Prodi, Letta, the EU, ‘tigna’, the funeral and Emma alongside Bonino

Rome. At a certain point, the giant screen falls silent, and it is as though Emma Bonino were flying — a spirit or a sprite — into the full sunlight above the Capitoline Hill, to fix her blue eyes upon and symbolically embrace those gathered for the secular state funeral, both inside and outside the Protomoteca, gazing in wonder at the multifaceted version of herself that emerges in their accounts, whilst the citizens outside rush towards the barriers to applaud the images of the coffin as it prepares for its journey. It is as if the Bonino-elf pauses, unseen, in the courtyard, while the arrival of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, and the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, marks the start of the solemn farewell among relatives, friends and dignitaries, seated side by side in a cross-generational tableau spanning the First, Second and Third Republics, to witness a six-voiced eulogy. Bonino hovers there, spirit and instrument of many struggles – whilst the private yet inseparably public Emma takes shape in the words of Carla Taibi, her long-standing assistant; Filomena Gallo, secretary of the Luca Coscioni Association and a close friend; Riccardo Magi and Benedetto Della Vedova, respectively secretary and founder of Più Europa, and former prime ministers Romano Prodi and Enrico Letta, in whose governments Bonino served as Minister for International Trade and Minister for Foreign Affairs. Letta recalls, then, that when the list of ministers was read out, the name ‘Bonino’ was met with a ‘wave’ of approval. A fleeting thought briefly breaks the solemnity of the moment, at least amongst outside observers: what might the other former Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, be thinking – present alongside his predecessors Giuseppe Conte, Paolo Gentiloni, Mario Monti and Massimo D’Alema? The same Renzi who, upon taking over from Letta, did not confirm the Radical Party leader as Foreign Secretary, but instead appointed the Democrat Federica Mogherini? But immediately, a Bonino in spirit and purity returns to embrace the entire Protomoteca, and it matters not whether the right, which is now in government and seated in the chamber alongside the left, no longer has as its guiding light the 2013 Mare Nostrum humanitarian mission – a mission Letta consistently evoked through the image of Bonino poring over nautical charts with the Navy’s senior command.

It was as if Bonino’s gaze were hovering over the silent attendees: Senate President Ignazio La Russa, Deputy Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Giorgio Mulé, President of the Constitutional Court Giovanni Amoroso, and the fashion designer Anna Fendi, a friend of Emma’s; the leaders Elly Schlein, Carlo Calenda, Maurizio Lupi and Angelo Bonelli; the MPs Roberto Giachetti, Francesco Boccia, Maria Elena Boschi, Maurizio Gasparri, Raffaele Nevi and Laura Boldrini; the ministers Carlo Nordio, Annamaria Bernini and Marina Calderone; the former minister and CNEL president Renato Brunetta; and the former minister Cecile Kyenge. President Mattarella, welcomed at the entrance by the Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, alongside Riccardo Magi, offered his condolences to the Bonino family, before Carla Taibi broke the silence: “If she were here, Emma would tell us: stop reminiscing and take action; don’t be afraid to dream big.” Battles, victories, defeats and struggles – abortion, the International Criminal Court, stem cells, anti-prohibitionism, end-of-life care, a United States of Europe – come together in a mosaic that “looks to the future”, whilst Filomena Gallo evokes “the stern and ironic gaze” that Bonino never failed to display. “Emma criticised the institutions, but every action she took was aimed at improving them, not at harming them,” says Magi, looking ahead to the struggles that must now be carried on now that we are bereft of her “great harshness and unexpected tenderness”. The “champion of civil rights” who allowed herself to be arrested alongside Marco Pannella and Marco Taradash, says Della Vedova, reminds us to keep pushing the “battered raft called Europe”, lest it sink. She smiles from the photographs, the leader called by name in the square, at those arriving in the morning, just as she smiled at those who kept vigil over her the night before, amidst red roses from unknown women who saw in her a symbol, a guardian deity, a friend to whom to say “thank you” and words from those who hope, like Marco Cappato – treasurer of the Luca Coscioni Association and founder of Eumans – “that her stubbornness may serve as an inspiration”, or from those, like former mayor Francesco Rutelli, secretary of the Radical Party in the 1980s, who bring Emma back to life in their thoughts at the Campidoglio “where the EU treaties were signed”. It was then Romano Prodi, during the funeral service, who recalled the “tenacity” of Minister Bonino, with whom he did not always see eye to eye. “She would argue and argue,” says Prodi of Emma, whilst admitting, however, that towards the end he often found himself relating to her as a friend, sharing a common “disappointment” with Italian and European politics. Bonino didn’t call it tenacity, but ‘stubbornness’, say her comrades. And one can almost picture her, Emma, as the giant screen goes dark, hoping to see, very soon, in those very same squares, a small or large army of little elves just as ‘stubborn’ as she was – or even more so.