They wrote that with the death of Pippo Baudo the last Christian Democrat goes away. Antonio Riccii called it the secretary vert of the DC. But then it is better to go further in this symbolic metaphor: the National Pippo is not only the last man, but the last breath of that creature who has held up Italy for half a century, and who is not over with the Berlin Wall, nor with Tangentopoli, nor with the 1994 elections nor with the metamorphosis in the popular party. The Christian democracy (of which Baudo did not miss a congress and of which he attended the managers, from Fanfani to Andreotti, from De Mita to Forlani, sometimes proposing himself as a mediator not requested among the drafts of the currents) he pushed with him, who embodied his soul as well as as a militant as a figure-symbol of a moderate, cultured and above all cohesive Italy. Because there is no doubt that the white whale was a party with a majority and inclusive vocation, like its TV.
This “Democratic Christian”, this champion who loved the classes, had ended up incarnating the centrist project that was by Ettore Bernabei and Biagio Agnes, as Pierluigi Castagnetti explains to us, who remembers him sitting in the audience at the Rimini congress in 1999 when he was elected secretary of the PPI with an overwhelming majority. Castagnetti calls him “a progressive Christian Democrat very linked to the people”. It is no coincidence that it was called “popular national” in a contemptuous tone by the socialist Enrico Manca, then president of Rai (he replied sarcastic that from the time he would have made “regional and unpopular programs”).
His love for the Sicilian origins, his southernism, married perfectly with that of Sergio D’Antoni, the brightest secretary of the CISL after Giulio Pastore and one of his best friends. “It all began with an invitation to a dinner between Sicilians from Caltanissetta residing in Rome made by a friend in common,” recalls D’Antoni. «Baudo has always been proud of his origins from Catania, but in the end we made him a little Nisseno coopando in this Sicilian club. We also invited him to Caltanissetta, to the procession that takes place during the Holy Week, obtaining extraordinary success. He really liked being among people. The relationship with people, of all kinds and every social class for him was a joy. Hence his attention to social issues and his closeness with the union. We found ourselves right inside the CISL: he listened and participated. He shared my guidelines: to contract, concert and participate. It was of a unique generosity and never asked for a lira if he was called on stage ». The journalist and writer Salvo Guglielmino, also a true Sicilian, recalls Baudo’s participation, to which he dedicated a chapter of his book Microcosm Sicily (Rubbettino), in the Cislino Union Tour of the Cento City. «One day at an assembly of Cisl paintings, Grillo also carried behind. The comedian performed in an amazing monologue making fun of both Baudo and D’Antoni, at all affected but indeed very amused ».
Those who are authentically popular are usually also very cultured, as Pippo was, which gradually embodied centrism, but with authentic progressive and reforming veins. “He was an omnivorous reader. We shared the love for Camilleri, whom we had discovered well before the writer became famous. The Preston brewerone of his first works, we have released him and I, recommending him to all friends and acquaintances with word of mouth. He had an endless theatrical culture, he could range from Pirandello to Beckett, not to mention the lyric. He continued continuously on everything: his evaluations, even the trade unions, were serious and profound ». His centrist political passion was such that in 2001 he founded together with D’Antoni, always as “outside”, the European Democracy Party, who had to become the Fenice of the DC, (his wife Katia Ricciarelli was also a candidate for the Chamber), but the new political creature was unable to overcome the bar of 3 percent. Baudo also decided to support D’Antoni’s election campaign for the Naples-Ischia seat, not by convenience, but always for affinity, passion and friendship. Because, in short, the DC is the DC. “We shot together in the Spanish neighborhoods and people squeezed around him. Those who could not reach it because infirm made the “panaro” drop, those baskets that are used for shopping, and he put autographs and tickets. It was a living show in the middle of the alleys. Pippo was mirrored in people and people mirrored themselves in him ».
“Baudo’s popularism was not that of Sturzo, a project of democracy and freedom against state centralism”, concludes Castagnetti, “but that, in fact, of the people in themselves, of his formation and cohesion, in this sense authentically Christian Democrat concept. The unification of Italy did not make the Risorgimento, which had united only the elites through the motions and wars of the Savoy. The real unity of Italy made the DC through television, which in Bernabei and Agnes project had to make the people united ». Other than Garibaldi and Cavour. Pippo Baudo is the true hero of the two worlds. He united Italy. Bernabei used to repeat that “the Italians had to go down from the trees” alluding to the peasant Italy of the regions that was integrated, educated and amalgamated and the National Pippo took him in question, helped to perform the mission, made them go down. Today, to look at certain programs, there is the risk that date back.
