Constitution of ItalyThe Constitution of the Italian Republic (Costituzione della Repubblica Italiana) was enacted by the Constituent Assembly on 22 December 1947, with 453 votes in favour and 62 against. The text, which has since been amended sixteen times, was promulgated in an extraordinary edition of Gazzetta Ufficiale on 27 December 1947. The Constituent Assembly was elected by universal suffrage on 2 June 1946, on the same day as the referendum on the abolition of the monarchy was held, and it was formed by the representatives of all the anti-fascist forces that contributed to the defeat of Nazi and Fascist forces during the Italian Civil War.
Giorgio NapolitanoGiorgio Napolitano (ˈdʒordʒo napoliˈtaːno; born 29 June 1925) is an Italian politician who served as president of Italy from 2006 to 2015, the first to be re-elected to the office. Due to his dominant position in Italian politics, some critics have sometimes referred to him as Re Giorgio ("King Giorgio"). In office from 2006 to 2015, he is the longest-serving and longest-lived president in the history of the modern Italian Republic, which has been in existence since 1946.
Giuseppe ConteGiuseppe Conte (dʒuˈzɛppe ˈkonte; born 8 August 1964) is an Italian jurist, academic, and politician who served as prime minister of Italy from June 2018 to February 2021. He has been the president of the Five Star Movement (M5S) since August 2021. Conte spent the greater part of his career as a private law professor and was also a member of the Italian Bureau of Administrative Justice from 2013 to 2018. Following the 2018 Italian general election, he was proposed as the independent leader of a coalition government between the M5S and the League, despite his having never held any political position before.
ItaliansItalians (Italiani, itaˈljaːni) are an ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common culture, history, ancestry and language. Their predecessors differ regionally, but generally include native populations such as the Etruscans, the Rhaetians, the Ligurians, the Adriatic Veneti, and the Italic peoples, including the Latins, from which the Romans emerged and helped create and evolve the modern Italian identity.
Government of ItalyThe government of Italy is in the form of a democratic republic, and was established by a constitution in 1948. It consists of legislative, executive, and judicial subdivisions, as well as a Head of State, or President. The Italian Constitution is the result of the work of the Constituent Assembly, which was formed by the representatives of all the anti-fascist forces that contributed to the defeat of Nazi and Fascist forces during the Italian Civil War. Article 1 of the Italian constitution states: Italy is a democratic Republic founded on labour.
Silvio BerlusconiSilvio Berlusconi (ˌbɛərlʊˈskoʊni ; ˈsilvjo berluˈskoːni; 29 September 1936 – 12 June 2023) was an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as the prime minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1994 to 2013; a member of the Senate of the Republic from 2022 to his death in 2023, and previously from March to November 2013; and a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2019 to 2022, and previously from 1999 to 2001.
Luigi Di MaioLuigi Di Maio (luˈiːdʒi di ˈmaːjo; born 6 July 1986) is an Italian politician who has been serving as EU Special Representative for the Gulf region since 1 June 2023. Di Maio also served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2019 to 2022, as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Economic Development, Labour and Social Policies from 2018 to 2019, and as Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies in the 17th Italian legislature. From September 2017 to January 2020, Di Maio was the leader of the Five Star Movement, an anti-establishment party founded by Beppe Grillo.
Paolo GentiloniPaolo Gentiloni Silveri (ˈpaːolo dʒentiˈloːni; born 22 November 1954) is an Italian politician who has served as European Commissioner for Economy in the von der Leyen Commission since 1 December 2019. He previously served as prime minister of Italy from December 2016 to June 2018. After a lengthy career in local politics, Gentiloni was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 2001. He served in the Cabinet under Romano Prodi as Minister of Communications from 2006 to 2008.
Italian electoral law of 2017The Italian electoral law of 2017, colloquially known by the nickname Rosatellum bis or simply Rosatellum after Ettore Rosato, the Democratic Party (PD) leader in the Chamber of Deputies who first proposed the new law, is a parallel voting system, which acts as a mixed electoral system, with 37% of seats allocated using a first-past-the-post electoral system and 63% using a proportional method, with one round of voting. The Chamber and Senate of the Republic did not differ in the way they allocated the proportional seats, both using the largest remainder method of allocating seats.
History of ItalyThe European country of Italy has been inhabited by humans since at least 850,000 years ago. Since classical antiquity, ancient Etruscans, various Italic peoples (such as the Latins, Samnites, and Umbri), Celts, Magna Graecia colonists, and other ancient peoples have inhabited the Italian Peninsula. Italy was the birthplace and centre of the ancient Roman civilisation. Rome was founded as a kingdom in 753 BC and became a republic in 509 BC.