What does “Catafalco” mean?

In a recent interview on Rai 3, journalist Lucia Annunziata hosted Roberto Fico, Speaker of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. 

Fico attempted to explain the meaning of “catafalco”. He struggled to provide a meaning, loosely referring to the fact that the term was first used in 1992 by a former president, who gave such a name to a tent-like structure placed on the voting booths. 

The dictionary defined “catafalco” (“bier”) as “a scaffolding made of wood or other materials, covered with wallpaper (generally black drapes), on which the coffin is placed or a simulacrum of him during funeral ceremonies and religious functions.” 

The other meanings are even more bizarre. They range from “structure, or set of massed objects, which is striking for its disproportionate bulk” to “raised stage for shows”. 

On the origins of the word, sources are somewhat conflicting. According to the prevailing theory, it is the result of a Latin crasis, between the terms “captare”, that is to capture and “stage”. 

In 1992, the then Speaker of the Chamber, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro (who was later elected Head of State) devised the stratagem of the “catafalco”: a wooden cabin, mounted on the benches of the Chamber, conceived to give the voter the certainty of secrecy when it came to their choice of who to vote for. After filling the ballot, the parliamentarian leaves the booth and places it in an urn called a “salad bowl” due to its shape. From there, each ballot paper is extracted and red when the votes are counted. 

For the election of the President of the Republic in 2022, the rules have changed to comply with a range of anti-covid measures. The traditional “catafalchi” normally used in the election of the President of the Republic will be put aside as they are difficult to sanitise. New voting booths will be installed instead, with a special ventilation system.