The festival of ‘Foglio-style’ optimism is the Pitti Uomo of the city centre, followed by Renzi’s arrival

“So who are you voting for, then?” “I haven’t known since Bonino died.” “What about ‘Più Uno’ (that is, Gabrielli and Ruffini’s new little party)? Who are they, the cop and the tax collector? How can you call a party ‘Più Uno’? ‘Più Uno’ is the person you bring along to parties – it’s the gatecrasher.”

As the election campaign looms, behind the scenes at Il Foglio’s Festival of Optimism – now in its tenth year in Florence – the search is on for the great lost centre. Il Foglio’s festival is the Pitti Uomo of the great centre.

Whilst outside the trolleys of overtourism roll by, inside, in the Salone dei Cinquecento at Palazzo Vecchio, restless souls are in turmoil. And how can one be optimistic? The city centre is ‘dust’, said Vincenzo De Luca, mayor of Salerno, this morning; he listed thirty acronyms and began by explaining that people come here to delude themselves.

Elly Schlein recalls that for twenty years she has been told that “you win by sitting in the centre”, and for twenty years they have been losing. (Schlein certainly comes across as serious, viewers comment, and she’s well-dressed too, but, well… She doesn’t come across as engaging; she seems to be speaking from a pre-recorded segment… or linked in from the Manifesto festival where she was on Saturday morning, or the Fanpage festival where she was on Sunday). Even though, in reality, she is right here, live... 

Roberto Occhiuto has his moment: the anti-Tajani figure talks about the young people he is recruiting into his model public administration, discusses modernity, rights and UberX – which is unique to him; he seeks and receives the applause of an audience who, perhaps unaware, believe he has come from Silicon Valley, New York or Zurich, until someone realises he is the president of the Calabria Region.

And with all these Ubers, where are we supposed to go? To Vibo Valentia? To Bova Marina? Pina Picierno, having left the PD, has founded Spazio Pubblico and announced a list in alliance with Azione; she doesn’t want it to be called a ‘third pole’, and to the reformists who have remained on the other side she says: “This house is waiting for you” (some venture that she might even work, by recycling old clichés – the brunette versus the blonde, and then the ‘free-range’ type, far better than Salis, versus ‘Giorgia’).

But really, what about this ‘centre’? “Come and join us in the great centre,” as Pierferdi (Casini) from Neri Marcorè’s show so persuasively urged. Yet this relentless search for the centre appears superfluous, given that the centre was already present locally, much like lampredotto and peposo. As the afternoon drew to a close, he arrived: the Indiana Jones of the lost (Florentine) centre.

Matteo Renzi rounds off the day, just as the audience is really fired up: in top form, tanned, wearing a jumper, he pokes fun at everyone – and even himself: the long skirt Tajani wants to wear, which is like the burqa Meloni wants to ban; Italia Viva, which is like “Digger”, Iñárritu’s film – beautiful, but nobody wants to see it.

It is a ‘best of’ Renzi, a medley: it strongly evokes the judicial persecutions, the senators and MPs à la Giarrusso who used to make hand gestures of handcuffs at him in Parliament, and Chiara Appendino, who spoke before him and does not want him in the broad coalition: it is precisely they who used to exclude those under investigation, he says, whilst today it is we who do not want those with final convictions, like her.

He mentions his parents, who were arrested, and indeed we remember Renzi’s dad well – who knows what year it was – right here, with that swaggering hat, then the official photo of his public shaming. All the applause is for him, though – for Renzi. Requests for selfies, as he says, ‘I’ll say this again, otherwise people won’t get it on social media’.

Occhiuto, the bigwig from Calabrifornia – who, incidentally, is on the other side – calls him “one of the greatest wastes of intelligence” in Italian politics: had he not been the PD mayor of Florence, he says, he would have been an excellent centre-right leader. “Ah, Renzi,” the audience sighs, as if he were a wayward lad who’s been up to no good but whom it’s now time to forgive.

“Ah, Renzi”, even at the sit-down dinner that followed, amongst Gigino Di Maio – impeccable, now a statesman of the Middle Eastern calibre – the wine marchionesses and the ladies of the “good oil”, and lawyers (and “one more”). Perhaps this is the real Leopolda – Il Foglio’s festival, which began in the Renzi era. The official one, a week ago, according to La Nazione, no longer draws the local crowds as it once did. Others, however, do not want to hear a word about Renzi; everyone here has had their own troubles.

Perhaps it would be opportune to write a novel or a series, riding the wave of nostalgia – much like the one about the 883 – about what ‘Renzism’ was, whilst he is still alive, specifically set in Florence: the rise and the upheaval, the investigations, the reputations, families and careers destroyed, in a distinctive, not-particularly-large city where everyone knows everyone else and anyone who was anyone in the ‘Renzism’ era was affected.

“Ah, back when Giuliano da Empoli was Councillor for Culture. Now his latest book is out! He’s a literary star in France,” guests remark between glasses of wine. In short, “Quando c’era lui” – meaning Renzi – not “Quando c’era lei”, which is the book about Giorgia Meloni that Renzi has just published. “But why does the left still hate him so much?”, asks a lawyer. “I don’t know, maybe because he really did pick on everyone: the trade unions, the teachers”, replies a PR professional. Earlier, Agnese had made a surprise appearance in the room. “She looks gorgeous, look how fit she is.” “She’s had work done.” “No, what are you on about? She just does loads of exercise.” She’s Renzi’s number one.