ROME – Italy’s new Parliament speaker Laura Boldrini has won legions of admirers, including foreign correspondents hoping she may follow the example of her predecessor Luciano Violante.

Former magistrate Violante set tongues wagging at the foreign press association in Rome when he reputedly started a liason with a sultry Agence France Presse correspondent months after taking office as speaker at Montecitorio.

ROME—Clouds of incense and puffs of white smoke are traditionally associated with the ancient rites accompanying the election of a pope, but the cardinals who threw their support behind Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio were seeking to throw off an unpleasant whiff of scandal and hypocrisy.

ROME-- Ten years after Giovanni Agnelli’s death, the National Automobile Museum in Turin which was named after him in March 2011, is commemorating his memory with an exhibition entitled “Le Auto dell’Avvocato” (The Avvocato’s cars). 

ROME-- David Rossi, the communications wizard at troubled Monte dei Paschi plunged to his death from the window of his office at the bank’s medieval headquarters in Siena.

 Rossi’s body was found late last night below an open window in a backstreet outside the restored 14^th century fortress where the headquarters are based, police said. His death comes amidst the ongoing derivatives scandal that the bank has been involved in in recent months, catching the attention of the Italian political scene.