A few years ago, we heard about the project for a bridge across the Strait of Messina. It had been drawn up by a group of professionals who, I believe at the modest cost of 300 million euros, envisaged a copy of San Francisco’s Golden Gate. It was a disgrace on several counts.

The most serious being: “Italy does not copy.” More recently, Italy’s prime minister expressed interest in reviving the idea of a physical union between Sicily and the continent. A few days later, the hypothesis of an underwater tunnel appeared in some Italian newspapers.