The cast of the column

Gaio Sventura

The protagonist

A small-town entrepreneur with a heart of gold and intermittent judgment. He signs without reading, trusts a handshake, and postpones paperwork to Monday. The name is a tribute to Gaius, the second-century Roman jurist: he wrote the Institutiones, our Gaio collects them as formal notices. Every week fate drags him into a new legal predicament: if a procedural defect exists, Gaio has already signed it in triplicate. He never learns, and luckily so: without him this column would not exist.

Basim Casba

The precarious worker

Basim, in Arabic, means "the one who smiles"; Casba, from Qasba, would be the fortified Arab citadel, but in Italian it ended up meaning total chaos. And that is exactly where Basim lives, between queues at the immigration office, on-call contracts and creative payslips. Registered that way by a registry error, or nicknamed that way by his worksite colleagues, depending on the case he is an Italian citizen of many generations or a foreigner without a permit. In every version, trouble chases him and he never loses his optimism. He works hard, and smiles constantly.

Prudenzia Cavillo, Esq.

The trusted lawyer

Gaio's lawyer since forever, despite herself. Rigorous, endlessly patient, with a never-requested specialisation in avoidable disasters. Her office has one chair worn out only on Gaio's side. She knows limitation periods by heart the way others know songs: she is the one who, at the end of each case, explains what should have been done. Her surname is destiny: in the technicality everyone overlooks, she reliably finds the solution.

The Gavelio Magistrates

The prosecution and the judgment

Identical twins of the judiciary and Gaio Sventura's recurring nightmare, the Gavelio brothers split the law evenly starting from their names. Nunzio, the Public Prosecutor, devotes his entire existence to serving notices of investigation and announcing apocalyptic charges; Giusto, the Judge, is the scale of the courtroom, though decidedly inflexible in practice. Together they form the perfect bureaucratic trap: depending on the case they swap chairs, or pass each other secret case files during Sunday family lunches. Nunzio investigates harshly, Giusto sentences severely.

Sempronio & Sons

The business counterparty

Supplier, contractor, competitor or creditor: it depends on the week. A historic Roccamesta firm, three generations of Sempronios and an in-house legal department that forgives nothing. When Gaio signs something without reading it, their stamp is almost always at the bottom of the page. They are not villains: they are simply extremely punctual with formal notices.

Maia Queraldi

The private counterparty

Neighbour, former business partner, co-heir: Maia Queraldi appears wherever there is an opposing interest and an apparently very reasonable person ready to litigate it. She is the only member of the cast who can turn a greeting on the landing into a registered letter with return receipt, and a hedge boundary into a matter of principle. Her surname, read carefully, says it all: inside Queraldi there is already a querela, the Italian formal complaint. With Gaio Sventura she keeps things perfectly civil, in both senses: they respect each other, and they sue each other. Strictly in court.

The Municipality of Roccamesta

The public administration

An imaginary town with a surprising number of administrative disputes per inhabitant. A zoning plan under perpetual revision, tenders whose outcomes are always challenged, a records office that closes at 12:47. Every matter of public contracts, permits or administrative silence passes through here. Any resemblance to real municipalities is purely coincidental, and statistically inevitable.

The Hon. Ottavio Perdoni

The Roccamesta politician

Mayor of Roccamesta in alternating phases, a member of parliament by a whisker, under investigation by habit. He signs resolutions with the enthusiasm of a man who has not read them and regards conflict of interest as an opinion. His surname is a manifesto: at the end of every term, Perdoni apologises. The natural protagonist of cases on public contracts, financing and offences against the public administration, he is living proof that in Roccamesta the voters' imagination exceeds the legislator's.

Livio Postilla, Notary

The cameo

He appears when there are deeds to notarise, wills to open or companies to incorporate, which is to say always too late to save Gaio from himself. His name comes from the postilla, the margin note: his speciality is the clause nobody read but that decides the case. He speaks slowly, bills quickly.