Andrea Aloi, Chiara Belliti, Mauro Luccarini, Piermaria Romani
Non avrai altro Cuore all'infuori di me

The Heart was Partial, not Partisan (M. Serra)

The 1989, beyond the fall of the Berlin Wall, will be remembered as the year of Cuore's birth, the weekly magazine of Human Resistance directed by Michele Serra which would become in a few years a reference point for satire in the Bel Paese. Born as the weekly offshoot of the daily l'Unità, it became autonomous in 1991, hitting the newsstands with a greenish tint, reminiscent of a certain pallor typical of someone not entirely in shape.

And Italy in those years was not in shape at all.

Cuore was, for less than a decade (it would eventually close its doors in 1996 with some weak revivals until 2000), the voice of conscience for the young "of a certain left" – intelligent, open-minded, ruthless, reflective, and irreverent. A weekly capable of moving from being simply a springboard for genius and corrosive writers (from Altan to Ellekappa, from Vincino to the duo Disegni+Caviglia, from Lella Costa to Gino e Michele) with an enviable satirical verve, to a container of ruthless and corrosive articles (furthermore, very amusing) on the ailments of the habits and customs of all of Italy, ranging from politics to society.

Thus, in a short time, it would become a regular fixture, an unmissable collective ritual for all those who identified with a certain political affiliation, and a true emblem of those who, in their own way, narrated the abuses, mishaps, and mismanagement of an Italy of corrupt politicians (the usual Craxi, Andreotti, Forlani, etc.), misgovernment, abuses, and outbursts of different natures. All things that would become part of an important dossier of complaints, lawsuits, and judicial acts, many of which are still ongoing.

This big book just reprinted by BUR (320 pages at 27.5 €!) tells us the story of the group's birth and offers us a wide selection of the best pages (take a look here) divided and selected by topics: Politics, the Church, the Mafia, Berlusconi (yes, him again...) and so on.

A book full of ideas (some truly unforgettable), oozing with intelligence, irreverence, satire, humor, and strokes of journalism, to say the least, brilliant, with "hilarious" headlines and covers that went down in History (small example). A weekly that, in my small way, honored me by publishing some of my satirical interventions between 1991 and 1993. I stopped after a while because the "competition" to be published was too tough, and, admittedly, there were also servilisms and preferences there that favored one cartoon or article over another. In short, one of the deep-seated flaws of Italian society which Cuore, while openly criticizing it, ultimately ended up falling into wholeheartedly.

Highly recommended to the nostalgic, the curious, the idea-hungry, and to those who want to laugh in an intelligent and... corrosive way.