The news of Pino Pelosi’s death from cancer at 59 years of age, at the Gemelli hospital in Rome, is of course a news that gives no “joy,” but it does not cause too much pain either.
As the protagonist (or supporting actor, or simply the hit man) of one of the most bloody and cruel events to hit the culture world in the 20th century, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s assassination, Pelosi was affectionately called “er rana” by his malevolent friends in Tiburtino. He was condemned for that crime and then partially absolved by justice.
He changed his version of the horrific facts at Ostia’s seaplane base several times. He initially said he had acted purely for sexual motives, but recently he admitted he was not alone that bloody night: a motorcycle, the other cars, the two killer brothers. After the dinner that was offered by the poet at Biondo Tevere, there was a tremendous blunder of lies and symmetrical revelations.
The fact he was not alone was amply proved by Laura Betti’s investigations, Pier Paolo’s great friend who virtually gave her life, and even some judicial rounds, to this extravagant roundabout with the truth. For whoever reads Pasolini’s unfinished novel, Oil, it is evident that the poet was rummaging in a dirty business pot, dealing with oil and more.
Many, starting with lawyers and jurists, agree those “mysteries” are aligned with the writer’s death sentence, a service that by definition must remain “secret.”
Certainly, Pelosi, among revelations and denials, had remained the only yet insufficient key to that painful mystery. But, either by choice or by force, he will forever remain simply “er rana.”
