But cerebral politicians need populist slogans too something Mr Amato must accept, if he wants to be more than a traghettatore, or ferryman, as Italian stopgaps are known.
Experts say it was customary to place a coin in the mouth of an inhumation as a fare for the ferryman Charon for safe passage across the River Styx in the afterlife.
Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is named after the ferryman who carried the souls of the newly deceased across the River Styx, which divided the world of the living from that of the dead.