Come nasceva un “capo” democristiano. Vittorio Cervone a Latina (1946-1956)

Through the analysis of a territorial case study, the article examines the role played by political mediation in the rise and strengthening of the Christian Democracy. The essay focuses on the party organization and its control of public bodies. These two factors, in fact, turned out to be decisive to the political success of Vittorio Cervone between 1946 and 1956. First as provincial administration secretary and commissioner responsible for an important land reclamation consortium, then as a deputy, Cervone gradually managed to emerge as a representative of local interests towards the Government authorities and a powerful mediator. The article investigates in particular the intervention of the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno in the province of Latina in the early 1950s. Its so-called intervento straordinario, in fact, represented the benchmark of the Christian Democracy’s capacity to make the periphery interact with the center and to combine the social effects of modernization brought about by the Cassa with the local mobilization of political consensus.