Time is in a hurry and often leaves its interpreters behind. Imagine when illness sets in. In the Dictionary of Commonplaces, Gustave Flaubert wryly wrote under the entry sick: «To lift the spirits of a sick person, laugh at their infirmity». However, everyone has their own recipe. That of Dario Franceschini, senator and one of the founding faces of the Pd, is steeped in reserve. But yesterday, on the pages of Corriere della Sera, he decided to tell about his condition. «I have Parkinson’s. I was diagnosed in November 2020. A friend noticed how I was moving my hands. Senator Graziano Delrio, who is a doctor, told me: you drag your feet, get yourself checked. It is a disease still shrouded in mystery. Its causes are unknown».
The story comes from a small village near Cagliari, a holiday destination for the Pd member. Journalist Fabrizio Roncone looks into the dimension of the former Minister of Culture. The layer that envelops the ink of the disease that has slowly become a companion on the path of the dem is soft. «The diagnosis was a tremendous blow», says Franceschini, because «Parkinson’s is a different disease, it accompanies you forever». You have to seek the flow. «It is crucial to manage to fill your days and repeat to yourself: I don’t give up, I continue to live, to be there». Then there is the confession, diametrically opposed to the pornography of pain we are used to. «Talking publicly about my illness, of course, costs me, and a lot. For many reasons: including a certain, I believe understandable, modesty».
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A word, modesty, which has a deep root to which the Pd member has mixed dignity in the face of illness. There is the time for literature. Because Franceschini has published nine books with the tenth coming out in October. Writing now? «If you have Parkinson’s it risks turning out to be a trap» because «you must never isolate yourself, but instead continue to engage with the world until the last drop of energy». Gianni De Michelis, multiple times minister and icon of the Psi, fixed his memories on paper between 2012 and 2015, when Parkinson’s appeared. Memories of a reformist socialist was published posthumously in 2024. A work collected and preserved by his son Alvise. Certainly De Michelis, from a book perspective, is remembered for the timeless cult Where are we going to dance tonight?, but that is another story.
Politics, even after the first stroke in 2004, Umberto Bossi always attacked it. In 2005, a year after the cerebral ischemia, interviewed by Corsera he tenaciously showed his word made of physicality. «Berlusconi told me: “Your illness has thrown the government into crisis”», he said in that chat with Aldo Cazzullo. The man who “invented” Padania, perpetually combative. «Did this mess bring you closer to faith?», the interviewer asks. «It brought me closer to family. When I was in the hospital in Bologna I felt so far away… I understood many things then». The common traits of the disease that makes parallel lines meet. Marco Pannella, the radical leader maximo, in 2014 at 85 years old was found to have two tumors. One in the lung and one in the liver. To Fatto Quotidiano he admitted he had no intention of quitting smoking. «Precisely because I don’t want to die I keep smoking! If I had to quit I would dry up. I don’t want to commit suicide».
The cure? 60 cigarettes a day and smoked cigars. To each their own reaction. Mirko Tremaglia also got Parkinson’s, he died in 2011, and despite the years of illness this did not prevent him from remaining at the center of the political arena, in a position occupied since the times of the Italian Social Republic. Perhaps it is like this that by showing their own weaknesses, as a Japanese saying goes, «people who suffer from the same disease understand each other».
Dario Franceschini: “I have Parkinson’s, why I decided to talk about it”
Dario Franceschini, senator and former Pd minister, revealed that he is affected by Parkinson’s disease, diagnosed…
