"Tangentopoli", the investigation into corruption in the highest public offices in the land, was hailed as the beginning of a new, clean era in Italian public life. Five years on, we have our doubts. It all began one February morning in 1992. That was the day when Luca Magni, boss of a small industrial contract cleaning firm, "entrapped" Mario Chiesa, the director of a long-established Milan old people's home called the Pio Albergo Trivulzio.
Magni had wanted the cleaning contract at the home but had been incensed when Chiesa, at an earlier meeting, had asked him for a 10 per cent "commission". He went to the police, where his complaint came to the attention of an unknown investigating magistrate called Antonio Di Pietro. The latter suggested that Magni return to Chiesa, this time with the "commission" money wrapped up in a wad of notes that included 10 marked 100,000 lira bills. Chiesa was arrested in his office as he frantically tried to flush 100,000 lira notes down the toilet.
Chiesa was a Socialist, politically linked to Paolo Pillitieri, a former mayor of Milan and brother-in-law of the former Socialist Prime Minister and party leader, Bettino Craxi. When the latter was asked to comment on Chiesa, he dismissed him as a "rascal", implying that the incident was of no significance.
Unfortunately for Craxi and others, Mario Chiesa did not take his arrest and subsequent conviction silently. He collaborated with the investigator, Di Pietro, not only conceding that every single work contract at the old people's home, from funeral arrangements to the gardeners, was subject to a kick-back, but also going on to supply the investigator with a floppy disk containing the names of 700 Milanese businessmen who had been involved in systematic bribery in return for public works contracts.
The Chiesa disk afforded textual evidence that there was not a single public works project in and around Milan - be it metro extension, flyover, hospital ward, airport terminal, etc. - that did not have its "kick-back" price. Furthermore, the disk afforded proof that the mainstream parties, the parties which had governed Italy since 1945, were systematically lining their corporate (and private individual), pockets with the said kickbacks. Soon it became clear that such practices were systematic, not just in Milan but nationwide.
Within two years, the top layer of a whole ruling class had been wiped out. Bettino Craxi, under investigation in 17 different instances (subsequently found guilty of corruption), was forced to resign the party leadership. Hounded out of his Rome residence one memorable Friday night by an angry, coin-throwing crowd, he retreated to his holiday home in Tunisia.
Within two years of the Chiesa arrest, the Christian Democrat Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti, a walking memorial to post-war Italian history, had begun a still unfinished fight against charges of Mafia collusion. By 1994, one-third of the Italian parliament was under criminal investigation, while more than 100 city councils had been disbanded because of corruption.
By 1995, an economics institute in Turin was even arguing that the total amount stolen through politico-business corruption equalled Italy's staggering national debt.
Two years after the arrest of Mario Chiesa, the TV tycoon, Silvio Berlusconi, "took to the field" to defend the rights of the ordinary Italian and save Italy from the peril of ex-communists. Mr Berlusconi did so to remarkable effect, forming a new party (Forza Italia), winning an election and becoming prime minister in the space of three months.
Italy's "quiet revolution" seemed well and truly launched. The catchphrase of the day was that we were about to pass from "the First Republic to the Second Republic". All was about to change - public administration would become transparent, the fight against the Mafia would know no internal, colluding enemies, Italy's hopelessly inefficient public services such as transport, education, health (all major casualties of public corruption), were headed for radical reform. Or were they?
Five years after Mario Chiesa's arrest, the cathartic cleansing process seems, at the very least, seriously compromised. The current leftist political establishment spends more time fighting Mafia and corruption investigators than the Mafia and political corruption. The centre-right opposition leader, Mr Berlusconi, continues to face allegations of bribery and corruption concerning his Fininvest Group, while only last week a former Mafioso turned state's witness alleged that he had done business with Mr Berlusconi many years ago.
Bettino Craxi continues to live peacefully in Tunisia, a fugitive from justice. Worst of all, the investigating magistrate, Di Pietro, has been hounded out of the judiciary and has spent most of the last two years defending himself against corruption charges, some of which subsequently proved to have been trumped up by, among others, Mr Berlusconi's brother, Paolo, and his family lawyer, Cesare Previti.
At ground level, ordinary Italians have the ugly sensation that little has changed, that political clientelism, the mentality of "insurance buying" is still alive and well. Perhaps Italy is undergoing a revolution. If so, it is clearly an unfinished one.