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Life senator Giulio Andreotti died on May 6 in Rome. He was aged 94. A leading member of the Christian Democracy party, which dominated Italian politics from 1946 to 1991, he was seven times elected as the head of government, and 21 times appointed to ministerial office. He was arguably the most noted Italian politician of the second half of the 20th Century.
In the course of his long career, his political ability, his talent for irony, and his capacity to emerge unscathed from scandals earned him several nicknames — including “Beelzebub”, “the Divine” (Il Divo), and “the Fox”, points out Corriere della Sera —
Neither the trials for collusion with the Mafia — in which the statute of limitations was solely responsible for his acquittal on some of the charges — or a power that was characterised by rules, references and players that were light years away from him, were able to break him. In a world that was divided between the West and communism, he appeared eternal. It was “his” world, in which he evolved with the class and cynicism of one who knows everything of its public appearances and its behind-the-scenes machinations.
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