One morning twelve years ago, at the height of the political clash between Berlusconi and anti-Berlusconi, Silvio Berlusconi summons his then plenipotentiary Denis Verdini and tells him: «Last night I met this Francesco Boccia of the Democratic Party. He deals with economics, he is brilliant, very good. We absolutely must bring him to the center-right ». It was a gigantic misunderstanding, which makes people laugh a lot today, much less at the time. The evening before that phone call, Boccia showed up at Palazzo Grazioli with Nunzia De Girolamo for an aperitif on the sidelines of the presentation of a book by Bruno Vespa; the real objective of that visit was to warn the then prime minister, before it came out in the newspapers, that they were together. She is Berlusconian, he is anti-Berlusconian: overwhelmed by an unusual fate, like in a film by Lina Wertmüller. As you will see, the biography of the former Minister of Regional Affairs – a crazy splinter on the map, from Bisceglie to Milan, from London to Rome – is full of these flames.
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Let’s start with the most famous, the love story with De Girolamo. The first meeting? «At the beginning of 2009, at the Federico II University of Naples. My friend Tommaso Pellegrino, a former member of parliament for the Greens, had organized a conference on trash chaos ».
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But you had both been in Parliament for a few months.
“Yes, but we had never crossed paths. I obviously knew who he was. She, she would tell me later, before that day in Naples she had no idea who I was ».
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Nunzia De Girolamo and Francesco Boccia in a pause during the general discussion on the electoral law, in the Chamber of the Chamber, on March 6, 2014–
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What happens in Naples?
«The audience of the conference was almost entirely center-left. Nunzia makes a speech of her own, quickly, without restraint. Imagining the reaction of the audience, we were sitting next to her, I whisper to her: “Nice speech, don’t worry, I’ll defend you”. She says something like “I defend myself”. In the evening he sends me an e-mail: “We should present a bill together”. My answer: “I was waiting for your email”. For two months we would talk just like that, via e-mail. Nobody asked for the phone number of the other until … ».
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Dinner invitation?
“No, for lunch. I tell her “I invite you to lunch because lunch lasts less than dinner and is less compromising”. We start dating clandestinely. First trip together to Lebanon. With a rented car we drive to the border manned by Hezbollah. Nobody knew us there. ‘
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Weren’t you afraid of getting caught sooner or later?
“The situation, which makes us smile today, was very serious. The clash between the center-left and Berlusconi was at very high levels in 2009. I had gone to live with Nunzia, when one of the two received a business call he went to talk in another room. Politics had to stay out of the relationship, otherwise it would have ended badly and quickly. But we decide to tell Berlusconi ”.
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It had been months since the first meeting, now.
“Yup. And more than one began to have suspicions. With the occasion of this aperitif after the presentation of Vespa, I go with Nunzia to Palazzo Grazioli. He introduces me to Berlusconi and we end up talking about politics. He asks me why we attack him so much and I speak for ten minutes contesting his economic policy point by point. Nunzia was pale in the face, she was afraid I would throw me out of the house. And what does it do instead? He listens to me without interrupting me and then says “well, how much I understand you …”. Basically (he smiles, ed) he blamed Giulio Tremonti for those measures. We leave that evening when the reason for the visit did not come out. And Berlusconi, the next day, calls Verdini to tell him to take me to the center-right. Verdini, who knew everything, telephones Nunzia: “Oh, you have to tell him”. When he found out, Berlusconi took it with a smile: “Okay, as long as you treat yourself like a queen” ».
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Let’s rewind the tape. From 2009 to 1993.
«I had left Puglia for Milan, close to the Master at Bocconi I was also doing job interviews. I remember a trip to Mestre with my Fiat Brava for an interview with Coin. There was fog, I thought “I wouldn’t want to come here”. A stroke of luck arrives: as a representative of the master class I organized debates on the political situation at Bocconi, we were in full Tangentopoli. Fabio Tamburini, who today is the director of Sole 24 Ore, comes to present his book on Cuccia. I ask him for a contact with the Sun to present my work on Boc, the municipal bond bonds. And they publish it in one volume. For the preface, I contact Mino Martinazzoli and Antonio Bassolino ».
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Venice, 4 September 2020, Nunzia De Girolamo and Francesco Boccia at the 77th edition of the Venice International Film Festival–
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Then he goes to London, right?
«I wanted to do finance. The London School of Economics was the best. There I know Filippo Andreatta, he suggests that I send my research on the debt of local authorities to his father ».
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So did you cross Nino Andreatta?
“I’ll fax everything to him. One Sunday morning the phone rings, it didn’t seem true: “When you come back to Italy, come and see me”. He was working on the construction of the Olive Tree, together with Prodi. It was ’95. I fly to Rome, he takes me to lunch. “Now another young man joins us with whom I would like him to come into contact”, Andreatta tells me. At coffee time, Enrico Letta shows up ».
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Would she go back to London?
“Yup. But Andreatta suggests that I present my work on the Regions on the following 11 December, at the Arel. I was thinking of a narrow thing. I arrive on the established date, enter the study center apartment, open the door of the living room and find about thirty people I had only seen in the newspapers or on TV: from Mario Draghi to Sarcinelli, passing by Federico Pepe of Banco di Napoli. I immediately closed the door, thinking I had the wrong room. Instead they were there to listen to me. Andreatta told me: “Don’t worry. As much your work, as you know it, nobody knows it ”. Andreatta was a giant. As another giant, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa said of him, “he was a man who loved to be wrong”. Impeccable definition ».
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From 1995 to 2020: the man on TV is you, minister at the time of the pandemic. His mother scene?
«If I had to choose one, it is the day when the doctors we had recalled from the pension are on board the flight to Bergamo. The situation was dramatic, like in a war: there were no anesthetists, infectious doctors, doctors in the hospital worked shifts that lasted three consecutive days. On that flight there were women and men who had hung up their shirts so they could enjoy their retirement and their grandchildren; and who were now back on duty. One of them said to me: “My nephew will one day understand the reason that prompted me to greet him for some time and he will be proud of it.” There, for the first time, I indulged in a liberating cry, after days that seemed to never end. We land at Orio al Serio airport, deserted, it was only opened to land this plane of the Guardia di Finanza. When I arrived in Milan as a student in 1993, in the evening you could hear the sirens of the gazelles carrying those arrested from Tangentopoli to San Vittore. In Bergamo, that day, the silence of the city was broken only by the sirens of the ambulances ».
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April 19, 2021 (change April 19, 2021 | 07:13)
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