Internal error opening cache (1)

Synaptic is stuck. I tried to install the cups drivers for my printer (Brother) and it gave an error. While trying to remove the package it was locked like this (error 1 in italian)
I tried dpkg --configure -a as suggested in a similar question and it did not work (see message 2 below in italian too, sorry).
Synaptic and the Update manager now both exit with error 1.
Any suggestion to bring it back to working status ?

Error 1:
E: Il pacchetto mfc440cncupswrapper deve essere reinstallato, ma non si riesce a trovare un archivio per esso.
E: Errore interno aprendo la cache (1). Segnalare l'errore.
Translation:
E: package mfc440cncupswrapper has to be reinstalled, ma an archive cannot be found for it
E: internal error opening cache (1). Report the error.

Error 2:
dpkg: errore processando mfc440cncupswrapper (--configure):
 Il pacchetto si trova in uno stato di inconsistenza grave - dovresti
 reinstallarlo prima di tentare la configurazione.
Sono occorsi degli errori processando:
 mfc440cncupswrapper
Translation:
dpkg: error processing mfc440cncupswrapper (--configure)
The package is in a state of severe incosistency - you should reinstall it before trying to configure it.
Errors occurred processing:
 mfc440cncupswrapper