What remains of our loves and what remains of our quarrels about the Cav? A photo

The stuffed caiman, the statuette of Tartaglia, the tulips in the window, the sweet awful verses of Bondi, Putin’s gala Latvian, good things in bad taste… Now that Berlusconi is gone, they remain in the memory of Berlusconians, anti-Berlusconians and Aberlusconians a thousand relics from Gozzano’s living room. And just like in Grandma Speranza’s Amica, everything for me begins with a vintage photograph. I haven’t seen the photograph, actually; maybe it doesn’t even exist; but he closely recalls the scene in which the young grandmother Speranza rehearses “a bundle of ancient music” on the piano, and her friend Carlotta intones “sweet, very ugly verses” in courtly and mawkish Italian, all core and augello. “Carlotta sings. Hope rings. Sweet and flowery / she opens to the short romance of a thousand promises life”.