Ciao a tutti,
On the 2nd of June Italy celebrated its transformation from a Monarchy to a Republic. President Giorgio Napolitano had some very apt words to say on the occassion. Even though rather long we thought we would share the more salient parts with you as we found it described Italy so well.
"(...) The legacy of civilization from ancient Rome; the message of Christianity; the splendor of the Renaissance; the succession over the centuries of extraordinary figures - poets, scientists, and artists; and the flourishing of a common language and culture long before Italy became politically unified into a nation-state: these are what nourished the idea of Italy, giving rise, early in the nineteenth century, to that struggle for unification, that process of trial and error, of heroic sacrifices, and far-sighted political action that took the name of Risorgimento and which achieved its hard-fought goal one hundred and fifty years ago.
I would like you to know that we are aware of the incomparable value of the historical heritage of which - in all modesty - we are heirs as Italians, and therefore of the responsibility that befalls us to prove ourselves worthy custodians and successors. In doing so, we should never forget the wider horizons, well beyond our borders, that have inspired the minds that are most highly representative of Italian genius. Dante Alighieri wrote of himself, in the early fourteenth century: "We who love Florence so much that for that love we suffer unjust exile, we have the world as our fatherland just as the fish the sea ".
In the one hundred and fifty years since the day of national unification, Italy has made a long and arduous journey. At this solemn anniversary, we have tried to look back on it with a critical eye, drawing from it a clear understanding, a feeling of pride and confidence. Italy has gone through some dramatic changes, especially since its rebirth as a democracy, regaining freedom, unity and independence after two decades of fascist dictatorship and the tragedy of the Second World War. We have - by becoming a Republic - founded a renewed civil society upon the solid foundation of the far-sighted principles embodied in the 1948 Constitution. Thanks to an extraordinary collective effort of reconstruction, we not only rose up from the ruins of a disastrous war, but transformed and developed rapidly into one of the world's leading industrialized countries.
And yet, we started out one hundred and fifty hears ago, from a state of severe backwardness. Quite a few of you - Distinguished Guests - know all too well about the flood of Italian emigration: over the course of a century, more than twenty-five million Italians fled this country of ours, which was unable for a long time after unification to offer its sons any hope of work. They emigrated to other parts of Europe and to the New World, on the other side of the ocean. In just the last twenty years or so, Italy has become instead a country of immigration, to the extent that foreigners now account for seven per cent of the population, marking the latest transformation of the Italian economy and society."
Arrivederci,
ITALY team
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