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Italian Government

Michael A. Livingston, Pier Giuseppe Monateri, and Francesco Parisi

Mauro Capelletti, John Henry Meryman, and Joseph M. Perillo (eds)

in The Italian Legal System: An Introduction, Second Edition

This chapter describes the Italian political system, the principal political parties, and the outlines of the judicial system as they existed in the mid- to late 1960s. There is also a brief ... More

This chapter describes the Italian political system, the principal political parties, and the outlines of the judicial system as they existed in the mid- to late 1960s. There is also a brief discussion of the government’s role in the Italian economy.Less

The Kingmakers of Fresh Pond Road: Ethnic-Political Brokers in an Italian American Community

Ottorino Cappelli and Rodrigo Praino

in New Italian Migrations to the United States: Vol. 1: Politics and History since 1945

This work provides an analysis of ethnic politics in the context of Italian American politics by focusing on the political activities and the rise and fall of one group of post–World War II Italian ... More

This work provides an analysis of ethnic politics in the context of Italian American politics by focusing on the political activities and the rise and fall of one group of post–World War II Italian citizens who immigrated to New York City between the 1950s and the 1970s. For a few decades until the 2010s, these people were politically active in local and state politics in the area of the NYS 15th senatorial district, Queens County, and instrumental in the twenty-year career of Italian American New York State Senator Serphin Maltese. We define these individuals dual or binational ethnic-political brokers who utilize resources as Italian American community leaders in order to influence both American politics and Italian politics.Less

Allen Curnow Travels

Peter Robinson

in Twentieth Century Poetry: Selves and Situations

This chapter forms a consideration of the poetry that the New Zealand poet Allen Curnow wrote about his overseas experience. The poetry occasioned by his various sojourns in England, America, and ... More

This chapter forms a consideration of the poetry that the New Zealand poet Allen Curnow wrote about his overseas experience. The poetry occasioned by his various sojourns in England, America, and Italy is explored, and in particular how an outsider addresses the political realities of places visited. There are discussions of Curnow's poems about the Kennedy era, and about the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades in 1970s Italy. The chapter concludes with a section on ‘mental travelling’ and on long-distance flying.Less

Between Church and State: Stem Cells, Embryos, and Citizens in Italian Politics

Ingrid Metzler

in Reframing Rights: Bioconstitutionalism in the Genetic Age

This chapter analyzes the politics of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research in Italy. It demonstrates how political abstinence reinforced the position of a church whose injunctions of sexual ... More

This chapter analyzes the politics of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research in Italy. It demonstrates how political abstinence reinforced the position of a church whose injunctions of sexual abstinence were seemingly too well heeded in a nation with a famously declining birth rate. It looks closely at Italian Law 40 and its provisions. This law marked the beginning of the Italian politics of hESC research. The chapter shows that Italy’s national soul searching on the pitfalls of stem cell technologies took the form of lessons about human genomes and excursions into human biology. It suggests that hESCs became the symbols of a battle for rights that peaked in an abrogative referendum.Less

Charles Tomlinson in the Golfo dei Poeti

Peter Robinson

in Twentieth Century Poetry: Selves and Situations

The discussion of poetry about Italian politics is continued in this reading of Charles Tomlinson's poem Up at La Serra. This poem, set in Liguria in 1951, takes as its model a poem by Antonio ... More

The discussion of poetry about Italian politics is continued in this reading of Charles Tomlinson's poem Up at La Serra. This poem, set in Liguria in 1951, takes as its model a poem by Antonio Machado called Poema de un día, which Tomlinson had translated with the assistance of Henry Gifford. The chapter compares and contrasts the treatment of the situated poetic subject in the two poems, and how the Spanish original phrases its sense of a self in a situation differently from the translation.Less

Manifest Disguise and Mediatized Politics

Noelle Molé Liston

in The Truth Society: Science, Disinformation, and Politics in Berlusconi's Italy

This chapter concentrates on a mystery of late-twentieth-century Italy, which recounts how Silvio Berlusconi enchanted citizens and dominated Italian politics for nearly twenty years despite widely ... More

This chapter concentrates on a mystery of late-twentieth-century Italy, which recounts how Silvio Berlusconi enchanted citizens and dominated Italian politics for nearly twenty years despite widely shared agreement on his corruption and ineptitude. It analyses how a dazzling political culture changes how Italians discerned what counted as accurate and reliable information, and which actors might be trusted to offer the facts. It also focuses on Striscia la Notizia, one of the world's first fake news programs, and its plush mascot Gabibbo, a human-sized red puppet who is praised as a civil defender. The chapter uses Gabibbo to unravel why Italy became a site in which puppets talking politics were more reliable than puppet-like politicians. It suggests that postwar political spectacle gave way to a widespread popular cynicism capable of simultaneously propelling former prime minister Berlusconi's peculiar popularity and puppets seen as truth-tellers.Less

From Resistance to Historic Compromise: the politics of the PCI

Phil Edwards

in More Work! Less Pay!': Rebellion and Repression in Italy, 1972-77

This chapter traces the ideological development of the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) from the Fascist period to the party's assumption of a gatekeeper role in Italian politics in the 1970s. It ... More

This chapter traces the ideological development of the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) from the Fascist period to the party's assumption of a gatekeeper role in Italian politics in the 1970s. It explains that the PCI was founded in 1921 and suggests that the party's early identity was thus formed in clandestinity and in exile. This chapter chronicles the development of the Palmiro Togliatti's Italian road to socialism, the repeated confrontations between left and right within the party, and with Enrico Berlinguer's historic compromise programme. It describes how Berlinguer's leadership enabled the party to engage constructively with the first cycle of contention, but made a hostile engagement with the second cycle inevitable.Less

The politics of the unities: tragedy and the Risorgimento in Byron and Manzoni

Arnold Anthony Schmidt

in Byron and Italy

This chapter takes an original approach to Byron’s much-discussed engagement with the early Risorgimento by focusing not on biographical aspects, but rather on formal issues. It centres on The Two ... More

This chapter takes an original approach to Byron’s much-discussed engagement with the early Risorgimento by focusing not on biographical aspects, but rather on formal issues. It centres on The Two Foscari in the context of the highly politicised contemporary Italian critical debates about the dramatic unities. In this fashion, it teases out the political implications of Byron’s adherence to the unities by comparing his play to Alessandro Manzoni’s Il conte di Carmagnola, which programmatically violates them. Focusing specifically on the playwrights’ representations of the fifteenth-century mercenary leader, Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola, the chapter explores these writers’ use or abuse of the unity of time, in particular. In doing so, it throws light on, and contrasts, Manzoni’s Risorgimento agenda on the one hand and Byron’s generally sceptical attitude about leadership and uncertainty about social and political change on the other.Less

Conclusion

Alessandro Brogi

in Confronting America: The Cold War between the United States and the Communists in France and Italy

In conclusion, this book argues that Communist strength in France and Italy was a pivotal threat to U.S. interests for most of the Cold War. In itself, it warranted attention and carefully crafted ... More

In conclusion, this book argues that Communist strength in France and Italy was a pivotal threat to U.S. interests for most of the Cold War. In itself, it warranted attention and carefully crafted strategies in Washington. Seen in the context of European anti-Americanism, however, the threat transcended the confines of French and Italian politics. From the point of view of the French and Italian Communists, the challenge of a modernization process largely influenced by the United States also signified a confrontation with the inequities of capitalism. For all their failures, we must keep in mind an important aspect of the French and Italian Communists' political presence throughout the Cold War: in many respects, the two parties, with their staying power, became vehicles of social justice for the lower classes and disadvantaged groups.Less

The Church and Machiavelli’s Depiction of Italy’s Historical Situation

Vickie B. Sullivan

in Machiavelli's Three Romes: Religion, Human Liberty, and Politics Reformed

This chapter provides an analysis of The Prince. This analysis indicates that the papacy's characteristic features—its lack of arms and its politically deleterious form of nobility—produce a weakness ... More

This chapter provides an analysis of The Prince. This analysis indicates that the papacy's characteristic features—its lack of arms and its politically deleterious form of nobility—produce a weakness so debilitating to Italian politics as to prevent the founding of a state resilient enough to solve Italy's very evident problems. When this analysis is properly grasped, Cesare Borgia's fate stands not as an example worthy of emulation, but as a warning to anyone who looks to the Church to assume responsibility for Italy's political fate. Niccolò Machiavelli's view of this institution as irremediably troublesome induces him to contemplate the possibility of its violent extirpation. Even if these passages are to be regarded merely as devilish sport on Machiavelli's part, they still retain a chilling character that bespeaks the depth of his hatred of the Church's hierarchy.Less

Fascism: The Antecedents

in Totalitarianism and Political Religion: An Intellectual History

This chapter focuses on the individuals who sought the reunification of Italy during period of the Risorgimento (resurgence) in the nineteenth century—Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi—and ... More

This chapter focuses on the individuals who sought the reunification of Italy during period of the Risorgimento (resurgence) in the nineteenth century—Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi—and describes their struggle for nationhood and the legacy they left that influenced Italian politics. It also examines the role that the Roman Catholic Church played in the reunification of the Italian peninsula.Less

True Lies: Leo of Vercelli and the Struggle for Piedmont

Levi Roach

in Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium

This chapter investigates how the appointment of Leo to the episcopal seat of S. Eusebio opened a new chapter in Vercelli's history. Leo certainly exploited the opportunity of producing his own ... More

This chapter investigates how the appointment of Leo to the episcopal seat of S. Eusebio opened a new chapter in Vercelli's history. Leo certainly exploited the opportunity of producing his own diplomas to cast Vercelli in the best possible light. In the tumultuous politics of the late ninth century, the see had been sacked at least once, resulting in substantial archival losses. Where elsewhere forgery was used to plug such gaps, Leo resorted to more subtle means of documentary manipulation: he improved one of the few surviving diplomas for his see (in the name of Charles the Fat), while furnishing his own texts with numerous historical asides, which helped anchor his claims in the bishopric's longer history. From the present perspective, the interest of Leo's experiences lies in the light they shed on the use and abuse of charters within the Italian realm. Leo's diplomas are genuine, even if their content is often tendentious. They provide a welcome reminder that modern scholarly judgements of forgery and authenticity are analytical, not moral, ones. Just as counterfeits can tell the truth, so authentic texts are often deeply deceitful.Less