Political spectrum
A political spectrum is a system of classifying different political positions upon one or more geometric axes that represent independent political dimensions. Most long-standing spectra include a left wing, which referred to seating arrangements in the French parliament after the Revolution. On a left–right spectrum and socialism are regarded internationally as being on the left, Liberalism can mean different things in different contexts: sometimes on the left; those with an intermediate outlook are sometimes classified as centrists. That said and neoliberals are called centrists too. Politics that rejects the conventional left–right spectrum is known as syncretic politics, though the label tends to mischaracterize positions that have a logical location on a two-axis spectrum because they seem randomly brought together on a one-axis left-right spectrum. Political scientists have noted that a single left–right axis is insufficient for describing the existing variation in political beliefs and include other axes.
Though the descriptive words at polar opposites may vary in popular biaxial spectra the axes are split between socio-cultural issues and economic issues, each scaling from some form of individualism to some form of communitarianism. The terms right and left refer to political affiliations originating early in the French Revolutionary era of 1789–1799 and referred to the seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France; as seen from the Speaker's seat at the front of the Assembly, the aristocracy sat on the right and the commoners sat on the left, hence the terms right-wing politics and left-wing politics. The defining point on the ideological spectrum was the Ancien Régime. "The Right" thus implied support for aristocratic or royal interests and the church, while "The Left" implied support for republicanism and civil liberties. Because the political franchise at the start of the revolution was narrow, the original "Left" represented the interests of the bourgeoisie, the rising capitalist class.
Support for laissez-faire commerce and free markets were expressed by politicians sitting on the left because these represented policies favorable to capitalists rather than to the aristocracy, but outside parliamentary politics these views are characterized as being on the Right. The reason for this apparent contradiction lies in the fact that those "to the left" of the parliamentary left, outside official parliamentary structures represent much of the working class, poor peasantry and the unemployed, their political interests in the French Revolution lay with opposition to the aristocracy and so they found themselves allied with the early capitalists. However, this did not mean that their economic interests lay with the laissez-faire policies of those representing them politically; as capitalist economies developed, the aristocracy became less relevant and were replaced by capitalist representatives. The size of the working class increased as capitalism expanded and began to find expression through trade unionist, socialist and communist politics rather than being confined to the capitalist policies expressed by the original "left".
This evolution has pulled parliamentary politicians away from laissez-faire economic policies, although this has happened to different degrees in different countries those with a history of issues with more authoritarian-left countries, such as the Soviet Union or China under Mao Zedong. Thus the word "Left" in American political parlance may refer to "liberalism" and be identified with the Democratic Party, whereas in a country such as France these positions would be regarded as more right-wing, or centrist overall, "left" is more to refer to "socialist" or "social-democratic" positions rather than "liberal" ones. For a century, social scientists have considered the problem of how best to describe political variation. In 1950, Leonard W. Ferguson analyzed political values using ten scales measuring attitudes toward: birth control, capital punishment, communism, law, theism, treatment of criminals and war. Submitting the results to factor analysis, he was able to identify three factors, which he named religionism and nationalism.
He defined religionism as belief in God and negative attitudes toward birth control. This system was derived empirically, as rather than devising a political model on purely theoretical grounds and testing it, Ferguson's research was exploratory; as a result of this method, care must be taken in the interpretation of Ferguson's three factors, as factor analysis will output an abstract factor whether an objectively real factor exists or not. Although replication of the nationalism factor was inconsistent, the finding of religionism and humanitarianism had a number of replications by Ferguson and others. Shortly afterward, Hans Eysenck began researching political attitudes in Great Britain, he believed that there was something similar about the National Socialists on the one hand and the communists on the other, despite their opposite positions on the left–right axis. As Hans Eysenck described in his 1956 book Sense and
Italian Republican Party
The Italian Republican Party is a liberal and social-liberal political party in Italy. Founded in 1895, the PRI is the oldest political party still active in Italy; the PRI has old roots and a long history that began with a left-wing position, claiming descent from the political thought of Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi. The early PRI was known for its anti-clerical, anti-monarchist republican and anti-fascist stances. While maintaining the latter three traits, during the second half of the 20th century the party moved to the centre of the political spectrum, becoming economically liberal; as such, the PRI was a member of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party from 1976 to 2010. After 1949 the party was a member of the pro-NATO alliance formed by Christian Democrats, Democratic Socialists and Liberals, enabling it to participate in most governments of the 1950s. In 1963 the PRI helped bring together the Italian Socialist Party. Although small in terms of voter support, it was an important opinion leader, as articulated by Eugenio Chiesa, Giovanni Conti, Cipriano Facchinetti, Ugo La Malfa and Bruno Visentini.
The PRI traces its origins from the time of Italian unification and more to the democratic-republican wing represented by figures such as Giuseppe Mazzini, Carlo Cattaneo and Carlo Pisacane. They were against the so-called piemontesizzazione of Italy, meaning the conquest by war of the Kingdom of Sardinia of the rest of Italy. After the latter was unified under the Savoy kings, following the political lines of moderates such as Camillo Benso di Cavour, the Republicans remained aside from the political life of the new country, proclaiming their abstention from elections, they created several democratic movements, like the Brotherhood Pact of Workers' Societies, founded by Mazzini in 1871. However, Mazzini's death the following year and internationalism put the Republicans in a difficult position. In the run-up of the 1880 general election, the Republicans chose to abandon abstentionism. At the time, their ranks included both members of the middle class, such as Giovanni Bovio, Arcangelo Ghisleri and Napoleone Colajanni, as well as the working class, such as Valentino Armirotti.
The PRI, whose power base was limited to Romagna, Marche, the Tuscan littoral and Lazio, was founded in 1895. By the end of the century, the party was allied with the Italian Socialist Party and the Radical Party in several local governments, including Milan and Rome. At the outbreak of World War I, the PRI sided with interventionists, aiming at supporting France and annexing Trento and Trieste. After the end of the conflict, the party tried to form an alliance with other left-wing parties, but the attempt failed as the PSI at was influenced by its "maximalist" wing. In 1921, Pietro Nenni left the PRI to become one of the leaders of the PSI. In the 1920s, the rise of the National Fascist Party caused the collapse of all Italian left-wing parties, including the PRI, banned in 1926. Several Republicans were arrested, confined or exiled and the PRI collaborated to the anti-fascist struggle. In 1927, the party joined Anti-fascist Concentration. In the late 1930s it participated in the Spanish Civil War.
In 1940, the German occupation of France, where many Republicans had took refuge, put the party in jeopardy. During the armed resistance against the German occupation of Italy from 1943, PRI members were part of the provincial National Liberation Committees, but they did not participate to the national CLN as they did not want to collaborate with Italian monarchists, some of whom were active members of the committee. In 1946, the PRI gained 4.4% of the popular vote in the election for a Constituent Assembly, confirming its traditional strongholds. However, it was weak if compared to Christian Democracy and the Italian Communist Party. After that, a ballot on the same day abolished monarchy in Italy and the PRI declared itself available to take a role in the government of Italy, entering the second government of Alcide De Gasperi. In late 1946, Ugo La Malfa and Ferruccio Parri members of the Action Party, moved to the PRI. La Malfa would be appointed as minister in several of the following governments.
At the 19th congress of the party held in 1947, there were two main inner trends: one, represented by the national secretary Randolfo Pacciardi, supported an alliance with the PCI. The latter was to prevail. Carlo Sforza, a Republican, was Minister of Foreign Affairs in De Gasperi's third government, although only as an independent. Sforza signed the treaty of peace and contributed to the entrance of Italy into the Marshall Plan, NATO and the Council of Europe; the exclusion of left-wing parties from the government in 1947 led the PRI to join De Gasperi's fourth government. Pacciardi refused to take a position as minister; as the PCI was closer to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Pacciardi changed his mind and became Deputy Prime Minister. The 1948 general election saw the PRI as a solid ally of the DC, but a reduction of the party's share to 2.5%. In the following years, the strongest party faction was that of La Malfa, who refused to participate to the DC-led governments until 1962. In 1963, the party voted in favour of the first centre-left government in Italy led by Aldo Moro.
Pacciardi, who had voted against, was expelled and founded a separate movement, Democratic Union for the New Republic, whose electoral result were dis
Segni Pact
The Segni Pact called the Pact of National Rebirth, was a Christian-democratic and liberal political party in Italy, named after Mario Segni. The party was founded in 1993 by the Populars for Reform, a split from Christian Democracy in 1992 whose basic goal was electoral reform from proportional representation to plurality voting, splinters from the Democratic Alliance; the party contested the 1994 general election within the Pact for Italy coalition, along with the Italian People's Party, the PS leader Mario Segni was "candidate for Prime Minister". The PS included in its lists Republicans, Socialists, Democratic Socialists, several former Christian Democrats; the party obtained 4.7 % of 13 deputies. However soon after the election suffered several splits; the group around Michelini and Tremonti, for instance, founded the Liberal Democratic Foundation and decided to support the Berlusconi I Cabinet and would join Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia. In the 1995 regional elections, the PS formed a list named Pact of Democrats, along with the Italian Socialists and AD.
In the 1996 general election the party joined The Olive Tree coalition as part of Italian Renewal, winning eight seats at the Chamber of Deputies and one seat at the Senate of the Republic. In 1999, after having contributed to the foundation of the Democratic Union for the Republic, the PS attracted some former Radicals from FI, but at the same time several members left to join The Democrats. In the 1999 European Parliament election the party formed a joint list with National Alliance which received 10.3% of the vote, Segni was re-elected MEP. The PS decided not to present lists for the 2001 general election, but Cossa, member of the Sardinian Reformers, the regional section of the party in Sardinia, was elected deputy in a single-seat constituency of Cagliari for the House of Freedoms centre-right coalition. In 2003 the party was transformed into the Pact of Liberal Democrats
Democratic Party (Italy)
The Democratic Party is a social-democratic political party in Italy. The party's secretary is Nicola Zingaretti, elected in March 2019, while Paolo Gentiloni serves as president; the PD was founded on 14 October 2007 upon the merger of various centre-left parties, part of The Olive Tree list and The Union coalition in the 2006 general election. They notably included: the social-democratic Democrats of the Left, successors of the Italian Communist Party and the Democratic Party of the Left, folded with several social-democratic parties in 1998; the PD's main ideological trends are thus social democracy and the Italian Christian leftist tradition. The party has been influenced by social liberalism, present in some of the founding components of the DS and DL, more by a Third Way progressivism; the PD was the second-largest party in Italy in the 2018 general election, the third-largest in the Chamber of Deputies and the fourth-largest in the Senate. Between 2013 and 2018 the Italian government was led by three successive Democratic Prime Ministers: Enrico Letta, Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni.
As of April 2019, Democrats head eight regional governments, function as government coalition partners in two more regions. Prominent Democrats include Walter Veltroni, Dario Franceschini, Maurizio Martina, Piero Fassino, Marco Minniti, Graziano Delrio, Pier Carlo Padoan, Carlo Calenda, Maria Elena Boschi, Federica Mogherini, Debora Serracchiani, Lorenzo Guerini, Ettore Rosato, Matteo Orfini, Luigi Zanda, Sergio Chiamparino, Stefano Bonaccini, Vincenzo De Luca, Michele Emiliano, Giuseppe Sala, Leoluca Orlando, Virginio Merola and Dario Nardella. Former members include Giorgio Napolitano, Sergio Mattarella, Romano Prodi, Giuliano Amato, Massimo D'Alema, Pier Luigi Bersani, Guglielmo Epifani, Francesco Rutelli and Pietro Grasso. In the early 1990s, following Tangentopoli scandals, the end of the so-called First Republic and the transformation of the Italian Communist Party into the Democratic Party of the Left, a process aimed at uniting left-wing and centre-left forces into a single political entity was started.
In 1995 Romano Prodi, a former minister of Industry on behalf of the left-wing faction of Christian Democracy, entered politics and founded The Olive Tree, a centre-left coalition including the PDS, the Italian People's Party, the Federation of the Greens, Italian Renewal, the Italian Socialists and Democratic Union. The coalition, in alliance with the Communist Refoundation Party, won the 1996 general election and Prodi became Prime Minister. In February 1998 the PDS merged with minor social-democratic parties to become the Democrats of the Left, while in March 2002 the PPI, RI and The Democrats became Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy. In the summer of 2003 Prodi suggested that the centre-left forces would participate in the 2004 European Parliament election with a common list. Whereas the Union of Democrats for Europe and the far-left parties refused, four parties accepted: the DS, DL, the Italian Democratic Socialists and the European Republicans Movement, they launched a joint list named "United in the Olive Tree", which ran in the election and garnered 31.1% of the vote.
The project was abandoned in 2005 by the SDI. In the 2006 general election the list obtained 31.3% of the vote for the Chamber of Deputies. The project of a "Democratic Party" was mentioned by Prodi as the natural evolution of The Olive Tree and was bluntly envisioned by Michele Salvati, a former centrist deputy of the DS, in an appeal in Il Foglio newspaper in April 2013; the term Partito Democratico was used for the first time in a formal context by the DL and DS members of the Regional Council of Veneto, who chose to form a joint group named The Olive Tree – Venetian Democratic Party in March 2007. The 2006 election result, anticipated by the 2005 primary election in which over four million voters endorsed Prodi as candidate for Prime Minister, gave a push to the project of a unified centre-left party. Eight parties agreed to merge into the PD: Democrats of the Left Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy. Southern Democratic Party. While the DL agreed to the merger with no resistance, the DS experienced a more heated final congress.
On 19 April 2007 75% of party members voted in support of the merger of the DS into the PD. The left-wing opposition, led by Fabio Mussi, obtained just 15% of the support within the party. A third motion, presented by Gavino Angius and supportive of the PD only within the Party of European Socialists, obtained 10% of the vote. During and following the congress, both Mussi and Angius announced their intention not to joi
Christian Democracy (Italy)
Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic political party in Italy. The DC was founded in 1943 as the ideal successor of the Italian People's Party, which had the same symbol, a crossed shield. A Catholic-inspired, catch-all party comprising both right- and left-leaning political factions, the DC played a dominant role in the politics of Italy for fifty years, from its inception in 1944 until its final demise in 1994 amid the Tangentopoli scandals; the party was nicknamed the White Whale, due to party's huge organization and to its official color. From 1946 until 1994 the DC was the largest party in Parliament, governing in successive coalitions, it supported governments based on liberal-conservative political positions, before moving to centre-left coalitions. The party was succeeded by a string of smaller parties, including the Italian People's Party, the Christian Democratic Centre, the United Christian Democrats, the still active Union of the Centre. Former Christian Democrats are spread among other parties, including the centre-right Forza Italia and the centre-left Democratic Party.
The DC was a founding member of the European People's Party in 1976. The party was founded as the revival of the Italian People's Party, a political party created in 1919 by Luigi Sturzo, a Catholic priest; the PPI won over 20% of the votes in the 1919 and 1921 general elections, but was declared illegal by the Fascist dictatorship in 1925 despite the presence of some Popolari in Benito Mussolini's first government. As World War II was ending, the Christian Democrats started organizing post-Fascist Italy in coalition with all the other mainstream parties, including the Italian Communist Party, the Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Liberal Party, the Italian Republican Party, the Action Party and the Labour Democratic Party. In December 1945 Christian Democrat Alcide De Gasperi was appointed Prime Minister of Italy. In the 1946 general election the DC won 35.2% of the vote. In May 1947 De Gasperi broke decisively with his Communist and Socialist coalition partners under pressure from U. S. President Harry Truman.
This opened the way for a centrist coalition that included the Italian Workers' Socialist Party, a centrist break-away from the PSI, as well as its usual allies, the PLI and the PRI. In the 1948 general election the DC went on to win a decisive victory, with the support of the Catholic Church and the United States, obtained 48.5% of the vote, its best result ever. Despite his party's absolute majority in the Italian Parliament, De Gasperi continued to govern at the head of the centrist coalition, successively abandoned by the Liberals, who hoped for more right-wing policies, in 1950 and the Democratic Socialists, who hoped for more leftist policies, in 1951. Under De Gasperi, major land reforms were carried out in the poorer rural regions in the early postwar years, with farms appropriated from the large landowners and parcelled out to the peasants. In addition, during its years in office, Christian Democrats passed a number of laws safeguarding employees from exploitation, established a national health service, initiated low-cost housing in Italy’s major cities.
De Gasperi would die a year later. No Christian Democrat would match his longevity in office and, despite the fact that DC's share of vote was always between 38 and 43% from 1953 to 1979, the party was more and more fractious; as a result, Prime Ministers changed more frequently. From 1954 the DC was led by progressive Christian Democrats, such as Amintore Fanfani, Aldo Moro and Benigno Zaccagnini, supported by the influential left-wing factions. In the 1950s the party formed centrist or moderately centre-left coalitions, a short-lived government led by Fernando Tambroni relying on parliamentary support from the Italian Social Movement, the post-fascist party. In 1963 the party, under Prime Minister Aldo Moro, formed a coalition with the PSI, which returned to ministerial roles after 16 years, the PSDI and the PRI. Similar "Organic Centre-left" governments became usual through the 1970s. From 1976 to 1979 the DC governed with the external support of the PCI, through the Historic Compromise. Moro, the party main leader and who had inspired the Compromise, was abducted and murdered by the Red Brigades.
The event was a shock for the party. When Moro was abducted, the government, at the time led by Giulio Andreotti took a hardline position stating that the "State must not bend" on terrorist demands; this was a different position from the one kept in similar cases before. It was however supported by all the mainstream parties, including the PCI, with the two notable exceptions of the PSI and the Radicals. In the trial for Mafia allegations against Andreotti, it was said that he took the chance of getting rid of a dangerous political competitor by sabotaging all of the rescue options and leaving the captors with no option but killing him. During his captivity Moro wrote a series of letters, at times critical of Andreotti; the memorial written by Moro during his imprisonment was subject to several plots, including the assassination of journalist Mino Pecorelli and general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa. At the beginning of the 1980s the DC had lost part of its support over Italian voters. In 1981 Giovanni Spadolini of the PRI was the first non-Christian Democrat to lead a government since 1944, at the head of a coalition comprising the DC, the PSI, the PSDI, the PRI and the PLI, the so
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group
The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group is the liberal–centrist political group of the European Parliament. It is made up of MEPs from two European political parties, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party and the European Democratic Party, which collectively form the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe; the ALDE Group is one of the three oldest Groups, dating its unofficial origin back to September 1952 and the first meeting of the Parliament's predecessor, the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community. Founded as an explicitly liberal group, it has expanded its remit to cover the different traditions of each new Member State as they acceded to the Union, progressively changing its name in the process; the ALDE Group is the fourth-largest group in the during the Eighth European Parliament term, participated in the Grand Coalition for the Sixth Parliament. The pro-European platform of ALDE supports free market economics and pushes for European integration and the European single market.
The ALDE Group can trace its unofficial ancestry back to the Liberal members present at the first meeting of the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community on 10 September 1952, but the Group was founded as the Group of Liberals and Allies on 23 June 1953. As the Assembly grew into the Parliament, the French Gaullists split from the Group on 21 January 1965 and the Group started the process of changing its name to match the liberal/centrist traditions of the new member states, firstly to the Liberal and Democratic Group in 1976 to the Liberal and Democratic Reformist Group on 13 December 1985 to the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party on 19 July 1994 to match the European political party of the same name. In 1999, the Group partnered with European People's Party–European Democrats group to form the Grand Coalition for the Fifth Parliament; the customary split of the Presidency of the European Parliament between Groups in the Coalition meant that the Group achieved its first President of the European Parliament on 15 January 2002, when Pat Cox was elected to the post to serve the latter half of the five-year term.
The Group lost its Grand Coalition status after the 2004 elections. On 13 July 2004 the Group approved a recommendation to unite with MEPs from the centrist and social-liberal political party at the European level called the European Democratic Party founded by François Bayrou's Union for French Democracy, the Labour Party of Lithuania and Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy of Italy; the Group accordingly became the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe on 20 July 2004, to match the eponymous transnational political alliance, although the two European-level parties remained separate outside the European Parliament. The MEP Graham Watson of the British Liberal Democrats became the first chair of ALDE; the national parties that are members of ALDE are as follows: In September 1952, the third-largest grouping in the Common Assembly was the Liberal grouping with 11 members. The Group of Liberals and Allies was founded on 23 June 1953. By mid-September 1953, it was again the third-largest Group with 10 members.
ALDE is a coalition of centrist MEPs. It does not have formal subgroups, although the MEPs fall into two informal subgroups, depending on whether they associate with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party or the European Democratic Party; the Bureau is the main decision making body of the ALDE Group and is composed of the leaders of the delegations from each member state that elects ALDE MEPs. The Bureau is headed by a chair; the day-to-day running of the Group is performed by its secretariat, led by its Secretary-General. The senior staff of ALDE as of July 2012 are as follows: The chairs of ALDE and its predecessors from 1953 to the present are as follows: Along with the other political groups, ALDE has been analysed by academics on its positions regarding various issues; those positions are summarized in this article. That article characterizes ALDE as cohesive, gender-balanced centrist Euroneutrals that cooperate most with the EPP, are ambiguous on hypothetical EU taxes and supportive of eventual full Turkish accession to the European Union.
ALDE Group in the European Parliament ALDE Group in the European Parliament's channel on YouTube
Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Friuli–Venezia Giulia is one of the 20 regions of Italy, one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The regional capital is Trieste; the city of Venice is not despite the name. Friuli–Venezia Giulia has an area of 7,924 km2 and about 1.2 million inhabitants. A natural opening to the sea for many Central European countries, the region is traversed by the major transport routes between the east and west of southern Europe, it encompasses the historical-geographical region of Friuli and a small portion of the historical region of Venezia Giulia – known in English as the Julian March – each with its own distinct history and identity. The name of the region was spelled Friuli–Venezia Giulia until 2001, when, in connection with a modification of article nr. 116 of the Italian constitution, the official spelling Friuli Venezia Giulia was adopted. The term "Venezia Giulia" was coined by Graziadio Isaia Ascoli. Names in other regional languages include Friulian: Friûl-Vignesie Julie. Friuli–Venezia Giulia is Italy's north-easternmost region.
It is the fifth smallest region of the country. It borders Austria to Slovenia to the east. To the south it faces the Adriatic Sea and to the west its internal border is with the Veneto region; the region spans a wide variety of climates and landscapes from the mild Oceanic in the south to Alpine continental in the north. The total area is subdivided into a 42.5% mountainous-alpine terrain in the north, 19.3% is hilly to the south-east, while the remaining 38.2% comprises the central and coastal plains. Morphologically the region can be subdivided into four main areas; the mountainous area in the north: this part of the region includes Carnia and the ending section of the Alps, of which the highest peaks exceed 2,700 m above sea level. Its landscapes are characterised by vast pine forests and pastures, mountain lakes and numerous streams and small rivers descending from the mountains; the area is known for its tourist destinations during the winter season. The hilly area, situated to the south of the mountains and along the central section of the border with Slovenia.
The main product of agriculture in this area is wine, whose quality the white, is known worldwide. The easternmost part of the hilly area is known as Slavia Friulana, as it is inhabited by ethnic Slovenes; the central plains are characterised by poor and permeable soil. The soil has been made fertile with an extensive irrigation system and through the adoption of modern intensive farming techniques. In this part of the region most of the agricultural activities are concentrated; the coastal area can be further subdivided in two, western-eastern, subsections separated by the river Isonzo's estuary. To the west, the coast is shallow and sandy, with numerous tourist resorts and the lagoons of Grado and Marano Lagunare. To the east, the coastline rises into cliffs, where the Kras plateau meets the Adriatic, all the way to Trieste and Muggia on the border with Slovenia; the Carso has geological features and phenomena such as hollows, cave networks and underground rivers, which extend inland in the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia, with an altitude ranging between 300m and 600m.
The rivers of the region flow from Slovenia into the Adriatic. The two main rivers are the Tagliamento, which flows west-east in its upper part in the Carnic Alps and bends into a north-south flow that separates the Julian Alps from Alpine foothills and the Isonzo which flows from Slovenia into Italy; the Timavo is an underground river that flows for 38 km from Slovenia and resurfaces near its mouth north-west of Duino. The region Friuli–Venezia Giulia has a temperate climate. However, due to the terrain's diversity, it varies from one area to another. Walled by the Alps on its northern flank, the region is exposed to air masses from the East and the West; the region receives the southerly Sirocco from the Adriatic sea, which brings in heavy rainfall. Along the coast the climate is pleasant. Trieste records the smallest temperature differences between winter and summer and between day and night; the climate is Alpine-continental in the mountainous areas, where, in some locations, the coldest winter temperatures in Italy can be found.
The Kras plateau has its own weather and climate, influenced during autumn and winter, by masses of cold air coming from the north-east. These generate a special feature of the local climate: the north-easterly wind Bora, which descends onto the Gulf of Trieste with gusts exceeding speeds of 150 km/h. In Roman times, modern Friuli–Venezia Giulia was located within Regio X Venetia et Histria of Roman Italy; the traces of its Roman origin are visible over all the territory. In fact, the city of Aquileia, founded in 181 BC, served as capital of the region and rose to prominence in the Augustan period. Starting from the Lombard settlements, the historical paths of Friuli and Venezia Giulia begin to diverge. In 568, Cividale del Friuli became the capital of the first Lombard dukedom in Italy. In 774, the Franks, favoured the growth of the church of Aquileia and established Cividale as a March. In 1077, Patriarchate of Aquileia was given temporal power by the Holy Roman Emperors and this power was extended temporarily even
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