Gino Moliterno. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture

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(Paradoxically and With Anguish), privately in 1970, and followed it with Il disperso

(The Lost One) in 1976.

The great novelty of Cucchi’s poetry lies in its continuous elaboration of a language in

which speech reveals itself only in terms of a fragmented discourse. The reflective

monologues of his poems are presented in their raw existence, as they actually occur in

the quotidian, mechanical and meaningless activities of the day. Therefore, the thoughts

of the subject are offered as they surface in the interstices between one daily activity and

another. It is this sense of deranged relief that Cucchi’s poetry depicts, leaving the

impression of a natural, spontaneous process which reconciles the speaker and the reader

with an otherwise ‘dispersed’ reality.

Further reading

Cucchi, M. (1993) Poesia della fonte (Poetry of the Fount), Milan: Mondadori.

ERNESTO LIVORNI

Cuccia, Enrico

b. 24 November 1907, Rome

Banker and financier

Born in Rome of Sicilian descent but adopting Milan as his real home, Cuccia is

universally recognized as the undisputed grand master—some would say puppet-

master—of Italian finance for the entire postwar period.

After an apprenticeship with the Bank of Italy, IRI and the Banca Commerciale

Italiana in the 1930s and early 1940s, Cuccia created Mediobanca in 1946 and became

its chairman. From then on, practically every major financial deal in Italy passed through

the hands of Cuccia and Mediobanca which, though nominally a public credit institution

set up to provide venture capital for industry and development, was ingeniously used by

its chairman to safeguard the position of the big families in Italian capitalism—Agnelli

and Pirelli first and foremost—thus effectively utilizing public money to strengthen the

private sector (see also Agnelli family). Forced to resign formally as Mediobanca

chairman when the institution was ‘privatized’ in 1988, Cuccia nevertheless engineered a

way to stay on as ‘honorary chairman’ and continued to exercise an overwhelming

influence.

An otherwise intensely secretive man who has always avoided the public spotlight,

Cuccia’s other declared interests are philosophy and mysticism and he is said to be a

lover of James Joyce.

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Further reading

McCarthy, P. (1995) The Crisis of the Italian State: From the Origins of the Cold War to the Fall

of Berlusconi and Beyond, New York: St Martin’s Press (see especially ‘Enrico Cuccia: A

Dirigist against the State’, pp. 86–91).

GINO MOLITERNO

Cuore

Born in January 1989 as a weekly six-page comic supplement of l’Unità, Cuore (Heart)

proved popular enough to be published as an independent satirical journal beginning in

February 1991 under the direction of writer and journalist Michele Serra. Subtitled

‘Settimanale di resistenza umana’ (A Weekly of Human Resistance), it hosted the work

of many cartoonists and collaborators of the earlier and more controversial comic insert

of l’Unità, Tango, many of whom, like Vincino, had originally been part of the legendary

Il Male. With much fuel for its satirical fire provided by the Tangentopoli revelations,

the magazine, in its familiar green newspaper-size format, achieved sales of 140,000 in

1992 but by 1994 had fallen back to less than 80,000. As the political climate changed it

continued to lose ground until, in 1997, with national sales at 30,000 and still falling, it

was declared bankrupt. In 1998, under a new ownerpublisher, an attempt was made to

relaunch it, but initial results were far from promising and its future remains extremely

doubtful.

GINO MOLITERNO

Curcio, Renato

b. 23 September 1941, Monterotondo

The only child of single mother from Apulia, Curcio was brought up in Piedmont

(with the family of an uncle, who had been killed in the Resistance), Rome (where he

was attracted to the cinema world of another uncle, Luigi Zampa), and Liguria (where

his schooling was completed with a chemistry diploma). In 1963 he enrolled in the new

sociology programme at Trento University, directed by Alberoni, and married fellow

student Margherita Cagol in 1969. Joining the worker and student movement in Milan,

Curcio and Cagol invented the Red Brigades in 1970. Arrested in 1974, Curcio escaped

with help from Cagol (who was killed in 1975) but was recaptured in 1976. Publicly

unrepentant, publishing texts that grew more baffling but less political (for example,

Wkhy (1988)), he played out the years of terrorism and his accumulating prison

sentences as ‘leader’ of the Red Brigades. After President Cossiga’s botched attempt to

pardon him as a sign of national reconciliation, he was granted work release in 1993.

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Further reading

Curcio, R. (1993) A viso aperto (Openly), Milan: Mondadori.

Franceschini, A. (1988) Mara, Renato e io (Mara, Renato and I), Milan: Mondadori (insider

account of the Red Brigades by Curcio’s closest associate.)

DAVID MOSS

cycling

Since the inception of the sport of bicycle racing, Italian athletes have numbered among

the world’s best. It is not uncommon during late winter and early spring to encounter

professional teams out training on Italy’s backroads. This visibility keeps the top athletes

in close contact with their fans, and enthusiasm for the sport is consequently very high

even at the recreational level. Big groups of amateur cyclists take to the roads, especially

on the weekends, many equipped with the latest gear and riding elite bicycles often

bearing the names of current or former champions. Due to the high quality of Italian

products, the bicycle industry itself also flourishes and owning an Italian-made racing

bicycle is the dream of every devoted rider.

The two most important road races held in Italy are the Giro d’Italia and the Milan-

San Remo. The Milan-San Remo, held in mid-March, traditionally marks the start of the

professional cycling season, and is one the longest single-day races.

Organized by La Gazzetta dello Sport (see sports publications), the Giro is a three-

week tour of the peninsula. Held in a period when the other main sports are idle, the Giro

enjoys the media’s undivided attention. In addition to exhaustive reports in La Gazzetta,

public and private television channels broadcast the race daily to an audience of millions.

Italian fans crowd the roads where the Giro passes and paint the asphalt with messages of

support for their favourite champions.

Cycling greats Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi won the Giro d’Italia, the Milan-San

Remo and the Tour de France several times each, despite the fact that both their

professional cycling careers were temporarily interrupted by the Second World War.

Bartali and Coppi were the protagonists of many a battle, often finishing first and second.

The rivalry between these two athletes still divides Italy’s cycling fans into two camps,

‘bartaliani’ and ‘coppiani’.

In 1965, Felice Gimondi emerged to win the Tour de France in his first attempt.

Gimondi, the World Champion in 1973, was the first Italian to win all three major tours

(Spain, Italy and France), proving to be the best Italian rider of his generation.

In 1977, Francesco Moser became the sixth Italian to claim the World Championship.

He followed with three consecutive victories in the Paris-Roubaix, 1978–80. However,

Moser’s golden year was 1984, when he won the Milan-San Remo and the Giro after

having set two new marks for the Hour Record in Mexico City. After Moser, Italian

world road champions include Giuseppe Saronni (1982), Moreno Argentin (1986),

Maurizio Fondriest (1988) and Gianni Bugno, winner in 1991–2. Bugno, Italy’s top rider

of the early 1990s, also triumphed at the Milan-San Remo and at the Giro in 1990. Ivan

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Gotti won the Giro in 1997, followed by Marco Pantani in 1998. In 1998, Pantani also

triumphed at the Tour de France, ending a thirtythree-year-long drought and becoming

the first Italian rider to win both competitions in the same year since 1952. Pantani, who

had to overcome two career-threatening injuries, has now emerged as the new front

runner of Italian cycling

Women’s cycling became popular only in the 1970s and 1980s (the first Tour de

France and Olympic women’s road race were held in 1984). Maria Canins took the

second edition of the Tour in 1985 and repeated her success in 1986. In 1988, Canins

won the first edition of the women’s Giro d’Italia. In 1995, Fabiana Luperini won both

the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. At the Atlanta Olympic games in 1996, Paola

Pezzo took the gold medal in the first women’s mountain-bike Olympic race ever held,

and Imelda Chiappa finished second in the road race. In the velodrome, Antonella

Bellutti won the women’s pursuit. In Atlanta, two other gold medals for cycling came

from the velodrome: Alessandro Collinelli won the men’s pursuit, and Silvio Martinello

secured the men’s individual points race, continuing an established winning tradition.

Further reading

D’Alema, M. (1997) La Sinistra nell’Italia che cambia (The Left in a Changing Italy), Milan:

Feltrinelli.

Gilbert, M. (1998) ‘In Search of Normality: The Political Strategy of Massimo D’Alema’, Journal

of Modern Italian Studies 3 (3):307–17.

JAMES WALSTON

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Dalla, Lucio

b. 4 March 1943, Bologna

Singer-songwriter

One of Italy’s foremost singer-songwriters (see cantautori), Dalla began his musical

career in 1959, abandoning school in order to play clarinet with the Roma New Orleans

Jazz Band. Encouraged by Gino Paoli, whom he met in 1963, Dalla started singing but

was markedly unsuccessful until appearing at the Sanremo Festival in 1965. His first big

hit, however, was ‘4 marzo ‘43’ (4 March 1943), which became a best-selling single in

1971. In 1974 he struck up a fertile partnership with poet, Roberto Roversi, which

resulted in three major albums and a more theatrical style of live performance with a

greater commitment to social criticism.

Dalla’s own songwriting talents first came to be fully recognized with the extremely

popular 1977 album, Com’è profondo il mare (How Deep the Ocean Is), which

effectively marked the beginning of his rise to superstardom. In the late 1970s, his

popularity still steadily increasing, Dalla toured with Francesco De Gregori and soon set

up his own record company, Pressing, of which he remains managing director.

Continuing to tour extensively and to release best-selling albums in the late 1980s and

1990s, Dalla has also written musical scores for a number of films, the most recent being

for Antonioni’s Al di là delle nuvole (Beyond the Clouds) (1996), for which he received

a Golden Ribbon.

GINO MOLITERNO

Dalla Chiesa, Carlo Alberto

b. 27 September 1920, Saluzzo, Cuneo; d. 3 September 1982, Palermo

General of the Carabinieri

When Dalla Chiesa was posted to Palermo in May 1982, he was a symbol of the victory

of the Italian State over the political terrorism of the previous decade. In 1977, with

terrorist activity at its height, he had been appointed security co-ordinator for prisons and

in 1978 overall co-ordinator of police forces against terrorism. In both high-profile jobs

he had been largely successful, and his appointment to Palermo was clearly made in the

hope that he would repeat his success, this time against the mafia. Having already

commanded the carabinieri in Palermo between 1966–73 he now returned there as

prefect although, curiously, without special powers of co-ordination. In an interview in

August 1982 he implied that he did not have the full support of the government, and in

September he was gunned down, together with his wife and bodyguard.

Parliament immediately passed a bill which introduced the crime of ‘mafia

association’, and subsequent prefects were given powers of co-ordination. Nevertheless,

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disquiet over his death and suspicion regarding those responsible has continued, with one

possible scenario shown in Giuseppe Ferrara’s film Cento giorni a Palermo (100 days in

Palermo) (1984).

Further reading

Arlacchi, P. et al (1982) Morte di un generate (Death of a General), Milan: Mondadori.

JAMES WALSTON

Dallapiccola, Luigi

b. 3 February 1904, Pisino; d. 19 February 1975, Florence

Composer

A composer of high international standing, Dallapiccola is noted for his large volume of

vocal works. After early schooling in Pisino, Dallapiccola moved to Florence and

undertook studies at the Conservatorium Luigi Cherubini. He was appointed to the staff

of that institution in 1934 and worked there until 1967, occasionally taking leave to

lecture in the USA.

Dallapiccola’s compositional style can best be described as serial or twelve-tone,

although he is particularly renowned for the beauty of his vocal lines while working

within a strict compositional style. His most notable compositions are his vocal works,

which cover half a century and which include the memorable wartime work, Canti di

prigionia (Prison Songs) (1938–41).

Further reading

Morris, M. (1996) A Guide to 20th-century Composers, London: Methuen (contains a concise but

informative guide to Dallapiccola and his work).

ANDREW SGHULTZ

Damiani, Damiano

b. 23 July 1922, Pordenone

Film director and actor

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A versatile director who has worked in many genres in both cinema and television,

Damiani studied painting at the Brera Fine Arts Academy in Milan before beginning his

film career in 1946. While working as a scriptwriter and director’s assistant he also made

a large number of short documentaries before directing his first feature film, Il rossetto

(The Lipstick), in 1960. His subsequent production varied greatly from literary

adaptations such as Moravia’s La noia (The Empty Canvas) (1963) to spaghetti

westerns like Quien sabe? (A Bullet for the General) (1967). After 1968, his films

addressed more political and social themes such as high-level corruption and the problem

of the mafia, although this did not prevent him from directing a sensational horror thriller

like Amityville II: The Possession in the USA in 1982. In 1984 he wrote and directed La

piovra (The Octopus), a popular television series on the mafia which became one of the

great success stories of Italian television and continued for over a decade. In the mid-

1990s he also worked as scene and costume designer for opera, and in 1997 received the

Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

GINO MOLITERNO

Dante Alighieri Society

The Dante Alighieri Society was founded in July 1889 with the aim of helping Italians

outside Italy to maintain their Italian language and culture and thus preserve a sense of

Italian identity (Article 1 of the Society’s Constitution). Originally this took the modest

form of Italian classes for intending migrants, but a greater awareness of the problems

faced by migrants soon led to the founding of chapters in host countries from which to

more effectively promote both retention of the language and the spread of Italian culture

by the provision of funds, teaching materials, books and libraries.

The Society strove to maintain some independence under Fascism, but was inevitably

associated with the regime and thus suffered a decline during the war years. After the war

the Society went through a phase of renewed vigour, concentrating more on social

support and cultural activities and minimising appeals to nationalism. Throughout the

1970s and 1980s, it sought greater co-ordination with other cultural associations abroad

and in 1989, the year of its centenary, it was recognized officially by the Italian state as

an integral part of its National Commission for the promotion of Italian Culture abroad.

GINO MOLITERNO

D’Arrigo, Stefano

b. 10 October 1919, Alì, Messina, Sicily; d. 2 May 1992, Rome

Novelist and poet

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Having previously produced only one volume of poetry, in 1958 D’Arrigo presented two

chapters of a novel in progress in il menabò, the prestigious literary journal edited by

Vittorini and Calvino. He received a warm critical response and subsequently spent the

next fifteen years writing the massive novel which was finally published in 1975 under

the title of Horcynus Orca. Although the work proved unequal to the extreme

expectations generated by the massive publicity campaign just before its publication, it is

a vast and complex fresco of human life and passion, dominated by the theme of the

journey, a journey not only in space but also in time, in literature and in language. The

writing is an intriguing amalgam of dialect, neologisms and archaisms woven through a

narrative that combines contemporary references and mythological symbols. The journey

as a literary and existential metaphor appears again in D’Arrigo’ s subsequent fiction,

Cima delle nobildonne (Highest of the Noblewomen) (1985), which is largely an

interrogation of the mystery of creation that relies on the rich cosmogony provided by

classical writings, Egyptian texts and above all by Ovid’s Metamorphoses whose echoes

resound constantly in D’Arrigo’s tale of the surgical transformation of an effeminate boy

into a young woman.

PAOLO BARTOLONI

The Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democrat) party ruled Italy, usually in coalition

with other centre-left or centre-right parties, for nearly fifty years from June 1944 until

April 1994, and held the prime ministership for nearly forty-two years. This Christian

Democratic ‘regime’ was thus in power twice as long as the Fascists.

The DC created in 1943 by Alcide De Gasperi was largely a reconstruction of the

Partito Popolare Italiano (Italian Popular Party), Italy’s first ‘Catho-lic’ party founded in

1918 and dissolved by the Fascists in 1926. De Gasperi was the natural ‘historic’ leader

of the DC and was supported by ex-popolare MPs in Milan and Rome. They were joined

by younger groups with different priorities: the Guelfisti, the only Catholic anti-Fascist

group to openly resist the Regime; Enrico Mattei and Catholic participants in the

Resistance; the Dossettiani (see Dossetti), and leaders of the Catholic students’

movement, Andreotti, Co-lombo and Moro.

Ideological diversity of the new party was matched by poor organizational structures

so that the DC was heavily indebted to Catholic Action and the Church for its electoral

successes in the 1940s. This was a mixed blessing for De Gasperi, who sought to escape

the suffocating, authoritarian embrace of Pius XII by coalitions with small parties of the

centre such as the Social Democrats (PSDI), the Republicans (PRI) and the Liberals

(PLI).

Strong American support played an important role in the DC’s victory in the Cold War

setting of 1948, but within Italy the DC’s electoral success was made possible by the

support of women (60 per cent of their electorate), the southern middle and upper classes,

and even of organized crime. Ironically, the DC’s commitment to resolving the

‘Southern Question’ through land reform and the institution of the Cassa per il

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Mezzogiorno (Southern Development Fund), alienated many of its newfound supporters,

and by 1953 it was clear that the centrist coalition would lose the election. De Gasperi

passed an electoral reform law, dubbed the ‘swindle law’ by its opponents, which gave

two-thirds of the seats to the grouping of parties that won more than 50 per cent of the

votes. It did not work; the DC and its allies lost 10 per cent of the vote compared to 1948

and De Gasperi resigned, dying in 1954.

The DC was never again to have an overall majority or an authoritative leader like De

Gasperi. Amintore Fanfani sought to step into his shoes but failed, and the DC

henceforth remained an uneasy and unstable alliance of faction leaders until its demise in

1994. Fanfani did, however, succeed in making the party independent of the financial

support of the Confindustria (the Italian employers’ organization) and the electoral

support of the Church and Catholic Action, by extending the clientelistic networks in the

South (see clientelism), colonizing the huge state sector and creating a mass

organizational base for the party.

Thereafter, the DC became an increasingly clientelistic and middle-class party and, as

the effects of the Second Vatican Council and the secularization process induced by the

‘economic miracle’ and American cultural influences made themselves felt from the

1960s onwards, the party’s electoral centre of gravity steadily shifted from the heartlands

of the Catholic sub-culture in northern and eastern Italy to the South and the islands.

Shrewd tactical manoeuvring also helped the party and its allies to stay in power. In the

early 1960s an ‘opening to the Left’ brought the Socialist Party into the coalition, and in

the mid-1970s a temporary ‘’historic compromise’ with the Communists ensured stability

despite a very serious terrorist threat (see terrorism).

Ironically, the fear of communism had always been the DC’s major electoral card and,

given Italy’s geopolitical position, the DC was, as Aldo Moro—later to be abducted and

killed by the Red Brigades—once put it, ‘condemned’ to govern. However, by the mid-

1980s the DC’s hold on power had become less secure. Under the dynamic Bettino

Craxi, the Socialists had moved to take a bigger share of patronage and were playing a

bigger role in government; indeed, in 1983 Craxi became prime minister. Due to an

increasing dependence on clientelism and sometimes outright corruption, the DC regime

was heading into decline. In the North, the Leagues developed into a mass protest

movement against precisely these evils (see Lega Nord); in the South, the La Rete

movement campaigned against the DC’s links with organized crime (see mafia), and

inside the DC itself, Mario Segni led the campaign to abolish the very proportional

representation on which the partitocrazia (party dominance) was based (see electoral

systems).

The 1992 general elections marked a turning point, with the DC winning only 29 per

cent of the vote. The results demonstrated the growing weakness of the DC and of its

regime, emboldening the judiciary to strike at the heart of corruption in government

through the Mani pulite (Clean Hands) investigations. Beginning in Milan in the Spring

of 1992, the Tangentopoli (literally, ‘Bribesville’) scandals soon engulfed politicians of

all the governing parties, but especially the Socialists and DC, a crisis exacerbated by the

indictment a year later of Giulio Andreotti, the longest-serving DC politician of all, on

charges of collusion in mafia crime.

In 1991, Mino Martinazzoli (Party Secretary) and Rosa Russo Jervolino (President)

had initiated an attempt to drastically reform the DC, but the ‘Bribesville’ scandals and

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