It only takes a few seconds and one letter too many to go viral. It happened on the first evening of the 2026 Sanremo Festival, during one of the most solemn moments of the evening: the tribute to the eightieth anniversary of the Italian Republic.
Gianna Pratesi, the 105-year-old lady from Chiavari who had voted in the institutional referendum in 1946 and whom Carlo Conti had introduced as “guest of honor of the festival”, had taken to the stage at the Ariston. In the background, the large LED wall displayed black and white vintage images, evoking the atmosphere of those historic days. Then, on one of those photographs, the writing appeared:
“54 percent to the Repupplica”.
A little too much. Enough to start the irony of the web.
Within minutes the image of the typo began to circulate on X, Instagram and WhatsApp. The comments multiplied among those who made jokes about the “new form of government”, those who hypothesized political fantasy scenarios and those who, more simply, wondered how a similar mistake was possible in a context of that magnitude, on a LED wall visible throughout Italy.
The moment dedicated to Pratesi was thought to be among the most touching of the evening – and in part it was, with the direct testimony of a woman who lived through almost the entire twentieth century. The typo didn’t ruin the scene, but it inevitably accompanied it, transforming an institutional image into an instant meme.
No official communications regarding the incident have arrived from the Festival’s production. The error remained visible for a few seconds, then the images continued to scroll.
A typo that has already become the meme of the evening. It happens even to the best, but the web – as we know – does not forget.
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