Parliamentary battles, votes of confidence, decrees, motions, debates, secret ballots, obstructionism: these parliamentary actions and many others are covered constantly on Italian television and in newspapers. However, very few people actually know what really happens in the Parliament and how the delicate and complex mechanisms of the parliamentary entities work. In this book, Simone Baldelli, who has been a key figure in the House of Deputies for many years, unveils the secret angles of the hemicycle of Montecitorio to his reader in comprehensible and dynamic terms. Baldelli writes from an original and innovative point of view as he played the role of the whip of one of the biggest parliamentary groups in the history of the Italian Republic.

Simone Baldelli (1972), current vice-president of the House of Deputies, graduate in Political Science, journalist, satirist and adjunct professor of Parliamentary Law at the UNITELMA University, Sapienza, Rome. He has authored several publications. He was a parliamentary aide, a regional councillor and the leader of the Youth department of Forza Italia. Member of Parliament since 2006, he has been the whip of the parliamentary group of Forza Italia and Popolo della Libertà. Besides his parliamentary and political activities to which he is committed full time, he is involved in artistic productions in the realms of photography, music, painting and theatre.