Amintore Fanfani

Amintore Fanfani

Amintore Fanfani (6 February 1908 – 20 November 1999) was an Italian politician, historian of economics, and statesman who served as 32nd prime minister of Italy for five separate terms. He was one of the best-known Italian politicians after the Second World War and a historical figure of the left-wing faction of Christian Democracy.

Quotes

[Referring to Ettore Bernabei] In approving your appointment, I have simply followed my own conviction, formed over a now lengthy period of observing your qualities and your work. Now, I hope that every day you will remember the important position you hold and the many different people who look to you for truthful information, constructive guidance and peaceful entertainment, in order to become better people and better citizens. May this daily reminder make you diligent and attentive, with scrupulous zeal and open-minded intelligence. I have fulfilled my duty to ensure that RAI TV has an upright and capable director. Now, it is your duty to demonstrate that the Government has served the public interest well.

• From the letter to the newly appointed Director General of RAI, Ettore Bernabei; reported in Caro Giorgio... Caro Amintore..., Selmi Nerozzi (editor), Polistampa, 2003; quoted in ToscanaOggi.it, 19 March 2003.

• I am fond of Moro and have given him a lot of good advice, but he doesn't follow it and has got it into his head that I am his rival. Once Moro gets an idea into his head, there's no way of making him change it.

• Quoted in Eugenio Scalfari, Il mattatore del centro-sinistra, L'Espresso, 26 April 1964.

• The universal revolt against capitalist civilisation, carried out in the name of an ideal of human dignity and justice, proves that the Christian conscience may fall asleep, but it cannot die.

• Economia orientata; in Guide del propagandista, fasc. 5, Spes, Roma, 1946, p. 7; quoted in Luciano Canfora, La metamorfosi, Gius. Laterza & Figli, Roma-Bari, 2021, p. 5. ISBN 978-88-581-4415-2

• [At the ceremony for the laying of the foundation stone of the Salerno–Reggio Calabria motorway on 22 January 1962] A year and a half ago, when I presented the government to Parliament, I made a commitment to extend Italy's main motorway network to Reggio Calabria. At the end of 1960, the Council of Ministers provided funding for the project. In July 1961, Parliament approved the project. Work on the new motorway is now starting in Reggio Calabria, and will begin in Salerno this evening. Within three years, this motorway will connect the far south of the peninsula to the Alps in the most modern way possible. The very start of this important project allows us to recall that this was the one and only commitment made by the government that I had the honour of leading for eighteen months: namely, through new initiatives and new laws, to peacefully unite all the people of Italy, free and at peace, through work and progress, and to integrate them, with increasing authority, into the European family, into the Atlantic nations, and into the wider human community. These words, therefore, express the particular satisfaction we feel as we begin this unique project, looking back on the achievements that, from the summer of 1960 to January 1962, the united support of the democratic forces enabled us to make our Italy great.

• Quoted in Fanfani dà il via ai lavori della Salerno-Reggio Cal., La Stampa, 22 January 1962.

• Do you want divorce? Then you should know that abortion will follow. And after that, same-sex marriage.

And perhaps your wife will leave you to run off with the maid!

• Regarding the divorce referendum, on 26 April 1974 in Caltanissetta; quoted in Giampaolo Pansa, La caduta di Fanfani, la Repubblica, 8 May 2004.

Interviews

From an interview by Mauro Anselmo, Caro Mino guai se fallisci. Così ti direbbe De Gasperi, La Stampa, 25 June 1993

• (About the politicians who will go down in the history of the Christian Democracy) Dossetti and De Gasperi, but I could also add Piccioni, La Pira and Moro. I have never seen anyone of that calibre, with that character and that background, in the party again.
• (About the newly founded Christian Democracy) It had nothing but enthusiasm, values and determination.

But when I arrived in Rome, I found no organisation, nothing – just bare walls.

• (About Giuseppe Dossetti) A great friend and, of course, a mentor. I was the first to find out that he was going to become a priest.
• At one point, I was leaving active politics in the DC. I had already made up my mind. It was shortly after Christmas 1945.
• [...] The Pope Pius XII]] looked at me and said these words: 'When you are at a crossroads and don't know which path to take, at least have the courage to choose the most difficult one.' I understood everything; while he was blessing me, I had already decided to stay in Rome and to remain with the Christian Democrats.
• (About the origin of the name 'Christian Democracy') We needed a name that would not make the party a slave to anyone, that would not lend itself to us being subordinated. A name that conveyed the idea of courage, the desire to build, and the ability to do so.

In Roberto Gervaso, La mosca e il naso

Roberto Gervaso, La mosca al naso, Rizzoli, 1980

• Even if a party imprudently calls itself Catholic, it should not be subordinate to the Church. This is in the interests of both sides.
• I do not forget the things that have hindered me and offended me, but I do not hold a grudge against those who did them. Nor do I seek revenge.
• I am an effective and engaging teaching tool.
• I have often been three or four years ahead of my contemporaries, and perhaps some of my political defeats are due to this.
• In politics, lies are of no use.
• No one has ever died from eating lettuce, whereas politics has claimed many victims.
• (About Alcide De Gasperi) He was one of the very few men from whom I never heard a disrespectful opinion about anyone.

Quotes about

• Andreotti, Fanfani, Rumor, and at least a dozen other powerful Christian Democrats should be brought to the dock. There, they would be accused of a vast array of crimes: unworthiness, contempt for the public, misuse of public funds, collusion with oil companies, industrialists and bankers, collaboration with the CIA, the illegal use of bodies such as the SID, responsibility for the bombings in Milan, Brescia and Bologna (at least for their culpable failure to strike at the perpetrators), the destruction of Italy's landscape and urban fabric, responsibility for the anthropological degradation of the Italian people, responsibility for the 'wild' explosion of mass culture and the mass media, and joint responsibility for the criminal stupidity of television.
  

Without a criminal trial of this kind, there is no point hoping that anything can be done for our country. Indeed, it is clear that the respectability of certain Christian Democrats (Moro, Zaccagnini) or the morality of the Communists are of no use.

• Pier Paolo Pasolini, from a letter sent in 1975 to the editor of Il Mondo, Antonio Ghirelli, and reported in 'Bisognerebbe processare i gerarchi Dc, Il Mondo, 28 August 1975; cited in Saggi sulla politica e sulla società, Mondadori, Milan, 1999.

• In his latest theatrical work, Dario Fo, the court poet of the far left, lashes out at Senator Amintore Fanfani, holding him responsible for every past, present and future evil. However, his most scathing barbs are aimed at the Christian Democrat politician's stature, which, as everyone knows, is not that of a grenadier. Toulouse-Lautrec, who for the same reasons had to endure similar teasing throughout his life, once said, playing on the length of his double surname: 'I am as tall as my name.'

We don't know whether this statement can be applied to Fanfani. Of course, it applies to Fo.

• Indro Montanelli, Controcorrente – rubrica, 11 June 1975.

• Although Fanfani also came from the Dossetti-style left, he did not oppose centrist governments; rather, he moved significantly away from the predominantly liberal approach pursued by De Gasperi in favour of a neocapitalist trend characterised by increased public intervention in the economy. The new Christian Democrat 'leader' supported the development of public bodies such as IRI and ENI, and the appointment of DC members or individuals acceptable to the party to senior management positions at these bodies, at banks, at RAI-TV, etc.

• Giorgio Candeloro, 'Storia dell'Italia moderna, vol. decimo, La seconda guerra mondiale, il crollo del fascismo, la Resistenza. 1939-1945, 2nd edition in '"Universale economica", Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, Milano, 1988. ISBN 88-07-80805-4. Ch. V, p. 328