Il Ventaglio del Rimprovero: Mattarella's Century-Old Fan Warns Against Bending the Law for One Man

Italy Today

• Mattarella used a 19th-century press ritual to scold three different fights at once. At Wednesday’s Cerimonia del Ventaglio — the tradition, dating to President Zanardelli in the 1890s, where Rome’s parliamentary press corps hands the head of state a ceremonial fan — he took aim at the push to pardon Mario Roggero, the jeweler convicted of killing two robbers in 2021, warning that “if the rules of the law adapt to individual, occasional behaviors… that is not strengthening security, it’s the abdication of the State”. In the same address he revisited the Val di Susa clashes and RAI’s governance — three rebukes delivered with one fan.

• Update: the two Germans arrested in the Val di Susa clashes are staying in prison. Resolving the open question from our July 29 brief, a Turin judge validated custody for both on July 29, rejecting their claim they’d only come for the Alta Felicità festival — the charges are aggravated vandalism and resisting police, explicitly not terrorism.

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  “the charges are aggravated vandalism and resisting police” — multiple sources (ANSA, Il Sole 24 Ore, TorinoToday) name the actual charge as “devastazione e saccheggio” (devastation and looting, Art. 419 c.p.), a more serious public-order felony, plus aggravated assault and resisting a public official — “aggravated vandalism” understates it. Fix wording.

• Update: the diesel truce from our July 27–29 briefs already ran out. Self-service diesel climbed back to €2.080/liter on July 31, with Codacons flagging that “l’effetto sconto” from the emergency excise cut has faded — right as 26 million Italians hit the roads for the summer’s second bollino nero weekend.

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  “26 million Italians… second bollino nero weekend” — sources describing this July 31–Aug 2 weekend label it the FIRST bollino nero weekend of the summer, not the second; and the 26 million figure refers to vehicle trips/movements, not a headcount of Italians. Fix both, and consider an [!unverified] flag since the estimate is single-sourced.

Brooklyn Dispatch

• Manhattan’s Calandra Institute is closing out a season spent asking what “Italian-American art” even means now. “New Practices in Italian American and Italian Diasporic Contemporary Art” — 30 artists from Canada to Argentina, curated around themes of memory, home, and reclaimed craft — closes August 14, giving the diaspora a two-week window to catch it.

• Restaurant Week gives Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill’s Italian tables a turn in the spotlight. Through August 16, Aromi and Barbalù are running $30–$60 prix-fixe menus alongside the rest of the city’s participating spots — modest, but it’s foot traffic for blocks that need it.

Arts & Culture

• Update: Mancini finally has a date, an opponent, and a squad he didn’t build. His Azzurri debut is set for September 25 against Belgium in the Nations League opener, in a group with France and Turkey — but the roster he’s inheriting from interim boss Baldini already skews young, 24 call-ups averaging 20 years and six months, 19 of them senior debuts, this June alone.

• Inter didn’t even have to pay for its new center-back. John Stones officially signed with Inter on July 30 on a free transfer after ten years at Manchester City — a two-year deal slotting him in alongside Akanji and Bastoni in Chivu’s back three, proof Serie A’s raids on the Premier League aren’t slowing down.

Parola del Giorno

Parola: ventaglio (noun, m.) — fan; from vento (“wind”) plus the augmentative-instrumental suffix -aglio. The word behind this week’s oldest political ritual — the ceremonial handover from Rome’s press corps to the president, running since 1893 — and now a byword for a speech that fans out across several grievances at once. Usage: “Mattarella ha usato il ventaglio per bacchettare tre partiti in un colpo solo.”

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