In the prelude to the Italian elections this month, the far-right League party did not distinguish itself for rhetorical subtlety. Its leader, Matteo Salvini, called Islam “incompatible with our values, rights and freedoms.” He characterized the single European currency as a “crime against humanity.”

And the senior League politician Attilio Fontana, after deploring that the “white race” could be “wiped out” in Italy, went on to win the presidency of Lombardy, the wealthy northern region that includes this fashionable city, in a landslide. But pull up the League’s campaign manifesto, dig past the strident anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric, and suddenly the tone turns more poetic.