THE funeral in Milan on October 15th of Dario Fo, Italy’s irrepressibly subversive Nobel laureate for literature (see Obituary), may have seemed like a commemoration of the old, Marxist left. On the rain-sodden Piazza del Duomo, clenched fists were raised, a Che Guevara banner unfurled and the great jester dispatched to his grave with a rendering of “Bella Ciao”, the anthem of Italy’s partisans in the second world war.
Yet the best-known mourners were not Marxists at all. They included the founder of the Five Star Movement (M5S), Beppe Grillo (pictured, right); the mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi; and other leading figures in what has become Italy’s main…
