The party leader, Walter Veltroni, astounded his longest-serving parliamentarian by replacing him with a 26-year-old woman.
Yet appeasement has a strong appeal to Mr Veltroni, who is in a vulnerable position.
ECONOMIST: Walter Veltroni risks being too nice to Silvio Berlusconi
Wily Mr Prodi, with Mr Veltroni beside him, turned out to be no mere puppet.
ECONOMIST: D’Alema and Veltroni, rivals on Italy’s left | The
But, although demonstrably willing to innovate, Mr Veltroni has none of Mr Obama's inspiring rhetorical skills.
ECONOMIST: Italy's election: Promises, but no delivery | The
Mr Veltroni is widely thought to have done a good job running Italy's chaotic capital.
To meet Mr Berlusconi's attacks on the Prodi administration, Mr Veltroni is, like his opponent, offering to cut taxes.
ECONOMIST: Italy's election: Promises, but no delivery | The
Mr Veltroni's resignation was a tacit acknowledgment that his 14 months as leader have been an almost unmitigated failure.
With the rank and file behind him, Mr D'Alema fended off Mr Veltroni.
ECONOMIST: D’Alema and Veltroni, rivals on Italy’s left | The
Other groups in the coalition think the other leading ex-communist, Walter Veltroni, who is more of a modernist, must wait.
As deputy prime minister, Mr Veltroni took a lot of credit for Italy's inclusion in the single currency's first round.
ECONOMIST: D’Alema and Veltroni, rivals on Italy’s left | The
There is also a Marxist-Green alliance, the Rainbow Left, that would doubtless vote for Mr Veltroni if push came to shove.
"Safeguarding Rome's ancient legacy does not mean that the contemporary city is unable to produce artistic beauty, " says Rome's mayor, Walter Veltroni.
Mr Veltroni retorted that he was not about to mortgage the government.
ECONOMIST: Silvio Berlusconi's makes big plans for a new party
The centre-left opposition, which recently dumped Mr Veltroni, is making little headway.
They are intensely competitive, and after the older man became head of the reformed communists, Mr Veltroni struggled to find a role.
ECONOMIST: D’Alema and Veltroni, rivals on Italy’s left | The
He is as entitled to be judged on his performance as was Rome's previous mayor, Walter Veltroni, once the Communists' youth leader.
Instead, he was ready to discuss with Mr Veltroni a new electoral system along German lines: proportional representation, with a threshold for parliament.
ECONOMIST: Silvio Berlusconi's makes big plans for a new party
In part the fact that Mr Veltroni, a former mayor of Rome, was unconvincing in his claim to represent a new kind of politics.
Even before the election, Mr Veltroni said he wanted to co-operate with Mr Berlusconi on electoral and constitutional reforms to make Italy easier to govern.
ECONOMIST: Walter Veltroni risks being too nice to Silvio Berlusconi
Though 19 years younger than the prime minister-elect, who is now 71, Mr Veltroni was already a seasoned politician when Mr Berlusconi entered political life in 1994.
In the ballot for the Chamber of Deputies the best indication of the overall mood it won about 9% more votes than the centre-left alliance led by Walter Veltroni.
And the left did conspicuously well in Rome, whose mayor, Walter Veltroni, is one of the few credible alternatives to Mr Prodi as leader of the opposition.
Mr Veltroni was particularly shaken last week, when his party colleague in charge of the regional government in Emilia-Romagna, a bastion of the left, defected to Mr Prodi.
Mr Veltroni was, it is true, constantly undermined by Massimo D'Alema, a PD baron and former prime minister whose refusal to take a back seat weakened the centre-left.
The outgoing finance minister, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, put up tax rates while cracking down on tax evasion a combination that made the government hugely unpopular, and damaged Mr Veltroni's campaign.
Rooted in a discredited creed, Eurocommunism, and a discredited movement, Christian democracy, its main leaders Mr Veltroni, Mr Rutelli and Mr D'Alema have been rejected by voters, outwitted by Mr Berlusconi or both.
ECONOMIST: Walter Veltroni risks being too nice to Silvio Berlusconi
Some were outraged to find out that Mr Zoff had been appointed after consultation with Walter Veltroni, who leads the ex-communist Democrats of the Left, the largest party in the government coalition.
It was particularly striking that Mr D'Alema and his party's national secretary, Walter Veltroni, were both overshadowed at the conference by a third man, Sergio Cofferati, the old-style boss of Italy's largest trade union.
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