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Introduction to Italian History
and Culture
The Italian Society: Past and Present
The Paradoxes of the Italian Society
• “In Italy for thirty years
under the Borgias they had
warfare, terror, murder and
bloodshed but they
produced Michelangelo,
Leonardo da Vinci and the
Renaissance. In Switzerland,
they had brotherly love, they
had five hundred years of
democracy and peace and
what did that produce? The
Cuckoo clock.” Orson Welles
in The Third Man
The Paradoxes of the Italian Society
• "First of all, let's get one thing straight. Your Italy
and our Italia are not the same thing. Italy is a soft
drug peddled in predictable packages, such as hills
in the sunset, olive groves, lemon trees, white wine,
and raven-haired girls. Italia, on the other hand, is a
maze. It's alluring, but complicated. It's the kind of
place that can have you fuming and then purring in
the space of a hundred meters, or in the course of
ten minutes. Italy is the only workshop in the world
that can turn out both Botticellis and Berlusconis."
Beppe Severgnini, Journalist and Writer
The Paradoxes of the Italian Society
• For us to go to Italy and
to penetrate into Italy is a
most fascinating act of
self-discovery - back,
back down the old ways
of time. Strange and
wonderful chords awake
in us, and vibrate again
after many hundreds of
years of complete forgetfullness. D.H. Lawrence
“The Creator made Italy from the designs by
Michelangelo.” Mark Twain
The Paradoxes of the Italian Society
• I do not have any political commitments anymore. I’m
politically a total agnostic; I’m one of the few writers in
Italy who refuses to be identified with a specific
political party.
• Italo Calvino
The Paradoxes of the Italian Society
• Real socialism is inside
man. It wasn’t born with
Marx. It was in the
communes of Italy in the
Middle Ages. You can’t
say it is finished.
• Dario Fo
The Paradoxes of the Italian Society
• ‘But Italy is not an intellectual country. On the
subway in Tokyo everybody reads. In Italy, they
don’t. Don’t evaluate Italy from the fact that it
produced Raphael and Michelangelo.’ Umberto
Eco
The Paradoxes of the Italian Society
• “Mussolini never killed
anyone. Mussolini used
to send people on
vacation in internal exile.”
• “The racial laws were the
worst fault of Mussolini
as a leader, who in so
many other ways did
well.” Silvio Berlusconi,
January, 2013
The Paradoxes of the Italian Society
• ‘Italy is now a great country to invest in … Today
we have fewer communists, and those who are
still there deny having been one. Another reason
to invest in Italy is that we have beautiful
secretaries.’ Silvio Berlusconi
The beauty and the beast: Italy is full of beautiful
architecture but many face decay and deterioration.
Lack of care and funding, and administrative
malfunctioning
Incredible wealth and conspicuous spending and
widespread poverty and urban deprivation
The most beautiful landscape and the ugliest
industrial scenery: concentration of heavy industry
and the north-south divide.
Italy was the land of learning and civilization; now
the Italians read the least in EU and have one of the
worst television
The Italian Economy
• Late in industrialization.
• Business caught up with
and overtook Western
European countries,
particularly in the north.
• Metallurgical and
engineering industry
• Weakness: lack of raw
materials and cumbersome
bureaucracy and
regulations
The Italian Economy
• Problems: North – South
divide
• Industrial North and
agricultural South
• Two largest sectors:
chemical and garment
industries.
• The fourth largest GDP in
Europe following
Germany, France, and GB,
surpassing Russia
The Italian Economy
• Italian economic problems
• Inefficient levying of direct
taxes
• Since the creation of the
republic after WWII,
economy relied on public
loans to finance public works
• Many did not pay direct
income tax till the 1970s
• Tax evasions
• Thriving underground
economy
The Italian Economy
• By 1991 public debt exceeded GDP and still does in 2012
• After the economic recession since 2007 the Italian
economy stagnated, GDP continues to fall, and
unemployment topped 10 %
• One of the acronym ‘PIIGS’
• In referendum, Italy replaced
monarchy with a republic
• A new constitution
• Built-in guarantees against
easy amendment
• Sovereignty belongs to the
people
• Rights of men
• Equality before the law
• Freedom of speech and faith
• Abolishing the patriarchal legal
system and legalization of
divorce and abortion
Government and
Society
• Bicameral parliament –
Chamber of Deputies and
Senate
• Members of the Chamber of
Deputies popularly elected via
a proportional representation
• Members of the Senate too
via PR, but several members
appointed by the president(s)
• Difference – the minimum age
to be an electorate and
candidate
• 18 and 25 / 25 and 40
• Terms 5 years
Government and
Society
Government and Society
• The Presidential Office
• President as the head of
state
• Elected by the two-thirds
majority of a college of the
two chambers and three
representatives from each
region
• Calls special sessions; delays
and authorizes legislation
• Dissolve parliament at his
own initiative or at the
request of the government
Government and
Society
• Electoral System
• Full proportional
representation after WWII
• The 2005 reform allocates
a number of bonus seats
to the winning coalition to
guarantee a majority for
victors. (Deputies)
• No such privilege for the
Senate
• The same legislative power
Governement and
Society
• Political parties from the
end of WWII to the 1990s
• Two major parties –
Christian Democratic and
Italian Communist parties
with small parties
• The fall of communism in
1991, prosecutions of
corrupt officials and
politicians (mani pulite),
electoral reforms
• Demise of the First
Republic and
disappearance of major
political parties
Government and
Society
• Tangentopoli (tangente =
kickback, poli = cities) cities
of kickbacks and bribes
• Investigations called mani
pullite (clean hands)
revealed massive kickbacks
given for public work
contracts
• More than the half of the
members of parliament
under indictment, but
mainly CD and PS
• More than 400 city and
town councils dissolved for
corruption charges
Government and
Society
• The Second Republic
• Three major parties rose to
dominate the political right –
Forza Italia, the Northern
League and the National
Alliance
• PCI reborn as Democratic Party
of the Left (later DS)
• In 2007 DS merged with a
centrist Daisy (Margherita)
Party and became the
Democratic Party (centre-left)
• FI joined with AN to create the
centre-right People of Freedom
(Popolo della libertá) Party
Government
and Society
Italy in 1494
Italian History: Unification
• Italy was divided into
eight states: SardiniaPiemont, Lombardy,
Venezia, Parma, Modena,
Tuscany, Papal State,
Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies at the time of the
Congress of Vienna, 1815.
• The role of Piemont
• King Vittorio Emanuele II
of Sardinia-Piemont
formed a cabinet under
Massimo d’Azeglio
Italian History: Unification
• D’Azeglio introduced the new law curtailing the power of
ecclesiastical courts.
• Camillo Benso di Cavour entered the cabinet and
introduced economic reforms – laissez-faire policy
• Sardinia-Piemont fought with the victorious side in the
Crimean War and strengthened its position in the
international politics.
Italian History:
Unification
• The monarchist, unionist National Society and Garibaldi
and the Thousand supported Cavour’s democratic
policies to unify Italy by removing foreign powers
(Austria).
• The Kingdom of Italy was officially proclaimed on March
17th 1861.
Education
• Compulsory education for
those between 6 and 16 years
• Now about two-thirds of
people of university age
attend university, and almost
nine-tenths of people of high
school age attend high school.
• Most schools and universities
are run by the state, with
uniform pragrammes across
the country
• Less than one tenth attend
private schools