Giorgio Forattini, the most influential cartoonist of the twentieth century, has passed away at the age of 94. With his pencil he portrayed and prodded fifty years of Italian politics, from Craxi to D’Alema, without ever bowing to anyone
Farewell to Giorgio Forattini, master of Italian satire. The cartoonist who, more than anyone else, was able to transform politics into a visual story, into caricature and into a mirror of power, has passed away in Milan at the age of 94. Born in Rome in 1931, Forattini traversed half a century of national history with a sharp pencil and ferocious irony, signing over 14 thousand cartoons that marked the collective imagination.
“The principle of freedom and fun“, he repeated like a mantra. And it is in that combination that his entire career can be read: from the first tests on Country Evening And Panoramato the long association with the Republic (“Eugenio Scalfari founded it, I designed it”, he loved to say), until The Press, The newspaper and the newspapers of the Riffeser group.
Forattini designed Italy and its protagonists: Andreotti transformed into a multifaceted and indecipherable character, Craxi dressed as the Duce, D’Alema in the uniform of a “communist Hitler”, Prodi as a country priest, Bossi with Alberto da Giussano’s sword. His cartoons were not simple drawings: they were x-rays of power. Sharp, sometimes cruel, but always free. “I have never been left or right. I have always been a free man”, he declared in one of his last interviews.
The record lawsuit worth three billion lire brought against him by Massimo D’Alema for the cartoon on the Mitrokhin case is famous: an episode that marked the break with the Republic and the start of a new professional season. But even in controversies, Forattini never backed down. “I have never bowed my head to attacks”, he remembered with pride.
There were no shortage of moments of melancholy in his production: such as the cartoon of the wheelchair on the seashore dedicated to Leon Klinghoffer, or Sicily in the shape of a crocodile in tears after the death of Giovanni Falcone. Essential traits, full of humanity.
Having arrived at design late – after having worked as a worker, representative and salesman – Forattini became, over time, an institution. Sixty books and over three million copies sold have established his gaze as one of the most lucid in Italian journalism.
When asked if he had ever made mistakes, he replied: “NobodyThen he added: “Andreotti said about me: what can I say about Forattini? He’s the one who invented me. These were the characters of the past”.
