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Three years ago, I stood in the majestic office of Matteo Renzi in Florence's imposing Palazzo Vecchio and listened to the then 37-year-old mayor of the Renaissance city wax enthusiastic about a lost Leonardo da Vinci painting, "The Battle of Anghiari," which Renzi said was very likely located on a hidden inner wall underneath a fresco in the palace. He told me that within days city hall would hold a press conference with an exciting announcement about the masterpiece.

At the time, Italy's mammoth debt threatened to derail the euro, Berlusconi had unceremoniously stepped down as prime minister, and Mario Monti was heading up an interim technocrat government.

Despite the dire mood in the country, Renzi expressed as much faith in his fellow Italians - well, most of them - as he did that the Leonardo masterpiece would soon be uncovered.

"I believe if we are in this situation it's not because we have lost our Italian genius and creativity, but it's because we have decided to leave all responsibility in the public sector without vision," he told me in his exuberant, clunky English. "[Italian] politicians have been characterized by division, not vision. This is the most important point."

Less than two years later, Renzi won over the diffident Democratic Party who grudgingly accepted him as leader. He then moved fast to pressure another stopgap prime minister, Enrico Letta, to kindly step aside so he could take the reigns of government and get on with the changes he had in mind for his country.

While Renzi's vision for a renewed Italy was hardly novel - constitutional, electoral and labor reform - he communicated it with a dynamism that the cumbersome, bickering center-left had not seen the likes of. In a political landscape dominated by older men, he set up one of the youngest cabinets in Europe with half of its members women. And he engaged with the only real oppositional force in Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, in a way that raised suspicion in his own party, but that allowed him to get Senate approval for a new electoral law that should ensure more political stability.

'Post-modern politician'

Leonardo Morlino, political science professor at Luiss University in Rome, says given the high degree of mutual distrust among political parties that has characterized Italy's postwar democracy, Renzi has done well remain in power and have his popularity rise both among those on the right and left.

"Let's not forget Italy has been in a stalemate for more than 20 years," Morlino says. "Renzi came with all willingness, energy, ideas and intention to change the way Italian democracy works. If we're honest and put party allegiances aside," he says, "we need to admit we still have to wait and see."

Massimiliano Panarari, a political communication expert and columnist, however, insists that while Renzi is far from accomplishing all he has promised, he represents a real revolution in Italian politics.

Panarari calls Renzi a post-modern politician who is the paradigm of "following leadership," the ability to quickly gage what Italians - and politicians - want and shift his short-term political agenda to reflect it.

He lauds as a savvy move Renzi's tax reform decree that included an 80-euro ($91) monthly bonus for low income earners shortly after he assumed office.

Still, many Italians, especially those belonging to the traditional left, are only tepidly supportive of Renzi at best. After all, the economy still hovers around zero growth, unemployment has risen in the last year and many see the slight loosening of the labor code that is part of Renzi's Jobs Act reform as an attack on workers rights.

Rumblings under the surface

But others, like medical researcher Manuela Lopez, who says she was distrustful of Renzi at first, says she's tired of the harsh criticism Renzi receives by parties such as Leftist Ecology Freedom party.

"Renzi seems smart and energetic and the mere fact that his plans haven't been totally bogged down in the Italian system give us some hope," she says. "I just don't understand why the hardcore segment of the left coalition are constantly gunning for him. What have they accomplished in the last 20 years?"

Indeed, as Massimilano Panarari points out, with the implosion of Silvio Berlusconi's center-right Forza Italia, the only real risk to Renzi is from his supposed allies.

"The conflict is inside the Democratic Party, the only organized political party in Italy right now," he said. "But it's a conflict that's mainly undeclared, underground, which could turn out to be a great source of instability."

He also expresses doubts about how good for the country Renzi's style of leadership is, calling it too "Caesar-like." This week, Renzi employed non-stop "river" sessions in parliament to curtail parliamentarians' ability to file amendments as a way to block his constitutional reform bill. The bill includes a controversial transformation of the bloated Senate into a much smaller assembly of local-government representatives with limited lawmaking powers.

Leonardo Morlino, though, cites Renzi's ability to pull together a divided parliament to elect Sergio Mattarella as Italy's president in January as boding well for the future.

"The classic definition of a leader is someone who is skillful at unifying people around him," he says, "and in this case, he was very good."

Nonetheless, the obstacles to "unblock Italy," the title of the set of reforms that became law November 2014, are enormous in a country where seemingly highly anticipated changes are regularly derailed by infighting and bureaucracy.

Case in point: Six months after Renzi excitedly told me of the imminent uncovering of Leonardo's "Battle of Anghiari," the search for the masterpiece was put on hold due to conflict between the parties involved.

So far, no news on any progress.