Crowds gathered outside the Italian parliament as the non-religious state funeral of Giorgio Napolitano, a former communist who as president navigated Italy through almost a decade of turbulent political times, took place in Rome. Napolitano, the first president to be elected twice, died on Friday at the age of 98.
He is credited with staving off a debt crisis after using his powers to appoint technocrat Mario Monti as prime minister in the wake of Silvio Berlusconi’s resignation amid the eurozone crisis that plunged Italy into financial turmoil.
It is the first time a funeral has been held at Montecitorio Palace, the seat of the lower house of parliament in the centre of the Italian capital.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the Duchess of Edinburgh were among the dignitaries in attendance.
There was a round of applause as Napolitano’s coffin arrived, draped in an Italian flag, while a military band played the national anthem as it was carried into the palace.
Napolitano fought against the fascists during the second world war, joining the Communist party after the war. He entered parliament in the early 1950s and during a career that spanned 62 years he was elected an MEP and served as interior minister before becoming president in 2006. He was re-elected in 2013 and stood down in 2015.
“Napolitano was there throughout so many decades,” said Sophia De Dominias, who watched the ceremony from a big screen set up at Monte Citorio Square. “He started as a communist but was still respectful of those with different views. He worked for the good of Italy.”
Valerio Selloni, who said his father knew Napolitano when working as a typographer for l’Unità, the Communist party’s newspaper, said: “I am here to pay tribute to a great man. He was a communist, like me, but moderate compared to others.”
Paying tribute to Napolitano at the start of the funeral, Ignazio La Russa, the senate speaker and co-founder of Brothers of Italy, the party with neofascist origins leading Italy’s ruling coalition, said: “President Napolitano always stood by his political past, his roots, the value in which he believed, with pride. He led the nation, embodying the values that are the foundations of our constitution.”
