Celebrating Italy's rebirth: Festa e Rinascita della Repubblica Italiana on 2 June, 2020
On March 9, 2020, Italy is officially put into lockdown. It is a date that will be difficult to forget.
On the 3rd of June, after almost 3 months, Italy will open its borders and it will be possible again for the people in Italy to move freely between the regions.
But there is another date that is very important to remember in the context of the History of the Italian State:
On June 2, in fact, Italy celebrates “la Festa della Repubblica”, established to commemorate the birth of the Italian Republic on June 2, 1946.
The "Frecce Tricolori" fly over Rome in celebration of "la Festa della Repubblica".
On 2 and 3 June 1946 an institutional referendum was held and Italians were asked to decide which form of government they would choose in the wake of the Second World War: a Monarchy or a Republic. Furthermore, it was the first time in Italy that a vote was held by “Suffragio Universale” (universal suffrage) actively involving all citizens who had reached the age of majority (at the time that was 21 years).
The republic won with 12,718,641 votes in favour, against the 10,718,502 preferences expressed for the monarchy. The vote also brought down the curtain on Il Regno d’Italia, which for 85 years had been ruled by the Savoia, the House of Savoy.
Our current President of the Republic is Sergio Mattarella who, on the occasion of the 74th anniversary of the Republic, will be present in Codogno, a city in Lombardy which was the first city hit by Coronavirus in February 2020.
On June 6, 1946, Corriere della Sera ( newspaper in Italy with the widest reach) announced the birth of the Italian Republic. June 3 can now be considered as the rebirth of the Italian state after suffering a pandemic that took more than 33,000 Italians.
