History Of Italy

"I went from negative prejudice to positive prejudice. Someone would ride by on a motorbike and shout, “Thief! Thief!”. Today, people stop me on the street and say, “Why don't you come back?”."

"I did not discover Mani Pulite: it arose from the outcome of the investigation into the maxi-trial in Palermo, when Giovanni Falcone received confidential information from Tommaso Buscetta that an agreement had been made between the Ferruzzi Group and the Mafia. That's where it began. Falcone tasked the ROS with compiling what would become a 980-page report, which was supposed to go to Falcone, but he was transferred."

"They wanted to stop us. They sprang into action as soon as they realised we were about to reach the upper echelons of power. Mani Pulite was stopped, partly because while we were investigating the bigwigs in the north, we ended up touching those who had contacts with the Mafia in the south."

"Since then, the only thing that has changed is that now there is desolation on the part of public opinion."

"Since the end of the First Republic, new ideas and people to carry them forward should have emerged. Instead, that investigation left a great void, and figures appeared on the political scene who were there more for themselves than for anything else, starting with me. I am thinking of Silvio Berlusconi, Umberto Bossi, Matteo Salvini and Matteo Renzi."

"Two years to carry out Mani Pulite and four to defend myself from the consequences."

"I understand that it's hard to accept something so simple: that a magistrate, a public prosecutor, gets it right for once and uncovers a series of crimes by conducting a thorough investigation."

"I also read in the newspapers that the Mani Pulite investigation was an investigation into corruption, but you know that's not true, right? It was an investigation into false accounting."

"Mani Pulite created a vacuum: that's when personal parties started, beginning with me. But these parties last only a morning, and I am living proof of that."

"We did what any radiologist does when you go for an X-ray to see if you have a disease; we discovered that our country was sick with endemic corruption."

"It is not a day of celebration 25 years later. Twenty-five years have passed, but it seems to me that when I open the newspaper every morning, everything is the same as before."

"Rather than corruption or extortion, we should talk about “environmental giving”, i.e. an objective situation in which those who have to give money no longer even wait to be asked; they now know that in that particular environment it is customary to give bribes or protection money, and so they comply."

"Before I leave, I would like to put everything online so that one day someone can read it and see a different truth from what has been told."

"Are thieves, corrupt individuals, tax evaders, mafiosi or those who – like me – uncovered them with the Mani Pulite investigation a disgrace to the country?"

"After Mani Pulite, your country embarked on a path of profound change. In our opinion, Silvio Berlusconi blocked that process."

"Let me explain the becraun. The becraun is this: that we have all stolen here."

"Even if we admit that a magistrate has made a mistake or overstepped his bounds, this should not authorise thieves and their supporters... the vultures of due process... to cast even the slightest shadow on the commendable and never sufficiently applauded work of Borrelli and Di Pietro."

"Craxi made the mistake of passing off his comrades who committed suicide (out of shame at having been caught red-handed) as victims of anti-socialist conspiracies:... that is a lie, honourable member. What does Di Pietro care about political aims?"

"Never has a judicial measure been more popular, more eagerly awaited, almost liberating, than this one signed against Craxi [the first notice of investigation] [...] Di Pietro did not allow himself to be intimidated by criticism or threats from half the political world (let's say the rotten regime of which the overweight Bettino is the champion) and struck low and high, even up there where not even eagles dare to fly. He struck without haste, without any impatience to get into the newspapers to reap more glory. Craxi made the mistake... of passing off his suicidal comrades (ashamed of having been caught red-handed) as victims of anti-socialist conspiracies... That is a lie, honourable member: what does Di Pietro care about political aims... The judges work calmly, in absolute serenity: they know that the citizens, having regained their dignity and critical faculties, are on their side. As we at l'Indipendente always have been."

"I have never written that Di Pietro and his colleagues have pardoned the PDS: what evidence would I have to make such a claim?"

"Those honourable members who are now tearing their double-breasted suits (probably paid for with bribes) because many politicians end up in prison until they tell the truth are wrong to take it out on Borrelli and his wonderful colleagues. The magistrates are only doing their duty. And we are with them... [...] Prison is the best place to serve justice, to reflect and to remember."

"Mani Pulite in 1992 was a coup d'état that destroyed the First Republic, founded on workers' social rights, and opened the door to a cycle of liberalist organisations that destroyed the working class."

"These are days of great upheaval. We must all reflect on what is happening. The sacrosanct thirst for justice cannot be quenched by trampling on people's dignity with impunity."

"After an initial phase of genuine investigation, the inquiry took on such proportions that the situation got out of hand. And something strange happened. It was as if we were on the eve of God's arrest. Before meeting, party secretariats would inquire about the latest arrests. Companies stood still, waiting for the arrival of the Financial Police. The country was under hypnosis. Diplomats around the world wondered: what will happen in Italy? The Christian Democrats and the Italian Socialist Party had already given up. But the Communists would get away with it. At this point, Berlusconi entered the fray, blessed by Gelli. Entrepreneurs spoke out in droves. The more people were implicated, the better. Anything to prevent the country from falling into the hands of the Communists."

"Making me a hero reinforced the theory that the Italian Communist Party was involved like everyone else. It is an exploitation by the right."

"In investigations such as Mani Pulite, there is always the risk that an innocent person will be implicated. I accepted my fate so that the investigation could be completed. I support the rule of law even when the rule of law is wrong."

"I support the judges, I support the Mani Pulite investigation. I served my sentence in full. I even refused a pardon."

"What frightens and worries me is the slowness of judicial proceedings in the face of a perverse intertwining of politics and business that has increasingly taken on the form of a vast, widespread and ramified system."

"(About the request for a new Constituent Assembly during Tangentopoli) A constituent assembly is convened when there is such a rupture within the country, as happened after the war and after the fall of fascism, and this was indispensable. Even in the presence of very serious events, of a dangerous degeneration of the political system, we are not in a post-war situation, and resorting to a constituent assembly seems to me to be truly excessive."

"The people rise up when they feel their wallets are being hit and shout when they can send the powerful to the gallows. This was demonstrated by the French Revolution. But also by the tremendous populism and blind fury of Tangentopoli. :*Tommaso Labranca, Baruffe, 38/2009."

"Those who did not live before Tangentopoli do not know the sweetness of life."

"Corruption in Italy has always been the real emergency, a factor that affects political and economic life. But the media and political circus, once the storm of Mani Pulite had passed, pretended that it no longer existed. Fuelling a factory of generic chatter, hanging in the clouds and based on nothing. The force of things then takes care of bringing us back to reality."

"The Chiesa case was a very minor case. It acted as a detonator because the time was ripe for “Tangentopoli”, which was due to something much more complex than this: it has always been known that there was corruption in Italy, the ruling class exuded this stench of sewage that everyone could smell, the famous “holding your nose”. However, as long as the alternative to this political class in power at the time was a Communist Party, which was a facsimile of the Soviet one, based on tanks, secret police, denunciations, trials, [...] as long as this spectre existed, we could not afford the luxury of putting the ruling political class on trial and sending them to prison. It was when this nightmare collapsed with the Berlin Wall that the time was ripe for this to happen."

"In his latest encyclical Fratelli tutti published Oct. 3, Pope Francis expressed apertis verbis in an absolutely unprecedented key an idea of universal brotherhood, as a bond that unites all human beings beyond their faith, ideology, skin color, social background, language, culture and nation. It is a thought that is close to the ideals that have been the very foundation of Freemasonry since its origins. For more than 300 years the principle of brotherhood has been written indelibly in the Masonic trinomial placed in the East in the temples along with those of liberty and equality. And,the realization of a universal brotherhood, is from its origins the great mission and dream of Freemasonry."

"At the dawn of Mussolini's government, there were 267 parliamentarians affiliated with Freemasonry: more of a lodge than a chamber. Freemasons of different rites were other important names in the history of Fascism: trade unionist Edmondo Rossoni, Grand Minister Araldo di Crollalanza, Jurist Alfredo De Marsico; Peppino Caradonna, Bernardo Barbiellini Amidei, Aldo Finzi, Balbino Giuliano, and Costanzo Ciano, father of Galeazzo, Alberto Beneduce, future head of IRI, and Giacomo Acerbo, author of the electoral law that bears his name; Ezio Maria Gray, who would later become a member of the MSI, Armando Casalini, and many others."

"When I read the warm greeting from Gustavo Raffi, the grand master of the Grand Orient of Italy, in 2013, I was certain that, more than a "welcome" to Pope Bergoglio [...], it was a "good riddance" to Pope Ratzinger!"

"Paolo Prodi. As quoted in Silvia Renzi, Grande Oriente: sottosegretario de Paoli, “Massoneria baluardo della difesa della libertà”. Gran Maestro Raffi, “Grande soddisfazione per questo riconoscimento”, Rimini (April 14, 2007)"

"[The Grand Orient of Italy] is one of the most important ethical production agencies that has created the history of the Western world."

"Ettore Loizzo, engineer of Cosenza, my deputy in the Goi, a person who for me was the highest representative of the Goi, during a meeting of the Council of the Grand Orient of Italy (a sort of Board of Directors of the Goi in which my successor Gustavo Raffi, current Grand Master of the Goi, was also present) that I urgently called in 1993 after the beginning of the investigation of Dr. Cordova on Freemasonry, said that he could state with certainty that in Calabria, out of 32 lodges, 28 were controlled by the 'ndrangheta. [Agostino] Cordova on Freemasonry, at my precise request, he said that he could state with certainty that in Calabria, out of 32 lodges, 28 were controlled by the 'ndrangheta. I jumped up in my chair. I immediately said to him: and what do you want to do in the face of this disaster? He replied: nothing. Even more astonished, I asked him why. He replied that he could do nothing because otherwise he and his family would risk serious reprisals."

"[It would be good to see] the end of this legend of secrecy, the poisoned fruit of the deeds of the Arezzo mattress maker, which has no reason to persist. But how can one - one gets heated - confuse the Grand Orient, school of ethics and ruling class, with the scoundrels who infest the country, even in false Masonic lodges? Fascism persecuted it, forcing the Freemasons to keep their organisation secret, but today we are a transparent institution that has returned to history. This is demonstrated by the dozens of our cultural conferences with participants of the calibre of Margherita Jack, Rita Levi Montalcini, Umberto Galimberti, Giuseppe Mussari, Ignazio Marino, Paolo Prodi, Gian Mario Cazzaniga and many other philosophers, historians and academics of renowned and distinguished science. Has the Democratic Party now realised that the left is also the daughter of Freemasonry? The names of those who fled to Paris during Fascism, the Partisan Brigades in Spain and the Constituent Assembly, where out of 75 members 8 were Freemasons, from Cipriano Facchinetti to Arturo Labriola and Meuccio Ruini, are proof of this."

"The Spanish Republic did not find itself free of obligations. For the most part the leaders were Freemasons. Before their duty to their country came their obligations to the Grand Orient. In my opinion, Freemasonry, with all its international influence, is the organization principally responsible for the political ruin of Spain, as well as the murder of Calvo Sotelo, who was executed in accordance with orders from the Grand Secretary of Freemasonry in Geneva."

"The P2 Lodge, until its dissolution in 1982 due to the Anselmi-Spadolini law, was a regular lodge of the Grand Orient of Italy, as attested by extensive documentation that passed between the grand masters Gamberini, Salvini and Battelli on the one hand and Licio Gelli on the other."

"With Antonio Vivaldi, Italian Baroque music reached its zenith. The prosperous, cultivated world of contemporary Venice shines through all his works, composed with innate craftsmanship."

"In our own day classics have been dethroned without being replaced. But throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries our statesmen were so brought up that they thought of Rome as the hearth of their political civilization, where their predecessor Cicero had denounced Catiline; where the models of their own eloquence and statecraft, as taught them at Eton, Harrow and Winchester, had been practised and brought to perfection. And, therefore, the ruins of the Forum were as familiar, as sacred, and as moving to Russell and to Gladstone as to Mazzini and Garibaldi themselves. This was a prime fact in the history of the Risorgimento."

"Nationalism at first had seemed to pose a threat to Europe's monarchies. In the 1860s, however, the kingdoms of Piedmont and Prussia had created new nation states by combining the national principle with their own instincts for self-preservation and self-aggrandizement. The results - the kingdom of Italy and the German Reich - were no doubt very far from being perfect nation states. To Sicilians, the Piedmontese were as foreign as if they had been Frenchmen; the true unification of Italy came after the triumphs of Cavour and Garibaldi, with what were in effect small wars of colonization waged against the peoples of the south. Many Germans, meanwhile, lived outside the borders of Bismarck's new Reich; what historians called his wars of unification had in fact excluded German-speaking Austrians from a Prussian-dominated Kleindeutschland. Nevertheless, an imperfect nation state was, in the eyes of most nationalists, preferable to no nation state at all."

"Italy is, after France and perhaps in the same degree, the land in which love of country has the deepest roots in the hearts of its inhabitants. The fact is that perhaps nowhere else has nature been so prodigal with its enchantments and seductions. Therefore, although Italy has been, since the fall of the Caesars, the object of European covetousness, the eternal battlefield of powerful neighbors, and the theatre of the fiercest and most prolonged civil wars, her children have always refused to leave her. Save for some commercial colonies hastily thrown upon the shores of Asia by Genoa and Venice, history has not, in fact, recorded in Italy any important outward movement of population."

"Rome has bequeathed us understandings of freedom and citizenship, as well as imperialist exploitation, along with today's political vocabulary from "senators" to "dictators." He has lent us his sayings — "fear the Greeks, even if they bring gifts" and "play the violin while Rome burns" and even "where there is life, there is hope". And he has evoked laughter, awe and fear to a more or less equal extent."

"lrbt lʻštrt, ʼšr qdš ʼz, ʼš pʻl, wʼš ytn tbryʼ wlnš mlk ʻl kyšryʼ. byrḥ zbḥ šmš, bmtnʼ bbt, wbn tw. kʻštrt ʼrš bdy lmlky šnt šlš, byrḥ krr, bym qbr ʼlm wšnt lmʼš ʼlm bbty šnt km h kkb m ʼl."

"Yet wherever one looks, in non-specialist guides, or in holiday brochures, one reads about the 'mysterious' Etruscans; hidden Etruria; underground Etruria — as if the culture is somehow concealed from us. It is a sales gimmick which has been very useful and profitable, but it is also misleading. (...) The Etruscans were no more more mysterious than most other peoples of archaic Italy."

"Shame on the false Etruscan Who lingers in his home, When Porsena of Clusium Is on the march for Rome!"