Is the right’s success down to ignorance? Bonaccini has not taken Italy into account, nor those steeped in prejudice, those who believe the semi-educated nonsense circulating on the web and on self-righteous TV, nor those who live and breathe the Constitution without knowing what it actually is.

On both sides, the pitfalls of internal competition and the quest for consensus risk transforming a normalised, stable and rather shrewd – though not indecent – country into one that is uglier, more resentful and less civilised. The difficult coming-of-age test of the elections