This response comes from the same institution that ensured a regular burial for Enrico De Pedis, known as Renatino, a boss who was one of the founders of the Magliana gang, killed near Campo de’ Fiori in Rome on 2 February 1990 by hitmen sent by his ‘former friends’. His name is linked to the story of Emanuela Orlandi, the girl who went missing in the Vatican in 1983. Renatino never served a day in prison and his body lies in the crypt of the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Rome. After he was entombed, the keys of the gate were entrusted to his widow Carla; only she is allowed access. Catholic funerals were also granted to dictators such as Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet. Franco, who established in Spain a regime backed by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, the man responsible for the deaths of more than 250,000 people who opposed his government, is venerated as a saint by the Palmarian church, a schismatic Catholic sect. At the religious ceremony in honour of Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator convicted of crimes against humanity, 60,000 people paid homage to the body. In March 1991, Mario Iovine, one of the founders of the Casalesi clan, was buried with religious rites in Casal di Principe, at night. At the funeral of Roberto Sannolla, a mafioso from the Apulian organization, Sacra corona unita, killed while hiding out in Montenegro, girls dressed as brides followed the bier.

All religious, Catholic funerals. The church where Mina wanted to say a last farewell to Piero remained closed, however. The funeral service for Piergiorgio Welby was a civil ceremony held in the square across from the church of San Giovanni Bosco in Rome. A religious funeral, granted to dictators and criminals, to people who took the lives of others, was denied to Piergiorgio Welby, a just man whose only sin was to decide – after having endured his disease for forty years – that he didn’t want to suffer anymore, that he wanted to take control of his own life. At the funeral it was recalled that Piero had simply wanted to stop the torment; all he had asked for was a final act of love.

The love of Mina and Piero had started in Campo de’ Fiori, beneath the statue of Giordano Bruno, the philosopher born in Nola, in Campania. For me that statue is now no longer just the statue of a philosopher whom I esteem, a beacon of philosophical thought. It is also a reminder of Mina and Piero’s love story. Now when I read the last words of Giordano Bruno, I think of Piergiorgio Welby:

I struggled, and greatly: I thought I could win (but my limbs lacked the strength of my soul), and fate and nature held back my study and my efforts. […] As far as I am concerned, I did my best […]: not fearing death, not yielding, standing firm, to any equal, preferring a courageous death to a noncombative life.

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