What was the result of the 1946 Italian institutional referendum?
The Italian republic prevailed with 12,717,923 votes, representing 54% of those cast, against 10,719,284 votes for the monarchy, representing 46%. Voter turnout reached 89%.
Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Italian republic prevailed with 12,717,923 votes, representing 54% of those cast, against 10,719,284 votes for the monarchy, representing 46%. Voter turnout reached 89%.
Victor Emmanuel III abdicated on the 9th of May 1946, one month before the vote, in favor of his son Umberto II. Monarchists sought the change because Umberto was seen as less personally compromised than his father by Mussolini's rise to power and the coexistence with the fascist regime.
Northern Italy gave 66% of its votes to the republic, while southern Italy gave 64% to the monarchy. The republican majority exceeded 80% in the electoral college of Bologna, while the monarchist vote approached 80% in the college of Naples.
Umberto II left Italy on the 13th of June 1946, before the final official announcement of the results. He went into exile in Cascais, Portugal.
The Festa della Repubblica is the Italian national day, celebrated each year on the 2nd of June to mark the 1946 referendum in which Italians chose a republican form of government. The first celebration was held in 1947, with the first military parade in Via dei Fori Imperiali in Rome taking place in 1948. The 2nd of June was formally declared a national holiday in 1949.
Anna Iberti (1922-1997) was the young woman photographed by Federico Patellani for the weekly Tempo in June 1946, her face emerging from behind a copy of the Corriere della Sera bearing a headline announcing the birth of the Italian Republic. The photograph became an iconic symbol of the republic's founding. Her identity remained unknown for decades and was confirmed only in 2016.