Abstract

The article retraces the first fifty years of the history of Italy as a nation-State in the European context. In particular it focuses on the political and institutional culture of the Italian ruling class posing as part of liberal constitutionalism. It is argued that adoption of this specific language in the aftermath of creating a new State, and then during the watershed ’80s, the end-of-century crisis and the Giolitti era, was a bid to seek political recognition and legitimation in the international arena.