Rome elections, Pippo Franco runs for office and puts himself forward for culture councilor

While the election campaign for the Rome mayoral elections is ablaze, today comes the candidacy of Pippo Franco, who from the columns of Il Messaggero makes manifest his intention to take the field, in the civic list supporting center-right candidate Enrico Michetti. The former Bagaglino cabaret performer, real name Francesco Pippo, 81 years old in September, lets it be known that he is ready to be aculture alderman: so is he ready to blow away the seat of Vittorio Sgarbi, culture alderman in pectore of the center-right?

“Certainly my address is that, an artistic address,” he confides to Lorenzo De Cicco in an interview in the Roman newspaper. “I was also a painter and went to art school. As an alderman, I can also be helpful.” As for a possible recipe, Pippo Franco says, “I would start from multiculturalism, there is no doubt. We need to open up to other cultures, to interface. All the history of the world is collected in Rome, but now it is all vivisected, it is not unified.” A question also asked about Carlo Calenda’s single museum proposal, “I am not familiar with it,” Pippo Franco stressed, “but anything that goes to increase this concept for me is welcome.” Pippo Franco further elaborated on this point in a further interview published today in Corriere della Sera: “Calenda’s proposal is innovative, but I see the whole city as an element of spreading culture in the world. There is no place like Rome, it has such a history ... unfortunately it is not valued as it should be. I think of cinema, festivals, how to increase the activity of filmmakers, poets, artists, writers... The history of Rome is divided into three points: the real one, the way it is told, and what you want to keep out of the narrative.”

And still in the Corriere, he indicates how the forgotten culture of Rome could be enhanced, with an example of the highest level, that of the great Giulio Turcato, “whom I knew personally and whose contribution was anticipatory with respect to the artistic trends that would emerge shortly thereafter. I recently saw an exhibition of his in Santa Severa, not in Rome ... the diffusive potential of the city’s artistic vision has been forgotten.” Finally, a jab at the current administration: “I don’t comment on them, they comment on themselves.”

For the popular cabaractist it would not be a first time in politics: in 2006 he had run for the Senate with the center right, in the list of the Christian Democrats for Autonomies, but without being elected. In 2013 he had also run in the Fratelli d’Italia primaries for the election of the mayor of Rome, however, collecting only 205 votes and finishing behind Giorgia Meloni, Marco Marsilio, Luciano Ciocchetti, Alfio Marchini, and Giancarlo Cremonesi. Could this be it for Pippo Franco?

Rome elections, Pippo Franco runs for office and puts himself forward for culture councilor

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