Milan's Malpensa Is Renamed for Berlusconi, and the North Takes Note

The Local Italy reported on Friday that Milan's Malpensa airport was officially renamed after Silvio Berlusconi in a ceremony held that day, honouring the former prime minister and billionaire. The report notes that the move drew criticism from politicians at both local and national level.

The airport is the principal international gateway for Lombardy and, by extension, for much of northern Italy. The Local's account records the renaming as a decision taken and contested, not as a settled honour, and does not describe the ceremony in further detail.

For the Alpine north, the airport's name is not an abstraction. Malpensa is where a large share of the traffic to and from the mountain valleys passes, and where the question of what the north is called, and by whom, tends to be argued.