Umberto, the senatur, is also gone, the man who invented the Lombard League – which later became “North” – and the concept of Padania from scratch. If the Mani Pulite investigation triggered the end of the First Republic, Bossi accelerated it. He had the intuition of a political-trade union movement to protect a productive North, the “ant”, against a South of patronage policies, statism, perks and forest guards everywhere, the “cicada” of the country. With youthful left-wing sympathies, he drew a lot from the old PCI (do you remember Maurizio Ferrini, a militant communist from Romagna – the one of “I don’t understand, but I adapt” – who proposed a wall, near Ancona, to separate the country?) and from the DC, which arrived exhausted at the appointment with the end of the century.

Explaining Bossi to those who weren’t there

The first Northern League members slept in convents

A character full of nuances, energetic, able to make his first wife believe that he practiced the profession of doctor (but he didn’t even have a degree), he invented a narrative that took hold among the working classes and at the end of the 80s he landed in Parliament. The descent of the “barbarians” into that “thieving Rome” is analyzed with great attention by the media. Initially they sleep in convents, they are seen as aliens in the capital that chews everything, they don’t frequent the salons and the city. Outside the building sobriety, while inside they show the noose to the Tangentopoli suspects, with Luca Leoni Orsenigo. They are also there, in Mani Pulite, and Bossi is also involved, but public opinion quickly dismisses it, focusing on the great protagonists of the politics of the time.

The center-right formula of 1994 is still successful today

In 1994 he allied himself with Berlusconi and Fini. The classic centre-right was born, a formula that is still successful today: a liberal force, a party of the social right, a territorial political movement in the North. Over the decades the leaders and weights of the three forces change, but the pattern is still the same. However, in ’95, the native of Cassano Magnago (Varese) quickly changed his mind and brought down the Government: “Never again with a mafioso”. And he reiterates: “Never with fascists”.

From the parliament of Mantua to the rifles of the Bergamo valleys

The League also had an ideologue, that Gianfranco Miglio who was quickly and badly liquidated. The intuitions had to all be the boss’s. Bossi has introduced into politics the “fora di ball”, the tank top, the cigar, the green shirts, the polenta mixed by Bruno Vespa, the celodurismo. How many shots: Alberto da Giussano, political symbol, the sacred meadow of Pontida, the ampoule of the Po, the sun of the Alps, the Po Valley parliament in Mantua, the movement of ministries to the North, the tricolor flag used as toilet paper, the rifles of the Bergamo valleys ready for secession. Yes, because this was also talked about: autonomy, federalism, but also secessionism. Inspired by these proclamations, a dozen Venetian independence activists, with a Tanko, aim to conquer Piazza San Marco: it was 1997. But here Bossi distances himself.

After the illness the magic circle takes advantage of it

Due to the party’s debts, at the end of the 1990s he returned to Berlusconi’s arms. In 2001 they found themselves in the Government together, but the League, in decline, was a minority shareholder. Then, in 2004, the stroke: he will never again be the political “beast” exaggerated by Corrado Guzzanti’s caricature, forced into a straight jacket. The illness debilitated him and someone close to him took advantage of it with “crazy spending”. The League sinks into investigations, dragged by the Bossian magic circle, which betrays. An event well represented by the diamonds purchased in Tanzania. Did Bossi know or not know? However, it’s time to put it aside.

In 2012 the “night of the brooms”: Roberto Maroni in Bergamo becomes the secretary to “clean up” the Northern League. Save the situation and build the foundations for a new leadership, that of Matteo Salvini, who translates Bossi’s concepts: away with anti-Southernism, we need to push on the fight against foreign immigration. The League begins its march towards the status of a national party: all the votes are good, even those of Canicattì. The “North” disappears from the name, they also win in Sardinia and double-digit percentages are obtained throughout the South. Bossi is the voice out of the chorus of Salvini’s rise to power, the contrarian who watches his creation from afar, surrounded by nostalgic figures who have no place at the top of the new League, for long stretches the pivot of the centre-right.

Federalism remained a chimera

About ten years ago, on the eve of another Referendum, I asked the Senate for a comment on Matteo Renzi, prime minister at the time and undisputed number one on the scene, like Giorgia Meloni now. “In politics you can fool a few people for a long time or a lot of people for a short time,” the old leader limited himself to saying, a man who, up until the end, had a vision of Italian society and politics. Today the Northern League he invented is the oldest party in Parliament, well placed in the “deep state”: Rai, public companies, parastatals. That federalism so dear to the founder, however, when its historic founder leaves, remained only a great dream. Italy remained centralized.