Italy (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

Kingdom of Italy Regno d'Italia Timeline: Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum OTL equivalent: Italy plus Corsica
Flag Coat of arms
Motto:  Dio e Popolo (Italian) ("God and People")
Anthem:  Il Canto degli Italiani (unofficial) Dio vi Salvi Regina Royal anthem:  Marcia Reale d'Ordinanza
Location of Italy
Capital		Rome
Ethnic groups		Italians
Religion		Christianity; Irreligion; Islam; Judaism
Demonym		Italian
Government		Unitary state; Constitutional monarchy
-	King	Victor Emmanuel IV
-	Prime Minister	Giuseppe Conte
Legislature		Diet General of Italy
-	Upper house	Senate
-	Lower house	Chamber of Deputies
Establishment
-	Promulgation of the Pauline Constitution	November 8, 1755
-	Enactment of the Albertine Statute	March 4, 1848
-	Declaration of the Federated Government of Italian States	May 16, 1860
Population
-	estimate	60,347,801
Currency		Euro (EUR)
Time zone		CET (UTC+1)
Internet TLD		.it
Calling code		+39
Membership international or regional organizations		United Nations; European Community

Italy (Italian: Italia), officially the Kingdom of Italy (Italian: Regno d'Italia), is a country in Southern Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, West Austria, and Illyria along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Corsica, Sicily, Sardinia and many other smaller islands. The independent state of San Marino is enclave within Italy, the Papal States has the possession of Vatican City, an enclave within Rome, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland.

Italy is a great power, and it has a significant role in regional and global economic, military, cultural, and diplomatic affairs. It ranks highly in life expectancy, quality of life, healthcare, and education. The source of many inventions and discoveries, the country has long been a global center of art, music, literature, philosophy, science and technology, and fashion and has greatly influenced and contributed to diverse fields including cinema, cuisine, sports, jurisprudence, banking, and business.

Italy has an advanced economy. The country is the ninth-largest by nominal GDP (third in the European Community), the eighth-largest by national wealth and the third-largest by central bank gold reserve. Italy is a founding and leading member of the European Community as well as members of the United Nations, NATO, the OECD, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the World Trade Organization, the Group of Seven, the G20, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Latin Union, the Council of Europe, Uniting for Consensus, the Schengen Area, and many more.

Politics and government

Quirinal Palace, the official residence of the monarch of Italy.

Italy is a unitary constitutional monarchy, with an hereditary crown, in accordance with the Salic law. Constitutionally, the monarch is declared to be "sacred and inviolable." As the head of state, the monarch embodies and personifies the unity and permanence of the kingdom. The monarch is also the commander-in-chief of the Italian Armed Forces. While as the time progressed the role of the monarch in the day-to-day government has been gradually diminished, depending on the personalities and relationships of the monarch and the ministers, the former might have influence on the government.

The constitution of Italy is not codified, but the current organs and structure of the state as well as the rights of individuals are mostly derived from the combination of two written sources, the Pauline Constitution (Costituzione Paolina), the former governing document of the Corsican Republic, and the Albertine Statute (Statuto Albertino), the former governing document of the Kingdom of Sardinia, the two founding states of unified Italy. Both documents, however, are considered a flexible constitution that could be modified or supplemented with a law adopted according to the ordinary procedure of the Diet. There is a collection of constitutional laws (diritto costituzionale) that were passed since the unification which can only be changed with by a supermajority vote in the both houses of Diet General.

Montecitorio Palace, the seat of the Chamber of Deputies.

Madama Palace, the seat of the Senate.

Legislative power is exercised together by the monarch and the Diet General (Dieta Generale) which comprised of an appointed upper house, the Senate (Senato) and an elected lower house, the Chamber of Deputies (Camera dei Deputati). The members of the Senate, currently consisted of 150 Senators, are appointed by the monarch for life, and have to be at least 40 years old. The members of the Chamber of Deputies, currently numbered of 630 deputies, are elected in direct elections by proportional representation within multi-member constituencies every five years, unless the house is dissolved by the monarch before then.

Since the fall of Italian Fascism in 1944, there are two main political parties in Italy in terms of the number of seats in the Chamber of Deputies, which are the Christian Democrats (Cristiani Democratici, CD) and the Labour Party (Partito Operaio, PO). The Christian Democrats is a centrist, catch-all party, comprising both center-right and center-left political factions. Technically, the CD is on the right side of political spectrum with its support on legislations inspired by Catholic social teaching. On the left, there is the PO that outgrow from the Italian labour movement support secular and social democratic policies. There are also the far-left Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) as well as several minor hard-right and regional parties exist.

Executive power technically belongs to the monarch, who exercise his power through appointed ministers. The Prime Minister, officially titled as the President of the Council of Ministers (Presidenti del Consiglio dei Ministri), serves as the country's de facto head of government in the monarch's stead. Constitutionally, the Prime Minister is the first among equals, with no explicit powers beyond those of the other ministers. In theory, ministers are responsible solely to the monarch. However, in practice, the monarch is unable to appoint a government of their choosing or keep it in office against the majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Therefore, the Prime Minister must have the confidence of the Chamber to stay in office.

The Palace of Justice, the seat of the Supreme Court of Cassation.

The judiciary of Italy is based on Roman law, the Napoleonic code and later statutes. It is based on a mix of the adversarial and inquisitorial civil law systems. The structure of the Italian judiciary is divided into three tiers: inferior courts of original and general jurisdiction, intermediate appellate courts which hear cases on appeal from lower courts, and courts of last resort which hear appeals from lower appellate courts on the interpretation of law. The highest court of last resort is the Supreme Court of Cassation (Corte Suprema di Cassazione) that ensures the correct application of law in the inferior and appeal courts and resolves disputes as to which lower court (penal, civil, administrative, military) has jurisdiction to hear a given case. All judges are theoretically appointed by the monarch, but in practice the appointments are suggested by the Prime Minister and approved by the Diet General beforehand.

History

Risorgimento (1815–71)

Pasquale Paoli, the Father of Italian Nation (1725–1807)

Before 1860, Italy was an area that made of a group of smaller independent states, ruled by other countries (such as Austria, France, and Spain). This situation was shaken in 1796, when Napoleon I invaded Italy, forced Austria to withdraw from Italy. During the Napoleonic Wars, northern-central Italy was invaded and reorganized as the new Kingdom of Italy, a client state of the French Empire, while the southern half of the peninsula was administered by Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law, who was crowned as King of Naples.

After the peace overture by Napoleon I to end the European-wide conflict, the Peace of Vienna (1814-1815) had restored the situation of the late 18th century, dividing Italy between Austria (in the north-east and Lombardy), the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Corsican Republic, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (in the south and in Sicily), and Tuscany, the Papal States and other minor states in the center. While the Corsican Republic was recreated (mostly came from Britain's initiatives), other old republics such as Venice and Genoa were not: Venice went to Austria and Genoa went to the Kingdom of Sardinia.

In the end, the sentiment for the unification of Italy has emerged as the Corsican Republic and the Kingdom of Sardinia under the House of Savoy were competed to become a regional power in the Italian peninsula. Sardinia successfully challenged Austria in the Second Italian War of Independence, liberating Lombardy-Venetia from Austrian rule. In 1860–61, Corsica-supported General Giuseppe Garibaldi led the drive for unification in Naples and Sicily, allowing the Corsican government led by Gian Paolo Borghetti to declare the Federated Government of Italian States on May 16, 1860.

By 1861, Veneto was still not part of Italy, because they were ruled by the Austrian Empire. Veneto was made part of Italy in 1866 after the Third Italian War of Independence. In 1870, Roman soldiers invaded Latium in 1870 and the Pope's power on the region was taken away by the Roman government. The small remnant of Papal States was left only in Vatican. Pope Pius IX, who was angry with Rome's offensive action, fled to Andorra under a self-imposed exile and the Papal States then left the federation, although he was not actually restrained from coming to and going from Rome, to keep Catholic people from being active in politics. That year, Italy finally came back together although its capital was not moved from Naples to Rome until July 1871.

The highly liberal and democratic Corsican Constitution of 1815 was extended to the whole Kingdom of Italy in 1861, provided the basic freedoms of the citizens and introduced universal male suffrage for property owners in Italy. The government of the newly-unified Italy took place in a framework of parliamentary democracy dominated by liberals and radicals. However, Italy's political arena was sharply divided between the republicans and the monarchists which created frequent deadlock and attempts to preserve governments.

Further readings