Italian Prime Ministers Trivia Quiz

Answer: de Gasperi

Alcide de Gasperi (1881-1954) founded the Democrazia Christiana in 1944 - a centrist party with a programme largely inspired by the papal bull "Rerum Novarum" (1893).

In 1945 King Umberto II appointed him prime minister. When the kingdom was abolished a few months later, De Gasperi formed a new government.

De Gasperi was one of the driving forces behind the Paris treaty establishing the European Community for Coal and Steel, together with the French Robert Schuman and the German Konrad Adenauer. But De Gasperi was not one of those who signed the treaty: the Italian signature was posed by Count Carlo Sforza, the Italian minister of foreign affairs.

Answer: Fanfani

Amintore Fanfani (1908-1999) was born in Tuscany. He joined the Italian party Democrazia Christiana (DC) in 1944, where he defended leftish ideas.

After serving as minister of labour, minster of agriculture and minister of the interior, Fanfani became prime minister in 1954, with only members of the Democrazia Christiana in his government. Alas, the government did not survive a vote of confidence on the 22nd day, and thus exit Fanfani.

But in 1958 Fanfani came back as prime minister a second time, this time in a coalition with the Partito Socialisto Democratico Italiano (PSDI), a party a bit to the right of the socialists. The second government-Fanfani lasted eight months.

In 1960 Fanfani reappeared once more as prime minister. His third government (Democrazia Christiana only) lasted for two years, and he was reinstated for a fourth government with the help of the PSDI and the Republican Party (social-liberals) which lasted another year.

And after a long while, Fanfani came back again. In 1982 Fanfani formed a fifth government, this time a coalition of DC, PSDI, the socialists (Partito Socialisto Italiano, PSI) and the liberals (Partito Liberale Italiano, PLI).

But that was not the end of Fanfani. In 1987 (aged 79!) he formed a sixth government, DC only. But in a vote of confidence his own party abstained, and the support of the left wing (PSI and PSDI) and the Radicals (right-wing liberals) was not sufficient.

Answer: Moro

Aldo Moro (1916-1978) was born in Lecce, Apulia.

Moro studied law at the University of Bari. In 1943 he was one of the founders of Democrazia Christiana (DC), a centrist party inspired by a papal bull.

Moro became prime minister in 1963, leading a coalition of DC, the socialist party PSI, the social-democrats PSDI and the Republican Party (PRI), which stands for a social-liberal economic policy.
He had to rearrange his government twice, but remained prime minister for almost four and a half years with the same centre-left coalition.

In 1974 Moro formed another government, this time DC plus PRI. And when the PRI left this fourth government-Moro, he continued with DC only until July 1976.

In 1978 the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades), a terrorist group, kidnapped Aldo Moro and shot his bodyguards. After a captivity of 55 days, Moro was executed and his body was found in the trunk of a car.

Answer: Andreotti

Giulio Andreotti (1919-2013) was born in Rome. He studied law at the University of Rome.
In 1938 he met de Gasperi, who convinced him to join the Christian Democratic Party. During his membership of this party, Andreotti excelled as mediator between the leftish and rightish wings of this centrum party.

In 1947 Andreotti took up his first seat in the government. Officially he was Secretary to the Council of Ministers, but in fact he was more influential on the government decisions than some of the plenipotentiary ministers.

In 1949 Andreotti was nominated undersecretary of entertainment. In this office he created strict limits on Hollywood movies and promoted the Italian Neorealist movies by famous directors as Fellini, Pasolini and de Sica.

During the 1950s and 1960s Andreotti held various minister positions, and in 1972 he became prime minister for the first time. Andreotti was PM of Italy five times: twice between 1972 and 1973, and thrice between 1976 and 1979.

The nickname "Il Divo" was derived from another Italian with the name Giulio from long ago: Julius Caesar (in Italian Giulio Cesare). Paolo Sorrentino directed a movie on Andreotti's life titled "Il Divo", and in one scene the main character declared "Apart from the Punic Wars, for which I was too young, I have been blamed for everything that's happened in Italy."

Answer: Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi (1936-2023) was born in Milan and studied law. In 1970 he developed a suburb of Milan with 4,000 apartments, and he bought a cable television company.

In 1975 Berlusconi founded Fininvest, a holding company for all his future investments. These included Mondadori (a famous publishing company), Mediaset, and the soccer club AC Milan - which he sold out.

Mediaset grew to the largest private broadcasting group in Italy, with 13 TV channels (against also 13 for the official network RAI).

In 1994 Berlusconi launched his political career, as founding father of the political party Forza Italia. The party gained a large number of seats at the elections in May 1994, and Berlusconi was appointed prime minister in a centre-right coalition. He remained in function for seven months.

June 2001 saw Berlusconi's comeback as prime minister. This time he had two successive governments, for almost five years in total.

And in 2011 Berlusconi formed a fourth government, which held tenure for three and a half years.
Thus Berlusconi was the first PM in the Italian Republic to accumulate 9 years as prime minister.

Answer: d'Alema

Massimo d'Alema was born in Rome in 1949 and studied philosophy at the University of Pisa. Already as a teen d'Alema joined the Communist Party (PCI).

The PCI was one of the big Italian parties, but in 1988 ceased to exist. The official successor was the Partito della Sinistra (PdS), more social-democrat than communist. The PdS would later join other leftist parties to form the Partito Democratico (PD). During all these regroupings and renamings, the party gradually moved from the extreme left (communist) to the very central left (social-democrat).

In 1998 Massimo d'Alema formed a government with almost all centre-left parties. He remained in office during one and a half years, although he had to reshuffle the government once.

Answer: Prodi

Romano Prodi was born near Reggio Emilia in 1939. He studied law in Milan and joined Democrazia Christiana (DC, a centrum party) in 1963.

When DC ceased to exist, Prodi for a brief time was member of the successor PPI but then became the moving force behind the centre-left coalition L'Ulivo (the Olive Tree), with more than ten centre-left parties, including the PdS (Partito della Sinistra, former communist party).

The Olive Tree won the 1996 election and Prodi was appointed prime minister. His government made a huge effort to succeed for the economic criteria set forth by the Treaty of Maastricht to be part of the Eurozone - the group of countries united by a single currency. And the government succeeded against all odds.

The first government-Prodi remained in office during two years and five months, until October 1998.
In September 1999, Prodi was appointed president of the European Commission, an office which some journalists considered equivalent to prime minister of Europe. Prodi remained in office until the expansion of the European Union with ten countries (mostly from Central-Eastern Europe) in 2004.

In 2006 Prodi returned as prime minister of Italy, this time for almost two years.

Answer: Monti

Mario Monti was born in Varese (Lombardy) in 1943 and studied economics in Milan. From 1970 to 1994 he was professor of economics at various Italian universities.

In 1995 Monti was appointed member of the European Commission, and he remained in office during two five-year terms.

In November 2011, the Italian president appointed Mario Monti as prime minister. At that time neither Monti nor the other ministers in his government affiliated with any political party - a "technocrat" government, only the second time this type of government was put in place (the first was the Dini cabinet, January 1995 - May 1996). The Monti government restored the Italian economy by a severe austerity programme and some far-reaching labour reforms.

Monti founded a political party to participate in the election of 2013 and thus try to keep going on with the reforms his government initiated. But this party was dissolved in 2019.

Answer: Draghi

Mario Draghi was born in Rome in 1947. He studied economics in Rome and started his career as a professor in various Italian universities.

In 1991 Draghi was appointed director-general of the Italian Treasury. He held this office for ten years, and advocated privatization of several national industrial participations.

After a four-year stint at Harvard and with Goldman Sachs, Draghi returned to Italy to become the governor of the Bank of Italy.

In 2011 Draghi succeeded the French Jean-Claude Trichet as president of the European Central Bank, and he remained in office for eight years.

In 2021 Draghi was appointed prime minister of Italy. He had no party affiliation, and many of his colleagues didn't belong to any party neither. But this was not an exclusive technocrat government: six political parties had one or more ministers.

Draghi remained in office one year and eight months, until the 2022 election. 

Answer: Meloni

Giorgia Meloni was born in Rome in 1977. She graduated at the Istituto Tecnico Professionale di Stato Amerigo Vespucci, but details of her schooling are controversial. Meloni states she has a degree in foreign languages, but this particular school is not allowed to hand out that kind of degrees.

In 1992 Meloni joined the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), considered to be a neo-fascist party as it was founded by followers of Benito Mussolini. This party joined with others, renamed itself Alleanza Nazionale, shifted to conservative - nationalist, and finally was rebranded Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy).

Meloni entered the Italian parliament in 2006 and became Minister of Youth in 2008. She remained in office for three and a half years.

The Italian elections of 2022 were characterized by a extremely high absence of voters. Moreover, the number of seats was reduced with over one third (from 630 deputies to 400 deputies).

And yet, even with this large reduction of available seats, Fratelli d'Italia almost doubled their number of deputies, thus becoming the largest party. And so Meloni was appointed prime minister, in a coalition with centre-right parties as the Lega Nord and Forza Italia.