1946 Italian institutional referendum
The 1946 Italian institutional referendum placed a single question before nearly 25 million voters on the 2nd of June 1946. Should Italy remain a kingdom, or become a republic? The House of Savoy had ruled unified Italy since 1861. In those decades, the royal family had watched Benito Mussolini seize power and accepted the dismantling of parliamentary rule. Victor Emmanuel III then led the nation into World War II. With liberation barely a year in the past, Italians would now deliver their verdict. The Supreme Court of Cassation announced results on the 10th of June: 12,717,923 citizens had voted for the republic, and 10,719,284 for the monarchy. Behind that margin lay a century of argument about what Italy was meant to be. It was also a final reckoning with a royal house that had chosen accommodation over resistance. The path from Giuseppe Mazzini's exile in Marseille to the polling stations of 1946 was long. It ran through some of the darkest years in Italian history.
In July 1831, in exile in Marseille, Giuseppe Mazzini founded the Young Italy movement. His goal was a unitary democratic republic grounded in freedom, independence, and unity. The movement explicitly aimed to oust the monarchies that preceded unification, including the Kingdom of Sardinia. Mazzini formulated a philosophy he called "thought and action," insisting that every idea must lead directly to deed. His thinking shaped figures far beyond Italy. Among those influenced by his ideas were American president Woodrow Wilson and British prime minister David Lloyd George. Mahatma Gandhi, Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and Israeli prime minister Golda Meir were also on that list. Yet when unification finally arrived, Mazzini's republic lost out. Piedmontese prime minister Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, steered the process toward monarchy. Giuseppe Garibaldi, himself a republican, set aside his convictions. He handed the territories he had conquered in southern Italy directly to King Victor Emmanuel II. Other republicans called it treason. On the 17th of March 1861, Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of united Italy. In that year, only 2% of Italians had the right to vote. The constitutional framework was the Albertine Statute, named after Charles Albert of Sardinia, who promulgated it in 1848. It gave the king the power to appoint senators. One early republican martyr was Pietro Barsanti, a corporal in the Royal Italian Army. He was sentenced to death and shot in 1870 for backing an insurrectional attempt against the Savoy crown. He is counted today as the first martyr of the modern Italian Republic.
Carlo Cattaneo, who promoted a secular and federal version of Mazzini's republic, was elected to parliament in 1860 and again in 1867. He refused his seat both times rather than swear loyalty to the House of Savoy. In 1873, Felice Cavallotti preceded his parliamentary oath with a public declaration reaffirming his republican beliefs. A new electoral law in 1882 raised the voting rolls to more than two million citizens, representing 7% of the population. That same year, the Italian Workers' Party was founded; by 1895 it had become the Italian Socialist Party. In 1895, the intransigent republicans formally established the Italian Republican Party. In the 1919 elections, the parties most committed to republican ideology won 165 out of 508 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Still short of a majority, they faced a political landscape about to be overturned by a very different movement.
In October 1922, King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Benito Mussolini as prime minister, following the march on Rome. Mussolini had built his movement on the bitterness of the "mutilated victory," the fear of social unrest, and the rejection of republican and Marxist politics. Industrialists and parts of the aristocracy embraced the fascists as a protective barrier against these perceived threats. Parliament was progressively reduced to an instrument of the new government's will. On the 27th of June 1924, 127 deputies abandoned parliament and retreated to the Aventine Hill in protest. The maneuver, for all its moral clarity, left the political field open to the fascists. That same year, the assassination of socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti drew no consequential response from the king. A Royal Decree of the 6th of November 1926 dissolved all political parties except the National Fascist Party. Victor Emmanuel III later accepted the title of emperor in 1936, at the end of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. He then endorsed the alliance with Nazi Germany, and Italy entered World War II on the 10th of June 1940.
On the 29th of March 1927 in Paris, the anti-fascist parties in exile formed a coalition called the Concentrazione Antifascista Italiana. It brought together the Italian Republican Party, the Italian Socialist Party, and the Socialist Unitary Party of Italian Workers. The Italian League for Human Rights and the foreign representation of the Italian General Confederation of Labour also joined. The Italian Communist Party remained outside this coalition, as did the popular Catholic movement and several liberal groupings. The coalition dissolved on the 5th of May 1934; that August, the Italian Socialist Party and the Communist Party signed their own pact of unity of action. Inside Italy, clandestine anti-fascist groups formed in Milan around Ferruccio Parri and in Florence around Riccardo Bauer. From these underground networks, the Action Party, Mazzini's old republican party, was reconstituted. Between 1942 and 1943, Alcide De Gasperi wrote The Reconstructive Ideas of Christian Democracy. It laid the foundations for the Catholic-inspired party that would soon dominate postwar Italian politics.
On the 10th of July 1943, Allied forces landed in Sicily under Operation Husky. On the 25th of July, Victor Emmanuel III arrested Mussolini and entrusted the government to Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Badoglio's government negotiated with the Allies, and the Armistice of Cassibile was announced on the 8th of September 1943. The German reaction was immediate. German forces occupied the parts of Italy not yet under Allied control and disarmed the Italian Royal Army. Victor Emmanuel III and Badoglio fled Rome and reached Brindisi in the south. Mussolini, freed by Germany, established the Italian Social Republic in the north, a state entirely dependent on German power. Italy was now split between two antagonistic zones.
On the 9th of September 1943, while Rome was still under German occupation, a National Liberation Committee was formed in the city. It brought together the Italian Communist Party, the Action Party, Christian Democrats, liberals, socialists, and progressive democrats. The CLN made the king's abdication a prerequisite for any anti-fascist coalition government. Among those active in the resistance network was Leo Valiani, future member of the triumvirate responsible for the partisan insurrection in Piedmont and Lombardy. On the 31st of March 1944, in Salerno, Palmiro Togliatti, general secretary of the Italian Communist Party, changed the equation. He called for a government of national unity and withdrew the abdication demand as a precondition. The parties then rallied around a compromise worked out by Enrico De Nicola, Benedetto Croce of the liberal party, and the king's entourage.
On the 4th of June 1944, upon the liberation of Rome, Victor Emmanuel III proclaimed his son Umberto lieutenant general of the kingdom. Three provisional coalition governments followed between June 1944 and December 1945. The first was led by Ivanoe Bonomi of the Labour Democratic Party; next came Ferruccio Parri, then Alcide De Gasperi. On the 31st of January 1945, the Council of Ministers, chaired by Bonomi, issued a decree recognizing women's right to vote. Earlier attempts in 1881 and 1907 had come to nothing. On the 16th of March 1946, a decree set the date for the institutional referendum: the 2nd of June 1946.
One month before the referendum, Victor Emmanuel III abdicated in favor of his son Umberto, who became Umberto II. The act of abdication was drawn up privately and dated the 9th of May 1946. The former king immediately left Italy for Alexandria in Egypt. Monarchists had pushed for the abdication because the crown prince was seen as less personally compromised by Mussolini's rise and the coexistence with fascism. Republican representatives protested the transfer of power to Umberto. They argued it conflicted with an article of the March 1946 decree intended to guarantee institutional stability before results were announced. Observers noted that the gap between republicans and monarchists was narrowing. Scuffles broke out between activists of the two sides in the final phase of the campaign.
In March and April 1946, partial municipal and provincial elections across half of Italy's municipalities offered an advance measure of political strength. Christian Democracy, led by Alcide De Gasperi, outpolled the Italian Communist Party and the Italian Socialist Party combined. The referendum vote was held on the 2nd of June and the morning of the 3rd of June 1946. Three territories were excluded from the vote: the Julian March, the province of Zara, and the province of Bolzano, all still under Allied occupation pending a territorial settlement. Some Italian soldiers in detention camps abroad were also unable to participate. Supporters of the republic chose the Italia turrita, the national personification of Italy, as their campaign symbol. It stood against the Savoy coat of arms, the monarchists' emblem.
Voter turnout reached 89%. The republic won 54% of votes cast; the monarchy took 46%. Results showed a country divided along a north-south axis. Northern districts gave the republic 66% of the vote; southern districts gave the monarchy 64%. The republican majority reached plebiscite scale in some colleges: over 80% in Bologna, and an even higher share in Trento. The monarchist vote approached 80% in the college of Naples. A total of 21,000 disputes arose over referendum ballots, most resolved quickly. A more consequential controversy concerned the definition of a winning majority. Massimo Pilotti, the public prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Cassation, deemed one such appeal admissible. He argued that blank and invalid ballots should count in the total, making the republic's margin harder to sustain. The Supreme Court of Cassation rejected his position, voting 12 to 7. On Tuesday the 11th of June, the Corriere della Sera of Milan carried the headline: "The Italian Republic is born." In Naples that same day, the announcement was met with something far from celebration.
On the 10th of June, the Supreme Court of Cassation read out partial results at six in the evening. The venue was the Sala della Lupa of Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome. The hall takes its name from a bronze sculpture of the Capitoline Wolf. Republican demonstrations broke out across many cities. In Naples, where most voters had backed the monarchy, a procession of royalist supporters moved toward the municipal buildings on the 11th of June. The crowd then changed direction and headed for the headquarters of the Italian Communist Party. Demonstrators encountered a tricolor flag from which the royal coat of arms had been cut. Despite armored vehicles on the streets, the crowd attempted to storm the Communist offices. Gunfire was exchanged between protesters and law enforcement. According to the prefect's report, the demonstrators shot first. Machine gun fire killed nine royalist demonstrators and left a large number injured. Calm returned to Naples only on the 13th of June.
The socialist leader Pietro Nenni put the stakes plainly: "either the Republic or chaos!" On the night of the 12th of June, the government met at Alcide De Gasperi's invitation. A written communication from Umberto II arrived that evening. The king said he was prepared to respect the popular verdict but intended to await the final declaration of the Supreme Court of Cassation. On the 13th of June, the Council of Ministers resolved that De Gasperi would immediately exercise the functions of provisional head of state. Every minister voted for the resolution except the liberal Leone Cattani. Umberto II denounced De Gasperi's action as a "revolutionary gesture." Despite that objection, the former king chose not to resist. He left Italy on the 13th of June and traveled to Cascais in Portugal. The final proclamation of results came on the 18th of June. The Supreme Court of Cassation returned to the Sala della Lupa and announced the outcome without reservation.
On the 13th of June 1946, the flag bearing the Savoy coat of arms was lowered from the Quirinal Palace. Decree No. 1 of the 19th of June then eliminated the coat of arms from the Italian flag. The Constituent Assembly's session of the 24th of March 1947 inserted Article 12 into the new Constitution. It declared the Italian tricolour to be the flag of the republic: green, white, and red, in three vertical bands of equal dimensions. The tricolour was officially presented to the Italian military corps on the 4th of November 1947, on National Unity and Armed Forces Day.
The royal anthem "Marcia Reale" was replaced provisionally by "La leggenda del Piave." Several options were then considered for a permanent anthem. Among them were "Va, pensiero" from Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco, the "Inno di Garibaldi," and a piece called "Il Canto degli Italiani." War Minister Cipriano Facchinetti, himself a republican, proposed "Il Canto degli Italiani." On the 12th of October 1946, the Council of Ministers adopted it as the provisional state anthem. It remained provisional for decades, surviving many unsuccessful attempts to make it official. Official recognition came on the 4th of December 2017.
On the 28th of June 1946, the first session of the Constituent Assembly elected Enrico De Nicola as provisional head of state. He won 396 votes out of 501 in the first round. De Nicola was born in Naples and had a long personal history as a monarchist. The choice was deliberately conciliatory toward the south, which had voted against the republic. Alcide De Gasperi resigned the prime ministership and immediately formed a new government. This made him both the last prime minister of the monarchic era and the first of the republican one. On the 1st of January 1948, the Republican Constitution came into force. It declared that "Italy is a democratic republic founded on labour." It also prohibited the former kings of the House of Savoy, their wives, and their male descendants from entering Italian territory. That ban held until the 23rd of October 2002, when a constitutional law ended it. Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples and son of Umberto II, entered Italy the following December. His mother, the former Queen Marie-Jose, had already been authorized to return in 1987. Italian courts recognized that her status as spouse of a banned former king had ceased with her husband's death.
The photograph that became the symbol of the republic's birth was taken by Federico Patellani for the weekly Tempo. It appeared in issue No. 22, dated the 15th to the 22nd of June 1946. The image shows a young woman's face emerging from behind a copy of the Corriere della Sera. The photo was also featured on the front page of the Corriere della Sera itself and was reused in campaigns and posters for years. For decades, the woman's identity remained unknown. She was finally identified in 2016 as Anna Iberti, who had lived from 1922 to 1997.
The referendum is commemorated each year on the 2nd of June as the Festa della Repubblica. The first celebration was held in 1947. The first military parade in Via dei Fori Imperiali in Rome followed in 1948. In 1949, the 2nd of June was formally declared a national holiday. Il Canto degli Italiani, adopted as a provisional measure in 1946, served as Italy's de facto anthem for decades. Its status was formalized only on the 4th of December 2017.
Common questions
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%.
Why did Victor Emmanuel III abdicate before the 1946 Italian institutional referendum?
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.
How did the 1946 Italian institutional referendum vote divide between the north and south of Italy?
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.
When did King Umberto II leave Italy after the 1946 institutional referendum?
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.
What is the Festa della Repubblica and what is its connection to the 1946 Italian institutional referendum?
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.
Who was Anna Iberti and how is she connected to the 1946 Italian institutional referendum?
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.
All sources
32 references cited across the entry
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- 9Vaticano, DC e alleati sul referendum del 2 giugnoVittorio Gaeta — ISSPE Istituto siciliano di studi politici ed economi
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- 18LEGGE 4 dicembre 2017, n. 181 – Gazzetta Ufficiale15 December 2017
- 22NewsExiled Italian royals go homePhilip Willan — 24 December 2002
- 24Storia di Anna, la ragazza simbolo della Repubblica Italiana24 April 2016
- 26Festa della Repubblica: le foto della parata a Roma2 June 2015