From the Customshouse to the Pantheon: From the Pantheon to the Piazza

Abstract

The events of June–July 1960 have very precise origins in the controversial elections of 1953. The failure of the legge truffa in those elections (see chapter 2) was a significant blow for the DC and a victory for the politics of the Resistance. But it had long-term consequences as well that were equally, if not more, important. It meant that, in order to maintain its position of power, the DC would have to seek new alliances.¹ Where these new alliances would be found was, however, unclear. On the one hand, the DC could approach the PSI, which continued to distance itself from the PCI (particularly after 1956), on the other hand the neo-Fascist MSI also offered possibilities. Either route, however, presented difficulties to a party that was divided by various currents, both Left and Right. Objections to the PSI would inevitably come from the Catholic Church, while the MSI was seen by many as unacceptably compromised by its historical and ideological roots in the RSI. In practice, the various factions within the DC played out a complex strategy of cultivating both the Left and the Right, waiting to see which way the wind might blow. Gronchi’s election to the presidency was a case in point and was the result of votes from the Left but also from the Right. In the case of the right-wing votes, it was the DC politician Fernando Tambroni who brokered the deal with the MSI and who was rewarded for his efforts with the prestigious post of Minister of the Interior.² And it was to Tambroni that Gronchi turned in 1960 in an attempt to tackle a crisis that had all but paralyzed the Italian political system since the 1958 elections.