From Pasolini to "Beautiful", from Geneva to cat litter. In the Chamber of Deputies, they do everything except pass laws.

The Chamber of Deputies commemorates, awards, showcases and presents; and every now and then, just to keep in practice, it even passes a law. Between Friday and yesterday, however, there was still time to argue about the Prime Minister’s daughter and to once again call for clarity on a 1975 murder. On Friday, in the press room, the son of a Palestinian detained in Israel reminded Giorgia Meloni of the Geneva Convention, bringing her daughter into the matter, and yesterday, in the Sala del Mappamondo, Pier Paolo Pasolini was honoured, whilst the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office, half a century on, reopened the case.

In recent months, it had been the turn of St Francis and Julius Caesar, Maria Grazia Cucinotta and Clark Garrison from "The Bold and the Beautiful", in a rotation that makes no distinction between saints, emperors, divas, soap opera characters and talk-show controversies – a rotation that has given the building the opening hours of a museum, the calendar of a local tourist office or a Rete4 programme, and the clientele of a station hotel. The bills arrive already drafted from Palazzo Chigi, and the Chamber – the most illustrious yet least frequented of Parliament’s chambers – operates from Tuesday to Thursday with the lackadaisical punctuality of a provincial surgery, to the extent that in mid-October the Minister for the Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, presented the state of the nation’s finances there before fewer than twenty MPs. All around, meanwhile, the other chambers are overflowing.

Yesterday, for instance, two hours before Pasolini, the ‘General Assembly on Education and Prevention’ opened in the Sala della Regina, and in the space of an afternoon, Montecitorio managed to educate, prevent and mourn a poet without passing a single vote. But that’s how it is every day. On display in the Chamber are Emilio Isgrò’s Dante in Twenty-One Panels, drawings by schoolchildren from Naples, Palermo and Reggio Calabria, paintings of dubious contemporary art, a disturbing marble aborted foetus in the courtyard, and, when it happens, a bill. Then there is the press conference room, which the Chamber grants ‘subject to availability’ and upon the ‘simple request’ of an MP, much like a parish priest lends out the parish hall. This year, from that parliamentary table, the Fano Carnival announced two hundred quintals of sweets to be hurled into the crowd; Italy’s most beautiful villages presented their wine tour; a theatre festival promised to explore grief through magic; and the operators of ‘cat hotels’ called for their very own Ateco code.

In January, CasaPound and the Skinhead Front were invited and greeted by the opposition chanting ‘Bella ciao’: a spectacle even better than the Fano Carnival. In short, the Chamber of Deputies now does everything except pass laws, and the public – who have always had a nose for well-curated line-ups – flock to it. On certain mornings, to gain entry, visitors must queue for considerable periods, much like at the Vatican Museums.

Imagine a typical Tuesday. A queue stretches out in front of the entrance, with a school group on an educational trip ahead of a lady holding an invitation to a conference on juvenile delinquency in the digital age, who in turn is ahead of a pizza chef in a dark jacket who has come to collect the ‘parchment of excellence’ (he was being honoured alongside Nicola Gratteri, Cardinal Zuppi and the daughter of Papuccio ‘o Marenaro), a professor with his opening address rolled up under his arm, a married couple who have booked tickets for the Dante exhibition, and a gentleman who isn’t quite sure why he’s there but has a pass. At the back, last in the queue, a Member of Parliament. When his turn finally comes, the young, inexperienced clerk stops him. “Which event are you here for?” “For the Chamber.” The clerk scans the list of awards, opening addresses and exhibitions, turns it over, looks at the back of the sheet: “I’m afraid I can’t find it.”