Page 55 - Tuscany & Umbria: Rustic Beauty in the Italian Heartland

After Napoleon’s series of invasions, the Italian people sought to squelch foreign domination,
which gave birth to the movement for political unity in Italy, known as the Risorgimento
(Resurrection). Italian nationalism gathered broad support under the popular leader Giuseppe
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The country was ruled as a monarchy and joined the Allies in World War I. Benito Mussolini
rose to power during the early 1920s and ushered in one of the darkest periods in Italy’s
history. Mussolini (“Il Duce”) organized discontented Italians into the Fascist Party to “rescue
Italy from Bolshevism,”—but what he actually delivered was a totalitarian state controlled
by the militia. Mussolini formed an allianc8 with Hitler and fought against the Allies during
World War II. The Italian Resistance Movement fought Mussolini and the Nazis, but their
reprisals took a heavy toll: 400,000 people were killed, hundreds of thousands were left
homeless, and the economy was sharply disrupted. In 1945, Mussolini was captured in Milan
by Partisans and executed.

Italy was declared a republic in 1946, but during the postwar era it was seriously divided by
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the diametrically opposed Centrist Christian Democrats and the Italian Communist Party. In
the 1970s, a prolonged outbreak of terrorist acts by the left-wing Red Brigades threatened
domestic stability, but by the early 1980s, the terrorist groups had been suppressed.

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leaders. The political scandals, coupled with widespread institutional changes radically altered
Italian politics. Some political parties dissolved completely, while brand new parties formed;
new alliances were also forged. One such alliance led to the election of media mogul Silvio
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forced to resign when one of the allied parties withdrew its support. He ran again in 2001
and was reelected, setting up a pattern that was to dominate Italian politics for decades: elect
Berlusconi, have him resign, reelect him. In total, Berlusconi has been Prime Minster three
times (1994-1995, 2001-2006, and 2008-2011) and continues to remain a force in Italian
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During this time Italy also made changes to its currency, adopting the euro in January, 1999.
The new bills and coins started circulating in 2002. Recent years have also seen the country
take on many peacekeeping missions for the U.N., including sending troops to Somalia,
Mozambique, East Timor, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Albania; the election of Pope Francis in 2013;
and the 2016 earthquake in the Appenine region.

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