Post-ideologia e trasformismo. L’«Onorevole» di Achille Bizzoni

Abstract

The essay focuses on L’Onorevole (1896) by Achille Bizzoni, the first literary representation of the Banca Romana Scandal. The work stands out from its literary genre, the “Parliamentary Novel”, which, according to Madrignani, generally expresses an unspecific refusal of politics. In L’Onorevole, instead, Bizzoni, as experienced parliamentary reporter, provides an in-depth analysis of Montecitorio. The novel investigates still relevant issues indeed, such as the request for a younger ruling class, somehow embodied by the main character, Giuliano Sicuri; the inner conflict of an opposition party, such as that of Giuliano and Bizzoni itself, which struggles between the loyalty toward its own principles and the ambition of being part of the government; the presumed priority of technical skills over political experience, as claimed by Giolitti at his first premiership; a populistic animosity towards the allegedly corrupted elite. Moreover, Bizzoni suggests original solutions to still controversial arguments: the imperative mandate, the political party funding, or the parliamentary immunity. However, the core of the novel deals with the settled practice of “trasformismo”, which at the time becomes a sort of political theory. One hundred years before the Berlin Wall Fall, Bizzoni depicts a scenario surprisingly similar to that of post-ideology.