Let everything change so that everything stays the same

"If we want everything to continue as it is, it is necessary for everything to change."

The phrase that the young Tancredi says to his uncle, Prince Fabrizio Corbera, in the novel

is the seed of a concept that experts in political science usually call gattopardism.

The idea is as simple as twisted.

From time to time, power must initiate a supposedly revolutionary transformation so that, in practice, only the superficial part of the power structures is altered.

The coronation of Carlos III, held this Saturday May 6 at Westminster Abbey, has been a great exercise in gattopardism.

The British king has transformed the appearances of the millennial institution that he heads so that it lasts another thousand years.

Buckingham Palace and its powerful publicity apparatus have been bombarding the press for months with news about the changes the King has made to modernize his enthronement and coronation ceremony.

The monarch reduced the guest list of his mother, Elizabeth II, from 8,000 to just over 2,000;

he shortened the duration of the rite;

he invited other crowned heads;

it replaced the British nobility with representatives of civil society—from all walks of life and walks of life;

introduced for the first time in history a gospel choir;

he chose newly composed choral music sung in the different languages ​​of the islands, and wore recycled historical garments for the sake of sustainability and efficiency.

He even decided that his consort, Camila, would not wear a crown, as tradition dictates,

as a gesture of empathy with the economic and social crisis that the United Kingdom is going through.

Not even the florists were spared from the apparent Carolina revolution, since they had to make the arrangements without using plastic and floral foam, a material that is neither compostable nor biodegradable.

But the truth is that nothing new has happened in the coronation of Carlos III.

The ceremony adhered to a script written more than 600 years ago in the

, a medieval manuscript containing the details of this rite.

The king was anointed with holy oil behind the scenes, so that his subjects would not see the moment of his communion with God.

And then he was dressed in all the symbolic paraphernalia of the institution: horse spurs, dating back to the time of Richard the Lionheart;

the crown of Saint Edward, a replica of the one commissioned by Edward the Confessor;

the scepters and rods with diamonds looted during the time of the empire;

the sovereign's orb;

the Chair of Saint Edward and the Stone of Destiny, a rock in which, according to tradition, the Jacob of Genesis glimpsed the ladder that connects heaven with earth.

After the ceremony, between the divine and the profane, the septuagenarian kings got on a 260-year-old golden carriage and returned to Buckingham, a palace with another 260 years of history, to star in "the balcony moment".

Following tradition, they went out to greet the people, just as Elizabeth II did during her 70-year reign, and just as George VI, George V, Edward VII and Queen Victoria did before her.

On Tuesday, when the jewels return to the Tower of London and the British return to work, Carlos III will continue to enjoy the immense privileges that his ancestors amassed and will continue with his mission: to change everything so that everything remains the same.

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