Feeding into the "Italians have joke governments" argument...

[Keystone Phil]

I always knew that Italy has had an insane number of Prime Ministers but I was scrolling through the list tonight and just couldn't believe how short their stints in office lasted. I just couldn't imagine changing Prime Ministers every year and a half or so.

I also found out that Italy had at least one Prime Minister who wasn't Roman Catholic (he was a Methodist) and one who admitted to being gay after his time as Prime Minister.

[Хahar 🤔]

You never knew quite how massively unstable Italy has always been? Mind you, almost all the really short ones held office multiple times.

Read Modern Italy: A Political History by Denis Mack Smith. It's a very good book.

[Keystone Phil]

You never knew quite how massively unstable Italy has always been? Mind you, almost all the really short ones held office multiple times.

No, I obviously did know but it's just mind blowing when you actually look at the time in office for each person and, as you said, how many people served as Prime Minister multiple times.

[Meeker]

Who was the gay one?

[Keystone Phil]

Who was the gay one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilio_Colombo

[paul718]

I'm telling you, they should've never unified.

[Keystone Phil]

I'm telling you, they should've never unified.

Don't say that stuff around me. I hate that. 

[paul718]

I'm telling you, they should've never unified.

Don't say that stuff around me. I hate that. 

What good has come of it?  They're obviously dysfunctional.  The government in Napoli can't even get the garbage picked up.

[Keystone Phil]

I'm telling you, they should've never unified.

Don't say that stuff around me. I hate that. 

What good has come of it?  They're obviously dysfunctional.  The government in Napoli can't even get the garbage picked up.

The garbage has been picked up. It was awesome. When I was there this past summer, my tour guide and bus driver were obviously Roman Socialists. They would huddle around the TV at dinner and listen carefully when Walter Veltroni would start speaking. When we were arriving in Naples, we were warned of the trash. We looked around and the streets were fine. My tour guide was shocked, saying that it wasn't only clean but was the cleanest that she's seen it in years.

The government might be a bit dysfunctional but it's fun to watch.    Too many of the independent states wouldn't be able to survive on their own if they split up. A unified boot was the best way to go.

[Хahar 🤔]

hy is it always the North that wasnts to secede? Weren't they Italy in the first place?

[JohnFKennedy]

hy is it always the North that wasnts to secede? Weren't they Italy in the first place?

What do you mean by Italy in the first place? It was the Piedmontese King Vittorio Emanuele with his Prime Minister Cavour who were responsible for the unification of Italy. To my knowledge, none of the separate kingdoms called themselves 'Italy' prior to unification and there was little in the way of an Italian national identity at the time - 'We have made Italy, now we must make Italians' - with somewhere between four and twenty percent of the population speaking Italian. Even Cavour was a French speaker!

[Tetro Kornbluth]

hy is it always the North that wasnts to secede? Weren't they Italy in the first place?

What do you mean by Italy in the first place? It was the Piedmontese King Vittorio Emanuele with his Prime Minister Cavour who were responsible for the unification of Italy. To my knowledge, none of the separate kingdoms called themselves 'Italy' prior to unification and there was little in the way of an Italian national identity at the time - 'We have made Italy, now we must make Italians' - with somewhere between four and twenty percent of the population speaking Italian. Even Cavour was a French speaker!

... And that was something like 0.5 to 2.5% outside of Tuscany and Rome.

Not to mention it took a decade to defeat 'brigandage' in the south after unification, to defeat these 'brigands' the Piedmontese at one point sent 100,000 men into the south. So yeah.

[Hash]

The Fourth Republic wasn't better than Italy:

Robert Schuman (2nd time): 2 September 1948-11 September 1948
Henri Queuille (2nd time): 2 July 1950-12 July 1950

[Matt Damon™]

Mexico is arguably less corrupt and better-run than Italy.

[Hatman 🍁]

Who was the Methodist?

[Silent Hunter]

hy is it always the North that wasnts to secede? Weren't they Italy in the first place?

They're the richer part and don't want to subsidise the South.

[Keystone Phil]

Who was the Methodist?

I know I saw one of them listed as a Methodist on their Wiki page. I can't find it now.

[Keystone Phil]

Who was the Methodist?

I know I saw one of them listed as a Methodist on their Wiki page. I can't find it now.

I think I accidentally stumbled upon this guy's Wiki and thought he was a Prime Minister - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianni_De_Michelis

Looks like there never was a non-Catholic Italian Prime Minister (at least in modern times).

[Хahar 🤔]

hy is it always the North that wasnts to secede? Weren't they Italy in the first place?

What do you mean by Italy in the first place? It was the Piedmontese King Vittorio Emanuele with his Prime Minister Cavour who were responsible for the unification of Italy. To my knowledge, none of the separate kingdoms called themselves 'Italy' prior to unification and there was little in the way of an Italian national identity at the time - 'We have made Italy, now we must make Italians' - with somewhere between four and twenty percent of the population speaking Italian. Even Cavour was a French speaker!

What I mean is that the North made Italy, yes. In the 19th century, Prime Ministers generally didn't go visit the South, and Francophone Pelloux was in power as late as the turn of the century.

[Gustaf]

It is usually the richer part of a dysfunctional country with a lack of popular legitimacy that wants to secede. So it isn't surprising that it'd be the North in Italy.