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CASALATTICO

Pomponius Atticus

pomponius atticus was a roman multimillionaire who used his money to win friends and influence.  This included the great roman writer and statesman Cicero.  They were not related.

2000 years ago Rome would get very hot and smelly in summer and Pomponius Atticus would retire to one of his many villas of which Montattico was one. 
He had got his name Atticus from the period he had been governor of the Greek province of Attica where he amassed his millons. 
He brought back Greek slaves and many Montattacesi have Greek looks and names e.g. Macari = makarios.

Padre Edmondo of blessed memory, after whom I was named, discovered an ancient stone in the hillside just above the Campo Santo (cemetery) and about fifty feet under Mortale.  He climbed up to it and took a rubbing of the inscription.  It was in Latin and in Greek.
It describes how Pomponius Atticus had built a road up the mountain at his own expense. This road is believed to have run roughly from San Lazzaro to the Lesche along the mountain to Santa Caterina and up to where the stone is and towards Montattico.  drf

SURNAMES of Casalattico

APRILE 3 , BARBIERI , BASTIANIELLO MARINI , BIANCHI , BORZA 15 , BOVE 4 , CAMBONE , CAPOCCI , CENTOFANTI , CIREFICE 3 , CRETARO , D ONORIO 2 , DE LUCIA 4 , DI ADAMO 2 , DI CIOCCIO , DI LUCIA 3 , DI MEO , DI VITO 2 , DRAGONETTI , FIORINI , FORTE 25 , FUSCIARDI 11 , FUSCIRDI , FUSCO 6 , IAQUONE , LENA , LIEGHIO 7 , LIEGHIO , MACARI 16 , MAGLIOCCHI , MAGLIOCCO 6 , MANCINI , MANGANELLA , MARINI 2 , MARSELLA 12 , MATASSA 15 , MEZZA 2 , MINCHELLA , MIZZONI , MORELLI 12 , NARDONE 9 , PALLAGROSI , PERONE , PERROZZI 2 , QUATTROCIOCCHI 2 , QUINTILIANI , RANDOLFI , ROSELLI , SABATINI , SACCO , SALVETA 2 , SCHIAVI , SOAVE 2 , STANLEY , TADDEI 2 , TURCHETTA , VECCHIO , VELLA 4 , VITALE ,

SURNAMES of PICINISCO
Aprile, Borza, Cafolla  Cassone ,Cirefice, Crenca, Divito, DiLucia  Del-Duca  Forte, Fusciardi,Fusco,Gentile,Lieghio,Magliocco,Marini,Marsella,Matassa,Macari,Mezza,Morelli, Nardone,Nota,Rosato,Roselli,Salveta,Taddei,Vella,Zuorro.

CIOCIARIA

The Ciociaria's geographical area, located in southern Latium, cannot be limited to the province of Frosinone, but must include the lands which once belonged to such ancient Italic populations as the Hernicians, Volscians and Samnites. 

After Rome’s victory in the Second Punic War (218-201 BC) and the ensuing extension of its supremacy over central and southern Italy, the areas controlled by those peoples were called Latium novum, or Latium adiectum up to the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 AD).

At the time of the Ducatus Romanus, the Roman territory  stretched to Sora and Gaeta.

Its geographical and administrative transformation comes about with the Longobards invasion: the area enclosed between the river Garigliano and the Colli Albani was renamed Campagna, while that extending along the Tyrrhenian coast Marittima. Later, when the Holy Roman Empire recognized the Papal State, that denomination became official and the Province of Campagna and Marittima was created with Frosinone as provincial capital.

In 1836 Pope Gregory XVI  granted autonomy to the area of Marittima with Velletri as its capital.

Meanwhile, from the 17th cent. the word Ciociaria was entering into literature as well as folk use. The geographical area of the Ciociaria was to be conventionally reduced with the establishment of the Province of Frosinone in 1927.

As a result the northern zones of the Ciociaria were left out, including the area from the valley of Aniene to Palestrina, Segni and Carpineto which were to remain under the jurisdiction of the Province of Rome and the zone extending from the south-west to the sea, which from 1934 were to belong to the Province of Latina.
The landscape, the historical and artistic heritage of the province of Frosinone, its usages and folklore, as well as its people’s hospitality make the province one of the most characteristic areas of Italy.

The territory of the province offers a host of attractions to nature enthusiasts. The beautiful oasis of Lake Posta Fibreno and the woods of Selva di Paliano make

for a sure call as do Lake Canterno and the stupendous chestnut woods of Terelle, the falls of Isola del Liri, the woodlands which cover a great extent of the mountains and their interesting flora and fauna, all offer the  possibility of invigorating itineraries.

The ski resorts of Campo Catino, Campo Staffi and Prati di Mezzo beckon winter sports devotees. Wonderful landscapes can be admired from the hilly sites linked to the Aurunci, Ausoni, Ernici, Lepini, and Simbruini mountains or to the Mainarde and Meta chains through which flow the  rivers Amaseno, Aniene, Liri, Melfa, Rapido and Sacco with their enchanting valleys, especially that of the picturesque Val di Comino. Finally, the spa resorts of Fiuggi and Ferentino offer excellent facilities.

The history - The mighty cyclopean walls, the archaeological remains chiefly dating to the Roman era, medieval castles, fortresses and the many villages and towns perched on top of craggy hills, churches and monuments, all unfold like the pages of a magnificent book which tells the events of many centuries. 

Towns such as Alatri, Anagni, Arpino, Atina, Alvito, Boville Ernica, Cassino, Ferentino, S.Elia Fiumerapido, Sora, Veroli and the ruins of the recently discovered ancient town of Fregellae, which in its own right is destined to assume great historical importance, testify to the artistic and cultural richness of this province. It was certainly the presence of the great monastic orders, firstly that of the Benedictines followed by that of the Cistercians, which characterised the historical, artistic and cultural image of the Ciociaria to which the wonderful abbeys of Montecassino, Casamari, S. Domenico, the Trisulti Charterhouse and  various convents are architectual testimonies. Although administratively the province of Frosinone came into being only in 1927, its territory has a   century-old history. This is the land of many ancient peoples such as the Hernici, Aequi, Volsci and Samnites, who seemingly conquered indigenous populations taking over their primitive settlements. After violent clashes, they were subjugated by the expanding power of Rome and eventually integrated into it. After the fall of the Roman Empire,  Byzantines, Longobards, Normans, the Papacy, the Swabians and great and small feudal lords in turn exerted their domain over the region which also witnessed the passage of barbaric hordes and foreign armies. The region was also involved in the events of the Second World War.

Archaeology in Ciociaria
The Fortifield Cities

 A distinctive feature of the ancient population of Ciociaria are the towns defended by imposing walls and in a defensive and strategic position on top of a rise. Nearly all of them have very old origins and in fact, according to mythology, they were founded by the god Saturn. They developed in pre-Roman times as Hernician and Volscian centres and later on they became Roman towns adorned by sumptuous buildings. Their erection, mostly in polygonal walling, that is to say with enormous dry-embedded blocks of stones of impressive dimensions, was attributed to the mythical Pelasgians.
Ferentino is the most significant example of a fortified city because the superposition of different building techniques of its walls show how they changed through time: built in polygonal walling at first, they were then raised in square stone blocks and finally restored in the Middle Ages. The acropolis, a masterpiece of civil engineering, is supported by a great rampart that still shows the names of the local magistrates who saw to its erection at the end of the 2nd cent. BC, the same time when also the indoor market was built. The theatre, still visible near the Sanguinaria Gate, was built in the 2nd cent. AD. Alatri, another centre of the Hernician confederation, is surrounded by extraordinary polygonal walls about 1 and a half mile long. Its acropolis, one of the grandest monuments of Ciociaria, stands right in the middle of the town centre. Its trapezoid shape is supported by a polygonal walling from to 20 to 50 feet high that  marks the limits of an open space where on the ruins of a Roman temple the Cathedral was built. In Veroli, another town of Hernician origins, near the citadel of St. Leucio, the ancient acropolis, the remains of great polygonal walls with many main and minor gates can be visited. In the town centre, in the yard of the medieval Reali house, it is possible to admire the Fasti Verulani (1st cent. AD). It is a long Latin inscription that lists the lay and religious festivals and the periodical markets of the city and it represents a unique document of Veroliís public life at the beginning of the Empire. A really suggestive walk takes to Arpino, an ancient Volscian centre, where Caius Marius, Marcus Tullius Cicero and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Augustus’ son-in-law and builder of the Pantheon in Rome were born. On the rise of Civitavecchia, the ancient acropolis that overlooks the town, ruins of defensive work in polygonal walling are still visible. The main gate is covered with the famous “pointed arch”. This is a very ancient technique dating back to the 7-6th century BC that makes use of blocks gradually jutting so to form an apex. Atina too is a fortified town with polygonal walling dated to the 4-3rd cent. BC whose ruins can be visited along the Sferracavallo Road and near the cemetery. Anagni, the Hernicians’ holy town, is on the contrary surrounded by walls in square stone blocks of the 4-3rd century BC that support the spur of the acropolis. In the Middle Ages a cathedral was built on its open space on the structure of a pagan temple. The walls include the extraordinary “Arcazzi” structure, a stonework on pillars and arches directly derived from eastern Grecian models. Anagni was famous for the large number and great importance of its sanctuaries. With the coming of Christianity churches replaced pagan temples and it became the “Popes’ city”.

The province of Frosinone covers an  area of 3,239 square kilometres , encompassing 91 county towns  with 478,393 inhabitants ( ISTAT, Italian National Institut for Statistics , 1995).   It has an elongate shape with the main axis pointing towards the Appennines ( north-west / south-east).

Three morphological units  can be identified in the whole of the territory   : the Appennine ranges , which include   the Simbruini  and Lepini Mounts  as far as  the Meta-Mainarde  group; the Subapennine ranges ,formed by  part of the Lepini Mounts, the Ausoni  and the Aurunci Mounts;   the  Latina Valley, a wide  depression , dividing the Appenine from  the Subapennine system.
The Appenine ranges, which trim the entire province from N to NE, mark the natural border with the Abruzzi and Molise.  It is a mountainous system characterized by mounts, ranging  over  2000 metres, such as  the Viglio Mount ( 2156 m),   Pizzo Deta (2041m) and the Meta Mount (2241). These are the highest mountains in the province.
The  Lepini , Ausoni and Aurunci Mounts crown the borders with the provinces of Rome and Latina, from west to south. These three different mountain ranges, which are part  of the Latium Subapennine, make as a whole a homogeneous geographical area, well defined  from a geomorphological, historical, cultural and environmental point of view.  Until the end of  1700 these mountains were known and united under one name: Volscian Mounts.  Some of   the most impressive peaks of the Lepini, Ausoni and Aurunci Mounts are :  Mount Alto (1416m),  Mount Caccume  (1095m),  Mount Calvilli  ( 1116m),  and the Mount Fammera  (1184m), which is characterized by steep crags and overhanging rocks with morphological gradient,  exceeding 500 metres.
Both mountain systems (Lepini-Ausoni and Aurunci-Simbruini-Ernici, including the Meta -Mainarde group ) have the typical Appenine alignment,whose direction is  NW - SE. This  alignment   risults directly from the compressive thrust between the African  and the European plates, whose main direction is E -NE. The formation  of the Appenine chain goes back  to the geological time, to  the Miocene epoch (some 24 to 5 billion years ago), when the  collision between these two plates  was so strong ,that  it led to  the  complete formation of the Appennines.
These   carbonatite mountains are characterized by a typical karst  environment. They have a harsh  landscape , almost without  flowing water on the surface , with large plateaus spotted with basins covered  by  residual red  soils. This landscape ist the result of a series of phenomena ,  started some billions  of  years ago (from the  Quaternary,

around 2 billion years ago, up to the current period) and  which brought about a slow  process of  rock erosion,  both  at surface ( epigenetic) and  subsurface levels (hypogene). Carbonatite rocks, usually insoluble, become highly soluble when they meet acid waters (i.e., enriched with carbon dioxide ),  as raining waters are . Meteoric waters  exert a cheminal as well as  a mechanical action over carbonates ; they can bring about   the dissociation of these lithologies under given climate conditions; this  leaves  on the  ground  only insoluble residues , like  red clayey soils, enriched with oxides and consequently very fertile. On the rock walls   shallow cuts appear initially, then  gullies  which become increasingly  marked and deeper . The most common epigenetic karsic  formations  are dolines , hums , striped plains,  wells. Various examples of impressive karst phenomena exist in the province of Frosinone: the Tomolo ( 630 metres large , 130 metres deep), a doline , at  the border of which  the Medieval inhabited centre of Campoli Appennino rises; Pozzo DÕAntullo , a deep chasm, 150 metres large and 60 metres deep. The hypogenetic  phenomena of karst erosion are spectacular and fascinating. The acid waters , flowing through the fractures in the rocks, manage to dig winding tunnels, so that they create vast cavities, such as caves and abysses, which can  extend for kilometres . Covered by stalactites and stalagmites , only  when the   evolution process   of the karst is completed  , they create a bewildering and unique  world  beneath the earthÕs surface. The Pastena Caves , among the most beautiful in this area, consist of a fossile branch, which  winds for 880 metres, and an active branch , some 2000 metres long . Another example in Ciociaria is the CollepardoÕs  Cave.
The Latina Valley is the most wide depression in the province; it divides the  Lepini - Ausoni -Aurunci range from the Simbruini - Ernici - Meta - Mainarde Mounts. With an Appennine development , the Latina Valley is  narrower  north-west  of Frosinone  and becomes increasingly wider towards south-east, where it  converges in the large Cassinate depression , at the border with  Campania. In the stretch   north of Frosinone , the Latina Valley is better known as the Sacco Valley, since  it is traversed by its namesake river, which begins in the province of Rome. A tributary of the Sacco is the  Cosa, whose source is on the Ernici Mounts ; it flows in the Sacco north-west of Ceccano , after having traversed the centre of Frosinone. The  meandering course of the Sacco flows into the Liri near Isoletta. The river Liri, whose source is located in the  Abruzzi Appennines, is certainly a significant morphological element in the southern area of the province and in the Sora valley.   After having crossed  the Sora  Plain with its winding course , the Liri reaches Isola Liri , where  hurls down a 30 metre drop, thus forming the famous waterfalls. An important tributary of the Liri,  besides the river Amaseno, is the Fibreno, whose regional  spring-head is  on the carbonatite  mounts of the Roveto Valley and the National Park of the Abruzzi (NPA). The source of the Fibreno is important both for the good quality of its water and for its abundant rate of flow, some 10 cm/s . Southwards ( Pontecorvo-Cassino area),  the only markings of the ancient  lake plain of the Quaternary  are sediments and fossils ( clay silts and limestone sand with cross stratification, grey and ochre clays, sand and gravel with malacofauna dulcicola).
The morphological continuity of the Appennine montainous system is broken by  fluvial-tectonic valleys with an anti-Appennine development and a differently marked erosion. The most important among them is the Liri Valley; of minor importance , but not for their beauty and einvironmental resources, are the Melfa and Rapido Valleys ( from the Canneto Valley, in the NPA, and  the  Roccasecca gorges, to the linear source of the Rapido). These fluvial valleys , with a  NE -SW direction , formed  on pre-existing tectonics boundaries ( fault planes , fractures and areas of weakness in the rock) along which  streams and rivers flowed   , sculpturing  their ground.
The big water supply to the river Liri is provided  by the source of the river Gari, whose rate of flow reaches 18 cm/s. The river Gari, with a costant rate of flow along the year and an extremely steady flux  , is the biggest source in  Centre-South Italy.

The convergence of ther Liri and Gari forms the Garigliano, which marks the  border between Latium and Campania.
The big mountainous structures in the province encompass also areas characterized  by a great concentration of cultural and einvironmental resources. Consequently  , there are protected territories, such as  the Latium slope of the National Park of the Abruzzi  , the Regional  Nature Reserve of the Fibreno ,the Regional Park of the Simbruini and the Regional Nature Reserve of the Aurunci ,where  experiments on new and sustainable opportunities of development are carried out.

ITALY.  As a nation state, Italy has emerged only in 1871.

Until then the country was politically divided into a large number of independant cities, provinces and islands. The currently available evidences point out to a dominant Etruscan, Greek and Roman cultural influence on today's Italians.
The earliest human settlements within the territory of present-day Italy date almost certainly to the initial phase of the Quaternary era (Pleistocene). This period was characterized by frequent alternation in climatic conditions, with consequent phases of expansion and retreat in the Alpine and Apennine glaciers and relative variations in sea level.
With the Iron Age Italy and her population practically enter the historical period. Until the end of 5th century A.D. Italy was dominated a number of tribes, and finally the Romans.

The last hundred years of the Western Roman Empire, from the second half of the 4th century, coincided with large migrations of Germanic peoples (Visigoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Huns, Heruli, Alemanni etc.) who on different occasions settled within her territories. At the same time economic conditions also reflected the political instability of the imperial government, it deteriorated gradually and was accompanied by a chronic fall in population.
It was in this period that the influence of the Christian church began to make itself felt more consistently.

This was in contrast to the progressive orientalization of the Empire, now focused on its new capital of Costantinople, founded by the emperor Constantine between 326-330 on the site of the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium.
With first the Normans and then the Hohenstaufen (1220-1266), besides the institution of particularly efficient state structures that formed a network of control throughout the territory, there was introduced into Italy, with all its juridical implications, the feudal system. This further favoured the expansion of large establishments, whether civil or ecclesiastical, but conserved for the towns sufficient independence to guarantee the development of economic activities.
The ending of imperial authority, quickly followed by the papal crisis involving its transfer to France from 1309 to 1377, was accompanied by a strengthening in the independence of the Northern and Central Italian communes. There was also a notable economic improvement for the majority of towns in the Po Valley and Tuscany.
The scarse inclination of the newly-formed urban middle-class for military activities led to a search for the protection and support of their interests by the powerful feudal families. In a short time, although in the name of the people, they acquired the signoria or lordship of the old communes. Their sphere of interest then often spread considerably beyond the original town and its surrounding district, forming a much more extensive territory.

In practice, the change from commune to new Signoria also signified the transformation of the first city-states into true and proper States, whose political force was therefore directly connected to their economic power.
In this atmosphere of renewed vitality, culture also prospered with a new enthusiasm for the study of the classical world and a revaluation of interest in nature and man (humanism). The arts (from literature to the expressive and figurative) had one of their finest moments. The appearance of towns was transformed with the introduction of new styles of architecture. During this period Italy indeed became the cultural centre of Europe.
A period of calm, in the agitated political panorama of Renaissance Italy, seemed to be heralded by the Peace of Lodi (1454). The great Italian states of Milan, Florence, Venice, Rome and Naples agreed to guarantee through the Lega Italica at least forty years of peace and stability.
Between the mid-15th century and the mid-18th century, Italian city states fought against the Spanish and then the French domination. They gained their independence after this long and politically chaotic period.
The next fifty years saw a period of relative political stability and economic progress for all the various Italian States. Judicial and administrative reforms were carried out, generally marked by increased efficiency in state structures. This was also due to the actions of statesmen and enlightened sovereigns like Maria Teresa of Austria and Joseph II in Lombardy, Bernardo Tanucci at Naples, Pietro Leopoldo in Tuscany and Pius VI at Rome.
Following this brief but intense period came first the echo of the French Revolution (1789) and the tragic end of the French monarchy (1792) and then the resounding reality of the Napoleonic armies. The latter's first Italian Campaign (1796) carried with it the hope of an independent Italy before too long. Spanish predominance in Italy, extending over some two centuries, had rather negative consequences for the country, whose economy, especially in the rich northern and central regions underwent a disastrous decline. This brought in its train social and cultural repercussions. The imbalance between the southern regions and the rest of the country increased, above all in the agricultural sector.
After the revolution, Italy had to concede to France cultural leadership. A contribution that was to play a significant role in the political and philosophical debate leading to the revolutionary spirit of the 18th century. Earlier, however, and again from France, there had spread throughout Europe, of course including Italy, the new spirit of Enlightenment. This was a reaction against the restrictions imposed by tradition and religious faith, revaluing the human intellectual capacity and individual conscience in its ability to confront and resolve the great issues of humanity and its destiny through the use of reason alone. Favoured also by the renewal of economic and civil life through a series of reforms stemming from the tolerant and enlightened rulers of the period, Italy made her main contribution in this field at Milan and Naples by the actions of statesmen and economists of the calibre of Beccaria, Verri, Romagnosi, Galiani, Genovesi, Pagano and Filangieri.

Reforming activities were however abruptly interrupted by the events of the French Revolution, bringing into question the very concepts of State and Society under the pressure of the new Jacobinism.
The Italian political and territorial picture, which at the end of the 18C seemed to have stabilised, rapidly disintegrated in the face of Napoleon Bonaparte's first military campaign across the peninsula so as to successfully attack the Austrian Empire on its southern flank. Successive events further reinforced Napoleon's control of Italy. His brother-in-law Murat ascended the throne of Naples; the Kingdom of Italy was expanded with the Trentino and Alto Adige (the latter fiercely defended by Andreas Hofer); and Tuscany and the Papal States were incorporated in the new French Empire (Peace of Sch?unn, 14 October 1810). But after a brief interlude, the failure of Napoleon's Russian Campaign and his defeats at Leipzig (1813) and Waterloo (1815), as well as Murat's tragic end (October 1815), brought back to Italy the restoration of the old political and territorial order under the terms of the Congress of Vienna (June 1815). But the seeds of liberty and change had been sown in Italy above all with the First Napoleonic Campaign and a sense of national unity had been aroused by the establishment of first republican structures and then the Kingdom of Italy.
Following the plebiscite that voted in favour of annexation to Piedmont (1860), there then began the construction, together with the territory of Southern Italy that had been taken by Garibaldi's expedition of `The Thousand', of the United Kingdom of Italy.

This was to be proclaimed at Turin on 17 March 1861, though the acquisition of Rome and Venice were still outstanding. The latter was added five years later (1866) following an unfortunate conflict with Austria, which was resolved in Italy's favour thanks to the intervention of Prussia; Rome was conquered by force, 20 September 1870, on the fall of Napoleon III. With these events the territorial unity of the Italian nation was almost complete and it was now necessary to construct its own social, economic and cultural image.
Among the numerous and complex problems of the new State emerged the need to bring uniformity to a territory that was so politically and economically diverse. The indiscriminate application of the administrative, judicial and fiscal structures of the old Piedmont was to create a further divide between Italy's more economically developed Northern and Central regions and the structurally weaker Southern region (the Mezzogiorno). A mass emigration of peasants and the poorest classes to the two Americas occurred (in the decades spanning the 19-20C the number reached several million) and the so-called southern question took root. At the same time, in order to compete with the other European powers, Italy followed a policy of colonial expansion in Africa. She occupied Eritrea (1885-96), Somalia (1889-1905), Libya and the islands of the Aegean (1911-12). A commercial concession (500 sq miles) centred on Tien-Tsin was obtained from China in 1902.
In the economic and social areas the period from the taking of Rome to Italy entering the First World War (1870-1915) was characterized by general growth in the whole country.

This was undoubtedly favoured by an interlude in international politics that allowed Italy to put her financial affairs in order and re-organize her administrative structure. There then followed the development of certain essential sectors, such as the rail network and basic industries, often making use of foreign capital. At the same time, attempts were made to strengthen international political relations (by joining in the Triple Alliance with the Germany of Bismark and the Austria of Franz Joseph) and commercial links, even if it was eventually necessary to resort to protectionism in order to protect the still fragile national economy. While agriculture encountered notable difficulties due to the fall in prices on foreign markets and the backward conditions of a large part of the countryside, as well as the scourge of malaria, industry was a growth area. The textile industry, with its two main sectors of silk and cotton, as well as the metallurgical and mechanical industries were favoured by increasing supplies of electrical energy from the newly built water-powered plants in the upper Alpine and Apennine valleys.
Just after the WWI, which was already lost, a number of new political parties were founded; Partito Popolare (1919), by Luigi Sturzo, as a continuation of the Democrazia Cristiana; Partito Comunista d'Italia (1921, at Leghorn), from a split with the Partito Socialista and led by Antonio Gramsci; and, finally, the Fasci di Combattimento of Benito Mussolini, previously a socialist leader and an ardent interventionist.

This latter movement, after having obtained 35 deputies in the 1921 election, transformed itself into the Partito Nazionale Fascista equipped with a revolutionary programme that, after the episode of the March on Rome of 28 October 1922, brought Mussolini to the head of a government.
Having obtained a parliamentary majority in the 1924 election and the following year passed a law increasing the powers of the head of government, it was in 1926, with the abolition of all the other political parties, that the Fascist dictatorship formally began.
In its external policy the Fascist regime especially sought prestige by further colonial expansion, as that into Ethiopia (1935-36) or participation in the Spanish Civil War on the side of Franco's forces. Gradually, Italy's good relations with France, Britain and the Soviet Union (whose revolutionary government Italy was the first country to recognize) deteriorated, while her links with Hitler's Germany increased (Rome-Berlin Axis, 1936). In 1939 the Pact of Steel with Germany, after an initially non-belligerent phase, inevitably dragged Italy, in 1940, into the tragic events of the Second World War (1939-45).
Italy's increasingly unsuccessful war, fought on many fronts and against better trained and equipped armies, overwhelmed Mussolini in 1943, when he was censured by his own party. He was replaced as head of government by the Marshall Pietro Badoglio, who immediately signed an armistice with the allied powers (3 September 1943). The formation of a new government by Mussolini in Northern Italy, the Repubblica Sociale Italiana based at Sal򬠷�ith the support of Germany and in opposition to the monarchial government (temporarily based at Brindisi) provoked a civil war.

This was only brought to an end by the intervention of the allied armies, the formation of the partisans, the abdication of the king and the end of Mussolini (28 April-2 May 1945).
After an interlude with several national coalition governments and the provisional rule of Umberto II of Savoy, Alcide De Gasperi of the Democrazia Cristiana became President of the Council. On 2 June 1946 the results of the institutional referendum brought to an end the monarchy of the House of Savoy (its last king, Umberto II, going into exile) and heralded the republic which was officially proclaimed on 18 June 1946. Enrico De Nicola was elected as the Republic's first President. Under the government led by De Gasperi, the first parliamentary assembly to be freely elected by the people began work on the new Constitutional Charter that was to come into force on 1 January 1948.