Milan and Rome, two opposed fates: civic virtue and initiative on the one hand; the plunge into the differently-smart world created by the M5S, but massively voted by the capital’ s plebs, on the other. Milan, in truth, never died. Not even when the public prosecutor’ s office, headed by Francesco Saverio Borrelli, sounded the charge every day against the national and city establishment. Then, it found the strength in itself, in its workers, in its entrepreneurs, in its administrators to revamp itself and become one of the world capitals of innovation, of good taste, of non-provincial Italianism, the one that from the Renaissance onwards has been able to speak to the peoples of the earth. It took Expo (which was the devil for the cultists of God Grillo and his vicar Casaleggio) to give it a further boost. Hence, Expo is Milan’ s litmus test: proposed by a mayor, Letizia Moratti, elected by the right wing; backed and supported by a prime minister, Romano Prodi, who was the inventor of the left wing and, to some extent, its destroyer. In Milan, private museums were opened on the back of the foundations formed by enlightened entrepreneurs. In some ways, it was yet another demonstration of Milan philanthropy, with several examples around the city. I’ ll tell you one: the picture galley of the Polyclinic in Via Sforza. Just visit it to understand. Obama went to Milan to attend one of those initiatives in which innovation combines with respect for tradition and, above all, health. Rome is something different. So much so as to push Codacons to ask UNESCO to delete it from the ‘Heritage of Humanity’ list. A soulless and directionless city, abandoned to its rats, to its rubbish, to its disintegration. 50 meters away from Palazzo Chigi, the Galleria Colonna hosts fortune-tellers; a little further in Via delle Muratte, dozens of peddlers with stands, often quarrelling with each other. For example, if you wander around Paris in the old town center or near to the Elysée, you can see what the respect for institutional sites means. Many mayors failed, Raggi fails: Rome is sinking. © Riproduzione riservata Traduzione di Silvia De Prisco.
 
 

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