ANSA, the national Italian news agency, issued news alert in all capital letters, the most urgent level. The last time that happened was when Pope Benedict XIV was elected in 2005, according to national TV broadcaster RAI.
The U.K. press followed this much closer in the last weeks than the Italian press did. The Daily Telegraph had a minute-by-minute account from the court and a friend covering direct in Perugia told me British journalists were at least as numerous and Italians. The story wasn't even the top story on the Italian Google news site until after the verdict. But it's been No. 1 on U.K. Google news regularly since last week and on the U.S. site all day today.
