Let’s go. Today and tomorrow all the deputies of the Democratic Party in Gubbio will be gathered in the same place, the Park Hotel dei Cappuccini, which has served on several occasions as Forza Italia’s political school. From here Silvio BerlusconiIn 2005, speaking about the following year’s political elections, he said: “We are not behind, we are going to win.”

The former Umbrian monastery is also where Sandro Bondibetween mysticism and Berlusconism, became the favorite of the Cavaliere, and it is the one in which she appeared, very young, Francesca Pascale with two friends and a banner reading “We miss Silvio” to underline the desire to see the leader come to the rescue again at a period of decline in the Berlusconi myth.

But the monasteries, the castles, the strongholds where action and thought met since the Middle Ages, especially on the left, acted as meeting points in the hope of a revival. However, the retreat of olive growers in Gargonza, a monastery in Val di Chiana, did not bring revival Umberto Eco He sang the evening songs for joy Romano Prodi became prime minister in 1996. Massimo D’Alema He ruined the idyll by making it clear – the curse of withdrawal – that he would send the professor home. “Sorry, I’ll be sharp,” with these words the DS boss began his speech.

Ten years later, the stage set for the Royal Palace of Caserta can be seen here. Marco Pannella He turned on his mobile phone and broadcast the debate between the Union’s many leaders live on Radio Radicale, and an argument ensued Antonio Di Pietro. “Be careful – shouted Pannella – don’t be a policeman with me.” A few months later, the Prodi II government fell.

“We will be the silent force of the coalition,” he will say in the Abbey of Contignano. Nicola Zingaretti as Secretary of the Democratic Party, in January 2020. From then on there would be nothing peaceful and in March of the following year, exhausted by the wars that the currents waged against him, he went so far as to say: “This is me. “I am ashamed of this party. And he stepped back.

They don’t tolerate conclaves particularly well on the left side. The one promoted by Enrico Letta At the beginning of the adventure of his reign it took place in the Abbey of Spineto, in the province of Siena. The Prime Minister and his deputy Angelino Alfano They arrived in a climate of tension. “How did it go? Well, we finished the dressing room,” Letta said at the end of the conclave. Eight months later his government would fall. But fortunately, as they say in his inner circle, Elly Schlein She doesn’t care about her precedents and is confident that she will emerge from the monastic exam stronger.