Massimiliano Cencelli died in Rome on Saturday afternoon at the age of 90. A functionary of the Christian Democracy party in the 1960s, Cencelli became known for lending his name to the so-called Cencelli Manual, an expression that has become a permanent fixture in Italian political language.

The Cencelli Manual was not in fact an official document, but a criterion for describing the distribution of political and government posts among parties and factions in proportion to their weight. The term is still used today when ministries, presidencies or other responsibilities are assigned in an effort to respect the balance among different political forces, and it has also appeared in university textbooks.

The origin of the method was recounted by Cencelli himself in a 2003 interview with the newspaper Avvenire. He recalled that in 1967, at the Christian Democracy congress in Milan, Sarti together with Cossiga and Taviani founded the pontieri faction, created with the aim of building a bridge between the majority and the left. The faction obtained 12 percent and the problem arose of how to distribute positions.

Cencelli proposed applying to politics a criterion similar to that used in companies, where roles are assigned based on the shares held. From that principle the distribution of posts followed: Taviani kept the Interior, Gaspari became undersecretary at the Post Office, Cossiga went to Defense and Sarti to Tourism and Entertainment. The method became famous when Sarti, during government crises, would reply to journalists: ask Cencelli.