«I believe the book sells because of the responses I receive from those who buy and read it. The phone calls and messages that come to me confirm that it’s not because of those two little pieces of gossip contained in the text. Reducing everything to that would be truly ungenerous. In this book there is the love I had for my profession, from when I was dancing until this afternoon. It’s a love book, not a gossip book.” Lucio Presta, in front of the packed hall of Villa Rendano in Cosenza, does not mince words. Because he was born and raised in these parts. «Among the railway workers’ buildings», he specifies. And so he immediately clarifies, with that mixture of sweetness and determination that is his trademark: his book “Uragano. Sole, fulmini e saette” (Piemme) is the story of a professional life made of passion, choices, meetings. Stories that end well and others not, but always told to the end. «The truth, when you decide to write it, must be accepted in its entirety».
The book, presented on Wednesday evening together with Ginevra Vercillo and Arcangelo Badolati, soars in the rankings. But success, for someone who has made discretion his profession, is almost an embarrassment. “If someone had told me I would finish first in three categories, I would have laughed for weeks,” he confesses. Yet it happened. Perhaps because, beyond the presumed background that the public is looking for, this book tells something deeper: the love for a job that began as a dancer and reached the top levels of Italian entertainment. Then there’s the title, which Presta explains with his eyes shining. «Roberto Benigni gave it to me for my fiftieth birthday. He wrote a short poem in quatrains, and the second verse began like this: “The hurricane left from Cosenza”. When I reread it, looking for a title, I realized it was there, served on a silver platter.” And Benigni’s verses, which Presta wanted to share in the prologue, sound like a sort of secular blessing: «The hurricane left from Cosenza / the storm arrives from Calabria / Calabria is now the land of Rendano, / Telesio, Campanella and Lucio Presta». It’s not bad to feel like you’re in the same camp as philosophers and thinkers!
During the evening, Presta tells some anecdotes that smack of legend. Like the time he brought Benigni to Sanremo to perform the exegesis of Mameli’s anthem for the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. «He called me at one in the morning, on the eve of the Festival: “I figured out how to do it”. He wanted to enter on horseback. I told security it was for a ballet. Seventeen million viewers for 45 minutes. Share stuff that hasn’t happened in a lifetime.”
But the anecdote that perhaps Presta tells more than anyone else is the one from Cosenza. Years ago, Benigni received an honorary degree from Unical. Angelo Duro, then at Iene, burst into the lectio magistralis singing and at the end kissed Roberto on the mouth. «I was behind, I was waving at him to stop. When she kissed him, I went in. He had a very buttoned up green shirt, green looks bad on me, I grabbed him by force and dragged him away. The carabinieri were laughing like crazy. As I tugged him, he repeated: “What’s your name?”. Because someone had warned him that if Presta had been in Cosenza he would have taken a beating.” A few years later, Lucio wanted him in Sanremo. “So we have closed the circle.”
Then, with his voice becoming more intimate, Presta returns home. To those railway workers’ buildings where it all began. «I admire those who stay. I take my hat off to them. Those who leave perhaps struggle less. Staying and building here, in your own land, is an extraordinary act of strength.” And while he says these words, he signs a page from the Cuore book: «The railway workers’ buildings left me with a wonderful view of the world. Sometimes, when I return to Cosenza, I secretly pass by there at night, I stop where my grandparents’ house was and I think back to that little boy who went on raids and to whom that place seemed immense. Today it seems very small to me. Maybe because I grew up. But I’m happy to have learned my first real life lessons there.”