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«I view the caricatures that concern me with interest. If they exaggerate in accentuating my physical defects, I feel a few moments of irritation. But it doesn’t last long. I’m keeping the cartoons and who knows, maybe one day I’ll make them into the outline of a light book.” Giulio Andreotti never wrote that volume but on the other hand the prediction made in 1977 was transformed into a themed exhibition on foreign policy with 130 cartoons selected from the 4 thousand drawings in the archive of the former senator for life ten years after his death: “The unbearable lightness of abroad: political satire 1950-1991”, set up at Palazzo Baldassini until 20 December, was organized by the Luigi Sturzo Institute (to which the longest-serving politician of the Republic donated his archive in 2007) and by the Hanns Seidel Stiftung (German foundation representing the Christian Democrats of Bavaria).
Serena Andreotti: enough with personalism and shouted politics
Mai a complaint
Divo Giulio had a passion for satire and for some of its authors in particular. Among the over 50 pencil artists present in the exhibition, alongside Emilio Giannelli, Giorgio Forattini stands out on occasion. The fact that one of the most “ruthless” artists towards the historic leader of the Christian Democracy proves to be his favorite portraitist on balance confirms the pacified relationship that Andreotti had with satire. «No one can judge satire… it’s like trying to measure imagination» he said in an interview in 2001. In the past Forattini himself said he had portrayed him in more than 500 cartoons (“some were really bad”) without ever receiving a lawsuit. Indeed, «every time he asked me for the originals of my cartoons, he was a true collector».
«The cartoons by definition are never benevolent – commented Serena Andreotti, the last of the four children of the statesman who coordinated the project with Luciana Devoti, Alessandra Gatta, Luigi Giorgi and Silke Schmitt – and some of those chosen for the exhibition are very ferocious . But my father never thought of complaining or even suing, as others did.” There would be no shortage of examples: distant in time (Massimo D’Alema asking Forattini for compensation of three billion lire for a cartoon that appeared in the Mitrokhin dossier) or more recent (Arianna Meloni, sister of the Prime Minister, suing Mario Natangelo for the cartoon on “ethnic substitution” evoked by her husband, the Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida).
The most unwelcome cartoon
The great humor of Andreotti, certainly among the politicians most targeted by satire in the history of Italy, did not protect him from anger. The exhibition also features the senator-for-life’s most unpleasant caricature: that of a mafioso. The author is once again the “terrible” Forattini who, in the days of the hijacking of the Achille Lauro by a group of Palestinian terrorists which led to Sigonella’s diplomatic crisis with the United States (1985) portrayed the then Minister of Esteri with a mafia cap on his head and made him suggest to the head of government Bettino Craxi that those responsible should be tried by the mafia. “The facts have shown that I didn’t deserve that caricature,” said Andreotti, referring to the most painful chapter of his political career, the twenty years of trial for the crime of mafia association.
From NATO to China
Foreign policy and world events were Andreotti’s true passion (he held the position of Foreign Minister for six years and that of Defense for seven), perhaps a reflection of his closeness to a global body like the Holy See ( Cossiga’s famous line: “Giulio is a great statesman. But not of Italy. Of the Vatican”). Among the many themes and episodes of 40 years of political history illustrated through the cartoons there are resonances with today’s debate: the percentage of GDP to be allocated to military spending with membership of NATO (Andreotti in military clothes and saber parading with the flag, Bruno Canova, L’Unità, 1959) or relations with China (Andreotti with an oriental hairstyle bowing to a skeleton with a hammer and sickle, again Forattini, Repubblica, September 1991, a few months after Tiananmen).