The undersecretary for publishing in the office of the President of the Council, professor Carlo Malinconico was a guest in a super deluxe hotel. Unknown to the person involved, the bill was paid by Francesco Piscicelli, the entrepreneur involved in the investigation into the contracts assigned after the earthquake in Abruzzo and who laughed after the catastrophe. Malinconico, formerly the president of the FIEG and general secretary of the office of the President of the Council with Romano Prodi, said that he has “never given favours to the people involved” and that he got to know “only now that Piscicelli had paid of his own initiative and for reasons unknown to me, some of my stays in the hotel complex”. The hotel "Pellicano" in Porto Ercole is one of the most beautiful in the area of Argentario. It’s not just beautiful, it’s fantastic! You arrive, you stay there and then the bill is paid by someone else, usually Piscicelli. Unwittingly, obviously. Try it out. The hotelier Roberto Sciò and the construction man Piscicelli, without telling Malinconico, had organised for him to stay, trusting that he would forget to pay. And that actually happened. In a telephone conversation, Sciò said to Piscicelli “You’ve really adopted the professor ...”
Malinconico resigned, to the applause for his “institutional sensibility” and declarations about the integrity of the person.
In nomen omen {the clue is in the name}: “Malinconia {melancholy} is a sort of fundamental sadness, at times unwitting, that leads a person to live passively, without taking initiatives, adapting to external happenings while convinced that they don’t relate to him.”
Malinconico is the same guy that called for a “Mini tax for those that surf, as a transtional measure to give a breath of oxygen to the publishing sector. It’ll cost as much as a cup of coffee a month.” A genius! Both him and the one that chose him.