul and in human relationships is ‘loved, but loved painfully, because of that ever-present danger of destruction’.

This supreme ‘Greek genius’, first encountered in the Iliad, will, for Weil, be inherited solely by Attic tragedy (particularly Aeschylus and Sophocles) and will find its ultimate expression in none other than the Gospel. In particular, in his Passion, Christ “trembles before suffering and death”; he feels separated from mankind and even abandoned by God, thereby revealing the most acute understanding and expression of the dominion of force—that is, of the common destiny of human misery. To look this fate in the face, without illusions or justifications, means ‘to suffer force’ by allowing oneself to be struck by it ‘to the very soul’. And whilst grace – purely human in Homer’s poem, even divine in the Gospels – may prevent one from being corrupted and destroyed by the ‘blow’ of force, ‘it cannot, however, prevent the wound’.

It is this wound that enables a man ‘objectified’ by force to become a living man once more, a being of flesh and blood. Free once more, or perhaps free for the first time. Here, the true stakes become clear in the unstoppable dominion of force – more radical than the necessary laws of physical and biological nature, and yet, within them, even more profound than the ideological disputes surrounding force as the domain of political power. What is at stake is the possibility that that touch of tenderness and love, that extreme, dramatic sharing of human misery, might ultimately arise and act as a true ‘force’ in their own right.

This is clearly not a matter of ‘masking’ the invincibility of this force – as we have outlined it so far – with edifying narratives, nor of taming and making more bearable the tragic consequences it brings about in human existence, which is, as such, forever bent under its yoke. Rather, it is a matter of navigating its dominion, sensing – even more than the inescapable tragedy arising from the fate of death – the drama it provokes when it intersects and intertwines with that other force: the irreducible desire of the human soul, the desire to exist and to fulfil oneself, that is, to be happy.

This desire has often been interpreted as a mere biological force, a physiological impulse falling within the realm of the ‘psychic’, yet always on the verge of turning into a pathological experience. As if it were the individual manifestation, within the conscious self, of an unconscious power: what Freud, drawing on Georg Groddeck, had termed the impersonal, necessary ‘Id’. We still find ourselves in the full grip of the dark, blind force of nature, which now, however, evolves almost seamlessly into ‘culture’ and ‘history’. Yet it remains the relentless force we know, merely managed and processed, perhaps, in bourgeois drawing rooms. Or, in what is only an apparent contrast, it unfolds as a revolutionary and/or reactionary force in the history of classes and states, of capital and labour, of markets and finance.

All these forms, despite their radical differences, are manifestations of the great force – both natural and political – which we delude ourselves into believing we can control and manage on our own, whether as individuals or as a collective, but which ultimately and inevitably plays us all. The force-necessity whose canon was established with geometric rigour once and for all by Spinozian rationalism, which pursues the ‘scientific’ claim to finally resolve the most burning problem of the human condition – that of the freedom of the self – simply by dissolving it into the inevitable acceptance of the necessity of force. The truly fulfilled—that is, happy—man is he who, through intellectual exercise, has learnt to free himself from compulsion, even from that extreme form represented by death, and to no longer fear it, because he intuits that even destruction forms part, ‘divinely’, of the homeostasis of man’s natural forces.

Here is the verdict of the insurmountable force: the desire of the self that becomes the simple ‘conatus’ (Spinoza again) through which human beings tend to preserve their vital force, as a survival instinct. But perhaps not everything is ‘held’ by this force, and homeostasis is ultimately always at risk. It is that happy instability in which the system of tendencies and counter-tendencies leaves room for an asymmetry within the cycle of actions and reactions.

This asymmetry has revealed itself with particular force in the Judeo-Christian experience of the self and the world. The decisive principle – and in this case a truly revolutionary one – is that all the forces of the universe encounter a point of incredible resistance at the heart of the human being, and in their decision – seemingly of no consequence in relation to the cosmic and political order – to ‘will’ the good or to reject it; that is, to open themselves up to grace or, conversely, to close themselves off from it. And the latter is a strange force, for although it is radically ‘other’ than human decisions or merits, it calls upon – and I would almost say awaits – the assent of mortals. It is distinct from our freedom, yet it can be given and manifested only to a free being. Its order is no longer that of mere imposition from above, but of a call from the heart itself. This is what Paul of Tarsus (Letter to the Romans) identified in the conflict between the Law—closely bound to the slavery of sin—and the Spirit of God, which leads us to realise that we are no longer slaves but ‘children’. This means we are capable of welcoming another force that acts in a personal—and responsible—way within our own hearts.

In Paul of Tarsus’s Christian paradox, one senses a new emphasis which would be too much for the Greek genius

This is clearly evident in Augustine’s discovery of the decisive and, until then, previously unrecognised role of the human will in relation to evil. Significantly, in contrast to the Manichaean view – for whom evil is a metaphysical ‘force’ opposed to good on a cosmic level, and against which the individual is powerless and for which they bear no blame – Augustine insists on attributing responsibility for evil to the ‘perverse’ use of the human will, in which also lies the possibility of changing course and ‘converting’ the orientation of the will itself towards being and the good.

With Augustine, the true centre of strength shifts its location and takes root in the heart of man

From that moment on, the true centre of power shifts its location, taking root in the heart of man. And not because it is capable of halting or nullifying the forces that inexorably determine the course of nature and the events of history, but because it is capable of questioning their meaning. Indeed, because it discovers that it is in need of meaning. This need is its true power. It is no cheap solution; indeed, ever since then we have been constantly tempted – and sometimes compelled – to say that there is nothing we can do in the face of the fate that looms over us, even when we misnomerously refer to this mortal fate as the ‘will of God’. Yet every time we think this, we reaffirm, through that very thought, a strength within us that does not yield. This strength of resistance always coincides with the intuition – often a simple suggestion, in some cases merely a fleeting suspicion born of the very fabric of experience – that we are children rather than slaves. The hallmark of sonship is a generation that does not predetermine existence, but rather gives it the vital space to unfold in its own way.

In Paul’s Christian paradox – ‘when I am weak, then I am strong’ (2 Corinthians) – one hears not only, as Weil maintained, the Greek principle of the Iliad, but also a new emphasis which would be too much for the Greek genius, and which is rightly too much, indeed far too much, given its absolute gratuitousness, the most fitting image of which remains that of a wholly unpredictable encounter, such as that with a loved one or a friend who suddenly makes us see the balance of strength in a different light.

This is not a difference between doctrines or between different interpretations, but a difference in experience. It is not a matter of explaining things better, but of paying closer attention to what can make our very weakness a source of strength. Indeed, one might say that weakness, which inevitably marks us all, is precisely the way in which each person lives out and experiences their own specific strength. And what if we were to reflect once more on what the great Leibniz said about "vis" – the force or dynamic energy that acts from within every individual (monad), reflecting – in each person in their own specific way – the forces that sustain and move the entire universe? A point, however tiny, of thought and therefore of freedom – the most astonishing force in the world.

Costantino Esposito is a full professor of the History of Philosophy at the University of Bari Aldo Moro. His article continues Il Foglio’s summer series dedicated to the concept of force. Each week, a different author will examine this concept from the perspective of a specific discipline. The other instalments were published on 7 July (Michele Silenzi, “The force that sustains the world”), 14 July (Luca Amendola, “Between force and matter”), 21 July (Luigi Marco Bassani, “The yardstick of us Europeans”), 28 July (Alberto Frigerio, “The plight of modern man”), and 4 August (Lorenzo Castellani, “Damn reason of state”).

“The information shared has highlighted the existence of high internal security risks relating to possible uncontrolled and sudden movements of third-country nationals through the common area, which, as such, do not rule out potential terrorist infiltration within migration flows,” said Piantedosi. According to him, various sources indicate that certain areas of Morocco, including those near Ceuta, “have historically been subject to recruitment and radicalisation by jihadists”. “The exceptional nature of this situation has required immediate government action to safeguard internal security, through the temporary reintroduction of internal border controls with the Kingdom of Spain, in accordance with the provisions of Regulation (EU) 2016/399, known as the Schengen Borders Code,” he continued. 

On the suspension of the Schengen Agreement with Spain, “what the government has chosen to do is fully in line with European law”, he explained. “Other European states have done so and continue to do so, including in relation to Italy. I am not aware of any concerns being raised or requests for further clarification in those circumstances.” The minister therefore emphasised that "whilst Italy’s initiative is based on solid, objective grounds and control measures, the suspension imposed on us by the authorities in Madrid amounts, by their own admission, to a largely retaliatory measure". Moreover, "the temporary reintroduction of internal border controls has been implemented hundreds of times over the years by European countries: Spain itself has resorted to it 22 times since 2009, just as certain other countries have done in relation to Italy or other partners". 

"Together with Germany and France, we have suspended the quotas for so-called ‘Dublin cases’ until the EU Migration and Asylum Pact comes into force on 12 June," said Piantedosi. “I have already made it clear to my German counterpart that we will not accept cases reported in the news that predate that date. And that, in any event, from that date onwards, we will offset this with the thousands of migrants being brought to our shores by German NGO ships: 2,200 since the start of the year and more than 500 since 12 June alone. “We have accepted that the responsibility of the countries of first entry should not be waived,” Piantedosi noted, “but we are confident that the number of potential ‘Dublin cases’ will continue to fall, as we work to ensure that fewer and fewer irregular migrants arrive in Italy and Europe.”

Piantedosi then once again defended the policies implemented by the Meloni government on immigration. “Since the start of the year, landings in Italy have fallen by 55 per cent compared with 2025, and if we compare the landings in the first seven months of 2023 – the start of the parliamentary term – with the same period this year, the figures have plummeted by 82 per cent. In 2026, in essence, around 17,000 people arrived, which is less than a quarter of those who reached Ceuta in two days,” she said. Shortly before the hearing began, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni shared a video on social media showing irregular migrants being put on a plane by the police. "Deportation operations for irregular migrants on Italian soil are continuing," Meloni wrote. "Border defence, security, respect for the rules: we will continue straight down this path."

Tonight’s eclipse will therefore pass over Greenland, Iceland and Spain, where the umbra will leave Earth at sunset, just beyond the Balearic Islands, over the Mediterranean, and will serve as a foretaste of the even more spectacular eclipse due to take place next year – one of far greater significance, with a total phase lasting nearly six and a half minutes, among the longest of the century. Today’s eclipse will cross a narrow strip of land and sea stretching from Arctic Russia, passing through Greenland, touching parts of the far west of Iceland, a tiny portion of Portugal and a wide swathe of Spain. The total phase will not last long – between one and a half and two minutes – exceeding two minutes only off the Icelandic coast and in certain parts of Greenland. To mark the occasion, the European Space Agency is organising a live stream of the event starting at 7.30 pm, which you can follow by clicking on this link.

Today’s total eclipse will therefore consist of five phases. The first is the moment when the Moon’s disc begins to overlap with that of the Sun, and this will continue for around thirty minutes; the second will be one of the most spectacular, during which a sort of ‘diamond ring’ will be visible in the sky, because beams of light will be produced whilst the last fragment of the Sun’s disc is still visible. Immediately afterwards, totality will begin – an early night that will last a maximum of 2 minutes and 18 seconds, depending on the location from which it is observed. Then we will once again be able to see brilliant ‘pearls of light’ around the lunar disc, and finally the Moon will slowly reveal the Sun once more. However, from Italy it will not be possible to witness all five phases because, not only – as we have already mentioned – will totality not be visible anywhere in the country, but also because the phenomenon will occur at a time very close to sunset.

What is a solar eclipse?

A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly between the Sun and the Earth, casting a narrow band of shadow onto our planet. During the totality phase, a sort of twilight sets in, the temperature drops and some animals may alter their behaviour. The phenomenon is made possible by a particular coincidence: the Sun is about four hundred times larger than the Moon, but it is also about four hundred times further away from Earth. For those in the right position, therefore, the two celestial bodies appear to be of similar size and the Moon is able to completely cover the Sun’s disc, revealing the corona, the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere. The partial phases, from the start to the end of the Moon’s passage in front of the Sun, will last around one hour and 45 minutes. A partial eclipse will also be visible across much of Europe, Canada, the northern United States and north-western Africa. The difference compared with a total eclipse is, however, enormous: even with just 1 per cent of the Sun still visible, its brightness remains around four thousand times greater than that of a full Moon, explained Alain Doressoundiram, an astrophysicist at the Paris Observatory.

On average, one or two solar eclipses occur each year, but the part of the world where totality can be observed is very narrow. A given area of the Earth may therefore have to wait around four hundred years before witnessing the phenomenon again. The next total eclipse, on 2 August 2027, will cross southern Spain, North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, with a totality lasting up to six minutes and 23 seconds. A longer eclipse will not occur until 2114.

How to watch the solar eclipse safely

The solar eclipse taking place this evening before sunset poses no direct risk to human health – such as effects on pregnancy or nutrition – with the sole exception of permanent damage to the eyes caused by looking directly at the sun, even for a short time. The Ministry of Health has published a series of recommendations on this matter. Before observing the eclipse, it is essential first of all to wear specific eye protection – sunglasses are not sufficient – and to keep them on at all times. The primary risk is damage to eyesight: looking directly at the sun or a solar eclipse, even for a short time, can cause permanent damage to the retina – known as solar retinopathy – without causing any immediate pain. The risk is increased in the case of repeated observations, even if brief. The damage may become apparent hours or days later.

There is only one safe way to view the eclipse directly: look at the sun using special eclipse glasses that are certified to meet the ISO 12312-2 standard. Any other method must be avoided as it does not always guarantee safe protection: as mentioned earlier, sunglasses are not sufficient, nor are X-ray film, homemade filters, welder’s goggles, camera lenses or anything else. Children and young people are at greater risk, as their eyes are more easily damaged and because the fascination of the phenomenon may draw them towards looking at the sun. For them, observing the eclipse should take place under the constant supervision of adults, who must ensure that children and young people wear the appropriate glasses at all times. Older people, those with pre-existing eye conditions, or those who have undergone certain eye surgeries may be at greater risk.

A way of enjoying cinema that never really caught on outside the United States but which experienced a veritable boom there in the 1950s, partly thanks to the boom in the motoring world and the symbiosis between man and car, which is the norm in so many parts of this vast country. The film’s audio is broadcast via FM radio; the kiosk sells all manner of treats that are eaten straight from the car seats whilst the sun sets; people chat and socialise with their neighbours; and, despite the passage of time, everything remains surprisingly similar to the American dream that has also reached us from across the Atlantic through countless TV series and films, from "Grease" to "American Graffiti": as darkness slowly falls, the headlights gradually dim, the scent of popcorn fills the air, and gigantic images appear against the American sky.

The Skyview opened on 8 July 1949, and we were there on the very day of this significant 77th anniversary. A history that keeps it alive to this day, having even survived two tornadoes and making it, in a way, the custodian of a great tradition that continues: this is thanks to the passion of those who work there, the tenacious determination of those who run it, the now loyal audience, and even the curious visitors who go there to soak up a glimpse of pop culture and the American dream. Places like Skyview are more than just a nostalgic curiosity: because in this age of streaming platforms, films watched on mobile phones and large multiplex chains, the drive-in instead allows everyone to enjoy an experience that is collective, yet one to be savoured from the comfort of one’s own private space. Everyone in front of the same screen, under the same sky: and American cinema, perhaps, is not just what appears on the screen, but above all what happens around it.

Guccini lived at number 43 Via Paolo Fabbri until 2012. In 1976, he released the album named after this address, the record that paved the way for his commercial success. ‘L’avvelenata’ spits out anger and pride and responds to the criticism levelled in those same years at other singer-songwriters and to the criticism, spearheaded by journalist Riccardo Bertoncelli, directed at the album *Stanze di vita quotidiana*; ‘Piccola storia ignobile’ recounts the tragedy of abortion; ‘Via Paolo Fabbri 43’ is a blues track that evokes the nights in Bologna and the atmosphere of the time.

"He was very fond of Bologna; his daughter, Teresa, especially loves Bologna," Manuela Musiani, who lived opposite Guccini whilst he lived there, told ANSA. "We were neighbours for many years; in fact, my dad always used to joke to him: ‘Maestro, you’re my neighbour – I’m not Guccini’s neighbour’." Because my father had been here longer than him; he was born in this house in 1930. As for Guccini, I don’t remember exactly, but he certainly arrived later – I think in the 1970s.” At one point, Manuela becomes emotional. “Another thing I remember is that he used to ask to be walked back here every time there were elections, after he’d voted.” 

“Hello Francesco, with you goes the best part of my life,” reads a note signed by Angela and left outside her old house. Here, passers-by stop to offer a thought, a tear, a smile. And to sing her songs once more. 

An unpublished (and anonymous) document concerning the purchase of face masks has been submitted to the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office

“I have to submit a document that I received in an anonymous letter and which I handed over to the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office on Monday; it was drawn up on 14 April 2022, arrived with the names redacted but all the titles are included, and consists of ten pages,” said Conte before going into the details of his hearing. This document concerns the “delivery of face masks”. The leader of the Five Star Movement emphasised that “there is a possibility that millions from the State have been paid to a private company – an enormous sum for face masks that do not meet the specified and declared specifications”. He added: “Reading this transcript, it would appear that none of the parcels stored in a warehouse in Pomezia are masks with filtering efficacy; the model does not match, and there is a falsified version of the package leaflet.”

“I’m not afraid and I won’t take lessons from anyone,” says Conte

“At last, here we are. The Committee has been a firing squad for me.” The meeting with the former Prime Minister comes after months of back-and-forth between the leader of the Five Star Movement and Fratelli d’Italia. The meeting began almost four hours late due to proceedings in the Chamber of Deputies. In order to be heard, Conte resigned as a member of the very same committee that was due to meet on Tuesday 4 August. He said: “The idea has taken hold that I was afraid to speak in this context: I have never been afraid; I have always acted transparently; those who speak in this way do not know me.” He added: “On the subject of fear, I cannot accept lessons from those who are not in a position to give them: just yesterday we saw examples of people who are afraid, who run away, who defend their party colleagues, who do not hand over their chat logs.” The reference was to Delmastro and the chats with Caroccia, but he stopped himself immediately: “This is not the place for that.” He went on to assert: “We have worked in extremely difficult circumstances to try to save the country. Working day and night – and that’s not just a cliché. In 2020, we saved over 330,000 jobs, thanks to the ban on redundancies that we in Italy had the courage to implement.”

"Regions excluded from the debate, to protect your local councillors. Where were you?"

“You have excluded the regions from the hearings!” Conte added. He explained: “To give a true picture of what happened, I would in fact have had to involve the regional health authorities: the regions. I am referring to the majority: you have irresponsibly excluded the regions from the scope of this committee’s inquiry. Because the regions bear the legal, substantive, economic and social responsibility for managing healthcare. So we could meet here a hundred times, but you will not allow me to address a fundamental aspect of the pandemic.” And the reason, according to the former prime minister, is to protect local centre-right administrators. “The regions hardest hit were Veneto and Piedmont; how can we proceed without examining in depth what happened at regional level? It is a serious issue of accountability.”

“You can dig as much as you like: you’ll never find anything unlawful on my part, because there simply has never been any unlawful conduct,” Conte went on to say. “I,” he continued, “have carried out my duties with discipline and honour, and I will not allow anyone to cast a shadow over the handling of the pandemic, because these shadows you cast end up extending even to the men and women of the state who fought to safeguard the nation.” And he attacked the majority once more: “Today you set yourselves up as judges,” Conte told the majority. “But where were you during the pandemic?” He added: “Your leader, Meloni, went on television to call me a criminal. The true patriots are those who fought against the pandemic; then there are the fake ones who speculated on a great national and international tragedy. We cannot recall any useful contribution on your part.”

"We were an international model"

“Despite the controversy, Italy has truly been a model in practice, both nationally and internationally,” Conte went on to say, still referring to the decisions he took during the pandemic. According to the former Prime Minister, “our economy has proved particularly resilient precisely because of the measures taken to contain the spread of the virus and a massive support package for households and businesses.” He added: “It was not a temporary rebound but a capacity for recovery that demonstrated the vitality of the Italian system.” He also highlighted the international support: “They were emulated by Spain, France and Greece, and adopted by the European Union and the WHO as risk-mitigation tools. Every time we issued a Prime Ministerial Decree, embassies would translate it and circulate it to foreign ministries.”

"The PNRR is like Maastricht. The state has never exercised its powers of substitution"

“We have managed to bring about a turning point in Europe with the NRRP,” Conte went on to claim. “It’s not just me saying this,” he clarified, “but experts in European law and economics. It was a turning point in European history on a par with the Maastricht Treaty because it introduced an action plan based on solidarity, but it happened in the context of shared public debt.” And on the use of Prime Ministerial Decrees (DPCMs): “During the pandemic, it was never considered to exercise the state’s substitute powers as a matter of political choice; rather, there was constant dialogue with regional authorities – a dialogue it would have been good to hear here too.”

And on the use of Prime Ministerial Decrees: “Our Constitution does not contain explicit provisions governing a state of emergency, unlike other constitutions such as those of Germany, Spain or France. One of the most sensitive issues we faced was deciding what kind of measures to implement, in the knowledge that such a severe pandemic risked significantly altering the balance between the various branches of government, putting the very stability of our democratic system to the test.”

And he asks the commissioners: “Do you think I hadn’t realised that? There has been extensive debate on this.” He explains: “We had to chart a course for the executive that would allow it to adopt all appropriate containment measures to deal with the sudden evolution of the epidemiological situation, whilst constantly involving Parliament. I, in agreement with all the ministers, have never considered the possibility of exercising the state’s power of substitution; this was a conscious political choice, not merely a practical one.” 

Il Foglio’s investigation into face masks

Article currently being updated by Nicolò Zamebelli

For the world of comics, this week we recommend a true cult classic: “Blacksad”, the famous comic series published in Italy by Rizzoli Lizard, set in a world populated by anthropomorphic animals, where we follow the protagonist John Blacksad – a black cat and private detective, always with a cigarette in his mouth and a perpetually crumpled coat – as he navigates 1950s America amidst murderers, corruption, nightspots and political wounds very, very close to those of our own history. A brilliant hard-boiled tale that’s an absolute must-read. Also worth checking out is the series’ first spin-off: “Weekly”, illustrated by the Italian Giovanni Rigano.

In the world of film and television, we venture into the realm of horror with “Hokum”, in Italian cinemas from 5 August courtesy of Lucky Red. A film that ingeniously blends the haunted house genre with elements more typical of folk horror, evoking fear even before revealing the sources of that fear. Perfect for those who prefer a more atmospheric brand of horror rather than one based on gore or jump scares.

Finally, our recommendation from the world of gaming is “Beast of Reincarnation”, a video game by Game Freak (the very same developers behind Pokémon) set in a post-apocalyptic Japan where a mysterious contamination has devastated the world, transforming the landscape, reducing humanity to nothing but rubble and ruin, and filling the Earth with cursed creatures. Worth noting is the gameplay, which combines real-time action with role-playing elements in a truly innovative way.

Three works to help you find your way through the world of entertainment and pop culture, a world of imagination, nostalgia and collective desires. DECODER is here to try and decode the present through its new popular myths, piecing together, week after week, episode after episode, a vast map that charts, more than ever before, the infinite nuances and directions of our present. See you next week for another trio of unmissable titles.

The operation was carried out in accordance with Article 110 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which allows a military vessel, provided the prescribed conditions are met, to carry out the necessary checks on the nationality of a merchant vessel and the flag it is authorised to fly, even in international waters. The checks lasted approximately two hours and were concluded smoothly and in complete safety.

The documentation obtained is currently being examined. Defence Minister Guido Crosetto expressed his satisfaction with the conduct of the operation, commenting: “I would like to congratulate the crew of the Nave Thaon di Revel and all the military personnel involved in the operation for the professionalism, preparedness and resolve they have demonstrated. This operation is further concrete evidence of Italy’s contribution to security in the Mediterranean and to the European Union’s efforts”. In the afternoon, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani also spoke from La Versiliana, stating: “We are working for peace; to achieve this, we must urge Putin to come to the negotiating table and adopt a more conciliatory stance.”

This is the second interception of a vessel from Russia’s shadow fleet in the Mediterranean in two weeks, following the case of the MV North Star on 22 July. These incidents appear to indicate a shift in the priorities of the EU mission, launched in 2020 to ensure compliance with UN Security Council resolutions banning the trafficking of arms to and from Libya, and which is now increasingly focused on countering the movements of the shadow fleet.

Matteo Salvini issued a statement in recent days explaining that the League is considering putting the jeweller forward as a candidate, even though he is not eligible. “I did, in fact, understand that at this stage he is not eligible to stand, so I’ll leave it at that…”, Zaia added. We asked the former president of Veneto to comment on the statements made by the Lega leader during a dinner hosted by Lega MP Antonio Angelucci: “Enough of the North and the party of the nostalgic.” Zaia replied: “We are inextricably linked between the North and the South. There is an urgent need for fiscal equalisation regarding the ‘southern question’, and there is an equally urgent need for fiscal equalisation with regard to the north of the country as well.” But on Salvini’s remarks, he is clear: “I am not aware that he has ever said anything of the sort.”

And then there is the issue of the electoral law and preferential voting, which were scuppered by the very same majority that proposed them a few weeks ago following a secret ballot. The battle to reintroduce them, under pressure from FdI, is now in the Senate: “I believe that if we want to see the citizen as a key player in the political life of their country, the citizen must be able to choose their local representatives and those who will govern,” says Zaia. “It’s already done in local councils, it’s already done in the regions; I don’t understand why it can’t be done in Parliament.”

But this isn’t the usual story of a one-hit wonder, because before it was heard, “Nightcall” was “seen”. In 2011, it reached a wider audience thanks to the opening credits of "Drive", Nicolas Winding Refn’s film starring Ryan Gosling at the height of his action-glamour minimalism. And it works that way because it doesn’t invent anything new, but draws on a visual and sonic imagery that had already been circulating for decades, ready to be recognised. It is the final link in a musical tradition that began with Kraftwerk, who in 1974 dedicated an entire album, "Autobahn", to the car journey as a mystical experience: twenty-two minutes of electronic pulsation to describe the only form of public solitude that the twentieth century invented – that found within a car’s interior. A space in which to be together whilst moving and whilst stationary, exposed and protected. A motorised journey continued by Giorgio Moroder, who transformed that beat into a soundtrack language (“American Gigolo”, “Scarface”), and by Tangerine Dream, who composed a synth soundscape for Michael Mann’s “Thief” to accompany night-time shots of deserted cities. And then there’s the 1984–89 TV series "Miami Vice", with its aesthetic of pink and blue neon lights against wet tarmac, whose visual repertoire was revived by synthwave in the 2010s, imagining the 1980s as darker and more elegant than they actually were. Kavinsky follows that same path, and "Nightcall" adheres to every rule of the genre: a bassline like a heartbeat, vocals filtered through car windows, a single repeating chord, mimicking the hypnotic monotony of a centre line, of a strip of tarmac. It’s no surprise that these very traits – designed to remain in the background, never in the foreground – have worked better outside clubs than inside them. Even before that, another of his songs, “Testarossa Autodrive”, had featured on the soundtracks of Grand Theft Auto IV and Gran Turismo 5. And in 2013, the single “Odd Look” became the soundtrack for a BMW advert. 

Kavinsky’s tracks are ones that arrive already imbued with an image, which the ear then recovers later, by association. You recognise ‘Nightcall’ from the scene of Gosling driving at night in leather gloves. You remember ‘Testarossa Autodrive’ because it’s the track that plays whilst a video game is loading. It’s a reversal of the traditional order of musical discovery, which usually works something like this: first the sound, then, if all goes well, the image that accompanies it: a video, a concert, an album cover. A final touch of irony concerns the producer of “Nightcall”: Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, one half of Daft Punk. The French duo built their reputation on hiding their faces behind helmets to force the audience to focus solely on the sound. Kavinsky, on the other hand, has allowed the sound to disappear into someone else’s face – that of Gosling behind the wheel. It’s a language that every generation, sooner or later, rediscovers. Because every generation, sooner or later, drives alone at night and seeks out music that captures that feeling.

The backlash was immediate and fierce. “Disgusting”, “shameful”, “horrible” and “monster” were just some of the insults flying around on social media, betraying the irritation at what is perceived as a betrayal by an icon of the ‘woke’ movement. His real name is George Alan O’Dowd. Born in London on 14 June 1961 to a Dublin-born bricklayer and a woman who had left the prudish Ireland of the time to escape the stigma of being an unwed mother – and whom his father beat even whilst she was pregnant with him – Boy George has described his childhood as “a sad Irish song”. An openly gay man and a drug addict to such an extent that in 1986 The Sun had predicted he had only eight weeks to live, an icon of androgyny and sexual diversity, in 1988 he sang the hard-hitting protest song “No Clause 28” against a law pushed through by Margaret Thatcher to ban the “promotion of homosexuality in schools”: a track made all the more provocative by the inclusion of an audio clip featuring the voice of the then Prime Minister. Culture Club was the name of the band with which he rose to fame: ‘cultural club’ in homage to its pioneering spirit of inclusion and representation, being made up of a singer of Irish origin, a black Jamaican bassist, a Jewish drummer and an English guitarist.

Her other pseudonyms and the groups she was part of also served as ‘descriptive names’ for the genre. ‘Angela Dust’ is, in fact, a clear allusion to the English expression ‘angels’ dust’, a reference to the hallucinogen phencyclidine. ‘Jesus Loves You’ was a musical project that blended religious elements from various sources. ‘Dubversive’ combined ‘dub’ – meaning ‘double’ and also the name of a reggae subgenre – with ‘subversive’. ‘The Twin’ – the twin or twins – revisits the theme of the double. And in 2025, she also launched a scathing attack on J.K. Rowling. Five years earlier, the author of “Harry Potter” had expressed the view that only those born biologically female can identify as such. “Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are,” commented Emma Watson, who had played Hermione Granger in the films based on the series. “Like other people who have never experienced adulthood without the shadow of wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life that she is unaware of just how ignorant she is,” the writer had replied. At that point, Boy George had in turn commented: “Who cares what J.K. Boring [the English word ‘boring’ means ‘tedious’] thinks about anything? She’s the most boring of the boring. My real life couldn’t care less about her fiction. I’m with Emma Watson. She’s a ‘fire horse’. Rowling is a ‘wooden snake’.” But the two had already had other clashes in the past, during which the singer had repeatedly accused the writer of homophobia.

Boy George’s back catalogue also includes ‘The War Song’, with which Culture Club reached number two in the UK charts in 1984, and whose chorus went: ‘War is stupid and people are stupid / And love means nothing in certain strange circles’. But now the lyrics of this latest song seem, in part, to correct that assertion. “When you’re under attack, that’s what the army’s for,” sings Boy George, who later adds: “when I know you want to kill us all, every last one of us”. The chorus repeats: “There’ll be no war. But if you ever feel confused, I’m on the side of the Jews. I don’t feel brave, I just need to act like a human being”.

Having evidently anticipated the criticism it would receive, the song also contains a dig at the pro-Palestinian movement and at musicians who have taken a stand against Israel. “You condemn the Jews, with selective memory. Musicians waving flags, bleating like sheep. The propaganda fuelled by the internet seems so weak,” reads another passage from the lyrics.

Climbing, watercolours, a course on frying anchovies – all to ensure not a single gap remains for that murderous woodworm, love, the usurper of everyone’s existence. Twenty-somethings, after facing various accusations (they don’t want to work, they don’t want to buy a house or a car, they don’t want children and they don’t even like wine), are now confronting the unthinkable: they don’t want to fall in love. We’ve got other sources of happiness, thank you very much. It would be the greatest anthropological achievement of all time: choosing no one. The interesting point is the attempt to put things into perspective: does love have to be the main plotline? No, not necessarily. I agree, I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, they glimpse a conclusion as adults with their bones already broken: that when you’re in love, you bring out the worst in yourself, but you don’t know it; you can’t realise it. What love is, one should never ask of those newly in love, but of relentless, practical souls with children to support and twenty years of marriage behind them. Love is the answer to the question ‘But how can I bear it? Why don’t I just leave?’. Barthes invented a ‘Loving Subject’ specifically to show us the farce of romance. He is an indistinct, at times ridiculous protagonist who wanders through the pages of the book "Fragments of a Lover’s Discourse". We follow him the whole time as he fails spectacularly at living: episode after episode, he strives wholeheartedly to define himself as a comical, pitiable individual. ‘Comical’ is just my word for it; the truth is that he really is suffering. But he suffers over nothing. I simply cannot shake the feeling that Barthes wanted precisely that – the unintentional caricature of this poor wretch, the ‘Loving Subject’, that ultimately sticks in your mind. We have all been the ‘Loving Subject’; we were a Marcovaldo lost in the fog, chirping, ‘Why don’t you love me? Love me, please! I’ll pay you!’ What is it that makes a person in love seem ridiculous, just like the ‘imaginary invalids’?

a) The lover cannot stand the rest of the world. There is an inescapable desire for possession at the heart of the whole affair. Love is not a generous sentiment; it is not about giving, but about wanting to possess; it is therefore inseparable from its object and does not tolerate being shared. “The world is full of intrusive neighbours with whom I am forced to share the other person. The world is precisely this: an obligation to share. The world is my rival. The lover even goes so far as to be jealous of a book in which the other person is engrossed.”

b) The lover lives (unhappily) in fear. “Depending on the circumstances, the Loving Subject feels driven by the fear of danger, of being hurt, of being abandoned. But ultimately, the anguish of love is the fear of a loss that has already taken place, right at the beginning, when I was bewitched. Someone ought to be able to tell me, ‘Do not be anguished any longer; you have already lost them’.”

c) The lover has but one occupation: waiting. They wait for a message, then a phone call, then an invitation to dinner, then for that dinner invitation to come to fruition. They wait to see their beloved again, wait for the relationship to stabilise, wait to feel secure. They start to expect to be betrayed, end up betrayed, wait for things to sort themselves out, wait for it to blow over, wait to fall in love again. Want to put a man through hell? Make him wait. “Waiting is a spell: I have been ordered not to move. The wait for a phone call thus becomes interwoven with a web of minor prohibitions, endlessly, to the point of shame: I forbid myself from leaving the room, from going to the loo, even from making a phone call (so as not to keep the line busy). The anguish of waiting demands that I sit in an armchair with the telephone within reach, doing nothing. Making people wait: a constant prerogative of any power, ‘humanity’s age-old pastime’.”

Theme: Love, anguish, expectations. And how do you resolve it? Is there a way to heal? Can you become invulnerable by doing crochet? Colleagues, demonstrate your approach – though I fear that even if you attempt to escape love while wearing Perseus’ sandals, it will catch up with you sooner or later.

Summer 2026, a time for re-reading. An opportunity to revisit the entire Arturo Bandini series by John Fante, that splendid American from Abruzzo who, through a world-famous alter ego – thanks to Charles Bukowski, who rescued him from the depths of oblivion – gave shape to a saga in four parts: "Wait for Spring, Bandini"; "The Road to Los Angeles"; "Ask the Dust"; and "Dreams of Bunker Hill".

Reread the whole thing and see, laid out before you as if on a platter, everything that is missing from most contemporary fiction. And what we, as readers, are becoming less accustomed to expecting. Spoiler: real life instead of a political rally, please. And now let’s start all over again.

Who is Arturo Bandini? A legend. The aspirant within each of us. The aspirant that he himself is: a young Italian-American from Colorado shaped by a deeply traditional Italian family. “A leader,” as Sandro Veronesi described him in an introduction—inevitably full of exclamation marks—to the Einaudi edition of "The Road to Los Angeles". Inevitably: why? Because Arturo Bandini is alive! And he is someone who asserts things with great vigour. He is also someone who denies things with equal vigour. He has been certain, ever since he was fourteen, that he will not end up in the eternal flames, yet he does not seem to meet the requirements – at least, so he confesses in "Wait for Spring, Bandini". Arturo, after all, is someone who never meets the criteria. But he declaims and proclaims. For example, that he is a great writer. Yet he has written only one short story, entitled "The Little Dog Laughed", in which, in his own words, we know that it is not about a dog and nobody laughs. Arturo is an expert on women’s behinds (here, yes, he does meet the criteria: see Dreams of Bunker Hill). And he’s the sort of man who, throughout an entire novel, chases after a novel he wants to write and a woman who’s completely out of reach – Camilla Lopez from "Ask the Dust".

Arturo Bandini first appears on the scene aged fourteen in the first novel about him and leaves it behind in his twenties in the last. He is always in the midst of learning, of struggling with life. His essence, essentially, is precisely this: Arturo Bandini is life, full stop. He is not a reflection on life. He is not a character in the form of a question. Bandini is what it means to be alive, pure and simple, and he is so very much so that he often risks being overwhelmed – yet in the end, no, he does not give in; he stands his ground, chest out; he fails and tries again, because he is someone who both surrenders to and resists life, someone who loves and hates, pursues and waits. And he does so constantly, throughout this so-called tetralogy that sees him in action. And we call it ‘false’ because, more than anything else, it is a publishing arrangement. It wasn’t even written in chronological order: forty-five years passed between the first volume ("The Road to Los Angeles", written in 1936, rejected and published fifty years later when Fante had been dead for a couple of years) and the last ("Dreams of Bunker Hill", dictated to his wife in 1981, by which time Fante was blind and had had both legs amputated due to diabetes). "Aspetta primavera, Bandini" – which tells the story of fifteen-year-old Arturo, still showing little hubris but already at great odds with the world – was published in 1938. "Chiedi alla polvere", the novel about the impossible love of a twenty-year-old Arturo, followed the next year. The first three pages are phenomenal: Arturo has to leave a squalid motel room in California; he falls asleep there, then wakes up and wanders about. Fante’s mastery unfolds in all its purity right from the start: Bandini gets up, does some push-ups, goes out for a coffee, heads to his usual restaurant, smokes two cigarettes, reads the billboards displaying the American League results, thinks of Joe DiMaggio, stands in the middle of the road and bats a ball past an imaginary pitcher, scores a run, sets off down Olive Street and takes us on a tour of it all, thinking back to two friends from Detroit who used to live there, to a pair of women’s legs, to the man in the lift, to an evening at the Philharmonic, then daydreams in front of the Biltmore Hotel and is spellbound by a shop window full of pipes, smoking them all, imagining himself to be a great writer.

Narrative freedom and no amateur psychology. Just observing life without ever judging it. And characters – that is, creatures full of life and contradictions – not arms armed with concepts to be proven. Long live John Fante and his uninhibited, free and vibrant literature: our own, fortunately, not just that of the writer.

Moscow’s hybrid warfare encompasses sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation, interference and covert operations against European infrastructure and strategic targets. This is why Thursday’s explosion in Colleferro, on the outskirts of Rome, at a plant belonging to KNDS Ammo Italy – a company that manufactures ammunition, including 155-millimetre rounds destined for Ukraine – takes on particular significance. The fire, which broke out in the area used for processing and compressing gunpowder, did not result in any casualties. The judicial authorities are investigating the causes and, at present, there is no evidence to link the incident to Russia’s hybrid war – although many have put forward the theory that it was an act of sabotage. The most alarming aspect, however, concerns the media coverage: in Italy, there are already those accusing "the arms industry", arguing that "the employment prospects of a region and the country cannot be entrusted to rearmament and the war economy". Security comes first, but it is precisely Putin’s war, together with the hybrid pressure that Moscow has been exerting on European countries for years now, that has made it clear that without a credible defence capability, there can be no guarantee of security. We can debate how to produce weapons, where to produce them and what safeguards to put in place for local communities. But the problem that compels us to do so is not one we have created ourselves.

The patient, unhurried demeanour of those who pause before an object draws the gaze towards depths that would otherwise remain unknown, as in certain haiku from Japanese culture in which the observer seems to vanish, leaving room solely for the event itself: “The Great Morning: / amongst the pines blow / ancient winds”, or again: “In the middle of the field / the free song / of the lark”. Everything seems to stand still in these brief, chiselled words; everything becomes a sort of silent contemplation accompanied only by that ‘restless sweetness’ – to quote Montale – where ‘things / surrender themselves and seem close / to betraying their final secret’. What is perhaps most surprising is realising that there is a sort of mysterious, perpetual waiting in nature. A tension that is not contradicted, but rather preserved by that stillness which the Romantic Henry David Thoreau notes in his diaries: “At this time of year, the stillness of the woods and fields is striking. (…) The trees seem to be waiting for winter. (…) Everything stands still in silent anticipation”. It is there, far more so than anywhere else, that man can find something he clearly feels he needs, as is also demonstrated in our own time by the increasingly widespread flight from the noise of the cities, the search for simplicity, and the attempt to return to one’s true self: “In your chaste shade, old oak, / I wish to fathom the source of my life”, wrote García Lorca in 1919.

In an age such as ours, marked by a weakening of historical awareness and the absolutisation of the present, every tree also becomes an implicit invitation to regain a sense of time. Peter Wohlleben, in his book "La saggezza degli alberi" (Garzanti, 2017), explains that whilst until recently the North American "Pinus aristata", at five thousand years old, was considered the longest-lived species, a Swedish red pine has recently caused a stir, its roots having been dated to more than nine thousand years ago. “Every time I encounter a tree, I encounter it for the first time,” writes Tiziano Fratus in his book "I giganti silenziosi" (Bompiani, 2017), adding: “Trees, woods, forests and mountains, deserts and remote expanses have retained a sense of sacredness. They stir within us a spiritual yearning that leads us to respect them (…). By coming into contact with them, we come into contact with something greater, vaster, more immense, more cosmic. And also with something that keeps us connected (…) to the core that gave birth to life.”

In an age characterised by the absolutisation of the present, every tree becomes an implicit invitation to regain a sense of the passage of time

The author takes us on a journey through some of the most precious specimens, from the plane trees in Villa Borghese in Rome to the palm tree associated with Goethe in Padua (1585), and on to the thousand-year-old ficus near Milan; and furthermore, the black locust tree dating from 1601 that stands near Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, the hundred-year-old elm – at which the traitors of the American Revolution were executed – in Washington Square in New York, and the thousand-year-old yew that stands near St Andrew’s Church in London. A sense of wonder grows as one delves deeper into these remarkable records, whether they relate to height (the record is held by a Californian Sequoia sempervirens standing over 115 metres tall), volume (held by another American sequoia known as the Sherman Tree) or, indeed, longevity. Every tree bears the traces of a long history that has shaped it to the present day and can tell us its story. One simply needs to know how to observe. And it is precisely to observe that trees seem to invite us, in their static yet ever-evolving nature. We find numerous examples of this in painting, which has made trees the subject of famous canvases: think of that master of the gaze, Théodore Rousseau (The Oaks of Apremont are an example of an almost mystical relationship with nature) or, even more evocatively, in works by Vincent van Gogh such as Wheatfield with Cypresses and The Pavers. Here there is no longer any imitation; rather, it is the observer’s subjectivity that pervades the work: ‘One must not copy nature, but understand it,’ said the Dutch master; ‘I see everywhere in nature, for example in trees, a capacity for expression and, so to speak, a soul’. In 1889, whilst in hospital, Van Gogh also painted the series of canvases "Olive Trees" and, in a letter to his mother, wrote: “There are some beautiful fields here with olive trees with silver-grey leaves (…). I never tire of the blue sky’”. The mystery inherent in nature is also the subject of “The Four Trees”, which Claude Monet painted in 1891 as part of a cycle of twenty-four canvases, whilst perched on a boat, in order to capture the infinite reflections that the light produced on the water. “I did nothing but look”: this statement, attributed to the French painter, is evocative and encapsulates not only the Impressionist aesthetic but, more broadly, the deepest roots of the act of painting. A tree so majestic that it extends beyond the limits of the frame is the one painted by Gustave Courbet, entitled "The Oak of Flagey", whilst the way in which Piet Mondrian, with "Red Tree", moves painting away from the dictates of the previous figurative language is of striking impact. Painting, the imprint of a moment in which being reveals its significance, opens our eyes to what normally eludes us. It is something akin to the attention Gabriele d’Annunzio pays in the verses of "La pioggia nel pineto": through the absolute absence of voices ("Be still" is the first word of the poem), we come to hear the elusive voice of nature – the freshest of words that the poet invites us to grasp – whilst the rain produces a different sound depending on the trees upon which it falls ("And the pine / has one sound, and the myrtle / another sound, and the juniper / yet another”).

In 1889, whilst in hospital, Van Gogh painted the series of canvases entitled ‘Olive Trees’ and wrote in a letter to his mother: ‘I never tire of it’

The philosopher Max Picard recalls one of the most intense and enriching moments as being when he immerses himself in the tranquillity of nature and notices that things there seem to reveal themselves with greater intensity; he writes: “The most beautiful thing in the woods is when absolutely nothing happens. It is not that nothingness grows within us, but quite the opposite: things take on their true proportions”. This is the religious perception of reality: not allowing thought to take precedence over pure contemplation provides an opportunity to discover that – as Bertrand Russell observed – happiness is more easily found in the little things: “I have made a strange discovery. Whenever I speak to a scholar, I am convinced that happiness is impossible. Yet, when I speak to my gardener, I am convinced of the opposite.”

“The most beautiful thing about the forest is when absolutely nothing happens. Things take on their true proportions,” writes the philosopher Max Picard

In the final verses of the Odyssey, having taken his revenge on the arrogant suitors, Odysseus (who had been laid to sleep by the Phaeacians at the very foot of an olive tree) goes to the countryside where Laertes now lives, having left the palace overrun by the arrogance of the suitors. There, in tears, he reveals himself to his father and, to convince him, describes the garden in detail: “And I shall also tell you the names of the trees in this well-tended orchard which you once gave me (…): you gave me thirteen pear trees, and ten apple trees, and forty fig trees, and fifty rows of vines”. As witnesses to a now-distant past, the trees become proof of the hero’s identity. And yet another tree forms the climax of the Homeric plot when, faced with the impossible task of carrying out of the bridal chamber a bed carved from an olive tree trunk, Penelope secures proof of her guest’s sincerity: “Who has moved – asks the hero, distressed – my bed? ‘No living man, not even one in the prime of life, could move it without effort, for there is a great secret in the well-made bed.’ At the heart of the definitive recognition lies a tree which, on closer inspection, constitutes both the beginning and the culmination of man’s adventures: ‘The root of the Odyssey is an olive tree,’ Paul Claudel significantly observed.

In the Odyssey, the key to the final recognition is an olive tree, which marks both the beginning and the end of the man’s adventures

With their imposing yet discreet presence, trees stand in silence as guardians of an unattainable secret, teaching us that stillness in which the answer to the soul’s deepest longings seems to lie: ‘Trees are sanctuaries. Those who know how to speak to them, those who know how to listen to them, perceive the truth,’ wrote Herman Hesse. What truth is he referring to? Perhaps something not far removed from the unexpected wonder one experiences when, all of a sudden, one happens to observe things as if seeing them for the first time: “But I am / amazed when I look at the garden…”, reads a passage by Guido Gozzano; “Amazed by what? By things. / The flowers seem strange to me: / there are still roses, / there are still geraniums…”.

For the ancient Greeks, sunset was not merely the end of the day but the moment when the god Helios left the western sky aboard a golden chariot to plunge into the ocean. In more recent times, however, the glorification of the sunset is evident in the frenetic proliferation, via social media, of photographs capturing sunsets in millions of images, as if to share something magical that the sky, with its brightest star, bestows upon human eyes – whether from Tierra del Fuego, or from Pizzo Catarineci in the Madonie mountains, from Cape Sounion or Venice, from Los Angeles to Istanbul, from Murlough Beach in Ireland to the Algarve, right up to the ramparts of Essaouira in Morocco – whose name, Al-Maghreb, literally means ‘where the sun sets’. And from there, millions of ‘likes’ and just as many followers in the blind rush to judge which is deemed the most beautiful, the most distinctive, the most evocative – to the point of sharing it endlessly or saving it on one’s tablet as a testament to an experience belonging to others but now made one’s own. As if that post represented something divine, beautiful, fleeting and irreproducible. So at this point, it is only right to ask a question of great fundamental significance: why is it that the allure of the sunset captivates multitudes, makes them dream, fills them with melancholy, evokes nostalgia, brings tears to their eyes and gives rise to tranquil imaginings, devoid of aggression and violence?

For the ancient Greeks, sunset was the moment when the god Helios left the western sky aboard a golden cup, to plunge into the ocean

It is therefore worth understanding, without the need for captions, which colours of the sunset pierce our hearts and eyes, penetrating even the most remote recesses of our feelings, hidden within what we generally call consciousness, giving rise to emotional holograms, wonder, enchantment and a sense of estranged silence. We know that the colours of the sunset are produced by sunlight as it passes through a thicker layer of air, allowing warm tones such as red, yellow, orange, pink and purple to pass through. Yellow and gold – and thus brilliant light on the horizon – orange and red as the rays take on a fiery hue. Colours within the infinite sky, beyond the ordinary perception of a garden, a flower, a wheat field, a rainbow, a half-open window or the glint of a fish darting away beneath the water. It is the sunset.

In 1947, a psychologist from Basel, Max Lüscher, having observed the works of Michelangelo, Raphael, Veronese, Brueghel, Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, Antonello da Messina, Dürer, Turner, the sunsets in the Engadine and many other things, realised that colours harboured a part of the human soul, along with its associated personality structure. Consequently, at a world psychology congress held in Lausanne that same year, he demonstrated to participants the role of colours in human psychology. It was a success, and his work is still used today, known as the ‘Lüscher Test’. He argued that the colour red symbolises vital energy (see the god Ares), strength, the impulse to act and the desire for conquest. The colour yellow, on the other hand, is linked to optimism, positive anticipation, creativity, the need for change and a focus on the future. At this point, it is inevitable to consider how the end of the day, with its spectrum of colours, influences the human mind. Thus, green too – a very subtle shade within the spectrum of the sunset – signifies, according to Lüscher, calm and patience, the ability to listen to others, to recognise the feelings of a group and to appreciate the harmony of the whole. Finally, the colour blue – the most prevalent in nature, from the sky to the sea, from cerulean eyes to the flowers of borage and cornflower, gentian and wild chicory, bellflower, hydrangea and agapanthus. A fundamental colour that signifies calm, emotional fulfilment, tranquillity and inner peace, which, without the need for medication, reduces blood pressure and even slows the heart rate.

In 1947, the psychologist Max Lüscher, having studied the paintings of the greatest artists, realised that colours harboured a part of the human soul

In 1882, Jules Verne published a novel entitled "Il raggio verde", which tells the story of a young Scottish woman, Helena Campbell, who refuses to marry until she has witnessed the rare optical phenomenon of the green ray at sunset, said to reveal the truth in love. A hundred years later, in 1986, a film by director Eric Rohmer, also titled "Il raggio verde", was released in cinemas and went on to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. So what exactly is this light that is so inspiring, indescribable and, superstitiously, mysterious? In essence, it is a rare optical and atmospheric phenomenon that appears as a faint streak or flash of brilliant green light at the top of the sun’s disc, lasting just a few seconds, during sunset. Many speak of it, but very few have actually seen it. Yet the idea captivates and transcends all rational explanation. It is all about emotion when the sunset weaves its magnificent symphony.

All this is the sunset. A metaphor of indescribable beauty and the backdrop to existence. Signified and signifier, just like two hands that intertwine without knowing why all this is happening, destined for the eyes and the heart, when the sky and the ‘stellazzo’ – as they used to say in Sicily to refer to the sun – meet, struggling to exist and return to the eternal cycle of life. Just like the cosmic serpent Ouroboros, which knows it is dying but also being reborn. The serpent of eternity as a continuous cycle, also present in Tutankhamun’s tomb, where the sun signifies the cyclical nature of life and time within the sky. Mythology, symbolism, illness and distress all combined. As can indeed be seen in one of Saint-Exupéry’s most famous lines about the sunset in "The Little Prince": ‘You know… when you’re very sad, you love sunsets.’

At this point, it is inevitable to link this extraordinary celestial phenomenon to the psychology of sunsets for human beings. This deep-seated love for sunsets falls under the term ‘Opacarophilia’, which etymologically combines the Latin verb ‘opacare’ (to obscure or cast a shadow) and the Greek term ‘philia’ (love or friendship). Essentially, all those who love sunsets – with all their nuances and across all possible latitudes – derive a range of positive effects from observing the sky, affecting their minds on a strictly emotional level. One might say that these individuals are conscious connoisseurs of the concept of an ending. The warm light activates areas of the brain associated with a state of calm and relaxation, and these areas can be identified within a circuit linking the prefrontal cortex (which calms the mind), the hypothalamus (which reduces stress) and the limbic system. This emotional state is also linked to the production of very slow brain waves, known as alpha waves. In essence, by experiencing this emotional dimension – in which one is *cum sideribus*, together with the stars, from which the Italian word *considerare* derives, meaning to understand, listen and include – one experiences a magnificent state of inner well-being and hard-won peace. Watching the sun set, together with others, also fosters empathy, intimacy and a sense of sharing, helping us to experience the immanence of the moment – without past or future – as our thoughts are enveloped in the cycle of ending and rebirth, associated with the melancholic sense of time passing and the dawning of tomorrow. Contemplating twilight also reduces anxiety, allowing the tensions of the day that has passed to slip away, restoring a natural pause in which one can accept one’s inner experiences without the stress of having to resolve everything immediately, as is the case in the ordinary routine of daily life. This stands in contrast to "de sideros", from which the concept of desire—which is not a state of grace—derives. We may therefore concede that within those who love the sunset truly lies an enduring thirst for romance. A realm in which the irrational, mystery, dreams, imagination and awe at the grandeur of nature coexist within the same vessel of the individual self. Although in literature, figures such as Marcel Proust have admitted, ‘I loathe sunsets; they are so romantic and melodramatic’, or Roberto Bolaño, who described the phenomenon by declaring, ‘the sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower’.

‘Opacarofilia’, from ‘opacare’ (to obscure) and ‘philia’ (love). Anyone who loves sunsets is a conscious devotee of the concept of an ending

However, alongside individuals drawn to the sunset like bees to honey, there are others in whom its colours produce adverse and harmful effects. These people experience what is known as ‘evening vulnerability’, whereby the transition to twilight triggers a sense of emptiness and increased anxiety linked to the approaching darkness. This is known as Sundowning Syndrome. It is a behavioural disorder that can cause confusion, uncontrolled anxiety, agitation, disorientation, sudden mood swings, irritability, false perceptions, and even auditory and visual hallucinations, and which can lead to a tendency to wander aimlessly and repetitive gestures. It should be noted, however, that this condition is, fortunately, relatively rare compared to the vast number of people who enjoy sunsets. It is observed with some frequency in people with cognitive decline, dementia or early-stage Alzheimer’s, in whom the mental fatigue accumulated throughout the day, combined with the reduction in natural light and the poor visibility of the sunset, can alter familiar points of reference and disrupt the circadian rhythms of the internal biological clock shared by all individuals on this sacred planet. More generally, it is an intensification of the sense of emptiness and the unspoken perception of one’s own imminent end, evoked by the outside world with its provocative colours. It is not quite the hour that turns longing; rather, each person stands alone at the heart of the earth, pierced by a ray of sunlight, and suddenly it is evening.

Sundowning syndrome: a behavioural disorder that causes anxiety, mood swings and even hallucinations

For the vast majority of human beings, therefore, sunset is a bond of intimacy and anticipation, of transformation and hope. It is an emotional pact between heaven and earth, made up of silence and a ritual of love for a scene that leads the eyes to imagine another world beyond that horizon, which swallows the sun’s disc and which, for millennia, has shaped the imagination of thousands of generations across the continents. A world without sunsets is unthinkable. Just as it is unthinkable, for as long as humankind inhabits the earth, that there could be a sky without stars or a moon, without the nights of Saint Lawrence and without the Milky Way, without the Northern Lights and without moments of solitary emotion. And so, through a photograph—no matter from which corner of the world it was captured—each of us, from our own intimate periphery and with the solitude of the internet in tow, shares on social media what our eyes have seen, in the hope that countless contemporaries might leave a ‘like’, a comment, or a question asking from where those colours of the sky were taken, as if to say: ‘My sunset, perhaps, is better than yours, which you shared a minute ago from the other side of the world.’ I would call it an absurd concert of expectations where aesthetics (aistesis in Greek, meaning ‘perception’ and ‘sensation’) rears its head once more via a mobile phone, stretching from Santa Fe in New Mexico to Izmir on the coast of ancient Ionia in Turkey.

In the eastern United States, a kind of mist shrouded the sky for long periods. Average temperatures fell by at least one degree, with frequent temperature swings and frosts even in summer, causing severe damage to crops. In September of that year, Thomas Jefferson, who had retired to his villa at Monticello, wrote to his friend and colleague Albert Gallatin, the ambassador to Paris: “We have had the most extraordinarily cold and dry year in American history.” Jefferson himself suffered substantial damage to his own crops, forcing him to run up considerable debts. Many rivers were unnavigable. There was snow in New England and Vermont. Flour prices soared. Some families were driven to move to the Midwest.

In Europe, spring was extremely late, and the summer was the coldest on record. But unlike in North America, the main problem was not drought, but rather an abundance of rain. There were snowfalls in June and at the end of August. Almost everywhere, the grape harvest produced ‘undrinkable’ wines; the bread was damp and sticky. In many parts of Europe, there were famine-related problems, partly due to the difficulty of transporting goods along the rivers because of the flooding. There were epidemics of typhoid and other diseases. The shortage of food and fodder led to the slaughter of vast numbers of pigs, and in many areas people were reduced to eating cats and moss. Switzerland, where the death rate rose by 50 per cent, was among the hardest-hit areas. “It is terrifying,” wrote a priest from Glarus, “to see these walking skeletons devouring the most repulsive foods with such greed: the carcasses of livestock, stinking nettles, and to watch them fighting with animals over the scraps.” Various theories were put forward regarding the possible causes of such an anomalous season. One concerned the presence of sunspots, visible even to the naked eye at various times during the summer. Others pointed the finger at the persistent presence of vast masses of ice in the lakes and in the northern Atlantic. A third explanation focused on electrical anomalies in the atmosphere, going so far as to blame “Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rods for disrupting the natural flow of electricity”. The influence of the moon and increasing deforestation were also cited.

In 1816, Europe experienced its coldest summer on record. It snowed in June and late August; there were famines and epidemics. The grape harvest was a disaster

Today, the most widely accepted explanations focus on the role of the massive eruption of Mount Tambora and other volcanic eruptions, perhaps in conjunction with other factors. This explanation is supported by numerous contemporary accounts referring to a thick, persistent haze that often obscured the sun’s rays and to dusty, unbreathable air. Some paintings by Caspar David Friedrich and Joseph William Turner, produced during that period, seem to evoke those gloomy skies or those streaked with bright light.

The hardships of that bleak season also inspired a unique invention in the field of transport. The German baron and inventor Karl Drais was accustomed to travelling by horse-drawn carriage in Baden, but the food shortage had decimated the animals, which were exhausted by hunger, often forcing their owners to slaughter them. Drais thus developed what is considered the first two-wheeled vehicle for personal transport: a sort of pioneering pedal-less bicycle that was propelled by the feet and steered by manoeuvring the front wheel, which he named the Laufmaschine, or ‘running machine’. Drais was able to test his invention for the first time in June of the following year, when he set off from his home in Mannheim for a ride in the surrounding area, covering around seven kilometres in an hour. A month later, he publicly announced that he would travel from Mannheim to Kehl in under four hours, covering over seventy kilometres – a feat confirmed by the local police. Drais saw his invention as an efficient and economical means of transport compared to horse-drawn vehicles, but he encountered considerable difficulties: poor roads, worn-out shoe soles and falls. It would be another seventy years before the first bicycle models appeared. Today, a version of the so-called ‘draisina’ is once again being used as a means of teaching children to ride a bicycle.

But the most important and influential invention of that summer was undoubtedly in the literary sphere. To tell its story, we must return to Byron and Switzerland. In the spring of 1816, Lord Byron was going through an extremely difficult period: he was overwhelmed by debt and still reeling from the breakdown of his marriage. To escape his creditors, he set off by carriage for Switzerland with his doctor and friend John Polidori. The journey was slow and arduous due to numerous breakdowns of the carriage. On arrival, the two found three other English travellers waiting for them. The first was the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was also fleeing financial and family problems. Two years earlier, Shelley had abandoned his wife and daughter to run off with the sixteen-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. Their relationship had produced a daughter who died in infancy, and then a son, William. The three set off with her half-sister, the eighteen-year-old Claire Clairmont. She was expecting a child following a relationship with Byron, and had persuaded Shelley and Godwin to take her with them, in the hope of seeing him again. The two groups met on the shores of Lake Geneva. Shelley settled at Maison Chapuis in Cologny, whilst Byron and Polidori rented the elegant Villa Diodati. During that spring, which would soon give way to a summer without summer, that unusual group went on several excursions on the lake and into the mountains, where they witnessed the devastating consequences of the climatic disturbances. ‘[The children] looked extraordinarily deformed and ill. Most of them were hunchbacked and had swollen throats.” But the adverse weather conditions forced them for the most part to stay indoors, discussing, amongst other things, the latest developments in philosophy and science. On some evenings, they were joined by the writer Matthew Lewis, author of the highly successful yet scandalous Gothic novel "The Monk" (1796).

The Swiss sojourn of Byron, Shelley and the sixteen-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. The inclement weather forced them to stay indoors

On 1 June 1816, Mary wrote in a letter to Fanny Imlay: “Almost incessant rain is forcing us to stay indoors for the most part. One night we were treated to a storm more spectacular than any I had ever seen. The lake lit up – the pines of the Jura became visible, and the whole scene was illuminated for an instant, when immediately afterwards a pitch-black darkness descended, and thunder cracked with terrifying roars above our heads, amidst that darkness”. It was Byron, on 16 June 1816, who suggested a peculiar challenge to keep us occupied in those difficult circumstances: to write the most terrifying ghost story one could imagine. Byron sketched out a vampire story, though he never finished it. Polidori drew inspiration from it for a short story entitled "The Vampyre" (published in 1819), whose aristocratic protagonist bears more than a passing resemblance to Byron himself (so much so that it was attributed to him). The story is considered the first example of prose on the vampire theme, predating Bram Stoker’s far more famous "Dracula" (1897) by almost a century. Byron also wrote a number of poems, including the aforementioned "Darkness".

It was Byron, on 16 June 1816, who proposed a unique challenge: to write the scariest ghost story imaginable

Mary Godwin initially underestimated Byron’s challenge. But two days later, in the midst of another stormy night, they all found themselves gathered together, reading Coleridge’s verses by candlelight. It was on that night, according to some accounts, that Mary conceived the central idea for her story.

It was, in fact, a violent storm that marked a turning point in Victor Frankenstein’s life. “When I was about fifteen years old, we witnessed a most violent and terrible storm. It came from behind the Jura Mountains, and the thunder immediately burst forth with a terrifying roar from various parts of the sky. For as long as the storm lasted, I stood watching it with curiosity and delight. As I stood in the doorway, I suddenly saw a streak of fire burst forth from an old and beautiful oak tree standing about twenty yards from our house; and as soon as the dazzling light faded, the oak had vanished, leaving only a dry stump. When we went to look the following day, we found the tree destroyed in a most peculiar manner. It had not been shattered by the impact, but had been entirely reduced to splinters of wood. I had never seen anything so thoroughly destroyed. Before this incident, I was not unaware of the most obvious laws of electricity. On this occasion, a man of great learning in natural philosophy was with us; stirred by this catastrophe, he launched into an explanation of a theory concerning electricity and galvanism, which was new and surprising to me.” Thus, ‘in the magnificent energy and swiftness of the storm’ (as Percy Shelley would later put it), the ‘modern Prometheus’ was born – the man who has been described as ‘the anti-superhero of modernity’, the scientific genius who brings a terrifying monster to life.

“Amidst the magnificent energy and fury of the storm” was born the “modern Prometheus”, the scientific genius who brings the monster to life

Although references to her stay in Switzerland in 1816 recur in various passages, Mary Shelley wrote much of the novel after returning to England, in Bath, and after marrying the poet whose wife had taken her own life. On New Year’s Day 1818, "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" was published anonymously in a print run of five hundred copies, printed by a London publisher on cheap paper, with a preface by Percy Shelley and a dedication to Mary’s father, William Godwin (hence the misconception that the poet was the actual author). It was not until four years later, when the novel had already enjoyed some success and a first stage adaptation, that the author decided to publish a new version under her own name. In 1831, in the third edition, she cited among her sources of inspiration – in addition to the evenings and discussions during her stay in Switzerland – her own childhood in Scotland, the theories of galvanism, the experiments of Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of the more famous Charles) and certain nightmares that had tormented her.

Frankenstein also made his cinematic debut in 1910, in a pioneering film produced by Thomas Edison. But it was James Whale’s hugely successful 1931 film starring Boris Karloff that definitively established Frankenstein’s creature as one of the icons of popular culture, whilst also cementing the shift in the name from the scientist to his creation. Mel Brooks’ 1974 parody, "Young Frankenstein" (Frankenstein Jr.), is also unforgettable.

It did not end well – nor could it have ended well – for the protagonists of that cursed summer. Polidori took his own life in 1821; Percy Shelley drowned the following year; Byron died after a severe fever in 1824. Of Mary Shelley’s four children, only one survived. The author of Frankenstein died in 1851 at the age of fifty-three. In the preface to the 1831 edition of the novel, recalling those weeks of 1816, she wrote: "And now, once again, I bid farewell to my monstrous offspring, wishing it well as it goes out into the world and thrives. I feel a deep affection for it, for it was conceived in happy days, when death and sorrow were merely words that found no true echo in my heart. Its pages bring to mind so many walks, so many carriage rides and so many conversations, when I was not alone.”

Ribbentrop, the former Foreign Minister, was also despised by the other defendants, who regarded him as incompetent and arrogant

In reality, the man was not exactly a former spirits sales representative, as he was ironically described in the immediate post-war period; just as Himmler had not been a mere chicken farmer, although he had cultivated that passion. Ribbentrop had married the wealthy Annelies Henkell, daughter of a wine-growing landowner, and had worked in that sector for a while. But he had attended various schools in Europe and America, learning foreign languages well. In his elegant home, he entertained industrialists and diplomats whom he had met through his wife, and by a technicality in his birth records, he had added ‘von’ to his middle-class surname. He met Hitler and made a favourable impression on him with his hatred of the Bolsheviks and the Jews. Following a series of rival candidates being ruled out, he found himself posted to London as ambassador. At that time, Oxford students had publicly declared that they would never fight for King and Country. Cambridge – as would later become apparent – was rife with Soviet spies, and all the British, except Churchill, supported an unconditional policy of ‘appeasement’. Encouraged by these indications, Ribbentrop assured Hitler that Britain would never come to the aid of the Eastern European countries in the event of a conflict. Hitler loved to hear what he was already convinced of, and appointed him Foreign Minister. He and his wife were the first to be surprised by such an honour. Once again, from his own point of view, the Führer had chosen well: Ribbentrop proved a docile tool in his hands, using the splendour of his uniform and the haughtiness of his manner to mask the aggressiveness of his policies. He did not devise a single one of the crimes of which he was accused, but went along with them all. Like Hitler’s other leading ‘yes men’, the gallows awaited him.

Two other defendants, however, were of a completely different character and background. Admirals Erich Raeder and Karl Dönitz had been, in succession, the commanders of the German Navy. The former had rebuilt it following its annihilation in the First World War; the latter had converted it from a surface fleet to a submarine fleet, unleashing hundreds of U-boats which, for a time, disrupted transatlantic supply lines. Raeder was charged with planning the invasion of Norway and Denmark, as well as the sinking of several ships. Dönitz was charged with ordering his crews to fire even on survivors after a ship had been sunk. These were plausible charges, mitigated by the fact that Allied sailors had also behaved in a more or less similar manner. Raeder was sentenced to life imprisonment, but not even the extremely harsh Soviet prison authorities must have been entirely convinced of his guilt, as they allowed his release after just ten years on health grounds. In fact, the admiral died in 1960 at the age of eighty-four. His conviction was the subject of various controversies: in any case, he was one of the few people who had the courage to oppose some of Hitler’s decisions, and Hitler did indeed dismiss him in 1943.

Controversial convictions for Admirals Raeder and Dönitz, who had been commanders of the German Navy

His position was taken over by Karl Dönitz, an expert in submarine warfare. He was more of a Nazi than Raeder, but this did not make him any more compliant with the Führer’s whims; indeed, perhaps for this very reason, the Führer respected him so much that he appointed him as his successor. The admiral was captured alongside Jodl and Speer, and immediately imprisoned. The accusation that he had failed to come to the aid of the crews was refuted by an affidavit from his (almost) American counterpart, Chester Nimitz, who admitted to having issued quite similar orders. Dönitz was sentenced to a lenient term of ten years, which he served in full. He died at the age of eighty-nine without ever having renounced his conduct as a soldier in any way.

And so we come to the most controversial, enigmatic and, in his own way, fascinating of the defendants. Albert Speer was an architect not yet thirty when Hitler called upon him to design the grandiose structures of his thousand-year Reich. Seduced by such a glorious prospect and backed by virtually unlimited resources, Speer, like Faust, sold his soul to the devil. In his memoirs, this brilliant and multifaceted visionary acknowledged the hypnotic power of his Mephistopheles, and his own unconditional submission. Hitler always treated him with an almost affectionate courtesy, which some insinuated was a sign of latent homosexuality. There is no evidence of such an infatuation, but all historians agree in describing him as the favourite of that exclusive circle. The former house painter probably saw in that young man the qualities of the artist that he himself – having been rejected at the entrance to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna – had longed to become. For the Reich and its leader, Speer designed imaginative plans and colossal structures, from the Nuremberg stadium to the blueprint for a new Berlin dominated by a dome three times the size of St Peter’s. The war brought this peaceful building programme to a halt, and in 1942, Speer was appointed Minister of Armaments. In this role, the artist proved himself to be a creative planner and an unyielding executor. The more Germany was devastated by Allied air raids, the more the factories churned out tanks, aeroplanes, guns and submarines. In 1944, when half the Reich had been reduced to rubble by American B-17s and British Lancasters, Speer quadrupled war production, particularly of panzers and aeroplanes. He unscrupulously exploited slave labourers, prisoners of war and even internees held by the SS. This latter decision led to him being charged with crimes against humanity. However, as far as possible, he preferred, as Davidson wrote, the carrot to the stick, and repeatedly interceded with Hitler to call Himmler and his torturers to order. The Führer granted his request, and without becoming a compassionate philanthropist like Oskar Schindler, Speer improved the conditions of the workers he managed to recruit. He did not do so out of humanity, but out of utilitarianism, aware that a mistreated and undernourished worker produces less than one in acceptable conditions. Naturally, he was aware of the crimes of the SS, of Auschwitz and the massacres there, even though he claimed otherwise at Nuremberg. However, he had no means of preventing the dictator’s planned extermination programmes. In the spring of 1945, with culpable delay, Speer realised that his Mephistopheles was destroying Germany, and when he was ordered to turn the country into scorched earth, he rejected this suicidal delusion, risking both his position and his life. He later claimed to have planned to kill Hitler by introducing poison gas into the bunker’s pipes, but no one ever found any evidence of this impractical scheme. In the end, the young architect acknowledged, at least in part, his guilt, and the court showed leniency: it sentenced him to twenty years’ imprisonment, which Speer served to the very last day. When he was released in 1966, he published his memoirs, which became a bestseller. Today, historians question the sincerity of his account, and Simon Wiesenthal once said to him: “If they had known at Nuremberg what we know about you now, they would have hanged you.”

Speer, the artist of the new Berlin, and the programmer and unyielding executor of the war effort

Even more ambiguous, though far less intriguing, is the figure of Rudolf Hess, who had been languishing in an English prison since 1941, having parachuted there for reasons that nobody explained and nobody understood. He had been one of Hitler’s earliest associates and had helped draft his "Mein Kampf". For a few years he led the party, from which he was gradually marginalised. By the start of the war, he no longer held any influence, and his mind was showing signs of instability. During his imprisonment he remained silent, and his presence at Nuremberg was largely a matter of form. He took part in the trial by feigning amnesia, save for a few moments of deceptive lucidity. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and following Speer’s release he remained the sole inmate at Spandau Prison, where he took his own life in 1987.

The figure of Hans Frank is far more remarkable. He had been a skilled lawyer, having defended Hitler in dozens of trials, and at the age of 33 he was appointed Minister of Justice for Bavaria. He was a capable jurist, and had he remained so, he would have spared millions of people – and ultimately himself – a tragic end. Unfortunately, following the conquest of Poland, he accepted the post of Governor-General of that ill-fated country, already divided between the two partners in crime in Berlin and Moscow. In that role, he distinguished himself through his efficiency and cruelty. It was under his jurisdiction that the first – and, in fact, the only – extermination camps were established; little is known about them even today because, with the exception of Auschwitz, they were all destroyed by the Nazis. Yet the names Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Maidanek and Treblinka evoke even greater horror than the all-too-familiar names of Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald and Mauthausen. It was in those Polish camps that the first methods of mass murder were trialled. All these death factories were run by the SS and Hans Frank. During the trial, ‘the executioner of Kraków’ converted to Catholicism and declared himself repentant. He always wore dark glasses; it is not known whether this was out of shame or because of a sensitivity to light. He accepted his death sentence as inevitable, and died after five minutes of agony and five years of ignominy.

We do not have much space left to describe the other defendants, who, as the British ‘prosecutor’ put it, were identified on the basis of a reputation that was more or less deserved. Some were veritable butchers, such as Wilhelm Frick, former Minister of the Interior and Protector of Bohemia and Moravia; or Fritz Sauckel, Plenipotentiary for Labour Mobilisation, who sent millions of slave labourers to certain death through exhaustion and starvation. Others were depraved ideologues, such as Alfred Rosenberg, theorist of Aryan superiority and the extermination of the ‘Jewish race’; or Julius Streicher, perhaps the most repugnant of them all, ostracised even by his own comrades for the vulgar and violent anti-Semitic propaganda in his newspaper "Der Sturmer". The last of the criminals destined for the gallows was Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Austrian Quisling who had facilitated the German invasion and had been rewarded with full powers over Anne Frank’s Netherlands. They were all hanged, and no one raised any objections.

The fates of Baldur von Schirach and Konstantin von Neurath differed considerably. The former had been the leader of the Hitler Youth and Gauleiter of Vienna. He had come into conflict, within the limits permitted, with Hitler’s right-hand man, Martin Bormann, who had marginalised him. He was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment and released alongside Speer. The latter had been appointed Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, but in 1941 he was replaced by Reinhard Heydrich, who was considered more efficient and more ruthless. Neurath was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment and was released in 1954 on health grounds.

The last three defendants were sent to trial without a shred of evidence. Hjalmar Schacht, Franz von Papen and Hans Fritzsche had been staunch Nazis, but had taken no part in either the war or the massacres. The first was a skilled banker who had revived the German economy and finances; the second an astute politician who had paved the way for Hitler, only to be rewarded with a minor diplomatic post; and the third a newspaper editor who had assisted Goebbels in his enthusiastic propaganda campaign for the Führer. They were all acquitted, although they were immediately subjected to a German ‘denazification’ tribunal. They received symbolic sentences and were released after a short while.

Also in the dock are the organisations that had carried out Hitler’s hegemonic programme

This overview would not be complete without mentioning the charges brought against the organisations. As we have said, this was an original idea because, according to the general principles of law (and of our own Constitution), criminal liability is personal. However, Jackson decided to bring before the court those bodies which, in various ways, had generally represented German militarism and, in particular, Hitler’s programme of hegemony. Thus, the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the leadership of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), the SA, the SS, the Gestapo and the SD were all charged on various counts. No one fully understood what this meant, particularly whether a conviction of these organisations would automatically imply guilt on the part of all their members. To grasp the implications and paradoxes of this decision, one need only consider that the General Staff, as such, had not existed since 1918, and that its apparent counterpart, the OKW commanded by Keitel, was merely the Führer’s personal staff. As for the SS, the matter was even more complex. This ‘empire of evil’ created by Himmler comprised a series of bodies dedicated to a wide variety of tasks: first and foremost, control of all police forces – the secret police (Gestapo); the public order police (Orpo); and the criminal investigation police (Kripo). Then there was the Security Service (SD) and the Central Administrative Office (Wvha), which exploited the immense labour of internees in the concentration camps. In short, the SS was responsible for the ‘Final Solution’ for the Jews; for the persecution of minorities and political dissidents, Roma, homosexuals and members of religious groups. In short, the entire repressive apparatus of Nazism was managed by this organisation and its diabolical leader. But his role did not end there. Himmler had created a veritable private army, the Waffen-SS, which eventually became the most efficient of the large military units. By the end of the war, there were 38 divisions, and almost all had distinguished themselves through their fanaticism and ferocity. The 1st SS Panzer Division ‘Leibstandarte’ had massacred 600 American prisoners at Malmedy and as many civilians during the Battle of the Ardennes. The Second, ‘Das Reich’, had burnt just as many French people alive at Oradour; the 16th, ‘Reichsführer’, had brought shame upon itself with the massacres at Marzabotto and Sant’Anna di Stazzema. In Poland and Russia, the atrocities had been even more gruesome and widespread. However, the task of trying and convicting the hundreds of thousands of individuals – civilians and military personnel alike – who had been enlisted in this organisation was clearly impossible. And the results became apparent almost immediately, when the sheer scale of the numbers was compounded by a conflict of interests. The Americans and the Soviets divided these former Nazis equally between them, placing the most experienced among them in the security and intelligence services. Klaus Barbie, recruited by the CIA, was perhaps the best known, because his most famous victim, Jean Moulin, became the symbol of the French and European Resistance. But thousands got away scot-free. Even the perpetrators of the Malmedy massacre, although sentenced to death, were in fact released after a few years. When the scales of justice become too heavy, even their sword shatters.

The indictment of the associations was perhaps the most striking anomaly in a trial that was, on the whole, fair. And this was the case despite a series of unusual features and innovations that make it a ‘one-off’ in the history of military jurisprudence. We shall examine this in more detail in the next instalment, when we discuss the charges.

(3 – Continued)

Eighty years ago, around this time in August, the proceedings of the greatest trial in history, conducted by an international military tribunal, drew to a close: on trial were the crimes of Nazism, embodied in the 22 defendants – senior political, civilian and military leaders of Hitler’s Germany. Carlo Nordio, Minister of Justice, presents a six-part account of the trial. The first instalment, “C’è un giudice a Norimberga”, was published on Friday 31 July; the second, “Goering e poi gli altri”, on Friday 7 August.

‘Nonna-maxxing’ is a new kind of grandmother who does things the old-fashioned way, but without making them seem outdated; on the contrary, she makes them romantic and enviable

What is it? A glimpse into the past, or a way of transforming the world by drawing on the past? On the one hand, it seems rather nostalgic. I mean, I could be a grandad myself. In fact, this raises another question: how old are Italian grandmothers? Age matters; it’s a dividing line that helps us understand the beauty and the danger of nostalgia. Were they born in the 1950s? The 1960s? If so, of course they’re in good shape and can behave like ‘maxxers’. It’s easy to see why. You have to take into account the earnings-related pension system and the various blood pressure tablets. If, on the other hand, grandmothers and grandfathers were born earlier – say, in the 1940s or 1950s – well, that generation might be starting to suffer from a few aches and pains. I am also certain they have grown rather fed up with cooking. Not to mention unpleasant conditions like dementia: but these are trifles, things that social media – caught up in ‘granny-maxxing’ nostalgia – does not pay too much attention to.

If they were born in the 1940s, grandmothers will have got fed up with cooking. And perhaps they suffer from unpleasant illnesses, but nobody on social media cares about that

So, on the one hand, we can discuss classic nostalgia – the kind that leads one not so much to remember as to idealise. Italy, moreover, possesses this charm: it is the ideal place for idealisation. The place where singers sing of ‘my village all lit up’. In homage to these illuminated places, people proclaim ‘long live the grandmothers’, ‘long live the village’, ‘long live the festivals and processions’. And we swear we’ll come back here to live, just like them, with the slow pace of life and good food. Not now, but one day. In the meantime, we come back, we eat, but then we leave again – incidentally, it would be interesting to understand why Italy, in agriculture and the agri-food sector, is highly innovative but isn’t perceived as such. On the contrary, all anyone talks about is grandmothers.

Still on the subject of interesting things that have disappeared, the historian Edward Palmer Thompson, whilst studying 19th-century textile workers, noted that almost all writings concerning these workers were ‘pervaded by the legend of better times’. Another historian, Robin Veder, describes the flowers that the craftspeople cultivated (and then wove into their designs) as a symbol of loss. “The weavers,” he writes, “mourned the flowers as substitutes for their lost craft culture.” What can one say: they felt a sense of nostalgia for their own lost skills.

All that on the one hand. But on the other hand, I wonder: is that all there is to it? Or am I merely ridiculing a phenomenon? From the lofty heights of my arrogance as an unquestioning innovator, am I merely highlighting what suits me to highlight? I pick out the most paradoxical, trendy aspects and poke fun at them. When we stand there watching and judging young people worn out by modern life (who are interested in sewing and cooking and want to live like farmers) with the pomposity of someone who says: ‘Ah, in my day I used to work 14 hours a day, I didn’t complain, and I did this and that’, well, I’m challenging a nostalgic sentiment with a nostalgic attitude – as if to say: ‘sacrifices aren’t what they used to be’.

It’s fair to file all this away under the usual heading of nostalgia. Today, those exhausted young people ask themselves: but why? Why do I have to make sacrifices? In whose name? To which capitalist saint should I be grateful for the 1,500 euros a month, the 1,000 euros in rent, the forced cohabitation, the Excel spreadsheets, the AI, the refresher courses, the Zoom meetings, the overtime, the working weekends? Why? Can I try to look to the past to shape the future? Can I be happy on a farm where animals all live in peace? Can I rediscover manual labour that has endured for millennia and which, among other things, offers its own rewards? In short, the family in the woods – legal vicissitudes aside – stems directly from the utopian thinking of the 1960s, from that hippie and anti-capitalist mindset. These are people who have made a choice: let’s get away from the madding crowd, let’s rebuild the world, let’s remain human.

Furthermore, when more and more people tell you about beekeeping, home baking and leatherworking, are they merely indulging in fanciful fantasies of escapism from reality (which is, admittedly, stressful), or are these people at the forefront of a new movement? Citizens who, by rediscovering old practices, are proposing a radically new approach to work? In other words, are they suggesting that the present is not enough for us? Indeed, are they disappointed by it and would rather look to a grandparent as a role model than an influencer who flatters you, bosses you about, makes you subscribe to their value system and, in essence, makes you work your fingers to the bone for nothing?

I ask myself this because it’s not just a matter of a few fanatics, champions of the bread of yesteryear. And no, because, on a large scale, we all seem to be gripped by the same nostalgic sentiment. Streaming platforms are full of reality shows in which people compete to learn how to cook, work with ceramics, sew, blow glass or forge metal. Etsy, an online marketplace specialising in handmade and vintage goods, now has more than 5 million sellers. Vintage items too. The French work jacket, the bleu de travail, is now sold by luxury fashion houses to people who will never set foot in a factory.

Streaming platforms are full of reality shows in which contestants compete to learn how to cook, work with ceramics, blow glass and forge metal

So, is this mere nostalgia, or is a proposal being put forward for a different way of working and living? The American philosopher Matthew Crawford (to name but one, as his book was a success at the time), who left his job at a think tank to open a motorbike repair workshop, wrote a best-selling book on this kind of transition, entitled "Shop Class as Soulcraft" (2009), in which he argues that specialised manual labour gives us access to a form of thinking that office work denies us. The daily newspaper La Repubblica often publishes stories of individuals (often well-off with a generous severance package) who have left their jobs to return to their roots, and these stories all have the same tone: “I used to be an unhappy manager; now I’m a farmer, a beekeeper, a potter, a happy pasta-maker.” So, does this nostalgic sentiment stem from old age (and an inability to analyse the world) or from youth (which holds out the prospect of a new world)?

From a wonderful island, Ulysses wants to return to Ithaca. We live in a modern, wealthy country, but we want to give it all up (and tell La Repubblica all about it)

It’s worth giving this some thought, not least because these waves of nostalgia are becoming ever more acute as artificial intelligence promises – or threatens – to automate this or that job, and more generally everything that human beings are capable of doing. The more announcements there are to this effect, the more these longings grow. Nostalgia runs rampant. Nostalgia risks becoming the theme of the future. We want work done by hand, handcrafted products, tradition and folklore. We dream of the old forms of specialised labour. To complicate matters, let us also ask ourselves: when we fetishise the skills and customs of the distant past, are we not in danger of falling into a reactionary form of Luddism that resists all change? It’s a complex issue, I reckon; we need to explore the nature of nostalgia.

In his book "Shop Class as Soulcraft", Matthew Crawford argues that manual labour provides access to a form of thinking that office work denies us

Just a brief note on etymology. The word ‘nostalgia’ derives from two Greek roots: nóstos (‘returning home’) and álgos (‘longing’). Philosophers help us to interpret the word. It could also refer to a longing for a home that no longer exists or never did. Nostalgia is a feeling of loss and, at the same time, of repressing that loss. It is a sense of reclaiming, but also of the illusion of possession. Nostalgia, in short, is a complex concept. The Odyssey is the story of stories, as it is one of the earliest stories to have developed in the Mediterranean, first orally and then put into writing (it is generally dated to between 730 and 710 BC). As the story of stories, it also tells us what the purpose of all stories is. Since we are living beings born to tell and believe in stories, the Odyssey also tells us something about ourselves. The Odyssey tells us that the purpose of stories is to return home. Which, of course, in the poem is a geographical place: Ithaca. But in everyday life, in the shared sentiment we experience, Ithaca is also a calling, a symbol. Returning home means setting time in motion once more. Odysseus, like all of us, is stranded on an island so marvellous that it seems like Paradise: so Odysseus might as well be dead, and that is why he wants to return home, even if it means enduring Poseidon’s wrath once more, because returning means feeling alive. To live, even at the cost of drowning. Just like all of us when, despite living in a wonderful, prosperous, capitalist country, we wonder whether we should give it all up – electricity, protection against disease – and return to a country where iron is forged by hand and food is cooked slowly in tune with the rhythm of the seasons (so down with seasonal standardisation: no parmigiana in winter and no fennel in summer), even if only to write about it for La Repubblica, which has been a must-read for this genre for years. Is that too much? Perhaps, but returning home through the lens of nostalgia takes many forms: reclaiming that part of ourselves we have forgotten, piecing together a fragmented self. Are we, or are we not, lovers of returning home? After all, when a loved one dies, the officiant consoles us: they have returned to their Father’s house. However, as we were saying, nostalgia is complicated. In fact, this home, as the Odyssey teaches us, amongst other things, may no longer be the one we left behind. We return and find it different; perhaps we have undertaken a long journey only to realise we have fallen victim to a nostalgic delusion. Such are the downsides of nostalgia.

Nostalgia, the ‘longing to return’, can also refer to a longing for a home that no longer exists, or never existed

On the other hand, that nostalgia is also a form of dissatisfaction with the present; this does not mean that we need to return to the woods, but simply that we must recognise that the present and the world are cruel places.

Resolving this contradiction is no simple matter. If you simply compress this dual exposure – these two stubborn and opposing directions, the past and the present, dreams and everyday life – nostalgia loses all its charm. It must be said – as philologists explain – that, despite its Greek origins, the word ‘nostalgia’ did not originate in ancient Greece. Here we can already glimpse a comical paradox. When we talk about nostalgia, we are nostalgic for a nostalgically Greek word. Yes, because the word was coined by a Swiss man, Johannes Hofer, for one of his medical dissertations, way back in 1688. Our doctor had also suggested, to analyse this state of mind, ‘monomania’ and ‘philopatridomania’ (I really like ‘monomania’, whilst I can’t even pronounce the other word). In any case, by the end of the seventeenth century, nostalgia was considered an illness. The remedies left much to be desired, as it was believed that opium, leeches and a trip to the Swiss Alps would cure the symptoms of nostalgia. Apart from the leeches, the other two have become nostalgic symbols: opium takes you back to the womb, and the trip to the Swiss Alps provided the inspiration for "Heidi". Which – just to mention something from my past, a bit sad and a bit funny – during my animal husbandry exam I accidentally said ‘Mucca’ instead of ‘Vacca’, and the professor first gave me a lecture about how Heidi had ruined a generation of animal husbandry specialists, philosophers and intellectuals, all prey to the naturalistic fallacy, and then failed me in my exam record.

We subsequently made small strides in defining nostalgia. By the end of the 18th century, doctors had discovered that returning home did not always cure the symptoms of nostalgia. But as we were saying, nostalgia is complex. Over time, nostalgia came to be seen as a disease of the modern age. And this brings us back to our topic.

Let’s examine the dangers of this complex and problematic sentiment. First of all, it is detached from reality. The fond memories of grandmothers of yesteryear, of shady, welcoming woods, and the memories of those who produced handmade silk with flowers woven into the fabrics, are precisely that: memories – and therefore idealised versions of the past. If we were to take a close look at my grandparents’ lives with a bit of goodwill, I’m sure no influencer would have much to write home about. Wake up at 4 am, walk to the fields, work with your hands, return at sunset, collect the children from their various nannies, prepare dinner, tend to the livestock, and then off to bed – because tomorrow at 4 am it starts all over again. That’s how their whole life went – forget about ‘granny-maxxing’. Incidentally, grandmothers learnt to cook when the food industry took off, that is, right in the middle of the economic boom. They started then because there was finally a bit more to eat and they could indulge in fancy recipes, given that their children were working in the service sector and bringing home a decent salary. In short, by idealising the past, nostalgia channels dissatisfaction with the present into a project to recreate an imaginary past.

Then there is the problem of a shift in nostalgic sentiment. Human history is full of these slips back into the past of the past. Speaking of weavers, over a century ago, disgusted by the factories and run-down neighbourhoods created by mechanical looms, John Ruskin and William Morris looked to an even more distant past – to a time before there were even weavers weaving flowers and silk – in order to trace their roots back to something even older: the medieval craftsman. There, they found the dream of a truly skilled trade.

Plato has been discussed far and wide. In the dialogue "Phaedrus", his Socrates could not stand written texts. He regarded them as static, whereas conversation requires speakers to be flexible, answering questions and adapting to their interlocutors. Plato considers this capacity for adaptation a hallmark of wisdom. True understanding arises through a flexible and reciprocal exchange. Reliance on writing threatens this balance: it produces nothing but the illusion of knowledge. What would we say today about this view? We who complain that people no longer read, and therefore fail to experience complex thought (which a good book should contain), and who are exasperated by the endless chatter on talk shows?

In response to the tales of former managers who have returned home and rediscovered themselves, one might say that modernity, for a variety of reasons, has spared us the task of slaying 114 suitors, as Odysseus had to do; otherwise, he would not have been able to return home without a massacre. The slaughter is a symbol: of combat, of hardship, a bloodbath – in short, a war. Instead, today we have a system that protects us and even allows us to live in the woods whilst receiving an excellent severance package. But this is a form of nostalgia reserved for the few.

Speaking of ‘few’, perhaps that is the crux of the matter. There are few recorded instances of violence from the Palaeolithic period. The archaeologist Alfredo Gonzales-Ruibal explains this, noting that for much of the Neolithic period, there were no proper weapons of war. The arrows used for hunting were the same as those used for fighting and killing. Similarly, the massacres that took place during the period known as the Linear Pottery Culture were carried out using the same tools that were used to chop firewood or cultivate the land. It all began when, with the advent of domestication, farmers started living in fortified villages with moats (up to two metres deep) and palisades (often featuring gates with complex defensive structures). These defence systems naturally served to protect the villages from communities of hunters (who had, wisely, not yet opted for agriculture), with whom relations, it seems, were far from idyllic. However, based on the archaeological evidence available, it is now hypothesised that the rate of violence began to soar a millennium later, when farmers decided, of their own accord, to wage war against one another. Evidence of this surge can be found in numerous mass graves, where the bodies of men, women and children have been found jumbled together. Why did the farmers wage war against one another? The prevailing hypothesis is: because of hunger. I can believe that; whilst we were hunters and gatherers, there were very few of us on Earth. Optimistic estimates put the figure at 10 million; more realistic ones at 4–5 million people. There was enough food for everyone, until the hunter-gatherers decided to take up farming (partly because they were so skilled at hunting that they wiped out all the megafauna). And that’s when the problems began: on the one hand, we formed structured communities; on the other, we fought against other communities. Essentially, when we yearn for the woods and farms of the past, we fail to consider that if everyone in my block of flats were to move in next to the ‘forest family’, within a week we’d start fighting over resources. Nostalgia for that past is felt by few, and in coming to terms with this sentiment, we cannot ignore this fact.

Nostalgia has a political dimension that was highlighted, at the time, by the philosopher Svetlana Boym, who wrote a fine book, "The Future of Nostalgia" (2001), in which, ahead of her time, she asked whether our longing for a lost era of skilled labour would turn into technophobia, a distrust of social change and a desire to return to the world as it once was. And what are the political implications lurking behind our desire for artisanal, naturally leavened bread and handmade ceramics? Ultimately, she wrote that uncritical nostalgia “gives rise to monsters such as nationalism, racial supremacy and fascism”.

Why? Because from Karl Marx (there are three chapters in his "Capital" in which he describes in detail the transition from handcrafted objects to industrially manufactured products) to Rousseau, Henry David Thoreau and right up to Heidegger (his examples of poetic life are steeped in symbolism and nostalgia: the woodcutter, the windmill, the farmer, the rushing River Rhine) and the many intellectuals today who are concerned about technology, the recurring arguments all revolve around the same theme: there is a moral imperative to cultivate skills. If we do not learn them, we are free neither to understand the world nor to set it right. But here too, nostalgia forces us into a partial view: Socrates dismisses the new technology – namely the book – by listing only its costs. Marx and others idealise the craftsman; the workshop, they say, is a place of integrated human development, yet at the same time they underestimate the social inequalities that often underpinned artisanal production. These arguments are therefore based on a recurring pattern. When past eras of specialised practices are regarded as more fully human, the social order that produced them can easily appear superior to the one that replaced them. The past, therefore, seems superior to the present. This is why – according to Svetlana Boym – these arguments risk becoming reactionary. When we lament the disappearance of certain skills, we might also – if we are not very careful – end up regretting the loss of the social structures that surrounded them. This shift is the fundamental mechanism through which nostalgia for skills fuels a longing for a world now past, and we end up among the nostalgics tout court – those who say ‘there used to be no immigrants’ or ‘trains used to run on time’.

When we lament the disappearance of certain skills, we may end up regretting the social structures that surrounded them as well

A recent example of nostalgia for skilled labour? In September 2025, the US Department of Labour published a photograph of a white man in a denim shirt with a dimpled chin, set against a blue sky dotted with imposing cranes. The slogan: ‘Let’s make America skilled again!’. At best, the image promotes the Fordist compromise of hard work in exchange for a decent wage. At worst, it echoes National Socialist posters promoting a policy of white supremacy, associating the white worker with state power.

The US Department of Labour has published a photo of a white man, with imposing cranes in the background: “Let’s make America skilled again!”

But will all this complex reasoning, full of references, prevent me tomorrow from looking with satisfaction and curiosity upon a manual occupation and a way of life that take me away from the alienating and stressful modern working conditions? I really don’t think so. Because it is also true that nostalgia makes one optimistic, fosters a sense of belonging and builds confidence in one’s own abilities. And besides, we’re all inclined to reminisce (even if we don’t achieve the same result as Proust) and, when we do (unlike Proust), we tend to emphasise the positive aspects and gloss over the things that don’t quite add up. After all, the world is rather complicated (there are so many of us) and we’re all looking for a foothold, a beacon in the chaos. And whether these are memories of the 1980s or the Middle Ages matters little. Nostalgia is ambiguous. You might start a war because you’re nostalgic for the Soviet Empire, but you might also resist a dictator because you remember when, in a Ukrainian village, the women spun wool and told stories of freedom from the invader.

How do we get out of this? I find myself nostalgic for the scientific method, now fallen into disuse. Because culture and learning progress through trial and error, shipwrecks and safe harbours. It is useful to have a tool that highlights the gap between our dreams and reality, between what we express with impunity, convinced we are right, and the litmus test by which we put our ideas to the test: it is a great journey towards Ithaca. Furthermore, the scientific method promotes innovation, which may well be frowned upon by some technophobes, but offers a tangible hope of producing more bread. Because it is clear that producing more bread (and making it better than our grandparents did) means (both symbolically and in practice) having more time to attend to human affairs – so complex, so unique – and to seek an acceptable compromise so that we may bring our journey to a fitting conclusion. And then, innovating in bread-making means bringing more peace – to cities, to the woods, to factories, to workshops, and between the old and the young. Let us give hope to the Odysseuses – both those we once were and those we shall become.

His hated father, however, had a profound influence on him, and not merely through a strong genetic predisposition towards stubbornness and authoritarianism. Having fought against the Yankees as a Spanish soldier in 1898, his father – as a large landowner – had, in fact, ample opportunity to quarrel with other Americans whose estates bordered on his own, and thus instilled in him a deep aversion to the United States. He also developed a distaste for Anglo-Saxon culture through the pro-Falangist Jesuits at the Belén secondary school in Havana, where he went to study after being expelled from a college run by the Brothers of the Order of John Baptist de la Salle, accused of hooliganism. However, it was the strict methods of the disciples of St Ignatius of Loyola that ultimately instilled in him a love of learning, as well as a passion for sport and public speaking. The former gave him an athletic physique and led to a few youthful cameos in Esther Williams’s swimming films. The latter led to his enrolment in 1945 at the Faculty of Law in Havana: a sort of Wild West, where a gunshot was considered just as legitimate a means of asserting oneself as a vote. Fidel distinguished himself on both fronts: he was elected as a delegate in his first year of law school, and was accused of double murder.

In his troubled family history, some have glimpsed the origins of his very early rebellious streak. His hated father had a profound influence on him

But by the age of twenty, the simple limelight of Cuba had already become too confining for him. In 1947, he enlisted in an expedition to overthrow the Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo; in 1948, whilst in Bogotá for a student congress, he joined the uprising sparked by the Colombian liberals following the assassination of their charismatic leader, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. Both experiences ended in the grotesque: from the police raid that thwarted the Dominican operation, he escaped by slipping away on a small boat he’d kept ready for just such an eventuality; and from Bogotá, he was urgently repatriated on a livestock plane laden with bellowing bulls that ‘kept him awake all night’. But to the press he recounts adventures that begin to build his legend. He escaped the Cuban police, he says, by jumping into the sea and swimming through a stretch infested with sharks. And during the Bogotá uprising, he claims to have ‘killed three priests’.

In that same year, 1948, he took part in the election campaign as a supporter of Eduardo Chibás’s Orthodox Party: a sort of Caribbean version of the Five Star Movement, whose symbol was a broom. But the leader came only third, and then, on 5 August 1951, he shot himself in the stomach during a live radio broadcast. Meanwhile, Fidel had tried to settle down: he got married, had a son, caught up in six months on the exams he’d failed to sit over two years, graduated and, in 1950, opened a law practice. But in three years of practising, only two clients were able to pay his fees.

Following Chibás’s suicide, he therefore threw himself back into politics, announcing his candidacy with the Orthodox Youth. However, the elections would never take place, due to the coup staged by General Fulgencio Batista on 10 March 1952. At the head of 125 militants from the Orthodox Youth, on 26 July 1953 the 27-year-old Fidel attempted to spark the revolution with an assault on the Moncada barracks in Santiago. It was a disaster, with ten rebels killed in action and a further fifty-nine massacred after being taken prisoner. He himself ended up in prison, having attempted suicide. But public opinion and the Church called for clemency, and Fidel had the opportunity to turn his trial into a spectacle that definitively cemented his popularity. “History will absolve me!” he shouted at the end of a two-hour closing speech. Sentenced to fifteen years, he was granted amnesty after just eighteen months, and on 7 July he set sail for Mexico.

It was whilst in exile that the definitive break with the orthodox Party took place, with the formal establishment of the 26 July Movement. This political split was followed by a divorce from his wife, Mirta Díaz-Balart, whom he had discovered whilst in prison to be working as an agent for the Ministry of the Interior. It was a painful affair, not least because of the ensuing dispute over custody of their son, Fidelito.

On 25 November 1956, a small force of 82 men set sail for Cuba from the Mexican port of Tuxpan aboard the Granma. Che Guevara would later describe it as “more of a shipwreck than a landing”, and of the 82 who disembarked, 3 were killed in battle, 22 were executed after their capture, 22 were imprisoned, and a further 19 disappeared without trace. But a small army soon formed around the 16 survivors in the rugged mountains of the Sierra Maestra. Not at a breakneck pace, mind you: 50 men in the early months of 1957; 80 in May; 200 in December; 300 in April 1958; no more than 2,000 by the end of ’58. But this was enough to take on a corrupt regime and a regular army with no desire to fight, whilst the majority of Cubans stood by and watched and the Americans played both sides simultaneously. Whilst the US Air Force aided Batista, the CIA sent Fidel aid worth 50,000 dollars. On 1 January 1959, whilst Batista was fleeing by plane, the vanguard of the Rebel Army entered Havana led by Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara: a globetrotting Argentine doctor who had befriended Fidel in Mexico. The most surprised of all was Fidel himself, who would not arrive until six days later.

Alongside Fidel’s 2,000, however, there are also another thousand guerrillas belonging to separate armed groups, and the composition of the 26 July Movement itself is diverse. Fidel’s younger brother Raúl Castro and Che declare themselves Marxists, but Fidel, on the other hand, speaks of a revolution that is “not red but green like the leaves of palm trees”, in order to mediate with openly anti-communist guerrilla commanders of the calibre of Huber Matos or Humberto Sori-Marín; and following Batista’s flight, the United States was the first country to recognise the new revolutionary government. Of the fifteen members of the provisional government, only three came from the guerrilla ranks. Yet within two years, six of them would be in exile and one would have been executed by firing squad. The symbolic turning point came on 21 October 1959, when Fidel had Huber Matos arrested for ‘treason’ after he had written a letter of protest against the ‘infiltration of communists’.

On 4 February 1960, Soviet Vice-President Anastas Mikoyan visited Cuba and laid the foundations for an alliance between the two countries. In that same year, 1960, Fidel nationalised US-owned property, a move to which Washington responded by providing aid to anti-Castro armed groups who had rebelled in the Escambray Mountains and by imposing a trade embargo. On 31 January 1961, diplomatic relations were severed. Finally, on 17 April 1961, 1,500 anti-Castro rebels armed by the CIA landed at Playa Girón. The operation proved a disaster, and the subsequent American withdrawal also led to the demise of the Escambray rebels, who were wiped out following ruthless round-ups. On that 17 April, Fidel called for the defence of the ‘Socialist Republic’ for the first time. On 3 July 1962, the single party was established, absorbing the historic Cuban communists, and it would take the name Communist Party of Cuba from 3 October 1965. The new Constitution, adopted in 1976, was modelled on the Bulgarian one, on the assumption that the two countries had roughly the same land area, the same population and also the same predominance of agriculture in their economies.

Since then, the single-party system and the communist system have remained unchanged, although there have been some developments in Cuba’s system of international alliances, and most recently an economic opening inspired by the models of China and Vietnam. In fact, at the outset, alignment with the USSR went so far that Fidel offered the island as a base for Soviet nuclear missiles, in order to directly threaten the United States. But when the naval blockade ordered by Kennedy forced Khrushchev to withdraw the missiles – bringing the world to the brink of the Third World War – relations eased for a while: orthodox Cuban communists were subjected to a purge, Che publicly attacked Moscow, and Fidel attempted to stir up guerrilla movements across Latin America to rival the local communist parties. Symbolically, however, this second phase ended with Che’s death in Bolivia in 1967, during precisely such an attempt. Incidentally, the operation was so poorly managed that some suspected the Argentine had been sent to his death deliberately to remove the main obstacle to a rapprochement with the USSR.

From that moment on, alignment was once again complete, and Cuba supplied large numbers of soldiers and military advisers for the Soviet wars in the Third World, in exchange for oil and other subsidies totalling 10 billion dollars over 32 years. This is more than Western Europe received through the entire Marshall Plan and all the Latin American countries through the Alliance for Progress – some see this devastating drain on resources as the cause of the Soviet collapse. Thanks to this aid, Fidel was able to build a base of mass support by turning all Cubans into state employees and providing them with free or subsidised goods and services, even as the economy was in tatters and under a climate of authoritarianism that nevertheless drove at least a tenth of the population to flee the country. After the end of the USSR, a ‘special period’ of rationing began on the island, bringing the regime to the brink of collapse. But, surprisingly, Fidel survived – just as Franco in Spain had surprisingly survived the fall of his fascist allies after the Second World War. One of his assets was the long-standing anti-US sentiment among the Latin American public, who often regarded Fidel as a hero, and which consequently prompted the region’s governments not to press too hard for a transition.

With the collapse of the USSR, a ‘special period’ began for Cuba, and the regime came within a hair’s breadth of collapse. Fidel survived, partly thanks to anti-American sentiment

At one point, Fidel also found a successor in the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who adopted a Soviet-style oil distribution policy. After the collapse of the USSR, Fidel also managed to attract foreign capital, which transformed the island into a tourist paradise, albeit at the cost of reviving mass prostitution – the eradication of which had been a source of pride for the regime. And at the start of the millennium, with the ‘Pink Tide’ sweeping the region with left-wing governments, Fidel regained influence and allies, and even Barack Obama initiated a ‘thaw’. In the meantime, however, old age had begun to take its toll. From 2006, Fidel began to hand over power to his brother Raúl, although the process would not be formally completed until a couple of years later. It was Raúl who initiated the process of economic liberalisation and transition to a market economy, in which Fidel maintained an ambiguous role: indirectly critical in the many writings he continued to publish, but without ever attacking it directly. This was the tone he also adopted regarding Obama’s visit: the culmination of this process, which, however, did not involve any political opening. The ‘Leftist Wave’ in Latin America also passed; Chávez died; allied governments either fell or found themselves in difficulty.

On 19 April 2016, Fidel Castro spoke once again during the closing ceremony of the 7th National Congress of the Communist Party. He said it might be “the last time” he addressed the assembly, and called for communist ideals to be kept alive. He died on 26 November: the same date, the 26th, as his year of birth and the attack on the Moncada Barracks. Following his brother’s death, Miguel Díaz-Canel, born a year after Fidel had come to power, took the helm. But Raúl is said to continue operating behind the scenes, even now at the age of 95. The economy, however, continues to plummet; the island suffers one blackout after another and is becoming depopulated as people leave; protests are on the rise, as is repression; and the proportion of the population in prison is the second highest in the world. Trump has now launched a new offensive, alternating between harsh new sanctions and offers of engagement. Even a CIA director has visited the island to hold talks, and one of Raúl’s grandsons is among the regime figures with whom Washington is negotiating.

The Cuban economy is in freefall, the island is becoming depopulated, protests are on the rise, as is repression. Now Trump has launched a new offensive

As we wrote in the obituary following his death, ‘Fidel Castro was a giant of the 20th century, a figure who brought a small country to the centre of the world’s attention – a country which, without him, would simply have been remembered as a holiday destination. But, in fact, the same argument can be made, mutatis mutandis, for Alexander the Great and Macedonia, or for Napoleon and France, or for Mussolini and our own Italy. That of a jockey who, in his desire to achieve results beyond his horse’s capabilities, ends up causing it to collapse.”

One hundred years after his birth and ten years after his death, the Cuban regime is holding the “First International Colloquium on Fidel Castro: Legacy and Future”, attended by 1,500 delegates from 63 countries, to whom Miguel Díaz-Canel says that “Fidel is not the exclusive heritage of the Cuban people. It is not enough to manage his legacy; we must emulate him’. However, all things considered, these are low-key celebrations, given the country’s extremely difficult circumstances at present. Far more ostentatious is the enormous metal statue of Fidel erected on Avenida Bolívar in Managua at a cost that has not been made public but is estimated to be substantial, shortly after Daniel Ortega’s announcement that there will be no further elections in Nicaragua. As for the call to “emulate Fidel”, many fear that the statement signals an intention to establish a Cuban-style single-party state, although perhaps in the end it will simply result in the exclusion from the ballot of any opposition that is not merely a sham: as has, in fact, already happened. Among the many analyses, one might perhaps recall “Crisis: How Nations Are Reborn”: the 2019 book in which Jared Diamond observes how the coup in Chile in 1973 in particular, but also the whole wave of coups that shook Latin America between the 1960s and 1970s in general, can be explained by the local bourgeoisie’s deep-seated fear of suffering the same fate as the Cuban bourgeoisie, whom the Castro revolution had forced into mass exile.

The Cuban regime is celebrating the first “Fidel Castro International Colloquium”: “It is not the exclusive heritage of Cubans. It must be emulated”

This year, however, sees the publication of “L’internazionale reazionaria. Dall’America Latina all’Europa le reti della nuova destra”; a book by Donato Di Santo, formerly head of Latin American affairs for the PCI, PDS and DS, later Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs with responsibility for Latin America in the Prodi II government, and Secretary of the Italian-Latin American Institute. Although he has a wealth of experience in liaising with left-wing groups across the region, he was arrested in Cuba for having contacts with dissidents. His analysis focuses primarily on the right-wing surge in Latin America, which he attributes first and foremost to quasi-Gramscian strategies of intellectual penetration by certain US circles. However, he also highlights the simultaneous authoritarian drift of the left in Venezuela and Nicaragua, in a spiral in which the two extremes feed off one another, and in which the virus that all too often continues to undermine the democratic credibility of the Latin American left is, precisely, Fidel’s poisoned legacy. And that of those who have ‘emulated’ him.

Faced with his foul-mouthed pages, one imagined a tropical Bukowski. But the only thing they have in common is a monstrous ability to hold the reader’s attention

An interesting story, about which we knew nothing, apart from what had been passed down to us through the scant chronicles, tinged with legend.

Pedro Juan Gutiérrez had held a thousand different jobs, including ice-cream seller and labourer. In the 1990s, during the so-called ‘período especial’ – the first major economic crisis of the Castro revolution, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989 and support for the island, regarded as a satellite state, faltered considerably – he found himself unemployed in a top-floor flat in a block of flats in ‘Centro Habana’.

Anyone who’s been to the Cuban capital knows what this is: it’s the most run-down, fascinating and dimly lit part of the city. In any other city in the world, it would be a dreadful place to avoid, but not here, because on one side lies the Malecón seafront promenade, and on the other stands a row of tower blocks whose brutalist concrete clashes with a sky of shifting colours and the vibrant Caribbean vegetation. And beneath the windows, life teems with activity: street stalls, stories, old, battered American cars, and loudspeakers blaring out salsa and boleros. For three years, Gutiérrez – in a vest and with a cigar – wrote the story of a certain Pedro Juan – his namesake – who loves rum, women and, needless to say, doing absolutely nothing. The typewritten manuscript circulates amongst Cuban publishers, who reject it. It is a defeatist and obscene text; it would not pass the regime’s censorship. Let us remember that Fidel Castro and his clan are in power, thousands of dissidents are in prison, for three decades more than a million people have set out in boats and dinghies trying to reach Florida, food is rationed, the chemists’ shelves are empty; with your ration card, you can collect a loaf of bread every morning; and the sugar cane plantations – for reasons that aren’t entirely clear – are producing less and less. But another industry has taken off: tourism. The city is full of Russians, Italians, French and Canadians looking for a bit of fun. In short, there are two Cubes: the official, strict, ideological one, which resists the onslaught of imperialism and the devastating US blockade – for example, by imprisoning homosexuals and students who take to the streets; and then there is the one that nobody sees, which rears its head when the lights go down, and which Gutiérrez chronicles. On the one hand, desperate debauchery: “I don’t know why, but the nurses are all shameless. They’ll shamelessly suck you off, strip in front of you, drink rum, masturbate, and whisper dirty stories in your ear. Autobiographical stories, I mean.” On the other, the daily struggle for survival: “I spend a few days in the countryside and come back loaded down: lobsters, beef and twelve litres of rum. The police search the bus twice. Both times they nearly make me throw up. My reputation as a respectable person saves me. The unlicensed taxis charge sixty pesos for the short journey to Central Havana. And if I try to haggle, they always reply with the same old line: ‘I’ve got to at least cover the cost of the petrol. And it’s expensive… getting more and more expensive’.”

In the 1990s, Gutiérrez became a chronicler of a Cuba that remains unseen: on the one hand, desperate debauchery; on the other, the struggle for survival

A French journalist takes the manuscript to Paris and hands it over to the publisher Seuil, who rejects it: it is unpublishable. Too extreme. What does that mean? Too much masturbation and too many vaginas? Or too unpalatable for the ‘caviar left’ who, with a photograph of Che Guevara behind their desk, still live the dream of the revolución that landed from the yacht Granma in 1959? We’ll never know. What we do know is that a Spanish agent took the manuscript to Madrid, where it ended up on the desk of the editor at Editorial Anagrama, who, having read the book, picked up the phone – which rang out on a terrace in Havana. The upshot: in 1998, the book was published in twenty countries and the Cuban slacker was forced to drop the pretence. He was not the idler that legend had portrayed, but a refined intellectual with twenty-six years’ experience as a journalist under his belt, even a tad snobbish. When asked who his favourite author was, he replied Grace Paley, an American short-story writer from a very niche circle, and then went on to mention Chekhov, Rilke, Carver and Truman Capote’s "Breakfast at Tiffany’s". The Trilogy is the result of a vast accumulation of experience; it is a sensational exercise in style, for whilst highly polished, it does not sacrifice authenticity or the most poignant naturalism. It is strange that Gutiérrez has never mentioned Émile Zola. On this subject, he has stated: “Writing is like haute couture: you mustn’t see the seams”. Journalism, he says, was his greatest school. How so? “Choosing the topics and fighting with my editors to get them published.” For years, Gutiérrez wrote for the magazine *Bohemia*, tackling unwelcome subjects: racism, violence, prostitution. No propaganda, but a raw portrayal of human beings.

In ’98, “Trilogia sporca dell’Avana” was published in twenty countries, and the Cuban slacker turned out to be a refined intellectual – albeit a bit of a snob

The blurring of the lines between author and character continues in subsequent books, notably "Animal Tropical", which recounts the adventures of a Cuban writer who, taken by surprise by his international popularity, seduces a Swedish professor. Pedro Juan and Agneta, an unlikely romance, unbridled sex, a beautiful novel: a great novel about life, freedom (“which is like happiness – you never quite reach it”), the world and cultural misunderstandings. “I arrived in Stockholm looking presentable. A pair of worn-out jeans, a rather heavy beige shirt and a brown blazer, like a typical liberal intellectual. And I put on my best manners. A twenty-hour flight from Havana. And shitting myself with fear every time we took off and landed.”

The success of Pedro Juan Gutiérrez? He had transformed the ordinary Latin American man into Casanova, a hero who was neither pessimistic nor optimistic and who, just like the Venetian seducer, was not merely a libertine but an observer of his era – elusive and subversive. Gutiérrez has always been keen to make clear his distance from politics, but is it really true that his writing is not political? After all, even the Venetian’s Memoirs can be read as a treatise on 18th-century politics.

In any case, the Gutiérrez phenomenon petered out in the 2000s – like all literary fads. Meanwhile, the island’s situation was getting worse and worse. At the start of the new millennium, everyone remembers the brutal wave of repression by the regime in crisis, the increasingly massive emigration of young people, the internal divisions amongst the dissidents in exile in Miami, and the flood of petitions signed by European left-wing intellectuals who had been jolted back to reality. In 2016, the líder máximo died at the age of ninety – a death that had been predicted many times (this year marks the centenary of his birth) – even though power had already been in the hands of his faded brother Raúl since 2008. Attempts at economic reform followed, with tentative concessions to private enterprise and on the civil rights front, leading to the handover of power in 2018 to Miguel Díaz-Canel, the party’s top leader, who was recently re-elected for a second term as president. Then came two disasters: the pandemic – which decimated the country’s most reliable source of income, namely tourism – and Donald Trump’s second term, which since last January has further tightened the embargo, particularly regarding energy supplies. The current economic crisis is perhaps the most devastating ever. In July and August alone, there were three near-total blackouts lasting several days, and power cuts have now become the norm. Tourism had been recovering, but is now once again in a deep crisis: without diesel, the power stations cannot operate, planes cannot land and hotels stand empty. There is talk of over twenty thousand workers with no prospects. Street protests have become increasingly frequent in recent months, and the regime fears a US-led intervention modelled on the Venezuelan scenario. Gutiérrez’s words still ring sadly true: “As for the future, don’t even mention it.”

Well, we’d lost track of our Don Giovanni in Havana. But, surprise, surprise, a few years ago he started writing short stories again, which were then collected under the curious title "Meccanica popolare", and are now due to be published in Italy by Castelvecchi, edited by Gino Tramontana.

The short stories, collected under the title “Meccanica popolare”, are due to be published in Italy by Castelvecchi, edited by Gino Tramontana

Once again, Gutiérrez surprises us, because, although he still lives in his ramshackle flat in Central Havana, he has chosen to go back in time and tell the story of his childhood as a boy born in 1950. He uses a new alter ego, Carlitos (who had already been mentioned here and there in other books), but this time the work verges on a memoir, and without too many disguises. The disclaimer makes this clear: “These stories refer to situations that actually took place. The places have since changed beyond recognition and the people are no longer with us. The story is set in the cities of Matanzas, Pinar del Río and Havana (Cuba) during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The radical and dizzying changes that took place in Cuba during those years turned everyone’s lives upside down, for better or for worse.”

The cities mentioned are precisely those that have shaped his life. Matanzas, where he was born; Pinar, where he lived for a long time (working as a building technician, radio editor and journalist); and Havana, where he eventually decided to take refuge at the age of forty-four, “with nothing on my hands”. This is where his writing began; now, in these stories of his later years, he explores the son of pre- and post-revolutionary Cuba – the father who owned a bar and an obsessive yet dearly loved mother. "Meccanica popolare" was a magazine that arrived from abroad and which people of modest means read to learn trades with which to make ends meet, such as uranium or gold prospecting. The lonely young boy spends long periods with his grandmother, abandoned by her husband – a inveterate womaniser – who lives with their other son, Carlitos’s uncle, who introduces him to crab fishing, walks through the mud, and a connection with the island’s natural world. Then comes military service, when the revolution clears entire hillsides of trees with dynamite to create training grounds. And then his first loves, sex experienced first as a mirage and then as an addiction. Gutiérrez delves into his memory and brings to life a rarely depicted cross-section of humanity: neighbours with their own stories, half-Lebanese people, sailors, soldiers, people who arrived and then vanished, single women – often men’s best friends – whilst the men themselves stab each other with knives, steal from one another and betray one another. “When he was seventy-two, that is, fifty years later, he sat down to write this story. He thought of calling it “La donna che mi ha cambiato la vita”. But it seemed too dramatic to him. Carlitos was seventy-two, but at times he felt as though he’d actually lived a hundred and fifty years. Or more. Life is not a matter of chronology but of kilometres.”

A few figures to give us a better idea. Researchers asked 1,682 participants to read six short stories and rate both their quality and how engaging they found them. Each participant was told – correctly or otherwise – whether the text had been written by a person or by an AI system.

Stories generated by artificial intelligence are rated 6 per cent higher in quality and 8 per cent more engaging than those written by humans. Furthermore, the researchers note, they receive even higher ratings when participants believe they were written by a human author; in such cases, the rating increases by a further 3 per cent.

The study continues with a second experiment and offers further food for thought. A further group of around 900 people were presented with other texts, some generated by artificial intelligence, others written by humans. When asked who the author was, participants answered correctly in 39 per cent of cases in one test and 52 per cent in the other. “Previously reported familiarity with AI systems seemed to help in recognising the typical patterns of AI-generated writing,” says Weisberg. “This suggests that improving AI literacy could help people navigate the new world in which we live, one that is increasingly shaped by AI. Those who claim to have a literary background, on the other hand, proved to be less accurate in their assessments.”

The study also reveals another finding: AI-generated texts often better suit readers’ tastes and are easier to understand. “The models that power AI,” observes Cameron Jones, a psychologist at Stony Brook University who was not involved in the research, “learn to become a sort of average, inoffensive and accommodating individual, capable of appealing to just about everyone.”

Writing in The Guardian, Luke Kennard, a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham, goes a step further: “As humans, we tend to personify AI and imagine it as a sort of glowing robot with a benevolent, neutral face, when in reality it is merely predictive code based on a vast, stolen database of real-world texts, physically housed in vast, expensive and destructive data centres with catastrophic repercussions for the surrounding communities.” Kennard adds that artificial intelligence is not a ‘tool’ comparable to a spell-checker or a thesaurus, but rather ‘an existential threat’. Weisberg does not share this view, emphasising that artificial intelligence systems are already capable of generating short stories considered at least as good, if not better, than those written by humans, to the extent that we need to update our understanding of what AI is actually capable of.

In this exchange, however, it seems to us that the issue is not linked solely to the theme of ‘artificial writing’ – which certainly carries its own weight – but also to our notion of authenticity: the idea that a story is worth more because behind it lies a biography, hard work, who knows what insight or what ‘pen’. When put to the test using a scientific method, rather than relying solely on indignation, that idea reveals itself to be what it probably always has been: an aesthetic prejudice – reassuring and almost impossible to recognise when it is one’s own.

A study published in "npj Science of Food" and authored by researchers at Stanford University used an AI model to create new recipes – specifically, new burgers, given the success of the Big Mac. The authors explain that, rather than using an AI model such as ChatGPT – a Large Language Model that would have allowed them to programme rules regarding flavour and texture – they used a diffusion model, a type of AI that automatically learns statistical patterns by observing combinations of ingredients and their quantities. The results show that by learning the statistical patterns of thousands of burger recipes, the AI was able to propose a number of them based on palatability (i.e. how pleasant they are to the palate), nutritional value and environmental impact. According to more than a hundred evaluators, two burgers – the ‘Delicious’ burgers – were generally judged to be better than the Big Mac; in some cases, they were found to be meatier or more flavourful.

However, the satisfaction scores for the two burgers that took environmental impact into account – the ‘Sustainable’ burgers – were lower than those of the Big Mac for the mushroom-based burger, and similar for the mushroom and beef-based one. Finally, it is not hard to imagine that the least popular burgers were those designed to prioritise nutritional quality over palatability – namely the bean-based ones – which were, however, almost twice as healthy as the Big Mac and also significantly less harmful to the environment.

According to the authors, the AI used in this study was able to encode “the collective knowledge of human taste”, transforming the design of new foods “from a craft-based practice of trial and error into a data-driven design science”. However far-fetched it may seem, this approach could prove useful to people with specific dietary needs or those wishing to personalise their diet. Provided, of course, that they are actually hungry in the first place.

Resisting the temptation to quote Giovanni Semi these days is almost impossible. After all, it is he who reminds us that renderings do not merely depict buildings or squares: they portray a promise of happiness. They show not so much the city that is to come, as the one we would like to live in. Artificial intelligence did not invent this language. It has simply given everyone the opportunity to produce it.

Rather than the future, these images tell the story of the present. Even before finding a solution, a society produces the images through which it tries to imagine a way out. During lockdown, we imagined a world protected by plexiglass: panels in offices, restaurants and even unlikely transparent booths on beaches. Today, those images make us smile. Back then, they gave shape to our need for security.

It’s much the same with the climate crisis. Images come before the projects. The dried-up Tiber seen in Paolo Virzì’s "Siccità" gave shape to our fears. Artificial intelligence constructs the counterpoint to the same story: cities become forests, squares are filled with shade and water is everywhere. In Rome, on the other hand, all it takes is the felling of a row of trees to spark a row. This is a sign of a profound change: until a few years ago, the debate centred mainly on traffic and parking; today, it increasingly concerns the heat and the quality of public spaces. It would be easy to dismiss these images as naïve fantasies; if artificial intelligence continues to plant trees, it is because it has understood what we want to see. In this sense, it functions as a gigantic survey of our collective imagination.

Artificial intelligence does not design. It visualises today’s aspirations; however, designing means grappling with constraints, infrastructure, archaeology, safety and history: everything that a rendering can safely ignore. Piazza dei Cinquecento is one of Rome’s busiest squares and would certainly benefit from more trees; real trees, not technological ones. The original design did include them, but one of the main metro hubs runs beneath the square; quite simply, they could not be planted. The design has a more complex task than the images suggest: it must not merely represent a desire, but find a way to make it possible. Henry Ford is credited with a now-proverbial quote: if he had asked his customers what they wanted, they would have replied ‘faster carriages’. Artificial intelligence would have designed the perfect carriage. The project, however, begins when we imagine a new reality.

Is the aim of taxing profits perhaps to penalise this effort, which has restored the financial soundness of the Italian banking system to levels comparable to, if not higher than, those of other European countries? Another criterion for assessment is a comparison with other productive sectors.

Based on data relating to the top twenty companies on the Italian stock market index, the profitability of other sectors – ranging from the automotive sector (Ferrari) to the energy sector (Snam), from defence (Leonardo) to plant engineering (Prysmian), the luxury goods sector (Moncler) and the services sector (Poste) – was in some cases higher than the average for banks. It is unclear why banks’ profits should be regarded as ‘extraordinary’ whilst those – of a similar magnitude – in other sectors are instead considered ‘normal’. Moreover, comparing return on capital without taking into account the cost of capital itself means ignoring the fact that the banking sector is typically riskier, if only because the very nature of banking is to take risks. This is why capital adequacy ratios are imposed.

Another argument sometimes put forward by supporters of this tax is that the banking system benefits from public guarantees. This argument is flawed. Following the reforms introduced in the wake of the 2008–2009 financial crisis, European governments can no longer intervene to bail out banks in difficulty unless shareholders – and, up to a certain amount, creditors too – are first called upon to contribute. Moreover, the European bank rescue fund is entirely financed by the banks themselves. This is precisely what makes the cost of capital for the banking sector higher than that of other sectors. The state provided guarantees on loans granted to households and businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, these guarantees are being phased out over time and have mainly benefited borrowers, who would otherwise have paid higher interest rates.

Another argument used to justify taxing banks is that they have benefited from the consolidation of public finances and the improvement in the government’s credit rating. In reality, all companies in a country are affected, for better or worse, by the sovereign credit rating. In Italy’s case, the credit rating of some banks is actually better than that of the government, suggesting that the causal relationship might be the other way round.

In summary, there is no evidence that the banking sector’s profits are the result of irregular conduct or the outcome of distortions in its favour. The measure therefore appears to be discriminatory and lacks constitutional legitimacy.

The tax on banks’ windfall profits is not only unjustified; it is a mistake in economic policy. From various points of view. First and foremost, it ignores the central role of the financial sector in the economic system, which is to channel savings towards the most productive investments. A country’s growth depends on the efficiency and profitability of the financial system. If one taxes the intermediation between savings and investment, one is taxing economic growth. Furthermore, contrary to what has been claimed, the proposed tax is no longer an ‘extraordinary contribution’ or a ‘solidarity levy’, given that it is being proposed for the third consecutive year and that the revenue from this tax is being used to finance permanent public expenditure.

Finally, as with all taxes (as even the Americans have realised with their import duties), the price is ultimately paid by customers – that is, by those who put their savings in the bank and by those who take out mortgages. Put simply, the so-called tax on banks’ windfall profits is a tax on Italians’ savings and mortgages.

Perhaps it isn’t such a brilliant idea after all.

It is, however, a fact that there are currently several hundred open-cycle thermal power stations in the European Union cooled by water from major rivers, of which just over 20 are nuclear (France, with 13 power stations along its major rivers, has the highest number). But – for better or worse – the decline in output from these nuclear plants dominates the headlines. In reality, according to Energy-chart, the website maintained by the German Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Research, in July 2025, electricity demand in the European Union was 3 per cent higher than in July 2025, partly due to the high use of air conditioning. At the same time, the reduced flow of rivers had the most significant impact on hydroelectric generation, which fell by 23 per cent compared with July 2025, followed by coal and other fossil fuel generation, which was down by 6 per cent; nuclear generation, by contrast, was only 2 per cent lower than in July 2025. As for gas-fired generation, it actually increased by 7 per cent.

In short, the issue of climate change is extremely serious. Over the last 200 years, the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere has risen by 50 per cent above the highest level ever recorded in the preceding 800,000 years. And CO₂ has a very long atmospheric lifetime: it will take hundreds of years to bring concentrations back to levels close to those of the pre-industrial era. So, there is no point in harbouring illusions: even if, by some miracle, we were to reduce global emissions to zero tonight (not just the 7 per cent of the European Union), the extreme weather events we are currently experiencing – from summer droughts to autumn floods – would persist for several centuries. So, first and foremost, we must invest in adapting all our infrastructure. This includes the cooling systems of our thermal power stations. And it will require a mountain of money. All the more reason, then, to pursue emissions reductions at the lowest possible cost. So, enough of these ridiculous ideological prejudices: we need nuclear power immediately as part of an optimal electricity mix alongside hydro, solar and wind power.

Giuseppe Zollino

Head of Energy at Azione

The price of diesel leaving the refinery is not simply the price of crude oil plus the industrial costs required to process it. The benchmark for the European market is the Platts index. Platts tracks daily supply, demand and trading activity on the markets and determines a price that reflects the value of diesel and other refined products. It is a market price, not a production cost. If there is a shortage of diesel in Europe, the Platts index may rise even whilst the price of crude oil falls.

The difference between the value of refined products and that of the crude oil needed to produce them is, to put it simply, the refining margin, the famous ‘crack spread’. Last March, following the new crisis in the Middle East, European margins reached around 60–80 dollars per barrel, up to four times the levels considered normal.

The reasons are well known. In Europe, over the last fifteen years, several refineries have been closed down, deemed unprofitable (!) and destined to lose market share due to the energy transition. The wars in Ukraine and subsequently in Iran have reduced the availability of Russian and Middle Eastern refined products. When available capacity becomes scarce, the price of refined products can diverge significantly from that of crude oil. Then comes distribution, and on top of the Platts price are transport, storage, biofuel obligations, stockpiles, network costs and trade margins. Finally, the state intervenes with excise duty and VAT. The price at the pump is the result of all these factors.

This breakdown helps to explain why the government’s response risks being misguided. At the end of July, the government reduced the excise duty on diesel by 14 centesimi – approximately 17 when VAT is taken into account. The measure was then extended until the end of August to bring down the price for consumers immediately. Since March, nearly 2 billion has been spent. However, a tax cut only benefits the consumer in full if the rest of the supply chain does not simultaneously adjust its prices and margins. And the initial data raise some doubts.

Comparing the week of 20–26 July with that of 27 July–2 August, the tax cut amounts to around 17 cents. Meanwhile, the raw material component rose by 5.7 cents and the supply chain’s gross margin by a further 6.2 cents. Taking only the rise in raw material costs into account, diesel prices should have fallen by around 11.3 cents. Instead, they fell by around 5.1 cents. More than a third of the tax reduction was therefore absorbed by the increase in the gross margin.

This does not necessarily mean that anyone has broken the law. It means that, when supply is inelastic, reducing a tax does not guarantee that the full benefit will be passed on to the consumer; part of it may be absorbed by mark-ups along the supply chain. Before spending any more public money on excise duties, it would therefore be useful to gain a much better understanding of how those mark-ups are formed.

And here we come to an issue of industrial policy that Italy has underestimated: refining. We have regarded refineries as part of the old fossil-fuel world, destined to be scaled back. But an energy crisis reminds us that a refinery is also a strategic piece of infrastructure. And we have sold almost all of them abroad.

The most obvious example is Priolo, Italy’s largest plant. It used to belong to the Russian company Lukoil; in 2023, it was acquired by GOI Energy, a group based in Cyprus. In May this year, Ludoil reached an agreement to bring it back under Italian control, a transaction subject to the ‘golden power’ clause. However, it is understood to have exclusive commercial and financial agreements with one of the major foreign traders.

The ‘golden power’ should not merely be used to ask who is buying a refinery. The most important question is what we want to preserve: how much production capacity, what stocks, what investments and what guarantees of supply in the event of an emergency.

The energy transition makes it inevitable that oil consumption will be gradually reduced; it makes no sense to lose refining capacity before demand for fuels has been reduced. For this reason, the government should focus on publishing Platts figures and supply chain margins, request data on production and stocks, and use the ‘golden power’ to safeguard security of supply. Because today, the bottleneck is not necessarily oil from the Strait of Hormuz: increasingly, it is the capacity to process it into diesel and petrol. And if the diagnosis is wrong, the state may spend hundreds of millions on reducing excise duties, only to discover that part of the discount never reached the pump.

Giorgetti, the minister in charge of the finances, is at it again, whilst Salvini is off to Lucca, clattering along in his clogs, to scare Banca Intesa and Unicredit by proposing the Spanish model: “Given that money is needed, would anyone prefer a wealth tax on the current accounts of 50 million Italians or a 5 per cent levy on the billion-euro profits of Italy’s two main banks? Let’s do as Sánchez does”. Remember when it was reported that Vannacci had asked Salvini to put his aide-de-camp on the list? Back then, when it was all hugs and kisses with that scum of a general, he used to say it was all newspaper fantasy, but now he recalls: “I read that Vannacci says: ‘I’m absolutely against closed lists’. My friend, you asked me for one thing: your man at the top of the closed list, and he’s even from the area… but come on!’ He’ll end up telling us that Vannacci was even asking him for tin soldiers. In the meantime, he’s trotting out the old balalaika tune again because ‘I’m ready to make my contribution to Ukraine’s reconstruction, but I think this Russophobia is getting us nowhere’. Russophobia? Giorgetti would do well to enjoy his last few days’ holiday and give serious thought to his future with Salvini. The out-of-favour politician promises that “I’d like to raise the flat-tax threshold for VAT-registered individuals to 100,000 euros” and asks for funds: “I need seven billion for maintenance”. He is already putting his stamp on the next Budget Bill: “I envisage a provision to neutralise the Fornero reform, allowing people to retire early, ahead of the planned age of 67.” He speaks of all the Italians affected by the ‘esodo’ (early retirement crisis), not to mention his own departure as secretary of the League. Attilio Fontana, the ‘hidalgo’, will speak soon, and it will be a call to Giorgetti. After the constitution of that federalist party, attention turns to another document. Giorgetti, the minister who attended the governors’ meeting – the ‘Grand Council’ session – on 25 July, what will he choose? All eyes are now on him. All that’s needed is his signature, alongside those of Fontana, Zaia, Fedriga and Fugatti. His signature on the document is like fate weighed by the gods. If Giorgetti signs, the party’s leadership will pass to a triumvirate. It’s just like in De Andrè’s song (the one they won’t let Salvini sing). They will come to Giorgetti to ask him about his (dis)love. What will he reply? “Will you continue to let yourself be chosen / or will you finally choose?”

As we await the battle in September and the emergence of unexpected unifying figures, a recent Piepoli Institute poll on the primaries goes some way towards explaining (at least in part) Elly Schlein’s fears. It also takes into account Matteo Renzi and the leaders of AVS. Giuseppe Conte is in first place with 43 per cent, whilst the Democratic Party secretary stands at 36 per cent. Livio Gigliuto, president of the Piepoli Institute, says: “The leader of the M5S enjoys a competitive advantage. In addition to the votes of his own supporters, he could benefit from those of PD voters: according to our findings, this would amount to around 25 per cent.” How can this be explained? “These voters probably see the primaries as a means of choosing the most effective candidate to defeat the right, regardless of party affiliations.” Conversely, those who sympathise with the Movement are far less likely to support a candidate who does not come from their own political circle. “And not because of Schlein,” observes Gigliuto. “It would be the same even if the secretary were someone else.” The M5S electorate, however much it has changed over time, still harbours mistrust towards the PD. If, on the other hand, for example, the Democrats were to back a civic figure in the primaries – or at least someone not directly linked to the party, such as Silvia Salis – they could broaden their appeal.” Whilst awaiting the manifesto, the mayor of Genoa is another major variable in this phase: some would like to see her stand as a candidate for Prime Minister, Renzi points to her as a reformist leader, whilst Goffredo Bettini advises her to head a new party. Certainly, were she to enter the fray at national level, she could throw the calculations of the broad coalition into disarray. This, and other matters, are being discussed by the PD and M5S ‘sherpas’ as they seek to mediate on the rules for the primaries. Firstly, a framework of values must be established to prevent the defeated candidates from defecting. The Nazareno, unlike the M5S, would prefer a two-round system, modelled on the polling stations that saw Bersani defeat Renzi in 2012 (in the first round, none of the five candidates secured more than 50 per cent). In a run-off, Schlein could already count, for example, on the vote from Casa Riformista. The large number of candidates – with Ruffini in the running, there would already be six – favours a solution of this kind. But of course, this would require the PD to be open to the Movement’s demands: not just polling stations, but also online voting, to which M5S activists have historically been attached. In short, this is where the agreement lies. After all, Conte has reiterated this several times: “They must be genuine primaries”, that is, as open as possible and not steered by party structures. From this point of view, the PD is the best-equipped party. Discussions are also continuing over the timing, with the M5S wanting to speed things up and hold the vote by November (December at the latest), whilst Schlein is aiming for the new year (despite the Montepulciano faction). It will then be necessary to define who is actually eligible to vote: one option could be pre-registration on the electoral rolls. Not to mention the contribution: will it be paid as in previous primaries organised by the Democrats, or not? Finally, as regards the candidates, the suggestion came from Franceschini, who explained to Rep that anyone putting themselves forward must represent “a political faction, a group of MPs”.

The mid-August break has slowed things down, but a balance will have to be found. And as soon as possible, not just on the programme, to restore a sense of unity and prevent sections of the electorate from falling by the wayside, regardless of the leaders’ directives. This is perhaps why some eager individuals have already begun to reignite the battle over the electoral law, calling for a mass rally after the summer when the bill is debated in the Senate. Claudio Mancini of the Democratic Party has done so in these pages, but the reformist Alessandro Alfieri is also in agreement. After all, the battle against the ‘Melonellum’ is the one that most closely resembles the ‘No’ campaign in the referendum, the defence of the Constitution. It acts as both the glue and the fuel for the left. A way to broaden and mobilise civil society, the committees of legal experts and journalists – what we have termed in these pages the ‘committees’ strategy’. And then we must not forget that it was precisely against Meloni’s electoral reform that the broad coalition – in a truly extra-large formation – managed to come together in the streets, following the failure of the PD-M5S-AVS alliance in Naples and the cancelled rally in Padua. On that occasion, it was Magi who launched the initiative. “We were the first to denounce that the right is carrying out a veritable electoral coup, changing the rules of the game a year before the elections, solely to remain in power,” the leader of Più Europa tells Il Foglio. “As has already happened in the Chamber of Deputies, we must replicate a united protest.” The date has already been set. “15 September, when the Melonellum bill comes before the Senate. The mobilisation,” he concludes, “against this anti-democratic outrage must continue, and we must all do it together.”

“I joined the party ten years ago,” says Senator Roberto Marti. “I committed to a national project; I joined the League with Salvini, whom the national party had chosen, and I believe that any other conditions should be discussed within the party, not outside it.” But outside the party, in fact, the dissidents from Northern Italy are, according to some, reviving the ‘Interno’ faction. Just yesterday, the Viminal saga took a new turn. Matteo Piantedosi, the minister chosen in 2022 to bring the right-wing parties (and the Leagues) together, is expected to stand as a candidate next year with Fratelli d’Italia. Some news sites in Irpinia – would you believe it – are reporting the candidacy as a ‘done deal’, citing news of an agreement with Meloni, and even the go-ahead from Matteo Salvini who, if things stand as they are, is set to take over the ministry which, from the outset, has been a League stronghold. The ‘Captain’s’ carefully laid plans, however, would now end up trapping him and causing him to lose the party leadership (it’s always the same old story). Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Interior has issued a denial: “No one has asked the minister to stand as a candidate,” they tell us. “No party.” And from the wing of the League most loyal to the Deputy Prime Minister comes the comment: “They’ve run out of ideas.” This time, the words come from Gianluca Savoini, Salvini’s former spokesperson, when we raise the possibility of a plot by the Northern League involving Piantedosi – the ‘master key’ to the South.

Meanwhile, in Marina di Pietrasanta, the secretary replies: “The League is the party of the north, the centre and the south. If there are some people who think differently, so much the better for democracy, but that is not the party. The party is here today.” I am the party. In the north they grumble; in the south they nod in agreement.

In France, a country where the demographic winter is less severe than here, a public subsidy is offered for the cryopreservation of eggs to all women aged between 29 and 37. In Italy, there are two proposals – from the PD and the M5S – tabled in the Chamber of Deputies moving in this direction (and another will be added in September in the Senate, tabled by Democratic Party Senator Filippo Sensi, who proposes replicating the model already in place in Tuscany). Another proposal has also been announced by the former Prime Minister and leader of Italia Viva, Matteo Renzi, who suggests adopting the French model, with an allocation of 100 million euros to be included in the next Budget Bill. The aim is to reach a cross-party agreement. There is no lack of openness from Forza Italia and the Lega. Elisabetta Tovaglieri, a Lega MEP, admitted to La Repubblica that she had personally made use of social freezing: “It cannot be a divisive issue,” she said. But within Giorgia Meloni’s party, the idea is not gaining traction. There is reluctance. Mennuni adds: “I find it abhorrent to suggest to a woman – as if it were a sign of modernity – that she should wait to have children and then undergo the difficult and painful process of stimulation for the transfer of frozen embryos. Instead, we must channel our energies into restoring a woman’s ability to choose to become a mother within the natural timeframe available to her. For her own good and for the well-being of the child, who, I would remind you, is not an object of other people’s rights.” For this reason, the FdI senator addresses her colleagues in the opposition directly: “I propose that the PD and the Five Star Movement should not bow to the market logic that revolves around these businesses, and should instead focus their efforts on securing budgetary resources to offer young people the opportunity to start their own families.” 

The position of another FdI MP, Ylenja Lucaselli, is more nuanced but essentially no different: “We are not opposed to the idea out of hand, but it is a sensitive issue. Are we sure that these choices really help boost the birth rate? And then there is the question of age: if you freeze your eggs, at what age will you have children? Are we sure we want mothers in their 50s or 60s? It’s true that we’re all younger these days, but are we certain that a woman of that age can truly be a mother? In principle, it’s a good thing that technology helps women to have children, but before such a decision is taken, there needs to be a wide-ranging ethical debate.”