Childhood and political and cultural formation

Alberto Provantini was born on 9 June 1941 in viale Brin, in the heart of working-class Terni. Poverty and war were the companions of a childhood that was anything but calm and carefree, lit up by the flares fired into the sky by Allied aircraft before they bombed the city, and fed on bread, eggs and the odd vegetable from the plot his father tended. To escape the 108 bombing raids that battered Terni over the long span of the conflict, Alberto took shelter with his family at Piedimonte and then at Borgo Rivo, in the home of his aunt Giuseppina, his father’s sister. The return to the flat in viale Brin was marked by the impression made on him by the photographs of the missing pinned to the trunks of the lime trees, and by the sight of the devastated neighbourhoods and of the great fountain in piazza Tacito reduced to rubble. A new life blossomed on 13 June 1944, when Terni was liberated by the British with the help of the Gramsci brigade [1]. For little Alberto, the sweetness of freedom had the taste of the chocolates handed to him by the soldiers under the command of General Oliver Leese. But until the 1950s the menus held no delicacies, nor were the daytime hours brightened by toys, except for a ball made of rags. Provantini recalled those days like this: “We spent the whole day in the kitchen, with the stove burning lignite dug from the mines of Morgano and Bastardo. A slice of pink lard between two slices of black bread was our afternoon snack” [2]. The rhythm of life was set by the sirens of the steelworks: “In the evening, at the change of shift in the factory, viale Brin filled with blue overalls climbing down from the tram, with workers on bicycles with solid tyres; acetylene lanterns dangling from the crossbars. It was like a spread of a thousand fireflies in a field of wheat” [3]. Besides his father, busy producing carbide and calcium cyanamide at Papigno, Alberto’s uncles and most of his other male relatives were factory workers too.

In 1952 the Provantini family moved into a flat in via Saffi, objectively improving their material conditions. The building looked out onto piazza Tacito, where the Palazzo del Governo, the Provincia, the Banca d’Italia and the “Cremlino” stood, the last of these earning its nickname because it housed the Camera del Lavoro, the Cassa Mutua and the Pci federation. Alberto said he first began to take an interest in politics in the autumn of 1953, during the phase of workers’ struggles against the mass layoffs imposed as part of the restructuring of the steelworks. The conversion of the factory from a military to a civilian industry came at a high social cost for the city. The roughly 2,700 dismissals between 1952 and 1953 marked, in Terni, the end of the spirit of unity that had characterised the years of reconstruction and opened a new era, into which an adolescent Provantini threw himself, naturally taking the side of the workers and, in particular, of the organisations that meant to represent them [4]. He was drawn to political militancy also because he was fascinated by figures such as Carlo Farini, a member of the Constituent Assembly who had taken part in the Spanish Civil War and led the Resistance in Liguria; Alfredo Filipponi, commander of the Gramsci brigade that had liberated Terni; and Vero Zagaglioni, a partisan who in the spring of 1944 had fought the epic and tragic battle of Poggio Bustone, in the province of Rieti. The young Provantini climbed the stairs of the “Cremlino” drawn, too, by a number of figures who had voluntarily left the factory to devote themselves to the Pci: such was the case of Alvaro Valsenti, Ovidio Laureti, Eclo Piermatti, Goriano Francesconi, Comunardo Tobia and Zeno Leti. He felt equal esteem for the “cadres” who came from the countryside, the likes of Mario Bartolini and Ottavio Rossi, and for the intellectuals born or raised in the city, such as Raffaele Rossi, Ezio Ottaviani, Dante Sotgiu and Alberto Guidi [5]. In practical terms, however, the boy from viale Brin, newly arrived in the Pci, had two indispensable points of reference: the federation secretary Alberto Masetti and the Fgci secretary Alterio Stella, an already seasoned official who in the middle of the following decade would become mayor of Narni [6].

In 1956 Provantini chose the path of his life. Within a couple of seasons he founded two Fgci circles: one at his own school, the industrial technical institute, and one at the Pci’s “Sette Novembre” branch. Setting aside embarrassment and shyness, he tried his hand at the art of the public rally, speaking several times at party assemblies and, through a loudspeaker mounted on the roof of a Fiat Topolino, along the streets of the city. The efforts of this son of the working class were noticed by Raffaele Rossi, who from that year led the Terni federation. It was Rossi, in fact, who asked Provantini to take on the role of provincial secretary of the Fgci [7]. Alberto thus stood at a crossroads. To accept the secretary’s offer meant giving himself body and soul to the party, giving up or scaling back every parallel activity, beginning with freestyle wrestling, a sport that demands a great deal of application and perseverance. It was no trivial decision, and it is worth telling in the words of the man himself: “The gym was at stake. Freestyle wrestling. My coach, Alberto Molfino, had persuaded my father to send me to the Italian junior championships. But Lello (Raffaele Rossi) talked me into becoming secretary of the Fgci. Between wrestling on a mat and the class struggle, I chose the second. I left the gym to become a ‘professional revolutionary’” [8].

At the 8th Congress of the Pci (Rome, December 1956), the young Fgci man Provantini was one of the youngest delegates. In the tense debate over de-Stalinisation and the Soviet intervention in Hungary he fully backed the Togliattian line; then again, one can hardly expect a searching critical analysis from a fifteen-year-old steeped in ideological passions. What is certain is that, as head of the Terni Fgci at the close of the 1950s, Alberto could claim undeniably satisfying results, such as breaking through the threshold of 2,000 members. Among them was Oreste Scalzone, with whom Provantini formed a fairly solid, if from the outset stormy, relationship. Scalzone, an intelligent but idle student, was often reproached by the secretary, who spurred him to build up a cultural grounding worthy of a future party leader. When, a few years later, Scalzone hurled a Molotov cocktail against the wall of the Palazzo del Governo, Alberto and the city’s Pci condemned the violent act and distanced themselves from its author [9].

In the wake of the dramatic events of July 1960 in Reggio Emilia, Provantini mobilised the Fgci with exceptional energy, laying on demonstrations and rallies. The “new Resistance” was carried forward by the “boys in the striped shirts”, a youth movement that gathered up a variety of sensibilities on the left: Alberto joined it and, together with dozens of communist and non-communist contemporaries, gave it value and strength. His ability to enliven the youth scene in Terni earned him a surplus of esteem from the organisation’s national leadership. At the Genoa Congress (October 1960) he was therefore named among the 22 members who made up the national Directorate of the Fgci. Promoted to the body alongside him were Achille Occhetto and Luciana Castellina. At the meetings of the youth movement’s most important assembly he came into contact with leaders of the calibre of Pietro Ingrao, Alessandro Natta, Luciano Barca, Giancarlo Pajetta, Mario Alicata and Alfredo Reichlin, who were frequently called upon to supervise the internal debate of the youth wing. His entry into the national Directorate prevented Provantini from doing his military service: the Italian State in fact deemed him a “potentially subversive” element [10].

In 1961 Alberto was co-opted onto the editorial committee of “Nuova Generazione”, the weekly magazine of the Fgci. The boy raised at the “Cremlino” wrote first under the editorship of Sandro Curzi and then under that of Luciana Castellina [11]. In these same months, moreover, he was sent by the party to the Frattocchie school [12]. While still attending the courses, he received from Raffaele Rossi the invitation to serve as the “Unità” correspondent in Terni. Provantini, without too much hesitation, thus decided to return to his native city.

From journalism to political and institutional commitment

The communist newspaper had its offices in a flat in the Galleria on corso Tacito, where in the meantime the Pci had also relocated. In the same building were the editorial offices of the “Messaggero” and the “Tempo” as well. The typical day of the fledgling columnist is set out by Provantini himself in the volume “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”: “In the morning, once out of the house, I would stop by the Questura to pick up the ‘daily bulletin’ and go to the office to read the papers, the post and the rare press releases that came in. Phone calls to chase down news, then a dash to write on my Olivetti 22. At 2.30 p.m. I would phone in the news for the ‘fixed slot’ to the stenographers in Rome. The stories to be filed were agreed with the head of the regional pages […] In the evening I would go back to the office to draft the piece and, once finished, take it to the railway station to send it by the ‘out-of-bag’ service, which reached the paper in the morning. In the evening the newsroom would fill with friends and comrades. Once the papers had gone to press, we correspondents would tell one another the news that would be published the next day. It was also a way of reflecting on Terni” [13]. To his work with the “Unità” Provantini added the post of head of press and propaganda for the Pci: close cooperation with the rival papers accordingly proved fundamental both journalistically and politically. A cooperation that he developed, what is more, in the field of sport, since in the early 1960s he covered the matches of Ternana Calcio, even though his heart in truth beat for the players in the maroon shirts of Torino.

In the frantic hours of work, Provantini was forever meeting numerous colleagues, men and women alike. One of them was Noemi, who for the “Tempo” covered the “soft news” and “court” beats. He fell in love with her and courted her until his feelings were returned. The wedding, held on 31 July 1965, caused something of a stir in the party in Perugia and in Rome. Many communists were not pleased that Provantini chose a religious ceremony (he married in the basilica of San Valentino) and, above all, were not pleased by the union of journalists from newspapers rather far apart ideologically. Throwing the criticism behind him, Alberto enriched his professional experience by contributing to the cultural magazine “Vie Nuove” – for which he would even have the privilege of interviewing Pablo Neruda – and to the magazine “Cronache Umbre”, since 1954 a space of in-depth analysis and political debate for the whole of the Umbrian left. From the mid-1960s, drawing on the methodological advice given to him by the then editor of the “Unità”, Mario Alicata, Provantini carried out a series of inquiries: he looked into the condition of the steelworkers, the real state of the right to strike, the hardships of the sharecroppers of southern Umbria, the allocation of public housing and other social questions, large and small, concerning Terni and the region. At the same time, the provincial federation of the Pci entrusted him with the task of organising the local election campaigns and preparing the “Festa dell’Unità” in the broad gardens of the “Passeggiata” [14].

At the municipal elections of 1965, Raffaele Rossi promoted a drive to renew the communist list by bringing in several under-thirties, among them Alberto Provantini, who was elected together with the twenty-somethings Franco Giustinelli and Anna Bientinesi. The seasoned Ezio Ottaviani remained mayor [15]. The federation secretary too stood and was elected, but in 1968 he left the City Council and his post as councillor for public education to take his seat in the Senate of the Republic. The inevitable council “reshuffle” rewarded Provantini, who became councillor for economic development. Such an administrative brief – which, incidentally, had not yet been precisely defined by State law – proved strategic in pursuing the goals of rebuilding the productive fabric of a city where the aftermath of the war was still plain to see [16]. At the head of the Terni Pci, replacing Rossi, Eclo Piermatti took office; Provantini took on the role of deputy secretary. In these years of hard administrative, political and journalistic work, he then acquired one further duty: that of father to two children, Roberto and Aurora.

Burdened with the responsibilities mentioned above, Alberto confronted the heated debate over the invasion by Soviet tanks in Prague, aligning himself with the severe criticism that the Italian communists levelled at the Pcus. While the first demonstrations of the student movement were breaking out across the country and tensions were gathering in society and in the institutions, Provantini discovered that SIFAR (the Armed Forces Information Service) was spying on him. In truth, he enjoyed abundant company, among which stood out figures of a certain political and intellectual stature, such as Giuliano Procacci, Renato Zangheri and Giuseppe Chiarante [17]. In the 1970s, Alberto made his way through the dark tunnel of the Republic, worrying about the fate of democracy and about his own. Informed on several occasions by the Pci in Rome of the danger of a putsch, he took care to warn the leaders of the Umbrian Pci, as well as his main political opponents, especially those leaders of the Terni Dc with whom he worked almost day by day [18]. As soon as he heard of a coup alert, Provantini would take refuge in the woods around Piediluco, taking with him the bare essentials, namely his typewriter, the Olivetti 22. He spent nights of anguish and unease, comforted only by the whispers of the lake in the distance. A lake he had loved since he was a boy, and would love even more as an old man. At Piediluco he would establish a second home, and, admiring the landscape, would pen words of vibrant emotion: “I fling open the window and a blaze of light bursts into my room. The sun of a clear, cool spring morning turns the water a brilliant green. A backdrop of dark green stretches before me unbroken, rising from the water to the hills and the mountains. Lime and plane trees shade the square of ancient stones” [19].

Provantini’s time on the City Council came to an end in 1970, when he was elected to the Regional Council. On 29 July, Pietro Conti appointed him councillor for economic development in order to draw on the knowledge he had gained in the city administration. Provantini would be elected to the Region again in 1975 and in 1980, and each time he would be assigned the same position in government. In essence, both Pietro Conti and his successor Germano Marri saw in Alberto a figure capable of grappling with the substance of development issues and, at the same time, of politically representing Terni [20].

After the session called for the official assignment of portfolios, the Council met not in Perugia but, at Provantini’s suggestion, in Terni, precisely inside the sheds of a jute mill occupied by workers who were loudly demanding concrete answers to the company’s crisis. The proposal had a twofold aim: on the one hand, to consolidate the region’s unifying process, on the other, to demonstrate through a practical act the utmost closeness to the workers in protest [21]. From 1970 to 1983, Provantini sought to resolve or ease the difficulties of many firms and, at the same time, to encourage and support the growth of the “molecular capitalism” on which a broad share of Umbria’s productive landscape rested. The steel, chemical, food, clothing and footwear sectors were perhaps the ones that most tested his managerial qualities [22]. Even amid many compromises that were not in every case positive, the Region’s governing action gave priority to safeguarding employment: the department for economic development managed in this respect to settle even complicated problems [23].

The brief entrusted to the Terni councillor clearly also concerned the field of energy policy. There was no shortage of agreement on the underlying aspirations set out in the 1975 “Energy Plan”. A good part of Umbria’s economic and social actors did indeed share the idea of reducing dependence on oil by diversifying sources, increasing energy savings and rolling out alternative energies. A considerable segment of public opinion, however, was in sharp disagreement with Provantini over the notion of lowering oil and fossil-fuel consumption by installing across the national territory a series of nuclear power stations [24].

When it came to shaping policy, the leader schooled at the “Cremlino” leaned on the thinking woven in the thematic assemblies organised at Botteghe Oscure by the Directorate of the Pci. The local party, on the other hand, seemed to him decisive for conveying governmental choices into the many nerve-centres of regional society. The method used by the councillor for economic development, and more generally by the councils of the 1970s and 1980s, laid particular emphasis on concertation. If in some seasons this ensured an advantageous social cohesion, at the same time, especially when construed as the exclusive preserve of power dynamics, it ended up ossifying certain relationships, raising the incidence of clientelism and of unhealthy blends of opaque interests and self-referential hierarchical chains [25]. Nevertheless, to the classic concertation mechanisms (formal and informal) Provantini added an intense and fruitful dialogue with the plural social and cultural expressions of Umbria. The steady relationship with the Catholic world, which the communist administrators had cultivated regularly since the postwar years, produced constructive paths and tangible effects in the field of economic development too. On the themes of labour and the defence of the human person, Provantini found himself in almost complete agreement with the positions of the Umbrian Church. The visit of Pope Wojtyla to the Terni steelworks in 1981 sealed and vividly embodied this fruitful concord [26].

In the 1970s, the Region produced, on a variety of fronts, innovation of considerable scope. Alberto reinforced it with a number of insights of marked significance. One of them was Umbria Jazz, which was in fact born of a friendly conversation on corso Vannucci with Germano Marri. The Terni councillor believed at once in the soundness of the project, because he glimpsed the chance to codify and advertise the image of Umbria in Italy and in Europe.

The jazz festival has by now become almost a traditional fixture, and yet it was not simple to structure it, nor easy to give it the necessary continuity. In 1976, Provantini’s office was in a building on corso Vannucci. On a hot July afternoon, as syncopated melodies rang through the alleys of the old town, the councillor received an alarmed and irritated telephone call from an employee of the “Sandri” café, who breathlessly reported the “proletarian shopping” carried out by a cluster of “autonomists” at the counter of sweet and savoury pastries. Going down into the street to see the situation for himself, he could only note the damage done by the young protesters to the business. But – alas – the episode was not an isolated one. In that edition of the Festival, sizeable and widespread bands of protesters went on raids of every kind, unleashing political and social turbulence that was complicated to manage. Provantini, exasperated and troubled, in concert with the president of the council, decided to suspend Umbria Jazz from 1977. After a year’s pause, the Region restored the event but, owing to the massive influx of people all too inclined to create disorder and trouble, was forced to halt it again. The musical event would resume, in a radically changed organisational form, only in 1982 [27].

Still with a view to shaping a unified image of the region, and in order to encourage tourism, Provantini, without turning to costly specialist agencies, composed a successful promotional slogan that to this day remains known and, in part, still in use: “Italy has a green heart: Umbria” [28]. In the decade 1972-1982, tourist numbers rose by 55.6%. It was an achievement that strengthened the councillor in his battle to secure the inclusion of the Regions in the bodies of Enit (the Italian National Tourist Board). Once this battle was won – together, of course, with all the regional councillors concerned -, Provantini was appointed to the executive board of the public agency. It was chaired by another Umbrian, Gabriele Moretti, appointed by the relevant minister on the suggestion of the Psi [29].

Provantini in Parliament

In the spring of 1983, Alberto changed profession. Standing in the Perugia-Terni-Rieti constituency, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies with 15,731 preference votes [30]. The Pci group, well aware of his aptitudes, placed him on the Committee for Industry and Craft Trades, of which in the following legislature he would become deputy chairman. In nine years in Parliament, Provantini put forward 108 bills and 321 policy motions; he took the floor in the Chamber 76 times [31]. The Terni leader lived, as a protagonist, through a rather delicate phase of Italian history: the phase in which the so-called Second Republic was taking shape. Between the 10th and 11th legislatures, the parties renewed the Assembly by electing many men and women who had held governing roles in the municipalities and the Regions. Those who had sat in Parliament since the Constituent Assembly were thus joined by new figures, destined to take centre stage in the wake of the upheavals set off by “Tangentopoli” and the consequent reconfiguration of the party-political system [32]. The spotlight rarely fell on Provantini for the measures drafted in committee and presented in the Chamber but – as, after all, often happens – the former regional councillor drew the attention of the media for phrases and quips that pilloried figures from politics, big industry, show business and sport. Alberto thus appeared on the front pages when he tabled a parliamentary question about the salary Inter paid the German footballer Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, or when he sharply criticised Cesare Romiti, or when on several occasions he vigorously championed the pro-nuclear case. He then drew a great echo for a boutade delivered with perhaps excessive levity to the “Espresso” journalist Guido Quaranta. In the “Transatlantico”, pressed on the rough oppositions between Craxi’s Psi and Berlinguer’s Pci, he declared: “Almirante, my foot: today fascism is Craxi” [33].

Provantini did not forget that he was in Parliament to represent Umbria, nor did he forget that he had to act on behalf of his own city. In committee he managed to place Terni among the areas to be reindustrialised – rather than among those of “complex crisis” -, to allocate substantial funding for the areas of the Valnerina struck by the earthquake, and to secure adequate resources for the projects to restore the Rupe of Orvieto and the Colle di Todi. Nonetheless, his work centred especially on craft trades and on small and very small enterprise. The majority of the bills, questions and policy motions he drew up did in fact concern this sector, for which he also took on a party responsibility within the Economic Department headed by Alfredo Reichlin.[34] The task assigned to him by the Pci led Provantini to meet, all over Italy, a great many entrepreneurs and artisans, traditionally rather cool towards proposals bearing the hammer and sickle. Although an opposition member of Parliament has only limited effectiveness, it should also be stressed that various pieces of legislation of communist origin were gradually taken up by the government by virtue of the consociational approach that, at the historical juncture in question, largely shaped political and institutional relations [35]. According to Provantini, this was a mechanism not to be disparaged. On this point he asserted: “Is an agreement on goals of general interest between minority and majority groups a ‘backroom stitch-up’? Call it what you will, but it was a season to remember […] I am told that the consociational dynamic gradually swelled the public debt. True. But the fault lies with those who make public spending the instrument of consensus, thinking that the more public money circulates, the more workable the system of kickbacks becomes” [36].

Consociationalism, in reality, frequently came to a halt before thorny questions, which led the Terni deputy to run up against a rubber wall, despite his tireless determination. One highly telling affair concerned what the press dubbed the “Westland story”. Faced with the financial difficulties of the English company “Westland”, a maker of military aircraft and helicopters, in 1985, with the joint push of the British government and the Italian Ministry of Defence, “Agusta”, the public company of our own aeronautics industry, developed a bold plan to acquire the firm across the Channel. The aim of the operation was to build an aeronautical hub anchored to the European framework. To achieve this, it was necessary to block the offensive of the American consortium led by the multinational “Sikorsky”. As the weeks went by, however, London lost its initial certainties. From the dilemma of whether to opt for the European solution or to yield to the star-spangled blandishments there arose a crisis in the government headed by Margaret Thatcher that led the Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine to tender his resignation amid a storm of controversy. In Italy, meanwhile, it emerged with no little surprise that “Fiat” was backing the Americans’ move, in defiance of the strategic lines of the ministers Lelio Lagorio (Ministry of Defence), Renato Altissimo (Ministry of Industry and Craft Trades) and Clelio Darida (Ministry of State Holdings). The stance of “Fiat” and the divisions within the English executive also dampened the confidence of the Italian government, which began to retreat into evasive silences, quickly adapting to the Americans’ triumphant takeover. By 1986, “Westland” had already been absorbed by “Sikorsky” [37]. Provantini, as the affair unfolded, intervened with various parliamentary questions and with a wide range of informal conversations. His disquiet related not so much to the ambiguous and evasive conduct of the government as to the weakness of the democratic institutions on so fundamental a front as Defence. Provantini asked: “We need to understand who decides: Parliament? The government? The multinationals? I am convinced it is the multinationals […] Is it possible that the ministers never learned of Agnelli’s choices except from the newspapers? […] This whole story poses for us the problem of industrial democracy and the problem of the functioning of the State Holdings” [38]. The tenacious Umbrian deputy, in March 1986, in order to shed light on the whole affair, set up and chaired a special committee of inquiry, publicising its findings in a volume with a quietly sarcastic title: Agusta, Westland, Fiat voluntas tua. Chi decide in Italia?

In May 1990, Provantini tackled another burning issue with a parliamentary question. Three months before the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Carabinieri reported that Italian public industries, with the endorsement of the banks, had taken part in building a “supergun” ordered by Baghdad [39]. Since the preliminary investigations had revealed that the breech of the gun had been manufactured in the Terni steelworks, Provantini felt bound not to submit to the vagueness and the omissions of the government led by Giulio Andreotti, and demanded answers. Faced with a State that for months stubbornly consigned legitimate questions to a murky and underhand limbo, in February 1991 he returned to the charge, raising the matter again in the Chamber. Still receiving no valid and exhaustive answers, in May he wrote to the then Speaker of the Chamber Nilde Iotti, but his efforts this time too were in vain: the government, de facto, would never grant explanations capable of satisfying the Umbrian politician.

Provantini in the “second Republic”

Between 1989 and 1991, Alberto was above all distressed by the situation his party found itself in. Occhetto’s words at the “Bolognina” stirred in him an enormous sense of bewilderment. The grief at the winding-up of the Pci was in essence comparable to an emotional suffering [40]. This is clearly felt in his description of the journey he made from Terni to Rome the day after the “Bolognina turn”: “The chimneys of the factories between Terni and Narni came towards me as if they were collapsing on top of me. The Tiber was murky, its waters restless and sad. The tunnels seemed to me longer and darker. The aerials on the rooftops of the capital reminded me of the previous evening’s news bulletins […] For me that party, the communist party, was life itself: the life choice I had made when I still wore short trousers. It was not the moment to ask oneself why. Still less was it the moment to imagine future scenarios for the left. […] And besides, political judgements and assessments are one thing, feelings another. I reacted on the basis of the feelings I felt, and I was not the only one” [41].

It was therefore natural that Provantini should decide to embrace Ingrao’s arguments, placing himself in the ranks of those who wished to preserve the name and the symbol of the Pci. The opposition to change, beyond reasons of sentiment and of political and cultural content, also concerned matters of method. Alberto showed a clear discomfort with congress rules that, for the first time in the history of the Italian communists, hinged on opposing motions, legitimising the formation of internal factions [42]. At regional level, the Terni MP was in any case among the most active promoters of the “No” Committee. In Umbria, four rank-and-file members out of ten voted against the dissolution of the Pci; among the leaders the percentage was halved: the result marked the end of “Ingraian Umbria” [43]. Between Provantini and Pietro Ingrao, in truth, political and personal relations wore away irreversibly five months after the Bologna Congress. In August 1990, the Pci was called upon to state in Parliament its position on Italian military intervention in Iraq. Provantini, like Ingrao, disagreed with the proposal to abstain put forward by the majority of the group. The Terni deputy, however, unlike the intellectual from Lazio, was convinced of the need to keep the party united and did everything in his power to persuade his friend and comrade Pietro to fall in line with the group’s urgings. Provantini, in his time as a parliamentarian, had never voted against the party’s instructions, except in 1985, on the occasion of the election of the President of the Republic. On that occasion, instead of Francesco Cossiga, he had preferred Sandro Pertini, but the choice entailed no political repercussions that could in any way harm the Pci. On the vote concerning Italy’s intervention in Iraq, however, the Umbrian leader’s pressure and pleas did not produce the hoped-for effects: Ingrao refused to fall into line, slipping onto the terrain of a factionalism that Provantini found hard to stomach [44]. On the road to the Rimini Congress (1991), Alberto did not sign up to the motion put forward by Armando Cossutta and Pietro Ingrao; instead he backed the document of Antonio Bassolino, which advocated a compromise solution between the strenuous defenders of the Pci and the champions of radical change. The platform of the Campanian communist would come out of the congress showdown soundly defeated [45]. Having taken note of the will of the militants and moved by a deep spirit of unity, Alberto would contribute with renewed passion to the success of the Pds. He would do so from the campaign for the 1992 general election onwards, even though he was not among the candidates. A few months before the close of the 10th legislature, Provantini had in fact resigned from Parliament, accepting the regional party’s invitation to take on the office of president of the Provincia of Terni [46].

From the Liberation onwards, the presidency of the body had been held by the socialists, who as a rule left to the Pci the burdens and the honours of the mayoralties of Terni and Orvieto. When, at the 1990 local elections, the carnation passed 20% of the vote, it asked for and obtained the leadership of Umbria’s second city: inevitably, the communists reserved for themselves the right to name the president of the Provincia. In January 1992, Provantini thus replaced his party comrade Luciano Costantini. But for the former Umbrian deputy the most difficult moment came two years after he took office [47]. In the spring of 1994, the main parties that had launched the mandates of Costantini and Provantini had vanished: the Pci had turned into the Pds, the Psi now enjoyed little public sympathy, and from a disintegrating Dc two formations had been born: the Partito Popolare, led by Mino Martinazzoli, and the Centro Cristiano Democratico, led by Pierferdinando Casini. While the first looked to the left, the second was close to the centre-right. As is well known, from 1993 onwards, with the introduction of the mattarellum (the majoritarian electoral law) and of a number of important reforms concerning the functioning of local institutions, a bipolar political order took shape in Italy that definitively burned its bridges with the proportional system and culture on which the Republic had been founded [48].

In Terni, “Tangentopoli” caused a greater upheaval than in the rest of the region. The magistrates’ investigations placed under indictment renowned communist, socialist and Christian Democrat leaders and administrators: the City Council was therefore dissolved and early elections were called. After holding the levers of government ever since the Liberation, the left lost the contest. The winner was Gianfranco Ciaurro, candidate for mayor of a civic alliance (“Alleanza per Terni”) made up of the centre-right forces [49]. It is clear that in this context Provantini needed to mark a “discontinuity”, in short, to relaunch his presidency on new and different foundations. Nonetheless, while the centre-right had clear contours, the centre-left did not yet have a precise identity and shape. In the summer of 1994, Provantini therefore set to work so that the heirs of the Pci, the Psi and part of the Dc might strike an agreement aimed at building an alternative to the centre-right pole. Having received the go-ahead from his party, the former communist parliamentarian consulted Filippo Micheli, the undisputed leader of the old Terni Dc, who, having carefully sounded out the leadership of the Ppi, agreed to the idea of forming a centre-left majority in the Provincia. It was a political experiment of national significance, which aroused considerable interest in the corridors of power in Rome. On 10 September Provantini tendered his resignation to the Council and opened the crisis; nine days passed and the Assembly granted its confidence to the new council. The Popolari were assigned the department for Culture and Public Education, which went to Clara Cocci, and the department for Training, which was given to the president of Confartigianato, Orlando Leonardi. Obviously, the socialists too were brought into the governing pact. Provantini would always claim with great pride the paternity of the first trial of that alliance which from 1995 would take the name of “Ulivo”[50].

Despite the positive political result achieved, the Terni leader did not prove to be a man for all seasons, and at the provincial elections the centre-left coalition preferred to field the Catholic Nicola Molè. With his term in the Provincia over, Provantini gave up his engagement in the institutions; an engagement begun exactly thirty years earlier. He did not, however, withdraw into private life. As early as the spring of 1995, he was summoned to Rome by the president of the Istituto Gramsci Foundation, Giuseppe Vacca, with whom Alberto had shared a decade of parliamentary activity. As soon as he arrived, Provantini was invited by Vacca to make himself comfortable in an office of the Institute. To explain the situation, the protagonist’s own words are undoubtedly more fitting: “Beppe slips me into a room and sits me down behind an antique table, with inlaid lion’s paws and a frosted glass top. He settles me onto a wooden chair with a sagging leather seat and a stiff back. ‘You are sitting on Palmiro Togliatti’s chair, at his table,’ he told me. I thought he was joking. It was true. I stood up, came to attention, almost in homage to the ‘best of us’. Looking at that table, that chair, I found myself exclaiming: ‘Whatever became of the secretary?’ It was a way of screening the emotion of the impact” [51]. Once the pleasantries were over, and the emotions perhaps folded away in the drawer of conscience, Vacca offered his friend the role of vice-president of the Istituto Gramsci. Alberto accepted with joy. Many and varied were the initiatives undertaken by the Institute at Provantini’s prompting; by virtue of the office he had acquired, he also joined the board of directors of BAICR, the consortium of the principal Roman cultural institutes holding archives and libraries [52].

At the 2nd Congress of the Ds, held in Pesaro in November 2001, Alberto supported the motion of Piero Fassino, who would be elected secretary with 61.8% of the vote [53]. The head of the Umbrian Ds, Fabrizio Bracco, intent in the aftermath of the Pesaro assembly on designing the regional leadership group, handed Provantini responsibility for political training. In order to develop a project of value and use to the party and to the whole centre-left, the former Terni deputy set out to create a space for analysis, debate and research. Through the founding of an “Associazione della Sinistra Umbra”, he dusted off the political-culture magazine “Cronache Umbre”, which, in fits and starts, had offered stimulating and fruitful ideas in the second half of the twentieth century. Provantini had not only contributed to the periodical in the 1960s and 1970s, but at certain times had even been its editor. With the full confidence of the Ds command room, Alberto was appointed president of the “Associazione della Sinistra Umbra”, as well as of “Cronache Umbre 2000”. He described this turn in his political and intellectual life thus: “I had returned to my old love: running a magazine, writing it, having it written, printing it and distributing it. Fortunately I had not got rid of my Olivetti 22. The world, though, had changed” [54].

In three years “Cronache Umbre 2000” published fifteen issues; then, for want of financial means, the publishing venture came to a halt. A new series, in a more accessible format, was launched in October 2006. Both editions dealt with matters of European, Italian and Umbrian politics, hosting the plural voices of the left and welcoming contributions from figures of national standing. Contributors to the magazine included the Presidents of the Republic Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and Giorgio Napolitano; the presidents or vice-presidents of the Chamber and the Senate Luciano Violante, Giglia Tedesco, Gavino Angius; the national secretaries Walter Veltroni and Piero Fassino; the ministers Anna Finocchiaro, Barbara Pollastrini, Livia Turco, Katia Bellillo, Cesare Damiano, Vincenzo Visco and Enrico Micheli; party and trade-union leaders such as Alfredo Reichlin and Pierre Carniti; intellectuals such as Giuseppe Vacca, Anna Bravo, Francesco Barbagallo, Mario Tronti, Giuliano Procacci and Silvio Pons; the bishops and archbishops Vincenzo Paglia, Giuseppe Chiaretti, Riccardo Fontana and Santo Quadri; the well-established journalists Jader Jacobelli, Lilli Gruber, Guido Quaranta and Giuliano Giubilei. In short, thanks to the relationships woven over time, Provantini managed to furnish the magazine with thoroughly respectable bylines. Even so, with the advent of the Pd, a share of essential resources dried up and the publications, as a result, came to a stop [55]. Alberto enlisted in the entity founded through the primaries of 14 October 2007 with a good dose of enthusiasm, but he realised that the imperative of renewing the ruling class tended to push those of more established experience away from prominent roles.

From 2008 to 2012, Provantini, by then without party office, was a columnist for the “Giornale dell’Umbria”: the pen, or rather the Olivetti 22, did not, however, cease to be for him an essential instrument of political action. In the columns of the daily, he reflected on the path travelled by the “red region” over a hundred and fifty years of history, on the decisive contribution of the parties to the economic and social development of the territory, on the role of local authorities in the globalised world, and on the model of industrial policy that twenty-first-century Umbria needs [56].

In November 2010, he finally became president of the Fondazione Pietro Conti, the Umbrian branch of the Fondazione Ds, established to maintain and enhance the vast material and immaterial heritage of the communist and post-communist left. The Foundation’s meetings were usually held in Perugia; on 14 January 2014, however, Alberto asked the participants to gather in Terni at the Pd headquarters. The illness with which he had been battling for months in fact made every journey extremely tiring for him. With great effort, he managed to lead the discussion and, at the last, to sketch out the programme of activities. Ten days later, on 24 January, Alberto Provantini resigned from life.

At the funeral, held in the morning in civil form and in the afternoon with religious rites, dozens of national and local politicians and administrators, old and young, were present. Walter Veltroni too sent a note of condolence: “The void left by Alberto’s passing is one of the real ones. First of all for his family, for the people who loved and esteemed him. Then for his city and his region, which he loved so much. And for politics, which was the reason for his public life. For Alberto, politics was a serious matter. Made of passion and of reason. Of ideals and, at the same time, of concreteness. The last time we said goodbye to each other in the Chamber, a short while ago, one could see that his body was worn, but his gaze, his reasoning, his appetite for the future were as they had always been. Provantini well represented a generation that truly understood politics as a commitment to the common good. Where the I was present, but dissolved into the we. And there was – constant – the defence of memory (critical memory too) as a guarantee against losing oneself in the effort to build a more just society. That is why I am sure that Alberto Provantini will not be forgotten” [57].

Notes

[1] See V. Pirro, La lotta armata in provincia di Terni, in L. Brunelli e G. Canali, L’Umbria dalla Guerra alla Resistenza, Atti del Convegno “Dal conflitto alla libertà” (Perugia, 30 novembre – 1 dicembre 1995), vol. II, Editoriale umbra, Foligno; Istituto per la storia dell’Umbria contemporanea, Perugia 1998, pp. 206-221.

[2] A. Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli 2009, p. 28.

[3] ibid., p. 30.

[4] See A. Portelli (1985), Biografia di una città. storia e racconto. Terni 1830-1985, Torino, Einaudi 1985; A. Provantini, Quei 9 mila giorni, a cura di S. Mazzilli, Edizioni Thyrus, Arrone 1984, pp. 20-28.

[5] See R. Covino, Partito comunista e società in Umbria, Editoriale umbra, Foligno 1995.

[6] See A. Stramaccioni, Storia delle classi dirigenti in Italia. L’Umbria dal 1861 al 1992, Edimond, Città di Castello 2012.

[7] Raffaele Rossi guided both the political and the cultural growth of Alberto Provantini. The Perugian intellectual recommended to the young communist the bibliography useful for the work of a party official. Provantini therefore set about studying the principal texts of Antonio Gramsci, Karl Marx, Lenin, Friedrich Engels, supplementing them with the reading of poetry. Since boyhood he had in fact been an avid reader of the verse of Pablo Neruda, Bertold Brecht, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Salvatore Quasimodo, Eugenio Montale, Vladimir Majakovskij, Nikola Vapcarov, Evgenij Evtušenko, Jaques Prèvert and Thomas Stearns Eliot. See Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, cit., p. 46.

[8] ibid., p. 46.

[9] See A. Stramaccioni, Il ‘68 in una regione rossa. L’Umbria dal sottosviluppo alla modernizzazione, Era Nuova, Perugia 2008.

[10] Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, cit., p. 11.

[11] ibid., p. 54.

[12] “Le Frattocchie” is the name used to denote the Pci school for “cadres”. Until 1956 it was named after Andrej Zdanov, the Soviet theorist of the non-partisanship of culture; with de-Stalinisation it took the name of the locality in Lazio where it is situated. In March 1973, Berlinguer would name it after Palmiro Togliatti. See A. Tonelli, A scuola di politica, Laterza, Bari-Roma, 2017.

[13] Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, cit., p. 60.

[14] ibid., pp. 72-85.

[15] Stramaccioni, Storia delle classi dirigenti in Italia, cit., p. 378.

[16] See R. Covino, Dal decentramento all’autonomia. La provincia di Terni dal 1927 al 1997, Provincia di Terni, Terni 1997, pp. 95-112.

[17] Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, cit., pp. 113-117.

[18] See V. Satta, I nemici della Repubblica. Storia degli anni di piombo, Rizzoli, Milano 2016.

[19] Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, cit., p. 17.

[20] In 1970, the Regions were just starting out; therefore, especially for the majority parties, the effort was directed at opening up room for administrative manoeuvre, at building the institutional functions of the body, at realising the model of the region outlined in the “Development Plan” completed and publicly presented in 1963. A. Stramaccioni, Pietro Conti. L’operaio e il Presidente, Editoriale umbra, Foligno; Istituto per la storia dell’Umbria contemporanea, Perugia 2004. pp. 28-32.

[21] A. Provantini, Quel luglio ’70, Elio Sellino Editore, Milano 1993, pp. 29-30.

[22] See A. Provantini, Rapporto sulla piccola e media industria – Regione Umbria – [S. I., S. N.], 1982. See also A. Provantini, Conferenza regionale sull’artigianato – Relazione dell’assessore – [S. I., S. N.], 1979.

[23] Worth recalling as important successes of Provantini are the saving of a thousand jobs in the “Igi” shoe factories of Elvio Giannoni and the good outcome of the exhausting negotiation with the entrepreneur Lino Spagnoli to protect 546 workers. See Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, cit., pp. 107-130.

[24] V. Marinelli, La programmazione regionale degli anni settanta e ottanta, in La Regione e l’Umbria. L’istituzione e la società dal 1970 a oggi, volume Politica e Istituzioni, a cura di Marco Lucio Campiani, Marsilio, Venezia 2019, pp. 231-267.

[25] E. Mantovani, L’Umbria e la programmazione regionale (un’ipotesi interpretativa per gli storici), in Storia d’Italia. Le regioni dall’Unità a oggi. L’Umbria, Einaudi, Torino 1989, p. 796.

[26] Provantini, Quei 9 mila giorni, cit., pp. 63-66.

[27] Provantini, Quel luglio ’70, cit., p. 159. See also M. Tosti (a cura di), Storia dell’Umbria dall’Unità a oggi, Marsilio, Venezia 2014, pp. 216-228.

[28] In reality, Provantini coined this slogan by borrowing from expressions already used in the past. The first to speak of a “green Umbria” was the poet Giosuè Carducci; in 1925 the phrase can also be read in the title of a book by Carlo Faina. During the twenty years of Fascism the “green Umbria” was reinforced and exalted by the rhetoric of ruralism. In the same period the oleographic definition of “Umbria, heart of Italy” was conceived. See R. Rossi, L’unità umbra, in “Umbria contemporanea”, 1, 2003, p. 11.

[29] Provantini, Quel luglio ’70, cit., pp. 61-63.

[30] In 1987, Provantini would be re-elected to Parliament with 15,475 preference votes.

[31] http://storia.camera.it/deputato/alberto-provantini-19410609. Last accessed: 5 June 2017.

[32] See G. Crainz, Il paese mancato, Donzelli, Roma 2003.

[33] Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, cit., p. 183.

[34]  http://storia.camera.it/deputato/alberto-provantini-19410609. Last accessed: 5 June 2017.

[35]  See A. De Angelis, I comunisti e il partito. Dal “partito nuovo” alla svolta dell’‘89, Carocci, Roma 2002.

[36] Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, cit., p. 190.

[37]  See J. Derek, Westland: A History, Tempus Publishing Company, Gloucestershire, 2002.

[38] A. Provantini, Agusta, Westland, Fiat voluntas tua. Chi decide in Italia?, Franco Angeli, Milano 1987, p. 10 e p. 17.

[39] The “supergun” would never be delivered to the Iraqi dictator: it was seized in the port of Naples as it was about to sail for the Middle East. See S. Beltrame, Storia del Kwait, gli Arabi, il petrolio e l’Occidente, CEDAM Università di Padova, Padova 1999.

[40] See M. De Angelis, Post. Confessioni di un ex comunista, Guerini, Milano 2003; M. Di Giacomo, N. Di Nunzio, Trent’anni dopo. Il Pci degli anni ‘80, Oltre edizioni, Boca (NO), 2016.

[41]  Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, cit., pp. 227-229.

[42] See I. Ariemma, Il tramonto di una generazione, Castelvecchi, Roma 2014; M. L. Boccia, A. Olivetti (a cura di), Pietro Ingrao. Coniugare al presente. L’Ottantanove e la fine del Pci. Scritti 1989-1993, Ediesse, Roma 2015.

[43]  See P. Bellucci, M. Maraffi e P. Segatti, Pci, Pds, Ds, Donzelli, Roma 2000.

[44]  A. Agosti, Storia del Partito comunista italiano: 1921-1991, Laterza, Bari 1999, p. 316.

[45]  See G. Galli, Storia del Pci, Kaos edizioni, Milano 1993. Nationally, the Bassolino motion gathered 5% of the vote; in Umbria it received 4% of the preferences in Perugia and 7% in Terni.

[46] Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, cit., pp. 210-220.

[47] See Stramaccioni, Storia delle classi dirigenti in Italia, cit., pp. 525-539

[48] See S. D’Alimonte (a cura di), Maggioritario ma non troppo. Le elezioni politiche del 1994, Il Mulino, Bologna 1995.

[49]  See W. Patalocco, I rossi e il professore. Ciaurro sindaco di Terni, Tipografia Stella, Terni 2002.

[50] Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, cit., pp. 237-257.

[51] ibid., p. 266.

[52] The consortium was founded in Rome in 1991. BAICR (Biblioteche e archivi Istituti culturali romani) brings together the Enciclopedia Treccani, the Società geografica and the institutes linked to the three great mass parties of the twentieth century: Gramsci, Basso and Sturzo. See, http://www.sie-l.it/index.php/…/43-baicr-sistema-cultura-roma.html. Last accessed: 5 June 2017.

[53]  See R. De Rosa, Partito democratico della sinistra-Democratici di sinistra, in L. Bardi, P. Ignazi, O. Massari (a cura di), I partiti italiani. Iscritti, dirigenti, eletti, Egea, Milano 2007.

[54]  Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, cit., p. 276.

[56] See A. Provantini, L’Umbria in cammino. I cambiamenti e i protagonisti della storia della Regione, Edizioni Thyrus, Terni 2012.

[57]  http://www.umbria24.it/politica/terni-muore-a-72-anni-alberto-provantini-una-vita-tra-istituzioni-e-giornalismo. Last accessed: 6 June 2017.

[55]  ibid., pp. 275-281.

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Provantini, “Cari compagni…fraterni saluti”, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli 2009.

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Provantini, Quel luglio ’70, Elio Sellino Editore, Milano 1993.

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http://storia.camera.it/deputato/alberto-provantini-19410609. Last accessed: 6 November 2017.

http://www.umbria24.it/politica/terni-muore-a-72-anni-alberto-provantini-una-vita-tra-istituzioni-e-giornalismo. Last accessed: 6 November 2017.

Valerio Marinelli is a researcher at Isuc (Istituto per la storia dell’Umbria contemporanea) and a teaching associate in contemporary history at the Department of Humanities, Languages, Literatures and Ancient and Modern Civilisations of the University of Perugia.