ROME LETTER: Crowds have their own physiognomy, their own DNA. If you live in Rome and work as a journalist whose beat ranges from Roberto Baggio to Pope John Paul II, then you get to see a lot of crowds, many of them usually fired up with some ideal, belief or passion, be it a devotion to Padre Pio, Roma football club, U2, Forza Italia or the trade union movement.
Arriving mid-afternoon at the Manzoni underground station close to the Basilica of San Giovanni in central Rome two Saturdays ago, I would have been totally at a loss to define the crowd which confronted me - were it not, of course, for the fact that I knew it had come to protest against Italy's current centre-right government and in particular against its controversial leader, Silvio Berlusconi.
These crowds were clearly not football fans since, apart from the lack of any obvious club symbols such as scarves and shirts, there was a significant turnout of toddlers, babies-in-the-buggy and the family dog. The latter three categories are not usually present on the Curva Nord at the Olympic Stadium.
Likewise, the lack of a single badge of identity (such as the variety of Padre Pio hats which marked the day of the Capuchin monk's canonisation last June) and the lack of obvious "group leaders" not to say priests suggested this was not a religious gathering.
Furthermore, the possibility that this lot might have turned up for an afternoon rock concert (the "Festival of Protest" was in fact half demonstration, half rock concert) seemed unlikely, given that the under-25s were in a distinct minority.
Likewise again, this could have looked like one of the thousands of trade-union protests which have marked post-war Italy's socio-political development, were it not for the fact that the traditionally ubiquitous red (communist) flags and shrill whistles were also much in abeyance.
The lackadaisical nature of the vast majority of the milling crowd would have provided further confusion. No one seemed in a hurry to get to the main venue, just up the road. "Demonstrators", stopping to buy mineral water and sandwiches to put in the all-present backpack, were surprised by the determinedly organised "beat" of a block protest of illegal, mainly black immigrants.
It may indeed be that, as the organisers claimed, there was something unprecedented in this heterogenous gathering (attended by 700,000 people, according to the organisers, or by 180,000, if you accept the police head count).
From all corners of Italy, demonstrators of all ages had turned up on a warm September afternoon to blow a loud raspberry at Mr Berlusconi.
Organised by a semi-spontaneous "civil society" movement led by film director Nanni Moretti and supported by a host of Italian intellectuals, from Oscar-winning actor Roberto Benigni to conductor Claudio Abbado, architect Renzo Piano and novelist Claudio Magris, the gathering had come to protest "in defence of the Foundations of the Italian Democratic State".
In particular, the "civil society" movement points an accusatory finger at the so-called "legitimate suspicion" bill (currently going through parliament).
It claims that this is a judicial reform tailor-made for the prime minister, since it enables him to slide out of an ongoing Milan trial where he stands accused of having bribed judges in the mid-1980s.
This is just the latest in a series of legislative measures, claims the "civil society" movement, which prove that Mr Berlusconi is currently governing Italy exclusively in his own personal interests. From the platform at San Giovanni,Moretti stated that Berlusconi "is not against democracy, he is just alien to it because he does not know what it is".
Time will tell whether Moretti's seemingly successful day out leads anywhere, by way of concrete political initiative. The accusation that the Italian Prime Minister is "alien to democracy" is hardly new. In many senses, given his entrepreneurial background, he will always be someone impatient with the complexities (and legalities) of consensus which are fundamental to a democracy.
A less obvious reflection, however, might concern the centre-left's relationship with democracy. Former centre-left leader and Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema, for instance, probably did more than any other single person to guarantee Mr Berlusconi's electoral success last year when, in October 1998, he oversaw the ousting of elected Olive coalition leader, Romano Prodi, replacing him with himself at Government House.
That was an old-style Stalinist putsch, made without reference to il popolo. The last named, however, may just have refound its voice and political will at San Giovanni.
If such is the case, there could be trouble ahead, not so much for Mr Berlusconi but rather for the whole fragmented leadership of the left.