La ballata del Miché: quale giustizia per il colpevole?

The essay explores how
Fabrizio De André’s La ballata del Miché articulates a unique conception of
justice through song. By reconstructing the real crime that inspired the
piece – the case of Michele Di Censo,
who killed his wife in 1955 – the author shows how De André transforms a
brutal news story into a poetic act of
“justice through pity”. Rather than
justifying the murderer, the song
reimagines his story, granting him a
possible life he never lived and thus restoring a form of dignity denied by history and law. The paper situates this
approach within De André’s broader
ethics of pietas, proposing a justice beyond judgment or redemption