There are gestures that cross time like the shadows of Roman columns. This December, when the year seems to close with the same solemnity as a marble door, Felipe VI and Doña Letizia undertake their last diplomatic mission: Italy, the eternal host. Under the golden light of Rome, the Kings land loaded not with crowns, but with symbolism; not of pomp, but of a sober courtesy that moves between the chambers of the Italian Parliament and the restored friezes of Charles V.
The scene looks like something out of a Renaissance fresco. As soon as they arrive, they meet 500 Spaniards from the most diverse sectors of society: artists, businessmen, dreamers, workers who shape their identity between two worlds. The Kings will be there, attentive, perhaps not so much because of the politics as because of the cadence of the words. The rooms of the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome, which celebrates half a century of existence, will be a momentary refuge before the speeches and photographs.
The next day, politics makes its entrance. Sergio Mattarella, face of republican serenity, receives the Monarch with the courtesy of a host who understands the weight of bilateral relations. In contrast, Giorgia Meloni, with her iron rhetoric, will share a table at Villa Pamphili. It will be a lunch that the protocol will define as “cordial”, but where words will surely be measured like a tightrope walker measures the rope. Rome, as always, will witness these encounters of power that never cease to seem like an ancient theater with new protagonists.
In the Italian Senate, Philip VI will discover friezes recounting the coronation of an emperor who once ruled from the Atlantic to the Adriatic. In that gesture an entire history lesson is summarized: Spain and Italy not only share a past, but a memory carved in marble, on canvas, in books that are still studied under the dim light of a library. There, in the Italian Chambers, the King will have the rare privilege of speaking. Not just anyone does it: the last was John Paul II, a figure who already belongs to the pantheon of universals.
The journey, like a well-measured opera, has a symbolic ending. In Naples, a city where history and chaos go hand in hand, Felipe VI will receive an honorary doctorate from the Federico II University. The gesture not only honors the Monarch, but remembers the ancient ties between Spain and this land that was once part of the same kingdom. Meanwhile, Letizia, always attentive to her causes, will hold meetings with Spaniards who work at the FAO, talking about nutrition and the future, in a world that needs more bread than speeches.
Thus concludes a diplomatic year. Between the gala lights and the gestures of State, the trip closes as another chapter in the narrative that unites two nations. Italy bids farewell to the Kings with its eternal mix of solemnity and beauty. And Spain, from a distance, watches as another page is written in this infinite book of shared history.
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