Today here it's a day of Festa Nazionale or as you say a bank holiday. That must be the reason my daughter felt the compelling need to wake me up at 6am .

Anyway this year's Festa della Repubblica is particularly felt because it marks 70 years since we got rid of the Savoia, elected a committee to write our Constitution and Italian women finally perused their right to vote. With this voting sheet we closed forever a chapter of our history not many are proud of. It was bilingual to accommodate Südtiroler German speaking citizens.

70 years ago started the process that in 1948 gave us a new Constitution, a new government and a new National symbol: the Star of Italy, a symbol strictly linked to our Risorgimento, the olive branch symbol of peace, the oak branch symbol of the unity of Italian people and the gearwheel symbol of the work of the people that is the foundation of our State as explicated by the first article of the Constitution.

Honestly I am not much of a patriot, for many reasons, but I think that that day of 70 years ago our people did something right. I am quite proud of the first part of our Constitution, that deals with the principles of our State. And I am proud that five women were very vocal members of the Constitutional Committee, their names:  Maria Federici, Angela Gotelli, Nilde Jotti, Teresa Noce, Lina Merlin, are probably unknown internationally but are easily recognisable to Italian citizens because of some very important laws that were named after the women who proposed them and in particular Nilde Jotti was the first woman President of the Camera dei Deputati the third highest rank in our State, position currently held by Laura Boldrini. Sadly it's still the highest position ever held by women in our Establishment. 

Reading FJ made me research more about USA Constitution and history. Today I wanted to reciprocate the pleasure for whoever may be interested. Here is the original writing of Italian Constitution as was approved by the Constitutional Committee in 1947 translated in English. It's under spoiler because it's composed by screenshots. 

Changes have been made over time ie Military Service isn't compulsory anymore. But the parts I am proud of are still unaltered. This is only the first part of the document as you can see from the Table of Contents.  The second part designs the structure,  the power balance and the functions of the different parts of the State. It was crafted carefully doing everything to prevent the possibility of another dictatorship in the future. Unfortunately this requirement makes for an extremely bureaucratic State that in hindsight is the principal cause of the political mess and stagnation of the last 70 years. But that's another very very long story for another day.