The cast of the column

A small-town entrepreneur with a heart of gold and intermittent judgment. He signs without reading, trusts a handshake, and postpones paperwork to Monday. The name is a tribute to Gaius, the second-century Roman jurist: he wrote the Institutiones, our Gaio collects them as formal notices. Every week fate drags him into a new legal predicament: if a procedural defect exists, Gaio has already signed it in triplicate. He never learns, and luckily so: without him this column would not exist.

Gaio's lawyer since forever, despite herself. Rigorous, endlessly patient, with a never-requested specialisation in avoidable disasters. Her office has one chair worn out only on Gaio's side. She knows limitation periods by heart the way others know songs: she is the one who, at the end of each case, explains what should have been done. Her surname is destiny: in the technicality everyone overlooks, she reliably finds the solution.

Supplier, contractor, competitor or creditor: it depends on the week. A historic Roccamesta firm, three generations of Sempronios and an in-house legal department that forgives nothing. When Gaio signs something without reading it, their stamp is almost always at the bottom of the page. They are not villains: they are simply extremely punctual with formal notices.

Neighbour, former business partner, co-heir: Caia is wherever there is an opposing interest and a reasonable person defending it. A direct heir of the Roman jurists' tradition, she is the only cast member the textbooks have been citing for two thousand years. She and Gaio have a civil relationship, in both senses: they respect each other, and they sue each other.

An imaginary town with a surprising number of administrative disputes per inhabitant. A zoning plan under perpetual revision, tenders whose outcomes are always challenged, a records office that closes at 12:47. Every matter of public contracts, permits or administrative silence passes through here. Any resemblance to real municipalities is purely coincidental, and statistically inevitable.

Mayor of Roccamesta in alternating phases, a member of parliament by a whisker, under investigation by habit. He signs resolutions with the enthusiasm of a man who has not read them and regards conflict of interest as an opinion. His surname is a manifesto: at the end of every term, Perdoni apologises. The natural protagonist of cases on public contracts, financing and offences against the public administration, he is living proof that in Roccamesta the voters' imagination exceeds the legislator's.

He appears when there are deeds to notarise, wills to open or companies to incorporate, which is to say always too late to save Gaio from himself. His name comes from the postilla, the margin note: his speciality is the clause nobody read but that decides the case. He speaks slowly, bills quickly.