1.
Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
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The Order of Merit of the Italian Republic was founded as the senior order of knighthood by the second President of the Italian Republic, Luigi Einaudi in 1951. The post-nominal letters for the order are OMRI, investiture takes place biannually on 2 June, anniversary of the foundation of the Republic and on 27 December, anniversary of the promulgation of the Italian Constitution. However, those awards on Presidential motu proprio, related to termination of service or granted to foreigners may be made at any time, except in exceptional circumstances, no one can be awarded for the first time a rank higher than Knight. The minimum age requirement is normally 35
2.
President of Italy
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The President of the Italian Republic is the head of state of Italy and, in that role, represents national unity and guarantees that Italian politics comply with the Constitution. The presidents term of office lasts for seven years, the 11th President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, was elected on 10 May 2006, and elected to a second term for the first time in Italian Republic history, on 20 April 2013. On 31 January 2015, the incumbent President, former Constitutional judge Sergio Mattarella, was elected at the ballot with 665 votes out of 1,009. The framers of the Constitution of Italy intended for the President to be a statesman of some stature. Article 84 states that any citizen who is fifty or older on election day and enjoys civil and those citizens who already hold any other office are prohibited from becoming President unless they resign their previous office once they are elected. The 1948 Italian Constitution does not have term limits although until 2013 no Italian President of the Republic had run for a term of office. He made it clear, however, that he would not serve his full term, three representatives come from each region, save for the Aosta Valley, which appoints one, so as to guarantee representation for all localities and minorities. According to the Constitution, the election must be held by a ballot, with the 315 Senators, the 630 Deputies. A two-thirds vote is required to elect on any of the first three rounds of balloting, after that, a majority suffices. The election is presided over by the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, the vote is held in the Palazzo Montecitorio, home of the Chamber of Deputies, which is expanded and re-configured for the event. The President assumes office after having taken an oath before Parliament, the Presidents term may end by, voluntary resignation, death, permanent disability, due to serious illness, dismissal, as for crimes of high treason or an attack on the Constitution. Former Presidents of the Republic are called Presidents Emeritus of the Republic and are appointed Senator for life, in the absence of the President of the Republic, including travel abroad, presidential functions are performed by the President of the Senate. In judicial matters, Presiding over the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, Naming one-third of the Constitutional Court, in practice, the Presidents office is mostly, though not entirely, ceremonial. Many of the others are duties that he is required to perform, however, pardons and commutations have been recognized as autonomous powers of the President. The President resides in Rome at the Quirinal Palace, and also has at his disposal the presidential holdings of Castelporziano, near Rome, and Villa Rosebery, in Naples. There is one living former Italian President, Italian presidential election,2015 List of Presidents of Italy Wife of the President of the Italian Republic Official site
3.
Matteo Renzi
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Matteo Renzi is an Italian politician who served as the Prime Minister of Italy from February 2014 until December 2016. His government is the fourth longest one in the history of Italy as a republic, Renzi served as President of the Province of Florence from 2004 to 2009 and as Mayor of Florence from 2009 to 2014. At the age of 39 years and 42 days upon assuming office and he was also the first serving Mayor to become Prime Minister. In 2014 the American magazine Fortune ranked Renzi as the third most influential person under 40 in the world, moreover, Renzi is nicknamed il Rottamatore due to his ambition of renovating the Italian political establishment. Renzi was born in 1975 in Florence, Tuscany, the second of four children and his father, Tiziano Renzi, was a small business owner and Christian Democratic municipal councillor in Rignano sullArno. During this time he was a Scout in the Association of Catholic Guides, in 1999 he graduated from the University of Florence with a degree in law, with a thesis on Giorgio La Pira, the former Christian Democratic Mayor of Florence. He then went on to work for CHIL Srl, a company owned by his family. During this time Renzi was also a referee at amateur level. In 1994, he participated as a competitor for five episodes in the television program La Ruota Della Fortuna hosted by Mike Bongiorno. Renzis interest in politics began in high school, in the same year he married Agnese Landini, with whom he later had three children. In 2001 he joined Francesco Rutellis The Daisy party, composed by members of the disbanded Peoples Party, on 13 June 2004 he was elected President of Florence Province with 59% of the vote, as the candidate of the centre-left coalition. He was the youngest person to become President of an Italian Province, after five years as the President of Florence Province, Renzi announced that he would seek election as the Mayor of Florence. On 9 June 2009, Renzi, by now a member of the Democratic Party, won the election on a second round vote with 60% of the votes, following this public meeting, the Italian media gave Renzi the nickname il Rottamatore, or The Scrapper. In 2011, Renzi organised a public meeting, also in Florence. After the first round of the December election, Renzi gained 35. 5% of the vote, finishing second behind Bersani and qualifying for the second ballot. Renzi eventually gained a total of 39% of the vote, against Bersanis 61%. 5% of the vote, despite opinion polls placing the party at almost 30%. Following the resignation of Pier Luigi Bersani in April 2013, Renzi announced that he would stand for the position of Secretary of the Democratic Party, the PDs loss of seats led to party members doubts concerning Bersanis leadership abilities. Renzis impressive resume at such a young in age in combination with his reputation as political outsider thanks to his scrapping made him very electable in comparison
4.
Paolo Gentiloni
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Paolo Gentiloni Silveri is an Italian politician who has been Prime Minister of Italy since 12 December 2016. Gentiloni, a member of the Democratic Party, served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 31 October 2014 until December 2016, previously he was Minister of Communications from 2006 to 2008, during the second government of Romano Prodi. Gentiloni has the titles of Nobile of Filottrano, Nobile of Cingoli, born in Rome, he attended the Classical Lyceum Torquato Tasso in the city and graduated in political sciences at the La Sapienza University. Gentiloni was a professional journalist before entering politics, during those years he became a close friend of Chicco Testa who helped Gentiloni to become director of La Nuova Ecologia, the official newspaper of Legambiente. As director of this newspaper he met the young leader of Federation of the Greens. In the 2001 general election, Gentiloni was elected as a Member of Parliament, in 2002 he was a founding member of the Daisy party, being the party’s communications spokesman for five years. From 2005 until 2006, he was Chairman of the Broadcasting Services Watchdog Committee, the committee oversees the activity of state broadcaster RAI and he was re-elected in the 2006 election as a member of The Olive Tree, the political coalition led by the Bolognese economist Romano Prodi. After the centre-lefts victory, Gentiloni served as Minister for Communications in Prodis second government from 2006 until 2008, Gentiloni was re-elected in the 2008 general election, which saw the victory of the conservative coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi. On 6 April 2013 he ran in the election to select the center-left candidate for Mayor of Rome, placing third after Ignazio Marino, who became Mayor. Gentiloni was elected again to the Chamber of Deputies in the 2013 general election, common Good led by Pier Luigi Bersani, Secretary of the PD. In 2013, after Bersanis resignation as Secretary, Gentiloni supported the Mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi and he took office two months before Italys rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union ended in December 2014. At the time of his appointment, Gentiloni had not been mentioned in political circles as a candidate, Renzi had reportedly wanted to replace Mogherini with another woman, to preserve gender parity in his 16-member cabinet. Also, Gentiloni was not known as a specialist in international diplomacy, the following day Gentiloni was threatened by ISIL, which accused him of being a crusader, minister of an enemy country. In March 2015 Gentiloni visited Mexico and Cuba and met Cuban President Raúl Castro, on 11 July 2015, a car bomb exploded outside the Italian consulate in the Egyptian capital Cairo, resulting in at least one death and four people injured, the Islamic State claimed responsibility. On the same day Gentiloni stated that Italy will be not intimidated, as Foreign Minister, Gentiloni had to confront various abductions of Italian citizens. In January 2015, he negotiated the release of Vanessa Marzullo, on 7 December 2016, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced his resignation, following the rejection of his proposals to overhaul the Italian Senate in the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum. A few days later, on 11 December 2016, Gentiloni was asked by President Mattarella to form a new government, on the following day Gentiloni was officially sworn in as the new head of the government. He led a government supported by his own Democratic Party and the Christian democratic Popular Area, composed of the New Centre-Right
5.
Giorgio Napolitano
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Giorgio Napolitano, OMRI is an Italian politician who was the 11th President of Italy from 2006 to 2015, the only Italian President to be reelected to the Presidency. Due to his dominant position in Italian politics, critics refer to him as Re Giorgio. He is the longest serving President in the history of the modern Italian Republic, although the presidency is a nonpartisan office as guarantor of Italys Constitution, Napolitano was a longtime member of the Italian Communist Party. He was a member of a modernizing faction on the right of the party. First elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1953, he took an assiduous interest in parliamentary life and he was Minister of the Interior from 1996 to 1998 under Romano Prodi. Napolitano was appointed a Senator for life in 2005 by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, in May 2006, he was elected by parliament as President of Italy. During his first term of office, he oversaw both of the centre-left, led by Prodi, and the centre-right, led by Silvio Berlusconi. In November 2011, Berlusconi resigned as Prime Minister amid financial, Napolitano, in keeping with his constitutional role, then asked former EU commissioner Mario Monti to form a cabinet which was referred to as a government of the president by critics. On being reelected as President with broad cross-party support in parliament, when Letta handed in his resignation on 14 February 2014, Napolitano mandated Matteo Renzi to form a new government. After a record eight and a half years as president, Napolitano resigned at age 89 in January 2015, Giorgio Napolitano was born in Naples, in 1925. His father, Giovanni, was a lawyer and poet, his mother was Carolina Bobbio. From 1938 to 1941 he studied at the Classical Lyceum Umberto I of Naples, in 1942, he matriculated at the University of Naples Federico II, studing law. During this period, Napolitano adhered to the local University Fascist Youth, where he met his core group of friends, as he would later state, the group was in fact a true breeding ground of anti-fascist intellectual energies, disguised and to a certain extent tolerated. He played in a comedy by Salvatore Di Giacomo at Teatro Mercadante in Naples, Napolitano dreamt of being an actor and spent his early years performing in several productions at the Teatro Mercadante. Napolitano has often cited as the author of a collection of sonnets in Neapolitan dialect published under a pseudonym, Tommaso Pignatelli. He denied this in 1997 and, again, on the occasion of his presidential election and he published his first acknowledged book, entitled Movimento Operaio e Industria di Stato, in 1962. Following the end of the war in 1945, Napolitano joined the Communist Party and suddenly became its secretary for Naples. In 1947, he graduated in jurisprudence with a dissertation on political economy
6.
Constitutional Court of Italy
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The Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic is the highest court of Italy in matters of constitutional law. Sometimes, the name Consulta is used as a metonym for it, because its sessions are held in Palazzo della Consulta in Rome. The Court was established by the republican Constitution of Italy in 1948, but it became operative only in 1955 after the enactment of the Constitutional Law n.1 of 1953 and it held its first hearing in 1956. Candidates need to be either lawyers with twenty years or more experience, full professors of law, or judges of the Supreme Administrative, Civil, the members then elect the President of the Court, since 12 November 2014 this has been Alessandro Criscuolo. The President is elected from among its members in a secret ballot, if no person gets that many votes, a runoff election between the two judges with the most votes occurs. One or two vice-presidents, appointed by the President of the Court, stand in for the president in the event of his absence for any reason, the constitutional court passes on the constitutionality of laws with no right of appeal. The court is a post-World War II innovation, since 12 October 2007, when reform of the Italian intelligence agencies approved in August 2007 came into force, the pretext of state secret cannot be used to deny access to documents by the Court. Appointed by President of Italy Courts of Italy Parliament of Italy List of Presidents of the Constitutional Court of Italy Official website
7.
Massimo D'Alema
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Massimo DAlema is an Italian politician who was the 53rd Prime Minister from 1998 to 2000. Later he was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2008 and he is also a journalist and served for a time as national secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left. Sometimes media refers to him as Leader Maximo, due to his first name Massimo, earlier in his career he was a member of the Italian Communist Party, and he was the first former communist to become prime minister of a NATO country. Massimo DAlema was born in Rome on 20 April 1949, the son of Giuseppe DAlema and he is married to Linda Giuva, a professor at the University of Siena, and has two children, Giulia and Francesco. He later became a member of Italian Communist Party, part of which in 1991 gave origin to the Democratic Party of the Left. In 1998, succeeding Romano Prodi, he became Prime Minister and he was the first former Communist to become prime minister of a NATO country and the first Prime Minister of Italy born after Italy became a Republic in 1946. While DAlema was Prime Minister, Italy took part in the NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, the attack was supported by Silvio Berlusconi and the centre-right opposition, but the far left strongly contested it. He has been the director of LUnità, formerly the official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party, immediately following the April 2006 election, he was proposed as the future President of the Chamber of Deputies. The Communist Refoundation Party, however, strongly pushed for Fausto Bertinotti to become the next President, after a couple of days of heated debate, DAlema stepped back to prevent a fracture between political parties, an act applauded by his allies. The same month, he was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in the new Prodi government and he served in those posts until 2008, when Prodis government fell and Berlusconis right-wing coalition prevailed in the election that followed in April 2008. DAlema was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies in this election as part of the recently formed Democratic Party, while Italian Foreign Minister in the 2006-2008 Romano Prodi center-left government, Massimo DAlema took a very pro-active diplomatic stance during the 2006 Lebanon War. DAlema was briefly a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2006, since 2003 he has been member of the scientific committee of Michel Rocard and Dominique Strauss-Kahns association A gauche en Europe. He still figures on the European scene, he signed the Soros letter and has called for a stronger European integration, since 30 June 2010 DAlema has been the president of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, the political foundation of the Party of European Socialists. 1967, Secondary school-leaving certificate in classical subjects Did not complete studies in philosophy at the famed Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, dialogo su Berlinguer, with Paul Ginsborg, Giunti,1994, ISBN 88-09-20545-6, Un paese normale. LItalia verso le riforme, Mondadori,1997, ISBN 88-04-42161-4, Parole a vista, with Enrico Ghezzi, Bompiani,1998, ISBN 88-452-3777-X, Kosovo. Gli italiani e la guerra, with Federico Rampini, Mondadori,1999, ISBN 88-04-47302-9, Oltre la paura, Mondadori,2002, ISBN 88-04-51206-7
8.
Giuliano Amato
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Giuliano Amato OMRI is an Italian politician who twice served as Prime Minister of Italy, first from 1992 to 1993 and again from 2000 to 2001. Later, he was Vice President of the Convention on the Future of Europe that drafted the European Constitution and he is commonly nicknamed dottor Sottile. From 2006 to 2008, he was the Minister of the Interior in Romano Prodis government, on 12 September 2013, President Giorgio Napolitano appointed him to the Constitutional Court of Italy, where he has served since then. Born in Turin into a Sicilian family, Amato grew up in Tuscany, after teaching at the Universities of Modena, Perugia and Florence, he worked as professor of Italian and Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Rome La Sapienza from 1975 to 1997. Amato began his career in 1958, when he joined the Italian Socialist Party. He was a Member of Parliament from 1983 to 1993 and he was Undersecretary of State to the Prime Ministers office from 1983 to 1987, Deputy Prime Minister from 1987 to 1988, and Minister for the Treasury from 1987 to 1989. From June 1992 to April 1993, Amato served as Prime Minister, during those ten months, a series of corruption scandals rocked Italy and swept away almost an entire class of political leaders. Amato himself was never implicated, notwithstanding how close he was to Bettino Craxi, fearing that the new system would have effectively blocked investigations on political corruption, Italians took to the streets in massive, spontaneous rallies. President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro refused to sign the decree, deeming it blatantly unconstitutional, while his justice minister Giovanni Conso took the blame, it has been disputed whether Amato was a victim of circumstances or whether he really wanted to save the corruption-ridden system. However, this promise was short-lived, Amato has regularly come under criticism for having such a solemn commitment. Amato was nearly nominated for the Presidency of the Republic and was a contender to replace Michel Camdessus as head of the International Monetary Fund. Amato served as Prime Minister again from April 2000 to May 2001 and he promoted economic competitiveness as well as social protection. In addition to reforms, he pushed ahead with political and institutional reforms, trying to deal with a weak executive. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts, Amato was a Member of the Senate representing the constituency of Grosseto in Tuscany from 2001 to 2006. In 2006, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the Olive Tree list, since 2010, he also leads advanced seminar classes at the Master in International Public Affairs of the LUISS School of Government. Amato is married to Ms Diana Amato, a professor of Family Law at the University of Rome and they have two children, Elisa and Lorenzo, and five grandchildren, Giulia, Marco, Simone, Elena and Irene. Giuliano Amato serves as an Honorary Co-Chair for the World Justice Project, the World Justice Project works to lead a global, multidisciplinary effort to strengthen the Rule of Law for the development of communities of opportunity and equity. In 2012 Giuliano Amato was appointed as President of the SantAnna School of Advanced Studies, as alumnus of SantAnna School of Advanced Studies, he guarded close contact with the university, previously heading SantAnna Alumni Association
9.
Carlo Scognamiglio
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Carlo Scognamiglio Pasini is an Italian economist and politician. He is a university professor in applied economics and was chancellor of the Luiss University of Rome and he was President of the Italian Senate from 1994 to 1996 and Minister of Defense from 1998 to 2000. In 1992 he became Senator for the Italian Liberal Party, and was appointed as chairman of the Committee for European Affairs of the Senate, re-elected in 1994, during the XII Legislature, Scognamiglio was elected as President of Senate. Presently he is professor of applied economics, lifetime trustee of the Aspen Institute. He is member of the Italy-USA Foundation, Carlo Scognamiglio Pasini was awarded the prestigious prize for Economics of the Académie française in 1988. As sportsman, he was champion of sailing. He is the author of over 80 publications in English and Italian, among which, mondadori, Milano 2014 Keynes and the New Millennium Crisis, Treves Editore, Roma 2009. Adam Smith visto da Carlo Scognamiglio Pasini, Luiss University Press, economia dei mercati imperfetti, Luiss University Press, Roma 2006. Adam Smith XXI secolo, Luiss University Press, Roma 2005, la guerra del Kosovo, Rizzoli, Milano 2002. La democrazia in Italia, Rizzoli, Milano 1996, teoria e politica della finanza industriale, il Mulino, Bologna 1987. Crisi e risanamento dellindustria italiana, Giuffrè, Milano 1979, mercato dei capitali, borse valori e finanziamento delle imprese industriali, Franco Angeli Edizioni, Milano 1974. The Economics of the Stock Market, Giuffrè, Milano 1972
10.
Antonio Martino
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Antonio Martino is an Italian politician, who was the minister of foreign affairs in 1994 and minister of defense from 2001 to 2006. He is a member of Forza Italia. Born in Messina, he is the son of Gaetano Martino, former Foreign Minister, in mid-the 1980s he was unsuccessful candidate for the post of PLI secretary. A member of the Italian Parliament, he was first elected in 1994, since 1992 and for many years, Martino has been a professor of Economics in the Political Science Department at the LUISS University of Rome. He is author of 11 books and over 150 papers and articles on economic theory and he has been a frequent contributor to Italian and international magazines and newspapers, as well as Italian and international television and radio programs. In 1988–90, Martino was President of the Mont Pelerin Society, in the Nineties, he wrote a book in Italian language, Stato Padrone, where he explains his free-market ideas. He was minister of Foreign Affairs in the first Berlusconi cabinet and he is Secretary of the Scientific Committee of the Italy-USA Foundation. Antonio Martino bio at History Commons A. Martino, Stato Padrone, Sperling&Kupfer, Milan 1997
11.
Walter Veltroni
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He served as Mayor of Rome from June 2001 to February 2008. His father, Vittorio Veltroni, an eminent RAI manager in the 1950s and his mother, Ivanka Kotnik, was the daughter of Ciril Kotnik, a Slovenian diplomat at the Holy See who helped numerous Jews and antifascists to escape Nazi persecution after 1943. Veltroni joined the Italian Communist Youth Federation at the age of 15 and he was then elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1987. As a member of the Italian Communist Partys national secretariat in 1988, Veltroni, a professional journalist, was editor-in-chief of LUnità, the newspaper of the Democratic Party of the Left from 1992-96. He then successfully ran as candidate, together with Romano Prodi. In 1996 he joined the Bilderberg Group meeting, and was from 1996-98 Minister for Cultural Assets, in 1998 he resigned, subsequent to his election as National Secretary of the Democrats of the Left. Despite his background as a journalist, he has involved in controversial episodes related to freedom of expression. In 2001 Veltroni resigned as leader of the party after being elected Mayor of Rome, the percentage of votes that supported Veltronis second term in office was a record in local elections in Rome. Shortly before this confirmation, Veltroni had declared that he was going to leave politics at the end of his term as Mayor. In 2005, as mayor of Rome, he met in Washington, during a visit to the United States, then United States Senator, Barack Obama, being one of his earliest supporters overseas. He wrote the preface to the Italian edition of The Audacity of Hope in 2007 and has referred to as Obamas European counterpart. In June 2007, DS leader Piero Fassino publicly asked Veltroni to run for the party leadership, several other Democratic Party leading members publicly stated their support for a possible candidacy of Veltroni. Furthermore, the strongest of his possible contenders, Pier Luigi Bersani, Veltroni officially presented his candidacy for the leadership of the Democratic Party at a rally in Turin on 27 June 2007. At this occasion he introduced the four key issues his programme would address, environment, generational pact, education, and public security. Veltroni was elected as the first leader of the newly founded Democratic Party on 14 October 2007, winning a primary with around 2.6 millions of votes. Following the defeat of Prodis government in a January 2008 Senate vote, Veltroni resigned as Mayor of Rome on 13 February 2008 to concentrate on the campaign. He has been criticised for his over-frequentation of Rome socialites and advised to focus on practical problems. The Constituent Assembly of the party subsequently convened on 21 February 2009, on 28 September 2014, in Venice, Italy, the former Mayor of Rome was responsible of marrying George Clooney to Amal Alamuddin
12.
Gianfranco Fini
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He was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Silvio Berlusconi’s government from 2001 to 2006. Fini was born on January 3,1952 in Bologna and his grandfather, a communist activist, died in 1970. His mother, Erminia Marani, was the daughter of Antonio Marani, who took part along with Italo Balbo in the march on Rome, which signaled the beginning of fascism in 1922. The name Gianfranco was chosen in remembrance of a cousin, who was killed when he was 20 years old by partisans soon after the liberation of Northern Italy on April 25,1945. In the 1980s he met Daniela Di Sotto, at that time married to Sergio Mariani, mrs. Di Sotto ended her marriage to stay with Fini. Mariani would try to kill soon after. In 1985 they had their daughter, Giuliana. Fini and Di Sotto married in a ceremony in Marino in 1988. Five months after his separation, his relationship with Elisabetta Tulliani, in December 2007, they had a daughter, Carolina. Their second daughter is called Martina, Gianfranco Fini attended Laura Bassi high school in Bologna. At this time, he involved with the Italian Social Movement. He then began his career in the Fronte della Gioventù. Three years later, he moved with his family to Rome, in August 1976 he served his military service in Savona, then in Rome at the Ministry of Defence. In 1977 he became secretary of the Fronte della Gioventù, chosen by Giorgio Almirante. Fini had placed fifth among seven candidates elected in the secretariat of the youth In the meantime. He also collaborated with the newspaper, Il Secolo dItalia. Fini was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies on June 26,1983, re-elected in 1987, in September he was nominated by Almirante to be his successor as the partys secretary. Because only in this way the MSI can have a future, Giorgio Almirante died in May 1988, and at the partys congress in Sorrento that year, Fini defeated the right wing of the party, headed by Pino Rauti, and was elected party secretary
13.
Giulio Andreotti
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Andreotti is widely considered the most powerful and prominent politician of the so-called First Republic. In foreign policy, he guided Italys European Union integration, admirers of Andreotti saw him as having mediated political and social contradictions, enabling the transformation of a substantially rural country into the fifth-biggest economy in the world. Critics said he had nothing against a system of patronage that had led to pervasive corruption. At the height of his prestige as a statesman, Andreotti was subjected to damaging criminal prosecutions, charged with colluding with Cosa Nostra, courts found he had broken the links by the 1980s, and ruled the case out of time. The most sensational allegation came from prosecutors in Perugia, who charged him with ordering the murder of a journalist and he was found guilty at a trial, which led to complaints that the justice system had gone mad. Definitively acquitted by the court, Andreotti remarked, Apart from the Punic Wars, for which I was too young. Andreotti served as the 41st Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and he also served as Minister of the Interior, Defence Minister and Foreign Minister and was a Senator for life from 1991 until his death in 2013. He was also a journalist and author, Andreotti was sometimes called Divo Giulio. During the 16th term of the Senate in 2008–13, he opted to join the parliamentary group UDC – independence, Giulio Andreotti, the youngest of three children, was born on 14 January 1919 in Rome. His father was a school teacher from Segni, a small town in Lazio. Andreotti attended the Liceo Torquato Tasso in Rome and graduated in Law at the University of Rome and he showed some ferocity as a youth, once stubbing out a lit taper in the eye of another altar boy who was ridiculing him. His mother was described as not very affectionate, and an aunt is said to have advised him to remember that few things in life are important, as an adult he was described as having a somewhat unusual demeanor for an Italian politician, being mild-mannered and unassuming. Andreotti did not use his influence to advance his children to prominence, see all, tolerate much, and correct one thing at a time, was a quote that emphasised what has been called his art of the possible view of politics. Andreotti was known for his discretion and retentive memory, and also a sense of humour, Andreotti did not shine at his school and started work in a tax office while studying law at the University of Rome. In this period he became a member of the Italian Catholic Federation of University Students and its members included many of the future leaders of the Italian Christian Democracy. In 1938 while researching the papal navy in the Vatican library, he met Alcide De Gasperi, De Gasperi asked Andreotti if he had nothing better to do with his time, inspiring him to become politically active. Speaking of De Gasperi, Andreotti said, He taught us to search for compromise, in July 1939, while Aldo Moro was president of FUCI, Andreotti became director of its magazine Azione Fucina. In 1942, when Moro was enrolled in the Italian Army, Andreotti succeeded him as president of FUCI, during his early years Andreotti suffered violent migraines that forced him to sporadically make use of psychoactive drugs and opiates
14.
Giovanni Goria
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Giovanni Giuseppe Goria was a right-wing Italian politician. He served as the 46th Prime Minister of Italy from 1987 until 1988, Goria joined the Democrazia Cristiana in 1960 and entered local politics. He was elected to the chamber of deputies in 1976 and he was undersecretary of the budget from 1981 until 1983 and then became treasury minister. He became known for his style and his adeptness at television appearances. Following the elections of 1987, in which his party did well, Goria became Prime Minister and he was forced to resign in 1988 after the Parliament refused to pass his budget. Goria was elected to the European Parliament in 1989 and he resigned in 1991 to become Italian minister of agriculture. He remained in position until 1992 when he became finance minister. He resigned in 1993 during a scandal which ruined his party. Goria himself was charged with corruption and his trial began in early 1994. He was acquitted of one charge, but his trial was still in progress when he died suddenly of cancer in his native Asti
15.
Ciriaco De Mita
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Ciriaco Luigi De Mita is an Italian politician. He served as the 47th Prime Minister of Italy from 1988 to 1989, De Mita was born in Nusco in the Avellinese hinterland. As a young man De Mita joined Christian Democracy and entered politics and he rose through the ranks of the party, becoming a member of its council in 1956, a member of Parliament in 1963 and a member of the Italian cabinet in 1973. During the next decade he served as Minister of Industry and then as Minister of Foreign Trade, De Mita became chairman of the party in 1982 at a time when its power was declining. He was re-elected in 1986 with 60% support from the party, the Christian Democrats did well in the elections of 1987. De Mita waited a year to become Prime Minister, and then served as Prime Minister for a year, at the beginning of that service, on 16 April 1988, in Forlì, Red Brigades killed Senator Roberto Ruffilli, an advisor of De Mita. De Mita returned in Parliament, after a lag of two years, in 1996 and he then joined the Italian Peoples Party and later Democracy is Freedom - The Daisy, party of which he is regional coordinator for Campania. He headed the Olive Trees list in his region in 2006, offended by the decision, he left the party in retaliation, and joined the Union of the Centre. After the 2008 elections, De Mita was not elected at the Italian Senate, De Mita won a seat in the European Parliament in the June 2009 European election, at age 81, he was the oldest candidate to win a seat in that election. On 25 May 2014 De Mita was elected as mayor of Nusco, his native town
16.
Chamber of Deputies (Italy)
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The Chamber of Deputies is a house of the bicameral Parliament of Italy. The two houses form a perfect bicameral system, meaning they perform identical functions, but do so separately. Pursuant to article 56 of the Italian Constitution, the Chamber of Deputies has 630 seats, of which 618 are elected from Italian constituencies, Deputies are styled The Honourable and meet at Palazzo Montecitorio. Previously, the seat of the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Italy had been briefly at the Palazzo Carignano in Turin and the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Under the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, from 1939 to 1943, the Chamber is composed of all members meeting in session at the Montecitorio. The assembly also has the right to meetings of the Government. If required, the Government is obligated to attend the session, conversely, the Government has the right to be heard every time it requires. The term of office of the House is five years,61.2 of the Constitution, states that representatives whose term has expired shall continue to exercise their functions until the first meeting of the new Chamber. An extension of the term, provided for by art,60.2, can be enacted only in case of war. Election of members to the Chamber of Deputies is by voluntary, universal, terms last for a total of five years, unless an early dissolution of the Chamber is called by the President of the Republic, at which point a snap election is held. Unlike the Senate, which members to be 40 years of age. The current system for elections to the Chamber of Deputies has been in operation since 2015, the territory of Italy is divided into 100 constituencies electing between 3 and 9 deputies depending on their size. For each constituency, the parties designate a list of candidates, head of list candidates can run in up to 10 constituencies, if two preference votes are expressed, they must be of a different sex, otherwise, the second preference is discarded. Only parties passing a 3% minimum threshold in the first round are assigned seats, if the party receiving the plurality of the votes passes a 40% threshold, it is attributed a minimum of 340 seats. The remaining 277 seats are allocated to the other parties using the largest remainder method. This provision was however rendered null and void by a Constitutional Courts judgment in January 2017, the President of the Chamber of Deputies performs the role of speaker of the house and is elected during the first session after the election. During this time the prerogatives of speaker are assumed by the vicepresident of Chamber of Deputies of the legislature who was elected first. If two were elected simultaneously, the oldest deputy serves as president of Chamber of Deputies, the President of Chamber of Deputies has also the role of President during the Parliament joint sessions, when the upper and lower houses have to vote together
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Palermo
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Palermo is a city of Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence, Palermo is located in the northwest of the island of Sicily, right by the Gulf of Palermo in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The city was founded in 734 BC by the Phoenicians as Ziz, Palermo then became a possession of Carthage, before becoming part of the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire and eventually part of the Byzantine Empire, for over a thousand years. The Greeks named the city Panormus meaning complete port, from 831 to 1072 the city was under Arab rule during the Emirate of Sicily when the city first became a capital. The Arabs shifted the Greek name into Balarme, the root for Palermos present-day name, eventually Sicily would be united with the Kingdom of Naples to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies until the Italian unification of 1860. The population of Palermo urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 855,285, in the central area, the city has a population of around 676,000 people. The inhabitants are known as Palermitani or, poetically, panormiti, the languages spoken by its inhabitants are the Italian language, Sicilian language and the Palermitano dialect. Palermo is Sicilys cultural, economic and touristic capital and it is a city rich in history, culture, art, music and food. Palermo is the main Sicilian industrial and commercial center, the industrial sectors include tourism, services, commerce. Palermo currently has an airport, and a significant underground economy. In fact, for cultural, artistic and economic reasons, Palermo was one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean and is now among the top tourist destinations in both Italy and Europe. It is the seat of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Arab-Norman Palermo. The city is going through careful redevelopment, preparing to become one of the major cities of the Euro-Mediterranean area. Roman Catholicism is highly important in Palermitano culture, the Patron Saint of Palermo is Santa Rosalia whose Feast Day is celebrated on 15 July. The area attracts significant numbers of each year and is widely known for its colourful fruit, vegetable and fish markets at the heart of Palermo, known as Vucciria, Ballarò. Palermo lies in a basin, formed by the Papireto, Kemonia, the basin was named the Conca dOro by the Arabs in the 9th century. The city is surrounded by a range which is named after the city itself. These mountains face the Tyrrhenian Sea, Palermo is home to a natural port and offers excellent views to the sea, especially from Monte Pellegrino
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Kingdom of Italy
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The state was founded as a result of the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which can be considered its legal predecessor state. Italy declared war on Austria in alliance with Prussia in 1866, Italian troops entered Rome in 1870, ending more than one thousand years of Papal temporal power. Italy entered into a Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882, victory in the war gave Italy a permanent seat in the Council of the League of Nations. Fascist Italy is the era of National Fascist Party rule from 1922 to 1943 with Benito Mussolini as head of government, according to Payne, Fascist regime passed through several relatively distinct phases. The first phase was nominally a continuation of the parliamentary system, then came the second phase, the construction of the Fascist dictatorship proper from 1925 to 1929. The third phase, with activism, was 1929–34. The war itself was the phase with its disasters and defeats. Italy was allied with Nazi Germany in World War II until 1943 and it switched sides to the Allies after ousting Mussolini and shutting down the Fascist party in areas controlled by the Allied invaders. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to the referendum of 1946 on whether Italy would remain a monarchy or become a republic. Italians decided to abandon the monarchy and form the Italian Republic, the Kingdom of Italy claimed all of the territory which is modern-day Italy. The development of the Kingdoms territory progressed under Italian re-unification until 1870, the state for a long period of time did not include Trieste or Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, which are in Italy today, and only annexed them in 1919. After the Second World War, the borders of present-day Italy were founded, the Kingdom of Italy was theoretically a constitutional monarchy. Executive power belonged to the monarch, as executed through appointed ministers, two chambers of parliament restricted the monarchs power—an appointive Senate and an elective Chamber of Deputies. The kingdoms constitution was the Statuto Albertino, the governing document of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In theory, ministers were responsible to the king. However, in practice, it was impossible for an Italian government to stay in office without the support of Parliament, members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected by plurality voting system elections in uninominal districts. A candidate needed the support of 50% of those voting, and of 25% of all enrolled voters, if not all seats were filled on the first ballot, a runoff was held shortly afterwards for the remaining vacancies. After a brief multinominal experimentation in 1882, proportional representation into large, regional, Socialists became the major party, but they were unable to form a government in a parliament split into three different factions, with Christian Populists and classical liberals
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Christian Democracy (Italy)
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Christian Democracy was a Christian democratic political party in Italy. The DC was founded in 1943 as the successor of the Italian Peoples Party, which had the same symbol. The party was nicknamed the White Whale, from 1946 until 1994 the DC was the largest party in Parliament, governing in successive coalitions. It originally supported governments based on political positions, before moving to centre-left coalitions. The party was succeeded by a string of parties, including the Italian Peoples Party, the Christian Democratic Centre, the United Christian Democrats. Former Christian Democrats are also spread among other parties, including the centre-right Forza Italia and the New Centre-Right, the DC was a founding member of the European Peoples Party in 1976. The party was founded as the revival of the Italian Peoples Party, a party created in 1919 by Luigi Sturzo. 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 allies, the PLI. In the 1948 general election the DC went on to win a victory, with the support of the Catholic Church and the United States. Under De Gasperi, major reforms were carried out in the poorer rural regions in the early postwar years, with farms appropriated from the large landowners. De Gasperi served as Prime Minister until 1953 and would die a year later. No Christian Democrat would match his longevity in office and, despite the fact that DCs 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 1963 the party, under Prime Minister Aldo Moro, formed a coalition with the PSI, which returned to ministerial roles after 16 years, the PSDI, similar Organic Centre-left governments became usual through the 1960s and the 1970s. From 1976 to 1979 the DC governed with the support of the PCI. Moro, who was the party leader and who had inspired the Compromise, was abducted and murdered by the Red Brigades
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Democratic Party (Italy)
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The Democratic Party is a social-democratic political party in Italy. The partys acting leader is Matteo Orfini, who replaced Matteo Renzi after his resignation in February 2017, in April–May the party will hold a leadership election and Renzi is again running for secretary. The PD was founded on 14 October 2007 upon the merger of various centre-left parties which had part of The Olive Tree list. The PDs main ideological trends are thus social democracy and the Italian Christian leftist tradition, the party has been also influenced by social liberalism, which was already present in some of the founding components of the DS and DL, and more generally by a Third Way progressivism. Following the 2013 general election and the 2014 European Parliament election, the PD was the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate and the European Parliament. From 2013 the Italian government has been led by three successive Democratic Prime Ministers, Enrico Letta, Matteo Renzi, and Paolo Gentiloni. As of 2017, other than the government, Democrats head fourteen regional governments out of twenty and function as coalition partner in Tuscany. Former bigwigs include Giorgio Napolitano, Sergio Mattarella, Romano Prodi, Giuliano Amato, Massimo DAlema, Pier Luigi Bersani, Francesco Rutelli, 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 parties to become the Democrats of the Left, while in March 2002 the PPI, RI. In the summer of 2003 Prodi suggested that the 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, the project was later abandoned in 2005 by the SDI. In the 2006 general election the list obtained 31. 3% of the vote for the Chamber of Deputies, eight parties agreed to merge into the PD, Democrats of the Left Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy. Southern Democratic Party, Sardinia Project, European Republicans Movement, Democratic Republicans, Middle Italy, while the DL agreed to the merger with virtually no resistance, the DS experienced a more heated final congress. On 19 April 2007 approximately 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, during and following the congress, both Mussi and Angius announced their intention not to join the PD and founded a new party called Democratic Left. On 22 May 2007 the composition of the committee of the nascent party was announced. On 18 June the committee met to decide the rules for the election of the 2,400 members of the partys constituent assembly
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Quirinal Palace
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It is located on the Quirinal Hill, the highest of the seven hills of Rome. It has housed thirty Popes, four Kings of Italy and twelve presidents of the Italian Republic, the palace extends for an area of 110,500 square metres and is the ninth-largest palace in the world in terms of area. By way of comparison, the White House in the United States is one-twentieth of its size, the current site of the palace has been in use since Roman times, as excavations in the gardens testify. On this hill, the Romans built temples to several deities, from Flora to Quirinus, during the reign of Constantine the last complex of Roman baths was built here, as the statues of the twins Castor and Pollux taming the horses decorating the fountain in the square testify. The Quirinal, being the highest hill in Rome, was sought after and became a popular spot for the Roman patricians. An example of those are the remains of a villa in the Quirinal gardens, the palace, located on the Via del Quirinale and facing onto the Piazza del Quirinale, was built in 1583 by Pope Gregory XIII as a papal summer residence. On the site, there was already a small villa owned by the Carafa family, the pope commissioned the architect Ottaviano Mascherino to build a palace with porticoed parallel wings and an internal court. To the latter, a tower was added according to a project by Carlo Maderno. Pope Paul V commissioned the completion of the work on the building of the palace. The Palace was also used as the location for papal conclaves in 1823,1829,1831 and it served as a papal residence and housed the central offices responsible for the civil government of the Papal States until 1870. In September 1870, what was left of the Papal States was overthrown, about five months later, in 1871, Rome became the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy. The monarchy was abolished in 1946 and the Palace became the residence and workplace for the Presidents of the Italian Republic. Still, some declined the Colle residence and kept their usual Roman residence, for example, the façade was designed by Domenico Fontana. Its Great Chapel was designed by Carlo Maderno and it contains frescos by Guido Reni, but the most famous fresco is the Blessing Christ by Melozzo da Forlì, placed over the stairs. Its grounds include a set of gardens laid out in the 17th century. The palace, in its totality has 1,200 rooms, within the Quirinals gardens lies the famous water organ built between 1997 and 1999 by Barthélemy Formentelli based on the characteristics of the previous nineteenth century organ. The organ is fed by a waterfall with a jump of 18 meters and has a keyboard of 41 notes with a first short octave. Overall, the Quirinals gardens measure a 4 hectares, under the gardens, through a trap door one can reach the archaeological excavations that have unearthed the remains of the original temple to the god Quirinus and some insulae of the imperial age
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Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
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Sapienza University of Rome
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The Sapienza University of Rome, also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, is a collegiate research university located in Rome, Italy. Formally known as Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, it is the largest European university by enrollments and one of the oldest in history, the University is also the most prestigious Italian university and also the best ranked in Southern Europe. The biggest part of the Italian ruling class studied at this University and he introduced a new tax on wine in order to raise funds for the university, the money was used to buy a palace which later housed the SantIvo alla Sapienza church. However, the Universitys days of splendour came to an end during the sack of Rome in 1527, when the studium was closed and the professors dispersed, Pope Paul III restored the university shortly after his ascension to the pontificate in 1534. In the 1650s the university known as Sapienza, meaning wisdom. University students were newly animated during the 19th-century Italian revival, in 1870, La Sapienza stopped being the papal university and became the university of the capital of Italy. In 1935 the new university campus, planned by Marcello Piacentini, was completed, Sapienza University has many campuses in Rome but its main campus is the Città Universitaria, which covers 439,000 m2 near the Roma Tiburtina Station. The university has satellite campuses outside Rome, the main of which is in Latina. In 2011 a project was launched to build a campus residence halls near Pietralata station. The Department of Philosophy is located in this building, since the 2011 reform, Sapienza University of Rome has eleven faculties and 65 departments. Today Sapienza, with 140,000 students and 8,000 among academic and technical, the university has significant research programmes in the fields of engineering, natural sciences, biomedical sciences and humanities. It offers 10 Masters Programmes taught entirely in English, as of the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities, Sapienza is positioned within the 151-200 group of universities and among the top 3% of universities in the world. In 2015, the Center for World University Rankings ranked the Sapienza University of Rome as the 112th in the world, in order to cope with the large demand for admission to the university courses, some faculties hold a series of entrance examinations. The entrance test often decides which candidates will have access to the undergraduate course, for some faculties, the entrance test is only a means through which the administration acknowledges the students level of preparation. Students that do not pass the test can still enroll in their chosen degree courses but have to pass an additional exam during their first year, the title of the speech would have been The Truth Makes Us Good and Goodness is Truth. Some students and professors protested in reaction to a 1990 speech that Pope Benedict XVI gave in which he, in their opinion, endorsed the actions of the church against Galileo in 1633
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Cabinet of Italy
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The Council of Ministers is the principal executive organ of the Government of Italy. It comprises the President of the Council, all the ministers, junior ministers are part of the government, but are not members of the Council of Ministers. The Council of Ministers origins date to the production of the Albertine Statute by the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1848, currently the Council of Ministers is governed by the Constitution and Law no.400 of 23 August 1988. All powers of the Council of Ministers rest in the hands of the President of Italy until the ministers assume their offices, the Presidents of the Regions with Special Statute have the right to participate in sessions of the Council of Ministers in matters relevant to them are discussed. Before assuming power, the Prime Minister and the Ministers must take an oath of office according to the laid out in Article 1.3 of Law no. The oath expresses the necessity of trust which is incumbent on all citizens, the Council of Ministers is the principal holder of executive power in the Italian system - that is, the power to put a decision of the Italian political process into effect. In relation to the Parliament, the relationship of trust is crucial, for the Council of Ministers and the Prime Minister to continue in office, they must retain the political support of both chambers of Parliament. The relationship of trust is the core of the Italian parliamentary system, the President of the Republic has the power to appoint the Prime Minister and the ministers. The regular judiciary is organised from a point of view by the Minister of Justice. As the main organ of the power, the Council of Ministers primary role is the actualisation of national political decisions. The Constitution provides it with the means of doing this, Legislative initiative. Frequent use of the power has seen substantial legislative power shift from Parliament to the Council. Regulatory power, The ministers have two distinct but co-existing roles, as administrators, the Council and the individual ministers can produce regulations, which are legal implements subordinate to legislation. Thus, regulations which contradict legislation are illegitimate and can be set aside by ordinary judges, the current Italian government is led by Paolo Gentiloni. As of December 2016, the government has 16 Ministers, of three are without portfolio
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Sicily
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Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous Region of Italy, along with surrounding minor islands, Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula, from which it is separated by the narrow Strait of Messina. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, the island has a typical Mediterranean climate. The earliest archaeological evidence of activity on the island dates from as early as 12,000 BC. It became part of Italy in 1860 following the Expedition of the Thousand, a revolt led by Giuseppe Garibaldi during the Italian unification, Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region after the Italian constitutional referendum of 1946. Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially regard to the arts, music, literature, cuisine. It is also home to important archaeological and ancient sites, such as the Necropolis of Pantalica, the Valley of the Temples, Sicily has a roughly triangular shape, earning it the name Trinacria. To the east, it is separated from the Italian mainland by the Strait of Messina, about 3 km wide in the north, and about 16 km wide in the southern part. The northern and southern coasts are each about 280 km long measured as a line, while the eastern coast measures around 180 km. The total area of the island is 25,711 km2, the terrain of inland Sicily is mostly hilly and is intensively cultivated wherever possible. Along the northern coast, the ranges of Madonie,2,000 m, Nebrodi,1,800 m. The cone of Mount Etna dominates the eastern coast, in the southeast lie the lower Hyblaean Mountains,1,000 m. The mines of the Enna and Caltanissetta districts were part of a leading sulphur-producing area throughout the 19th century, Sicily and its surrounding small islands have some highly active volcanoes. Mount Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe and still casts black ash over the island with its ever-present eruptions and it currently stands 3,329 metres high, though this varies with summit eruptions, the mountain is 21 m lower now than it was in 1981. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps, Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2 with a basal circumference of 140 km. This makes it by far the largest of the three volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. In Greek Mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under the mountain by Zeus, Mount Etna is widely regarded as a cultural symbol and icon of Sicily. The Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, to the northeast of mainland Sicily form a volcanic complex, the three volcanoes of Vulcano, Vulcanello and Lipari are also currently active, although the latter is usually dormant
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Bernardo Mattarella
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Bernardo Mattarella was an Italian politician for the Christian Democrat party. He has been Minister of Italy several times, Bernardo Mattarella was born in Castellammare del Golfo, in the province of Trapani in western Sicily as the eldest of seven children in a family of humble origins. In 1924, he became the secretary of the Italian Peoples Party, an anti-fascist, he graduated in law in Palermo, where he lived until the Allied invasion of Sicily. He moved to Rome, where he took part in the founding of the DC in May 1943 with Alcide De Gasperi and he held the position of Deputy Minister for Public Education in the governments led by Ivanoe Bonomi. In the June 1946 he was elected to the Italian Constituent Assembly and he would be re-elected in 1953,1958,1963 and 1968. In 1953, after having been Minister of the Merchant Navy under De Gasperis short-lived government, he became Minister of Transportation, later he was Minister of Foreign Trade and Minister of Post and Communications. A favourable evalutation of his work as the Minister of Foreign Trade and of Post, in 1962 he was again Minister of Transportation and, in the following year, of Agriculture and Forests. In 1963–66 he was again Minister of Foreign Trades, Bernardo Mattarella was the main opponent of the Sicilian separatism, which had some influence in the years following the end of World War II. Mattarella has been accused several times of having links with the Mafia and these accusations were always rejected in court. The alleged links between Mattarella and the Mafia are described in reports and books. He was accused of having approached Calogero Vizzini, supposedly the most influential Mafia boss at the time to abandon the Sicilian separatists and join the Christian Democrats. The accusation was made by the Italian communists on the basis of an article that Mattarella published on the national Christian democrat newspaper, Il Popolo and this article does not contain any invitation neither to Vizzini nor to the Mafia to join the Christian Democrats. On the contrary, the article accused two families of the town of Villalba of being responsible of the violence in that town, the article was addressed to those who had voted for the separatists, which were invited to change their vote. Mattarella supported Vito Ciancimino – the first Italian politician to be guilty of Mafia membership. Ciancimino became a protégé of Mattarella, who supported his political and financial career, in 1950 Ciancimino obtained concessions for all railway transport inside Palermo. The three other firms that had made a bid were put out of the game, because Cianciminos bid was accompanied by a letter of Mattarella, who was then Minister of Transports. He was accused of being one of the men behind the Portella della Ginestra massacre, the bloodbath was perpetrated by the bandit Salvatore Giuliano who was possibly backed by the Mafia. It was Marchesano, Prince Alliata and Bernardo Mattarella who ordered the massacre of Portella di Ginestra, before the massacre they met Giuliano
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Anti-fascism
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Anti-fascism is opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. The anti-fascist movement began in a few European countries in the 1920s, with the development and spread of Italian Fascism, i. e. original fascism, the National Fascist Partys ideology was met with increasingly militant opposition by Italian communists and socialists. Organizations such as the Arditi del Popolo and the Italian Anarchist Union were born in the period 1919–1921 to combat the nationalist and fascist surge of the post-World War I period, thus as soon as Fascism coalesced into a coherent ideology, a militant leftist opposition sprouted in response. Furthermore, in the words of historian Eric Hobsbawm, as Fascism developed and spread, after the outbreak of World War II, the Albanian, Serbian, and Polish resistances were instrumental in antifascist action and underground resistance. This combination of irreconcilable nationalisms and leftist partisans constitute the earliest roots of European antifascism, the historian Norman Davies argues in his book Europe at War 1939–1945, No Simple Victory that anti-fascism does not offer a coherent political ideology, but rather that it is an empty vessel. The motive would be to lend legitimacy to the dictatorship of the proletariat and was done at the time the USSR was pursuing a policy of collective security, in Italy, Benito Mussolinis Fascist regime used the term anti-fascist to describe its opponents. Mussolinis secret police was officially known as Organizzazione per la Vigilanza e la Repressione dellAntifascismo, Italian for Organization for Vigilance, in Italy in the 1920s, anti-fascists—many from the labour movement—fought against the violent Blackshirts and against the rise of fascist leader Benito Mussolini. The General Confederation of Labour and the PSI refused to recognize the anti-fascist militia. The PCI organized some militant groups, but their actions were relatively minor, the Italian anarchist Severino Di Giovanni, who exiled himself to Argentina following the 1922 March on Rome, organized several bombings against the Italian fascist community. Italian liberal anti-fascist Benedetto Croce wrote Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, another notable Italian liberal anti-fascist around that time was Piero Gobetti. Between 1920 and 1943, several anti-fascist movements were active among the Slovenes and Croats in the annexed to Italy after World War I. The most influential was the militant insurgent organization TIGR, which carried out numerous sabotages, as well as attacks on representatives of the Fascist Party and the military. During World War II, many members of the Italian resistance left their houses and went to live in the mountainside, fighting against Italian fascists, many cities in Italy, including Turin, Naples and Milan, were freed by anti-fascist uprisings. In Italy, the first anti-fascist resistance emerged within the Slovene minority in Italy, not only in multi-ethnic areas, but also in the areas where the population was exclusively Slovene, the use of Slovene language in public places, including churches, was forbidden. Children, if they spoke Slovene, were punished by Italian teachers who were brought by the Fascist State from Southern Italy, the Slovene teachers, writers, and clergy were sent to the other side of Italy. The first anti-fascist organization, called TIGR, was formed in 1927 in order to fight Fascist violence and its guerrilla fight continued into the late 1920s and 1930s when by the mid-1930s, already 70.000 Slovenes fled Italy mostly to Slovenia and South America. The Slovene anti-fascist resistance in Yugoslavia during World War II was led by Liberation Front of the Slovenian People, soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky wrote, ighting squads must be created. Nothing increases the insolence of the fascists so much as flabby pacifism on the part of the workers organisations, political cowardice without organised combat detachments, the most heroic masses will be smashed bit by bit by fascist gangs
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Alcide De Gasperi
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Alcide Amedeo Francesco De Gasperi was an Italian statesman and politician who founded the Christian Democracy party. From 1945 to 1953 he was the minister of eight successive coalition governments. His eight-year term in office remains a landmark of political longevity for a leader in modern Italian politics, De Gasperi is the fourth longest-serving Prime Minister since the Italian Unification. De Gasperi was born in Pieve Tesino in Tyrol, which at that time belonged to Austria-Hungary and his father was a local police officer of limited financial means. From 1896 De Gasperi was active in the Social Christian movement, in 1900 he joined the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy in Vienna, where he played an important role in the inception of the Christian student movement. He was very inspired by the Rerum novarum encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891. In 1904 he took a part in student demonstrations in favour of an Italian-language university. Imprisoned with other protesters during the inauguration of the Italian juridical faculty in Innsbruck, in 1905, De Gasperi obtained a degree in philology. In 1905 he began to work as editor of the newspaper La Voce Cattolica which was replaced in September 1906 by Il Trentino, in 1911 he became a Member of Parliament for the Popular Political Union of Trentino in the Austrian Reichsrat, a post he held for 6 years. He was politically neutral during World War I, which he spent in Vienna, however, he sympathised with the ultimately unsuccessful efforts of Pope Benedict XV and Bl. Karl I of Austria to obtain a peace and stop the war. When his home region was transferred to Italy in the post-war settlement and he however never tried to hide his love for Austria and German culture and often preferred speaking German to his family, many of whom spoke German as their first language. In 1919 he was among of the founders of the Italian Peoples Party and he served as a deputy in the Italian Parliament from 1921 to 1924, a period marked by the rise of Fascism. He initially supported the participation of the PPI in Benito Mussolinis first government in October 1922, the PPI split, and De Gasperi became secretary of the remaining anti-Fascist group in May 1924. In November 1926, in a climate of violence and intimidation by the Fascists. De Gasperi was arrested in March 1927 and sentenced to four years in prison, a year and a half in prison nearly broke De Gasperis health. During World War II, he organised the establishment of the first Christian Democracy party drawing upon the ideology of the Popular Party, in January 1943, he published Ideas for Reconstruction, which amounted to a programme for the party. He became the first general secretary of the new party in 1944, De Gasperi was the undisputed head of the Christian Democrats, the party that dominated Parliament for decades
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Roman Catholicism
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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church or the Universal Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.28 billion members worldwide. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, it has played a prominent role in the history, headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, the churchs doctrines are summarised in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed. Its central administration is located in Vatican City, enclaved within Rome, the Catholic Church is notable within Western Christianity for its sacred tradition and seven sacraments. It teaches that it is the one church founded by Jesus Christ, that its bishops are the successors of Christs apostles. The Catholic Church maintains that the doctrine on faith and morals that it declares as definitive is infallible. The Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as such as mendicant orders and enclosed monastic orders. Among the sacraments, the one is the Eucharist, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest the sacrificial bread and wine become the body, the Catholic Church practises closed communion, with only baptised members in a state of grace ordinarily permitted to receive the Eucharist. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Catholic Church as Queen of Heaven and is honoured in numerous Marian devotions. The Catholic Church has influenced Western philosophy, science, art and culture, Catholic spiritual teaching includes spreading the Gospel while Catholic social teaching emphasises support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of education and medical services in the world, from the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticised for its doctrines on sexuality, its refusal to ordain women and its handling of sexual abuse cases. Catholic was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in the letter from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans, written about 110 AD. In the Catechetical Discourses of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name Catholic Church was used to distinguish it from other groups that call themselves the church. The use of the adjective Roman to describe the Church as governed especially by the Bishop of Rome became more widespread after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and into the Early Middle Ages. Catholic Church is the name used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church follows an episcopal polity, led by bishops who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders who are given formal jurisdictions of governance within the church. Ultimately leading the entire Catholic Church is the Bishop of Rome, commonly called the pope, in parallel to the diocesan structure are a variety of religious institutes that function autonomously, often subject only to the authority of the pope, though sometimes subject to the local bishop. Most religious institutes only have male or female members but some have both, additionally, lay members aid many liturgical functions during worship services
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Piersanti Mattarella
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Piersanti Mattarella was an Italian politician. He was assassinated by the Mafia while he held the position of President of the Regional Government of Sicily and he was the brother of Sergio Mattarella, President of Italian Republic since February 2015. Mattarella was born in Castellammare del Golfo, in the province of Trapani and he was the son of Bernardo Mattarella, a member of Christian Democracy, and a leading political boss in Sicily in the 1950s. The power network his father had created benefited his political career. He received a Catholic-oriented education by the Jesuits, in 1960 he became a national leader of the Azione Cattolica, and subsequently became an important regional member of DC. Inspired by the politics of Giorgio La Pira, he adhered to the progressive approach of national leader Aldo Moro. In 1967 he became deputy to the Regional Parliament of Sicily, a position he held until 1978, two years later, on January 6,1980, he was killed by the Mafia in Palermo. Initially believed to be an act of neo-fascist terrorism, his assassination was spurred by his strong commitment against the relationships of numerous Sicilian politicians with the Mafia, while in office, Mattarella had decided to launch a moral renewal of the Sicilian Christian Democracy. Soon, Mattarella became isolated. ’ To break the tension, Andreotti contacted Mafia boss Stefano Bontade to try to prevent the Mafia from killing Piersanti Mattarella. Bontade and other Mafiosi felt betrayed by Mattarella, who used to be responsive to their interests, after the murder of Mattarella, Andreotti again contacted Bontade and Salvatore Inzerillo to try to straighten things out. Andreotti and Lima allegedly arrived at the meeting in a bullet-proof Alfa Romeo and he had come to protest the killing. However, according to Marino Mannoia, Bontade told Andreotti, We are in charge in Sicily and, unless you want the whole DC cancelled out, you do as we say. When Andreotti’s aide Franco Evangelisti asked Lima about what had happened, Lima replied, “When agreements are struck, the Mattarella killing was also part of the trial against Andreotti for collusion with the Mafia. The judges decided to uphold Andreottis original acquittal on grounds of expiration of statutory terms because he had severed relations with the Mafia from 1980 and it attributed the turnaround to Mattarellas murder. Judge Giancarlo Caselli, Chief Prosecutor in Palermo for many years, described Mattarella as a honest and courageous Christian democrat, killed just because he was honest and his younger brother, Sergio Mattarella, was elected as President of Italian Republic in February 2015. List of victims of the Sicilian Mafia Dickie, John, a history of the Sicilian Mafia, London, Coronet, ISBN 0-340-82435-2 Ginsborg, Paul. Italy and Its Discontents, London, Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 1-4039-6152-2 Grasso, per non morire di mafia, Sperling & Kupfer, ISBN Orlando, Leoluca. Fighting the Mafia and Renewing Sicilian Culture, New York, Encounter Books, ISBN 1-893554-81-3 Schneider, reversible Destiny, Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo, Berkeley, University of California Press ISBN 0-520-23609-2 Stille, Alexander
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Sicilian Mafia
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The Sicilian Mafia, also known as simply the Mafia or Cosa Nostra, is a criminal syndicate in Sicily, Italy. It is an association of criminal groups that share a common organisational structure. The basic group is known as a family, clan, or cosca or cosche in Sicilian, each family claims sovereignty over a territory, usually a town or village or a neighbourhood of a larger city, in which it operates its rackets. Its members call themselves men of honour, although the public refers to them as mafiosi. The mafias core activities are protection racketeering, the arbitration of disputes between criminals, and the organizing and oversight of illegal agreements and transactions, following waves of emigration, the Mafia has spread to other countries such as the United States, Canada, and Australia. The word mafia originated in Sicily, though its origins are uncertain, the Sicilian adjective mafiusu roughly translates to mean swagger, but can also be translated as boldness, bravado. In reference to a man, mafiusu in 19th century Sicily was ambiguous, signifying a bully, arrogant but also fearless, enterprising and proud, in reference to a woman, however, the feminine-form adjective mafiusa means beautiful and attractive. The Sicilian word mafie refers to the caves near Trapani and Marsala, Sicily was once an Islamic emirate, therefore mafia might have Arabic roots. The words mafia and mafiusi are never mentioned in the play, the play is about a Palermo prison gang with traits similar to the Mafia, a boss, an initiation ritual, and talk of umirtà and pizzu. The play had great success throughout Italy, soon after, the use of the term mafia began appearing in the Italian states early reports on the phenomenon. The word made its first official appearance in 1865 in a report by the prefect of Palermo Filippo Antonio Gualterio, the term mafia has become a generic term for any organized criminal network with similar structure, methods, and interests. Nowadays people have gone so far in the direction that it has become an overused term. According to mafia turncoats, the name of the mafia is Cosa Nostra. Italian-American mafioso Joseph Valachi testified before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U. S. Senate Committee on Government Operations in 1963 and he revealed that American mafiosi referred to their organization by the term cosa nostra. At the time, it was understood as a name, fostered by the FBI. The FBI even added the article la to the term, calling it La Cosa Nostra, in 1984, mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta revealed to anti-mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone that the term was used by the Sicilian Mafia, as well. Buscetta dismissed the word mafia as a literary creation. Other defectors such as Antonino Calderone and Salvatore Contorno confirmed the use of Cosa Nostra by members, mafiosi introduce known members to each other as belonging to cosa nostra or la stessa cosa, meaning he is the same thing as you — a mafioso
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Azione Cattolica
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The Azione Cattolica Italiana, or Azione Cattolica for short, is a widespread Roman Catholic lay association in Italy. In Italy in 1905, Azione Cattolica was established as a lay organization under the direct control of bishops. It was established by Pope Pius X after a similar organization. The set of events brought to the foundation of the Azione Cattolica was critical in the excommunication of the modernism in 1907. The organization was established as a non-political one because the modernists used Catholic lay organizations to promote an agenda of siding with Italian parties of the left. One of the first main leaders of the Azione Cattolica was count Ottorino Gentiloni, in the thirties the original strongly anti-modernist stance of the organization started changing. Since the organization was forbidden by the Vatican to participate in politics, it was not opposed by the fascist regime, Italian Youth in Conflict, Catholic Action and Fascist Italy, 1929-1931. Catholic Action in Italy NON ABBIAMO BISOGNO, Pius XI,1931 Azione Cattolica Italiana Official Website Forum of Catholic Action - From Zenit. org
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Parliamentary procedure
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Parliamentary procedure is the body of rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings and other operations of clubs, organizations, legislative bodies, and other deliberative assemblies. In the United States, parliamentary procedure is referred to as parliamentary law, parliamentary practice, legislative procedure. At its heart is the rule of the majority with respect for the minority and its object is to allow deliberation upon questions of interest to the organization and to arrive at the sense or the will of the assembly upon these questions. Self-governing organizations follow parliamentary procedure to debate and reach group decisions—usually by vote—with the least possible friction, Rules of order consist of rules written by the body itself, but also usually supplemented by a published parliamentary authority adopted by the body. The term gets its name from its use in the system of government. In the 16th and 17th century, there were rules of order in the early Parliaments of England, in the 1560s Sir Thomas Smyth began the process of writing down accepted procedures and published a book about them for the House of Commons in 1583. In Canada, for example, Parliament uses House of Commons Procedure, the rules of the United States Congress were developed from the parliamentary procedures used in Britain. The American parliamentary procedures are followed in nations, including Indonesia. The procedures of the Diet of Japan have moved away from the British parliamentary model, in Occupied Japan, there were efforts to bring Japanese parliamentary procedures more in line with American congressional practices. In Japan, informal negotiations are more important than formal procedures, voting determines the will of the assembly. While each assembly may create their own set of rules, these tend to be more alike than different. A common practice is to adopt a standard book on parliamentary procedure. A parliamentary structure conducts business through motions, which cause actions, members bring business before the assembly by introducing main motions, or dispose of this business through subsidiary motions and incidental motions. Parliamentary procedure also allows for rules in regards to nomination, voting, disciplinary action, appeals, dues, and the drafting of organization charters, constitutions, the most common procedural authority in use in the United States is Roberts Rules of Order. Other authorities include The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure and Demeters Manual of Parliamentary Law, a common text in use in the UK, particularly within trade unions, is Lord Citrines ABC of Chairmanship. In English-speaking Canada, popular authorities include Kerr & Kings Procedures for Meeting, the Conservative Party of Canada uses Wainbergs Society meetings including rules of order to run its internal affairs. In French-speaking Canada, commonly used rules of order for ordinary societies include Victor Morins Procédures des assemblées délibérantes, legislative assemblies in all countries, because of their nature, tend to have a specialized set of rules that differ from parliamentary procedure used by clubs and organizations. In the United Kingdom, Thomas Erskine Mays Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament is the authority on the powers
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University of Palermo
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For the University of Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina, see University of Palermo. The University of Palermo is a university located in Palermo, Italy and it is organized in 12 Faculties. The University of Palermo was officially founded in 1806, although its earliest roots date back to 1498 when medicine and law were taught there. In 1767 they were expelled from the kingdom by King Ferdinand I, at this time the same King Ferdinand decided to grant a worthy seat to the Accademia, moving its location to the Convent of the Teatini Fathers next to the Church of St. Giuseppe. Not far from Palazzo Steri, on land belonging to the Chiaramonte. Today, the University has grown to be an institution of about 2000 lecturers and 50,000 students in research in all main fields of study is carried out. In the past few years the university has taken part in international cooperation programmes
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Italian Communist Party
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The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy. The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played a part in the Italian resistance movement. It changed its name in 1943 to PCI and became the second largest political party of Italy after World War II, at the time it was the largest communist party in the West. The more radical members of the party left to form the Communist Refoundation Party, the PCI participated to its first general election in 1921, obtaining 4. 6% of the vote and 15 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. In 1926, the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini outlawed the PCI, although forced underground, the PCI maintained a clandestine presence within Italy during the years of the Fascist regime. Many of its leaders were also active in exile, during its first year as a banned party, Antonio Gramsci defeated the partys left wing, led by Amadeo Bordiga. Gramsci replaced Bordigas leadership at a conference in Lyon, and issued a manifesto expressing the programmatic basis of the party, however, Gramsci soon found himself jailed by Mussolinis regime, and the leadership of the party passed to Palmiro Togliatti. Togliatti would lead the party until it emerged from suppression in 1944, the communists contribution to the new Italian democratic constitution was decisive. The Gullo decrees of 1944, for instance, sought to improve social, in the first general elections of 1948 the party joined the PSI in the Popular Democratic Front, but was defeated by the Christian Democracy party. The party gained considerable success during the following years and occasionally supplied external support to centre-left governments. It successfully lobbied Fiat to set up the AvtoVAZ car factory in the Soviet Union, the party did best in Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria, where it regularly won the local administrative elections, and in some of the industrialized cities of Northern Italy. At the city government level during the course of the period, the PCI demonstrated their capacity for uncorrupt, efficient. After the elections of 1975, the PCI was the strongest force in all of the municipal councils of the great cities. The PCIs municipal showcase was Bologna, which was held continuously by the PCI from 1945 onwards, from 1946 to 1956, the Communist city council built 31 nursery schools,896 flats, and 9 schools. Health care improved substantially, street lighting was installed, new drains and municipal launderettes were built, in 1972, the then-mayor of Bologna, Renato Zangheri, introduced a new and innovative traffic plan with strict limitations for private vehicles and a renewed concentration on cheap public transport. Bolognas social services continued to expand throughout the early and mid-Seventies, communists administrations at a local level also helped to aid new businesses while also introducing innovative social reforms. The Soviet Unions brutal suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 created a split within the PCI, the party leadership, including Palmiro Togliatti and Giorgio Napolitano, regarded the Hungarian insurgents as counter-revolutionaries, as reported at the time in lUnità, the official PCI newspaper
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Enrico Berlinguer
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Enrico Berlinguer was an Italian politician, he was national secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1972 until his death. Considered the most popular leader of the PCI, Berlinguer led the party during a period in Italys history, marked by the Years of Lead. This strategy came to be termed Eurocommunism, and he was seen as its main spokesperson, with these gains, he negotiated the Historic Compromise with the Christian Democrats, lending support to their government in exchange for consultation on policy decisions and social reforms. However, these stands were not reciprocated with sufficient concessions from Giulio Andreottis government and he characterised the PCI as an honest party in Italys corruption-ravaged politics, an image that preserved the partys reputation during the Mani pulite corruption scandals. His surname is of Catalan origin, a reminder of the period when Sardinia was part of the dominions of the Crown of Aragon and he was a cousin of Francesco Cossiga, and both were relatives of Antonio Segni, another Christian Democrat leader and President of the Republic. In 1937 Berlinguer had his first contacts with Sardinian anti-Fascists, and in 1943 formally entered the Italian Communist Party, the following year a riot exploded in the town, he was involved in the disorders and was arrested, but was discharged after three months of prison. Immediately after his detention ended, his father brought him to Salerno, the town in which the Royal family, in Salerno his father introduced him to Palmiro Togliatti, the most important leader of the Communist Party. Togliatti sent Berlinguer back to Sardinia to prepare for his political career, in 1946 Togliatti became the national secretary of the Party, and called Berlinguer to Rome, where his talents let him enter the national leadership only two years later. In 1949 he was named secretary of the FGCI, a post he held until 1956. The year after he was named president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, Berlinguers career was obviously carrying him towards the highest positions in the party. After having held many posts, in 1968 he was elected a deputy for the first time for the electoral district of Rome. The following year he was elected deputy secretary of the party. Berlinguers unexpected stance made waves, he gave the strongest speech by a major Communist leader ever heard in Moscow, already a prominent leader in the party, Berlinguer was elected to the position of national secretary in 1972 when Luigi Longo resigned on grounds of ill health. In 1973, having been hospitalized after a car accident during a visit to Bulgaria, the following year in Belgrade Berlinguer met with Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito, with a view to further developing his relationships with the major Communist parties of Europe, Asia and Africa. In 1976, in Moscow again, Berlinguer confirmed the position of the PCI vis-à-vis the Soviet Communist Party. Before 5,000 Communist delegates he spoke of a system, referring to the PCIs intentions to build a socialism that we believe necessary. When Berlinguer finally secured the PCIs condemnation of any kind of interference, since Italy was suffering the interference of NATO, the Soviets said, it seemed that the only interference that the Italian Communists could not suffer was the Soviet one. In an interview with Corriere della Sera Berlinguer declared that he felt safer under NATOs umbrella, Berlinguers acceptance of NATO did not dent US suspicion of him, appearing on the cover of Time on 14 June 1976, he was named The Red Threat
. The New York Times.
