FIFTH COLUMN
Of Marcello Veneziani
He will be a walk-on, but Giuseppe Conte makes an impression at Palazzo Chigi. So far in his seventy-day trip around the world he has never made a mistake, a phrase, a statement. The only gaffe belongs to his previous life, when he wrote CVs to bulk up a bit. Now there's no more need to argue, in two months he created an enviable CV, reality surpasses rumor. In his speeches perhaps he will keep to the obvious, on the generic, doesn't decide much, it merely entertains, repeat, simulate; but the little he said and the very little he did, he said it and he did it well, without ever going unbalanced. He kept himself on edge with a prodigious balancing act, than even the tightrope walkers at village festivals, those that in our Puglia we called tarall'e Zucchere. He managed not to displease Di Maio, Salvini and Mattarella, indeed he gave the impression of agreeing with each of them. It is Padre Pio's last miracle to demonstrate that nothing is impossible, even that a Count suddenly becomes prime minister, without firing a shot. And don't be attacked by anyone, print included.
Conte defined himself the other day as neither fowl nor fowl, but that is his mission, to leave the meat to Salvini beef (the same bovine look) and the seabream fish Di Maio (the same circled eyes). His, Count Zio, it is the Contour, Foggia salad with tomatoes and potatoes, anzi i' patane, produced by the plain of the same name fireplace which is the Tavoliere. Conte doesn't go to the seaside or to the mountains on mid-August, but the Volturara Appula, in the middle of the hill, where the chickens outnumber the inhabitants.
Conte completed the other day 54 years, but he was born into the world about two months ago. It is impressive to see the newborn wander among the leaders and protocols with growing mastery, it's a miracle to see him even received at the White House and arouse the animal sympathy of Trump and to be friends with the perfidious Macron.
Every time I see him, and above all I feel it, I have a feeling of disbelief and sympathy, almost affectionately. The miracle of the Everyman in government. A Pirandello story, almost the reverse of the late Mattia Pascal: someone who learns from one day to the next that he is Someone, to have its own well-known identity. When he scraped the scratch card his face came out and from that day the stranger became an institution. Here he is with his hair with the tuft meticulously disheveled, his cavernous voice from a Gargano cave and his pipe nose in profile. From the perspective, however, he has a vague resemblance to the first Berlusconi, a few more hairs, a few less companies. The inflated CV is his heel lift, its carryover and its facelift. It is too early to venture conclusions about the government he presides over (Conte, like Queen Elizabeth, reign but non rule, reigns but does not govern, indeed he does not reign, much less govern). But you can study a fantastic event: the coming to power of a prime minister drawn by lot, a premiership without leadership. It's not completely new, you will remember the many seaside governments of the first republic, the bridge governments and the half-presidents who were there as acting, vicars and stand-ins of thoroughbred horses. Even then there were longamanus presidents, placeholder, chair warmer, umbrella stand. To avoid exposing the originals, it was preferred to show certified copies, false, perfect reproductions of garments.
Conte must answer to three starters: Di Maio, Salvini, Mattarella plus a series of lieutenants and viceroys, starting from Tria. But already thirteen hundred years ago Liutprand the Lombard said that the cunning of the Italians was to have at least two masters, so they can get by and use the two-oven policy, floating. Conte is the deputy prime minister of his deputy prime ministers, he is the undersecretary of his undersecretary, Giorgetti. He plays fish in the barrel with cunning and sobriety. I don't rule out the possibility that over time the butler will become a master. One day or another the Republic transformed into a County...
The weather 10 August 2018