Abstract

The article applies a content analysis methodology to Giorgia Meloni’s inaugural speech before Parliament. The symbolic map articulated by the current Italian Prime Minister is compared with that emerging from the speech given by Silvio Berlusconi on the occasion of the birth of his first government (1994), an expression of a parliamentary base (centreright) not too dissimilar to that of the current executive. The results show that, while in Berlusconi’s case there was a strong accentuation of the value of the liberal political doctrine, the symbolic profile of the leader of Fratelli d’Italia is instead connoted as a form of democratic nationalism oriented in a conservative sense