Italian Constitution: Structure, Principles, and How It Works

On June 2, 1946, nearly 25 million Italians voted using two ballots at once: one for the referendum on whether to keep the monarchy or become a republic, one to elect the Constituent Assembly. The vote returned 556 deputies, who met for the first time on June 25, 1946 at Palazzo Montecitorio and chose Giuseppe Saragat as the Assembly’s first President.

Among those 556 deputies sat 21 women. It was the first time women had taken part in an elected Italian assembly, with nine Christian Democrats, nine Communists, two Socialists and one from the Common Man’s Front among them.

On July 15, 1946, the Assembly set up the Committee for the Constitution, remembered as the “Committee of 75,” chaired by Meuccio Ruini. Drafting a first text fell to three subcommittees led by Umberto Tupini, Umberto Terracini and Gustavo Ghidini, covering civil and political rights, state organization, and economic and social relations respectively. The draft reached the full Assembly on March 4, 1947, which debated it until December 22, 1947, when 453 of 515 deputies present voted in favor against 62. Enrico De Nicola, elected provisional Head of State on June 28, 1946 and sworn in on July 1, signed the text into law on December 27, 1947; the Constitution took effect on January 1, 1948.

Practical example: the gap between “signing into law” and “taking effect” is not a bureaucratic footnote. De Nicola signed the Constitution on December 27, 1947, and it was published in the Official Gazette, but its articles only became legally binding from January 1, 1948, the date from which its effects are counted.

The Constituent Assembly took shape in the aftermath of World War II, after two decades in which the fascist regime had shut down Parliament and the political parties, the same rise and collapse of power told in the myth of Mussolini.

The Founding Principles

Article 1 defines Italy as a democratic Republic founded on labor, with sovereignty resting in the people within the limits and forms the Constitution sets. Article 2 recognizes the inviolable rights of the individual, both alone and within social groups, and ties them to duties of political, economic and social solidarity; Article 3 establishes equal social dignity and equality before the law, regardless of sex, race, language, religion, political opinion, or personal and social condition.

Article 5 reinforces that same unity by echoing the process that had built it at the state level, the unification of Italy, calling the Republic “one and indivisible” while promoting local autonomy through “the widest administrative decentralization.” Article 6 protects linguistic minorities. Articles 7 and 8 govern relations between the state and religious denominations: the state and the Catholic Church are “each independent and sovereign within its own order,” with their relationship set out in the Lateran Pacts, while every other faith stands equally free before the law.

Until February 11, 2022, Article 9 protected only the development of culture, scientific and technical research, the landscape, and the nation’s historical and artistic heritage. The constitutional law passed that day added a third paragraph protecting “the environment, biodiversity and ecosystems, also in the interest of future generations.”

Articles 10 and 11 open the Republic to international law: Italian law “conforms to the generally recognized rules of international law,” and Italy “repudiates war as an instrument of aggression against the freedom of other peoples and as a means of settling international disputes,” accepting the limits on sovereignty needed for an order that ensures peace and justice among nations. On the institutional side, that commitment takes shape in the day-to-day work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Article 12 sets the Republic’s flag, the green, white and red tricolor in three vertical bands of equal size.

How the Text Is Organized

The Constitution runs to 139 articles, plus 18 transitional and final provisions, arranged in four blocks: the Fundamental Principles (Articles 1-12), Part I on the rights and duties of citizens (Articles 13-54), Part II on the structure of the Republic (Articles 55-139), and the transitional and final provisions.

	Part I, Rights and Duties of Citizens	Part II, Structure of the Republic
Articles	13-54	55-139
Titles	4 (civil, ethical-social, economic, political relations)	6 (Parliament, President of the Republic, Government, Judiciary, Regions-Provinces-Municipalities, constitutional safeguards)
Central subject	Who the citizen is and what rights and duties they hold	How the organs of the state operate

Part I splits into four Titles: civil relations (Articles 13-28), ethical and social relations (Articles 29-34), economic relations (Articles 35-47) and political relations (Articles 48-54). Part II covers six Titles: Parliament (Articles 55-82, split between the chambers and how laws are made), the President of the Republic (Articles 83-91), the Government (Articles 92-100), the Judiciary (Articles 101-113), the regions, provinces and municipalities (Articles 114-133), and constitutional safeguards (Articles 134-139), which include the Constitutional Court and the amendment procedure.

A Rule Built to Resist Change

Unlike the Statuto Albertino, a flexible constitution that could be amended by ordinary law, the 1948 Constitution is rigid: changing it takes a more demanding procedure than passing any ordinary law, one set out in Article 138.

Stage	What it requires
Two readings	Each chamber votes on the same text twice, at least three months apart
Majority on the second vote	An absolute majority of each chamber’s members
Possible referendum	Triggered if requested within three months by a fifth of a chamber’s members, 500,000 voters, or five regional councils
No referendum	Skipped if the second vote reached a two-thirds majority in both chambers

Practical example: the constitutional laws of February 11, 2022 (environmental protection under Article 9), November 7, 2022 (recognition of the islands under Article 119) and September 26, 2023 (recognition of the value of sport under Article 33) all went through exactly this procedure, two readings and qualified majorities, before becoming part of the text.

Between 1948 and 2023 this procedure has updated articles within the Fundamental Principles too, not just the more technical sections of the text.