Gino Moliterno. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
JOHN J. KINDER
language institutions
Italy has a number of learned academies and other institutions, all of which play a role in
the development and promotion of Italian in Italy and abroad, but without any single
institution having an official status comparable to the Académic Française in France or
the Real Academia de la Lengua in Spain.
The Accademia della Crusca (Crusca Academy) is the most famous linguistic
Academy. It was founded in Florence in 1583 to keep Dante Alighieri’s fourteenth-
century Italian alive and free from contamination (crusca means ‘chaff’, and the
Academy’s emblem, the sieve, represents its mission of separating good linguistic usage
from bad). The Crusca’s 1612 Dictionary was a monument to that linguistic ideal.
Subsequent editions have broadened the scope of acceptable Italian usage to words in
common usage in other parts of Italy and to technical vocabulary, and new editions are
continually in preparation. The Crusca is also active in academic publishing, in hosting
philological studies and in promoting debate on the current state of Italian.
The Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, founded in Rome in 1931 by Giovanni
Treccani, published the monumental Enciclopedia Italiana (1929–39, plus later
Appendici) and many other works of reference and culture. Since the 1980s the Institute
has been active in promoting the teaching of Italian language and culture abroad, through
the publication of didactic and teacher training materials and organs of cultural and
scientific information.
The Società Dante Alighieri (Dante Alighieri Society) was founded in 1899 ‘for the
protection and diffusion of the Italian language and culture’. The Society runs Italian
language schools in Italy and has branches in very many countries which organize
language classes and various cultural activities. In 1984 the Society opened the
Università per Stranieri ‘Dante Alighieri’ in Reggio Calabria.
A number of institutions specialize in teaching Italian to foreigners in Italy. The oldest
public institutions are the Università Italiana per Stranieri in Perugia (1925) and the
Università per Stranieri di Siena (founded 1917, a public university since 1992). Similar
courses are offered in many other universities and innumerable private colleges. The
Universities for Foreigners in Perugia and Siena, and the ‘Università di Roma Tre’ have
all developed ‘Certificates of Competence’ in the Italian language. The three Certificates
have rather different emphases, and are all recognized by the Ministero degli Affari
Esteri. In some cases it is possible to sit the Certification tests in other countries, at the
local consulate, Istituti Italiani di cultura (Italian Institutes of Culture) or at designated
universities.
A number of professional bodies are active in fostering informed debate among
language professionals as the basis for action on language matters. These include the
Società di Linguistica Italiana (SLI, founded 1967) and the Società Italiana di Glottologia
(SIG), with memberships mostly from the universities, and the Gruppi di Intervento e
Entries A–Z 451
Studio nel Campo dell’Educazione Linguistica (1978), founded within the SLI, which
focus on the school system.
See also: Italian language; language education; scholarly publishers
JOHN J. KINDER
language policy
Modern Italy has not had a clearly articulated policy on language, but has rather produced
broad statements on language as a human right without however specific provisions for
implementation. Much responsibility for language policy is devolved from the central
government to the regions.
Attempts to formulate a language policy had been made by the Fascist regime (see
also fascism and neo-fascism). Fascism did not produce a coherent set of policies on
language, and often showed ambivalent attitudes. Initially, the 1923 Gentile reform of the
school curriculum urged teachers to encourage use of dialect by their pupils, as a stepping
stone to Italian. Thereafter, the regime became increasingly committed to centralized
policies based on ‘autarchy’ (self-sufficiency) and growing xenophobia under the more
general ideological principle, inherited ultimately from the French Revolution, of ‘one
nation, one language’, as seen also in Hitler’s ideal of ‘ein Volk, eine Sprache, ein
Führer’ (one people, one language, one leader). Thus dialects and minority languages
were officially banned from public life -schools, the press, theatre and so on—even while
they continued to be the everyday spoken language of most Italians. The Italian language
was purified, by legislation, of items believed to be of foreign origin (the Lei form of
address was considered of Spanish origin and banned in 1938), and a rhetorically rich but
communicatively ineffective model of the language was offered by the regime through its
official organs. Much of the official language policy of Fascism did not leave lasting
effects, except for negative views of the dialects and minority languages. In particular,
the claim that dialects and illiteracy were linked in a vicious circle was to leave its mark
in the language attitudes of the next generation, in Italy and abroad.
The 1948 constitution ushered in a new official attitude of tolerance and respect. It
contains two explicit statements of principle on linguistic matters. Article 3 reads in part:
‘Tutti i cittadini hanno pari dignità sociale e sono eguali davanti alla legge, senza
distinzione di sesso, di razza, di lingua, di religione, di opinioni pubbliche, di condizioni
personali e sociali’ (all citizens have equal social dignity and are equal before the law
without distinction of sex, race, language, religion, public opinions, personal and social
circumstances). Article 6 reads: ‘La Repubblica tutela con apposite norme le minoranze
linguistiche’ (the Republic protects the linguistic minorities through appropriate
regulations).
The decentralized system of regional government has allowed much of the
responsibility for support for dialect cultural production to be devolved from central to
regional and even local authorities. Many regional governments have responded to local
initiatives in promoting and funding a wide variety of activities aimed at keeping alive
local dialect-based traditions. The space conceded to local linguistic legislation was
Encyclopedia of contemporary italian culture 452
particularly great in the five geographically peripheral regions, Sicily, Sardinia, Trentino-
Alto Adige, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia and Valle d’Aosta, declared ‘autonomous’ by the
constitution. In these regions, support for Italian-dialect bilingualism is strong, and there
is flourishing production of newspapers, radio programmes, theatre and poetry in dialect
(see literature in dialect). The Italian state has adopted a non-interventionist, passive
stance in relation to the question of dialect usage and maintenance and minority
languages, concentrating its resources on combating illiteracy, spreading Italian through
the school system and after hours adult education.
The major forces which shaped linguistic developments were the social changes in
Italy, rather than any ‘top down’ policy provisions. These changes included emigration,
the spread of the national bureaucracy, national military service, the economic miracle
and associated urbanization, the mass media (especially television), and the decision by
the Second Vatican Council to adopt Italian instead of Latin as the language of the
Catholic liturgy. It was these developments that led to the effective Italianization of the
population. They also determined the nature of the Italianization, since the varieties of
Italian which grew out of these changes were not derived from the literary-based model
of Italian being offered by the school system, but from the communicative needs of
everyday life, which dialect speakers now found they had to meet in Italian. The new
varieties of Italian were at once a source of problems and opportunities for change for the
school system, which began to respond to these challenges in the 1970s (see language
education).
The mass emigration of the postwar period led the Italian state to address the question
of a language policy towards the Italian communities abroad. The scuole italiane
all’estero (Italian schools abroad), founded in 1889, had always operated mostly in
Europe and Latin America providing an Italian education to Italian and non-Italian
students (12,000 students in 1986). The postwar emigration produced a new type of
policy, expressed in the famous ‘Law 153’ of 1971 (when emigration had almost ceased
as a mass phenomenon), which aimed to provide tuition in Italian language and culture to
the emigrants and to their children. Other policy initiatives to promote Italian abroad
include the activities of the Institutes of Culture (see Istituti italiani di cultura); the
many scholarships for teachers and students of Italian abroad, provided under the
bilateral cultural agreements between Italy and several other countries; and the Italian
government ‘lettori’ sent to teach Italian in selected foreign universities. The number of
those studying Italian worldwide, at all educational levels, is estimated at between 1
million and 1.5 million. The regions have also played an important role in offering
various forms of contact with Italian and with Italy, to the children of migrants around the
world through scholarships and a variety of exchange programmes.
On matters of the form of the Italian language in Italy, there has been little direct
intervention at the political level. Attention began to be given in the 1980s to the issue of
sexism in language, but compared to its English-speaking counterparts, Italian feminism
has given little importance to language.
Further reading
De Mauro, T. (1963) Storia linguistica dell’Italia unita, Bari: Laterza (a standard reference).
Entries A–Z 453
Fiorato, A. et al. (1992) L’insegnamento della lingua italiana all’estero, Turin: Fondazione
Giovanni Agnelli (a factual description and critical discussion of Italian teaching in nine
countries).
Schino, F. (ed.) (1987) Cultura nazionale, culture regionali, comunità italiane all’estero, Rome:
Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana (discussion of issues in the promotion of Italian language and
culture abroad, by academics and Italian functionaries).
Vignuzzi, U. (1986) ‘Why Study Italian? A Survey of the English-Speaking World’, in C. Bettoni
(ed.), Altro Polo: Italian Abroad, Sydney: University of Sydney, Frederick May Foundation
(results of a large-scale survey).
JOHN J. KINDER
Lanza, Mario
b. 31 January 1921, Philadelphia; d. 7 October 1959, Rome
Tenor
Mario Lanza found fame as the star of numerous Hollywood musicals of the 1950s,
which provided an ideal showcase for his impressively robust voice. He was born Alfredo
Arnold Cocozza, the son of Italian immigrants to America, and obtained his stage name
from his mother, who had been born Maria Lanza. After early singing tuition had
revealed him to possess considerable talent, he was signed up by Columbia Artists
Management with a view to a career as a concert singer. However, these plans were
shelved when Lanza was conscripted into the US Army in 1943. His army singing career
led to his acquiring the nickname ‘the Service Caruso’, and during this time he appeared
frequently in army shows, including the triumphal Winged Victory.
On demobilization, Lanza settled in New York where he began to give concerts and to
appear on radio. He auditioned as a recording artist for RCA, but by chance the tape of
his audition came into the hands of Louis B. Mayer, then head of MGM Film Studios. As
a result, one of Mayer’s producers, Joe Pasternak, signed Lanza to a seven-year film
contract. In 1948, Lanza made his operatic stage debut at New Orleans with Madam
Butterfly, but he was to avoid such work in favour of the popular musicals that made his
name at MGM. These typically contained a mixture of light operatic excerpts and popular
standards such as the millionselling Be My Love (from The Toast of New Orleans, 1950)
and The Loveliest Night of the Year. Lanza’s starring role in the biopic The Great Caruso
(1951) prompted further comparisons with his idol, and resulted in increasing public
demand for his live appearances. During this time, Lanza began to be troubled by
problems with alcohol and drugs, and his weight increased to around 280 pounds. He
walked out on The Student Prince in 1954 following a row with the director, and this
severed his relationship with MGM. After a period as a recluse, Lanza made a tentative
return to television in 1956, miming to his old recordings, and soon returned to the film
studios under a new contract with Warner Bros. The film Serenade (1956) proved a
critical and popular success, but Lanza was disenchanted with Hollywood and soon left to
settle in Rome. He made his last two films, The Seven Hills of Rome (1958) and For The
Encyclopedia of contemporary italian culture 454
First Time (1959) in Europe, and undertook a tour of the continent. He died unexpectedly
of a heart attack in a Rome clinic, prompting speculation that he had been the victim of a
mafia plot.
Lanza’s influence has been acknowledged by such figures as José Carreras and
Placido Domingo, who narrated the television biography Mario Lanza: The American
Caruso (1981). He was undoubtedly instrumental in the popularization of operatic music,
but detractors point to his conservative repertoire and limited accomplishments, perhaps
belying his genuine abilities.
Further reading
——(1991) Lanza: American Caruso, VHS video, Kubicek and Associates.
JOHN KERSEY
Lattuada, Alberto
b. 13 November 1914, Milan
Film director
Lattuada’s long and eclectic career as a film director saw him associated with most of the
important genres of Italian cinema, from neo-realism to the commedia all’italiana
(comedy Italian style), and earned him a leading place in Italian cinema.
Before becoming a film-maker, in the 1930s Lattuada worked as architect,
photographer and writer. He directed his first film in 1942, an adaptation of De Marchi’s
Giacomo L’idealista. Lattuada’s taste for literary sources, ranging from D’Annunzio,
Bacchelli, Machiavelli, Verga and Brancati to Gogol and Pushkin has in fact remained
consistent throughout his career; the director’s investment in literature is a passion which
is also reflected in his own literary production. In the 1940s, along with Zavattini,
Flaiano and Luigi Comencini (with whom he co-founded the Cinemateca Italiana),
Lattuada actively participated in the conceptualization of a new Italian cinema
constructed against fascism’s petit-bourgeois ideals and concerned with social reality and
psychological truth.
One of the forefathers of neorealism, Lattuada was also one of its masters and even
though his contribution is perhaps less celebrated than Rossellini’s or De Sica’s, its
originality deserves to be remembered. With such films as Il bandito (The Bandit) (1946)
and Senza Pietà (Without Pity) (1948), Lattuada mixed the aesthetics of neorealism with
the violence of Hollywood’s ‘film noir’. Such an unusually syncretic approach perfectly
conveyed the ideological and aesthetic tensions inherent in neorealist film-making while,
incidentally, exploring the possibilities of a generic and cultural hybridity that anticipates
Italian-American cinema.
In 1950, Lattuada co-directed Fellini’s first film, Luci del varietà (Variety Lights), and
during the 1950s, driven by decidedly ambivalent aesthetics, he alternated blockbusters
Entries A–Z 455
and more personal films (Il Cappotto (The Overcoat), 1952, and La Spiaggia (The
Beach), 1953, both based on Gogol; Amore in città (Love in the City) 1953, in which
Lattuada crossed paths again with Fellini; and La Tempesta (Tempest) 1958), always
intriguingly combining elements of the European and the American film tradition.
In the 1960s and 1970s Lattuada contributed to the evolution of the Italian comedy, at
once within and going beyond the commedia all’italiana tradition, with films like
Mafioso (1962), which analyses the clash between postwar modernity and customary
traditions in the often revisited opposition between northern and southern Italy, or Venga
a prendere il caffe da noi (The Man Who Came for Coffee) (1971), a caustic portrait of
provincial life. Notable in Lattuada’s cinema, especially in the films of this period, is an
interest in female subjectivity and representation. Such a concern not only yielded strong
female characters endowed with depth, but it also launched or confirmed the career of
many actresses, including Giulietta Masina, Catherine Spaak, Nastassja Kinski and
Dalila Di Lazzaro.
In the 1980s, Lattuada’s cinema seemed to return to a more romantic vision and to
melodrama, with films like La Cicala (The Cricket) (1982) and Una Spina nel cuore (A
thorn in the Heart) (1986). At the same time he indulged his taste for large-scale spectacle
by making a four-episode Christopher Columbus for Italian television in 1985. Though
he has not directed any films in the 1990s, Lattuada has remained active in the film
world, notably as the president of the Cinemateca Italiana. Aged eighty, he even acted in
Il toro (Bull) (1984), directed by Carlo Mazzacurati
Further reading:
Cosulich, C. (1985) I film di Alberto Lattuada, Rome: Gremese (a detailed study of Lattuada’s film
production).
DOROTHÉE BONNIGAL
Lega Nord
The Lega Nord, or Northern League, was formed in 1990 by Umberto Bossi through the
unification of various northern regional parties. It has been a sometimes secessionist,
sometimes federalist, but always strongly devolutionist party with a right-of-centre, free
market economic policy. It has also always been heavily coloured by Bossi’s personality
as well as his politics, which one author called a ‘charismatic centralism’ (Diamanti,
1993), and, for the first time in postwar Italy, managed to shift politics away from its
previous foundations of class, religion and secularism. In the new Italian politics, Bossi
works from a basis of blue collar (or singlet) populism, in contrast to Berlusconi’s
double-breasted starched blue shirt populism.
The leagues began in the late 1970s as an expression of northern discontent with
Roman politics. They appealed to a strictly local culture, and until 1987 had scant success
outside the Veneto. In the 1990 regional elections, however, the Lombard League polled
Encyclopedia of contemporary italian culture 456
18.9 per cent in Lombardy. The League’s success mirrored the decline of the established
political parties and the system which supported them. The fall of the Berlin wall and
then the Soviet Union meant that the centrist northern voter no longer had to follow Indro
Montanelli’s advice (‘hold your nose and vote DC’) in order to stop the communists.
And at the same time, the smell emanating from the DC and the PSI became unbearable
for many due to mafia involvement and corruption scandals (see Mani pulite,
Tangentopoli).
The Northern League’s platform was always stridently anti-Rome (expressed in the
frequent cry of Roma ladrona (thieving Rome)) and anti-South. In a period of massive
immigration to Italy from Eastern Europe and the developing world, especially from
North Africa, the League never made xenophobia or racism part of its official rhetoric,
but it was often very close to the surface with electors and supporters, becoming blatant
when Bossi supported Slobodan Milosovic’s Anti-Kosovar Albanian policy. In 1992 the
League won 8.6 per cent of the vote and was the fourth largest party in Parliament. Over
the next two years it also won power in a number of northern cities including Milan,
though this also meant that the party’s contradictions as an ‘anti-system party’ began to
show since it had to come to terms with real administration. These contradictions
surfaced even more clearly in 1994 when the League formed an electoral alliance with
Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. They won 8.4 per cent of the proportional vote (see electoral
systems), and because of the alliance this translated into 18.6 per cent of seats, but it was
clear that many of Bossi’s supporters had voted Forza Italia. The League maintained an
internal opposition to the Polo della Libertà—particularly against Fini’s ‘post-fascist’
National Alliance—throughout the electoral campaign as well as in the subsequent
government. In December 1994, the opposition became external as Bossi helped to bring
down the Berlusconi government.
As a result, the League went back to being an opposition party with symbolic media
events like the ‘declaration of independence of Padania’ (September 1996) and a
‘referendum’ on seccession (May 1997), though they did distance themselves from the
mostly symbolic armed takeover of Saint Mark’s Tower in Venice in May 1998. Despite
the new electoral system, the League has refused to make alliances; it lost the mayoral
elections in Milan in April 1997. In 1996 it had maintained 10.1 per cent and 59 seats in
the Chamber of Deputies.
Further reading
Diamanti, I. (1993) La Lega. Geografia, storia e sociologia di un nuovo soggetto politico (The
League: Geography, History and Sociology of a New Political Subject), Rome: Donzelli.
——(1996) ‘The Northern League: From Regional Party to Party of Government’, in S. Gundle
and S. Parker (eds), The New Italian Republic: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Berlusconi,
London: Routledge.
JAMES WALSON
Entries A–Z 457
legal system
Italy, like most of the continental European countries, has a legal system based on
codified legislation—the so-called ‘civil law’ tradition—in contrast with the ‘common
law’ tradition developed in England. This system distinguishes between public law (both
international and domestic) and private law, the former being concerned with legal
relationships in which at least one of the parties is the government or the state (or some
body of it) while the latter deals with rules which regulate relationships among
individuals or groups of individuals.
As in most civil law countries, in Italy each type of law is based on a legal text setting
out the related norms which are administered by specialized courts. The Italian legal
system is thus divided into separate jurisdictions. Constitutional law contains the basic
legal norms of the state; it is implemented by a Constitutional Court, established in
1956, which is charged with ensuring the adherence of all laws to constitutional norms.
Administrative law is a separate body of rules which regulates the legal relationships
between the state, regional and local organs of public administration, and between those
and the citizens; since 1971 these have been enforced by a separate system of special
administrative courts, the Tribunali Amministrativi Regionali (Regional Administrative
Courts). Criminal law is contained in the 1930 Penal Code (see Codice Rocco); in the
immediate postwar period some of its harsher provisions, such as the death penalty, were
abolished but the Code’s authoritarian essence deriving from its Fascist origins remained
basically unchanged, thus heavily compromising relations between the newly established
democratic state and its citizens (see police). Criminal law is administered by separate
courts according to a particular Code of Criminal Procedure. Finally, private law is based
on a unified Civil Code promulgated in 1942, which assimilated laws relating to
commercial matters. Since then, private law is no longer divided into civil law and
commercial law and both are now administered by the Civil Court. Unlike the Penal
Code, the Civil Code was only marginally influenced by Fascist legal thought and thus
comprises a set of norms which fit in well with both the liberal tradition of Italian legal
culture and the most advanced civil laws of other European countries.
The republican constitution of 1948 sought to established the judiciary as an
important and independent check on both legislative and executive powers. The judiciary
is thus controlled by an independent body, the Consiglio superiore della magistratura
(Higher Judicial Council), which oversees magistrates’ recruitment, promotion and
discipline. The Council, presided over by the President of the Republic, is made up of
thirty judges, lawyers and legal experts, twenty of whom are chosen by the magistrates
themselves, the other ten being appointed by the Parliament. Nonetheless, throughout
the whole Republican period the judiciary has been deeply permeated by political
influence. Behind a formalist and apparently neutral façade, it was the government—and
indirectly the ruling DC—which after 1945, through the Ministry of Justice, held sway
over the magistrates by both controlling their careers and allowing them extremely
favourable salaries. The Higher Judicial Council only came into operation in 1959, and
its scope was effectively reduced by the government.
The situation changed dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s when the traditional
‘one-way politicization’, which largely aligned magistrates with the law-making
Encyclopedia of contemporary italian culture 458
majority, began to be checked by an increasing pluralism within the judiciary itself. This
ceased being a compact, opaque body when factions within the magistrates openly
emerged, with autonomous organizations, independent strategies, distinct legal cultures
and different political attitudes which roughly corresponded to the categories of Left,
Centre and Right. Nor was this was the only way through which the judiciary began to
play a different political role. A national ordinary free-standing legislation, set apart from
the norms prescribed by the Codes, gained momentum especially in the 1970s. Then the
Parliament passed several bills which deeply changed the legal framework of a large
number of matters—the most far-reaching being the divorce and abortion legislation, the
Statuto dei lavoratori (the Workers’ Statute, which set out the rights of workers in their
workplaces) and a number of laws concerned with urban, financial and environmental
crimes. Such new social issues, supported by trade unions and pressure groups, required
protection and active promotion from the judiciary in order to overcome the widespread
opposition from the affected interests, so much so that magistrates who actively
implemented the new legislation acquired the nickname pretori d’assalto (assault
judges).
At the same time, threats stemming from political terrorism and organized crime (see
mafia) induced the Parliament to pass a series of ‘emergency’ security laws which
enormously enhanced the discretionary powers of police, prosecutors and judges, and
severely restricted citizens’ civil rights. New and ill-defined crimes such as ‘terrorist
association’ and ‘mafia association’ were introduced, which were aimed at prosecuting
not only suspects of crimes but also their alleged associates in whatever way possible.
Consequently, the earlier Fascist practice of allowing a suspect to be interrogated in the
absence of an attorney was reintroduced, preventive detention was extended and much,
often unscrupulous, use was made of pentiti or ‘repenters’, who enjoyed reduced
penalties, or even freedom and police protection, in exchange for implicating others. All
of this pushed the judiciary into a situation of role overload and high political exposure,
further enhanced by the emergence in the 1970s and 1980s of widespread political
corruption which often put magistrates and ruling politicians at odds.
Catch-all politicization, together with some gross miscarriages of justice—the most
famous being the case of popular television presenter, Enzo Tortora, who was unjustly
tried and sentenced after having being falsely implicated by pentiti with the Neapolitan
Camorra—weakened people’s confidence in the independence and impartiality of
magistrates and led to a questioning of their very legitimacy. This was confirmed in 1987,
when a referendum for removing judges’ indemnity from civil liability resulted in a
massive consensus, thus leading to the creation of a system for determining civil liability
of judges accused of ‘grave errors’. Even more importantly, a new Code of Criminal
Procedure was introduced in 1989, which adopted some elements from the Anglo-Saxon
common law. A new figure, the giudice per le udienze preliminari (judge for preliminary
hearings) was created to determine, on the basis of an adversarial hearing, whether a
prosecution should proceed, with defence attorneys and public prosecutors being given an
equal role in all phases of the process and the defence being allowed to cross-examine
witnesses.
The roles of judges and prosecutors thus came to be separated (although often more in
theory than in fact), and the balance of interest between the accused person and the state
was partly redressed, even though the transition to the new system proved controversial
Entries A–Z 459
and the mix of old-style inquisitorial and new adversarial methods led to some initial
confusion. At the same time, attempts by the ruling parties to bring the pubblici ministeri
(public prosecutors) more tightly under government control failed because of the dogged
resistance by a large part of the judiciary itself, strongly supported by the Left.
Fierce political confrontations regarding the judiciary’s role have become even more
heated in recent years, after the Tangentopoli investigations brought to light the existence
of systemic political corruption within traditional parties, and Silvio Berlusconi, the
media tycoon turned political leader, was also subjected to a number of investigations.
There has also been strong criticism of the widespread use of preventive custody by
prosecutors, a very sensitive matter given that illustrious party notables and top level
managers of both state and private big business experienced long periods of custody.
Harsh rows have continued to flare regarding the political use of judicial powers, and
some proposed reforms of the judicial system (such as the full separation of careers
between prosecutors and judges) have undoubtedly contributed to the faltering of the
proposals for institutional reform (Bicamerale). If not formally resolved, such a conflict
of powers risks becoming endemic, thus weakening the legitimacy of the judiciary itself
in the eyes of the ordinary citizen which, needless to say, would represent a major
weakness for Italian democracy and a source of inherent instability.
See also: Mani pulite
Further reading
Guarnieri, C. (1997) ‘The Judiciary in the Italian Political Crisis’, in M. Bull and M. Rhodes (eds),
Portland: Frank Cass (a series of articles that Crisis and Transition in Italian Politics, London
and effectively illustrate major questions related to the political role of the judiciary in Italy in
the 1980s–1990s).
Rodotà, S. (1998) ‘The Judiciary and Polities’, in M. Donovan (ed.), Italy, Aldershot: Ashgate-
Dartmouth, vol. 1.
Volcansek, M. (1998) ‘The Judicial Role in Italy: Independence, Impartiality and Legitimacy’, in
M. Donovan (ed.), Italy, Aldershot: Ashgate-Dartmouth, vol. 1.
Watkin, T.G. (1997) The Italian Legal Tradition, Aldershot: Ashgate-Dartmouth (a concise and
updated presentation of the main features of the Italian legal system and its historical roots).
STEFANO BATTILOSSI
Legge Mammì
The Mammì law (named after the minister responsible, Oscar Mammì) was a belated
attempt to impose some measure of regulation on a broadcasting system which had
emerged within a legislative vacuum. It referred specifically to private television and
radio, as public broadcasting was served by existing legislation (1975, law no. 103).
Rather than carrying out a fundamental overhaul of the regulatory mechanisms,
Mammì enacted a statutory acknowledgement of a ‘duopoly’ between the public
broadcasting corporation, Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI), and the national commercial
Encyclopedia of contemporary italian culture 460