Abstract

There is certainly a positive sign to be found in the renewed attention that several scholars have begun to pay to the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno over the past decade. In fact, the story of the Cassa has experienced a sort of damnatio memoriae, because of its declining fortunes from the mid-1970s onward, and due to its requested suppression almost by popular acclaim in the incandescent atmosphere of the two-year period 1992-1993. As a result, the many positive pages were erased along with the undoubtedly objectionable ones. Instead with a growing reversal of the trend, our article wanted to succinctly reconstruct the «parabola» of the Cassa through an inside and privileged view, such as that of its president par excellence, Gabriele Pescatore. We therefore left the floor to one of the top protagonists of that unrepeatable season, through the numerous writings, documents and interviews he left us. Among the highlights of his reconstruction are: the generalized increase in the South, albeit patchy, so that in the 1980s it appeared as a reality far away from that of the 1950s; the increase in per capita income in the Mezzogiorno at the average rate of 5 percent between 1950 and 1970. Other key concepts for Pescatore were the greatest possible independence of the Cassa with regards to ordinary regions and political parties; nonetheless, its spending capacity would not end up being diverted to cover the many shortcomings of local public bodies because of its essentially extraordinary but not additional nature.