Having departed as leader of the Five Star Movement (but still a key figure within the party), he has now spent an intense first twelve months in charge of Italian diplomacy. Its latest pupil is Luigi Di Maio, the youngest foreign minister in the history of republican Italy. But Rome still exerts considerable international influence, thanks to its storied “school” of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Italy does not have its own nuclear arsenal, lacks a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, and was on the losing side of the last World War.
