Giancarlo Gentilini: the sheriff mayor of Treviso and his extreme ordinances

Treviso says goodbye to Gentilini (95), the sheriff mayor. In recent times he had had serious health problems, which then worsened. In the last few days he had undergone an operation related to an infection. Then things took a turn for the worse. In the last few hours he had slipped into a coma. And today, Thursday 24 April, his heart stopped beating.

To everyone he was 'the sheriff', he openly 'hated' communists and called them 'Bolsheviks', he made himself known shortly after his first election in 1994 for his proposal to disguise immigrants as bunnies for the benefit of hunters, and he had many benches eradicated from public spaces to prevent foreigners who 'loitered' from lying down.

Just a few images to describe the character Giancarlo Gentilini, the Lega Nord mayor of Treviso from 1994 to 1998 and then reconfirmed until 2003, when he had to resign due to accumulation of mandates, leaving the highest seat at Ca' Sugana to Giampaolo Gobbo and 'settling' for the position of deputy.

Basically, Gobbo, who was busy holding political offices in other areas, willingly allowed Gentilini to be called 'mayor' by the population, so he quietly continued to patrol the city far and wide, proposing and enacting the most singular ordinances of the time (such as the one that envisaged severe punishments for dog owners who did not pick up their droppings and rinse even their pee) and promoting events with sometimes grotesque profiles, such as the Ombralonga. A wine marathon for the osterie of Treviso, which in a certain sense anticipated the 'all you can eat' system applied in other areas of catering, but declined on wine.

The event, which attracted thousands of people to Treviso for several years, ended with the death of one person due to excessive drinking.