A little ‘programmatic manifesto, a little’ speech of the crown ‘, the inauguration speeches of the 12 Presidents of the Republic are the visiting card with which they introduced themselves to the Italians.
The first to address the representatives of the people was ENRICO DE NICOLA, elected provisional head of state in 1946. The memory of the war was still alive and De Nicola asked the parties to think about the “common good” and to “march together” to revive Italy. Two years later, the liberal LUIGI EINAUDI, who in the referendum of ’46 had supported the monarchy, said that the transition towards the republican form had been “wonderful” because it showed that Italy “was now ready for democracy”.
In 1955 GIOVANNI GRONCHI, also voted for by socialists and communists, confirmed his reputation as a left-wing Christian Democrat: he asked to “let the working masses enter the state building” and “to oppose the domination of multinationals in Italy”. The American ambassador to Italy Claire Booth Luce left the grandstand shocked. His successor ANTONIO SEGNI, in 1962, he presented himself to the Chambers as the man who would have protected the Constitution: “It is not up to me to determine the life of the State, a prerogative that belongs to the Government and Parliament”. Two years later, GIUSEPPE SARAGAT, leader of the small social democratic party, set three reform objectives in line with those of the center-left governments: “housing for workers, public health, democratic school”. The stormy election of GIOVANNI LEONE in 1971 (he was elected in the twenty-third ballot with the decisive votes of the missini) it reverberated in the inauguration ceremony: the communists, led by Giancarlo Pajetta, roared all the time and there were also some tossing of coins. Leone was a tightrope walker between right and left: he said that the war had witnessed “the citizens’ sense of duty” (a concession made to the missini who voted for him), but said that his role would be “to feed our democratic republic founded on work “.
Seven years later (we are in 1978), SANDRO PERTINI elected a few months after Moro’s assassination, he praised the Christian Democrat statesman: “If he hadn’t been cruelly murdered, he, not me, would speak to you today from this seat.” His speech went down in history also for the pacifist exhortation that the old partisan addressed to Parliament: “Let the arsenals of war be emptied and the granaries filled”. FRANCESCO COSSIGA, elected in 1985, presented himself as “one of the many” who had led the fight against terrorism a few years earlier. Five years later, Cossiga was transformed into the “pickaxe” of the party power, but in his speech nothing let him imagine. In 1992, OSCAR LUIGI SCALFARO he said he had asked God and Our Lady for help. And he hurled himself against the scourge of malfeasance (we were at the dawn of Mani Pulite): “The abuse of public money is a very serious fact that defrauds and robs citizens”.
The commitment in defense of the national unity of CARLO AZEGLIO CIAMPI, was fully announced in his speech to the Chambers. GIORGIO NAPOLITANO, who arrived at the Quirinale in 2006 after the fragile victory of the center-left, immediately made it clear that he would work to bring the sides closer. “I consider it my duty to commit myself to favoring more peaceful confrontations between political forces”. Faced with the political chaos of 2013, after the rejection of Marini and Prodi as his successors, Napolitano accepted the encore but scrambled the parties with the hardest settlement speech in the history of the Republic: “I have a duty to be frank: if I find myself again in the face of deafness such as those I have clashed with in the past, I will not hesitate to draw the consequences before the country “.
SERGIO MATTARELLA. On February 3, 2015 he presents himself as an “impartial referee” and points the finger at the mafia which is a “pervasive cancer” and against corruption that “devours resources that could be destined for citizens”. And it translates its role as guarantor of the Constitution which “means guaranteeing the right to study”, “recognizing and making the right to work effective”, “promoting widespread culture and the pursuit of excellence”, “loving our artistic environmental treasures “and” repudiate war and promote peace “.