Of
Antonio Carioti
The photo of Federico Patellani which became the symbol of the victory of the referendum for the Republic on 2 June 1946, is one of the elements chosen for the scenography of the speech at the Quirinale. In 2026 it will be 80 years
The face of a young woman framed by front page of the «Corriere della Sera» with the announcement of the republican victory in the institutional referendum of 2 June 1946. It is the very famous image that served as the backdrop to the speech of good wishes by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella for 2026 (full text here). An iconic symbol of the turning point that our country experienced eighty years ago, when the new form of the State was decided and the Assembly responsible for writing and approving the Constitution in force today was elected.
The history of photography
The Republic had been the failed objective of the democratic movement during the Risorgimento and it finally became a reality. The Italians thus left the Savoy dynasty behind themwhich had acquired notable historical merits in the nineteenth century, but then squandered them by allowing fascism to overthrow freedom and plunge Italy into the catastrophe of war alongside the Third Reich. That the new era opened by popular suffrage was represented by a joyful female face – that of Anna Iberti, immortalized by photographer Federico Patellani on the roof of the Newspaper Palace in Piazza Cavour in Milan – was certainly not meaningless.
The referendum of 2 June 1946
L’the June 2nd meeting saw women go to the polls for the first time on a national scale (some had voted for local authorities shortly before): a goal of civilization which a country still steeped in chauvinism was arriving late compared to other European and American nations.
Even the choice of the front page of the «Corriere» was emblematic. The daily newspaper on Via Solferino had recently turned seventy years old and remained undoubtedly the most authoritative press organ, even if it had had to suffer a long phase of forced subservience to the dictatorship.
Il director Mario Borsawho under the leadership of Luigi Albertini had opposed the advent of fascism, had clearly aligned the newspaper on the Republican frontin the awareness of how much the indolence of King Vittorio Emanuele III and the evident limits of the Albertine Statute, a constitution bestowed by the King of Sardinia Carlo Alberto in 1848, had weighed in favoring the rise of Benito Mussolini to absolute power.
Initially it was decided that the Constituent Assembly would define the form of the State, but then it was preferred that this crucial issue be resolved directly by the voters, in order to provide a more robust legitimacy to the system. The outcome of the popular consultation appeared uncertain at first, because the South had voted massively in favor of the monarchy, but then a rather clear Republican victory emerged, confirmed by the final data sanctioned by the Court of Cassation on 10 June 1946: 12 million and 700 thousand votes against 10 million and 700 thousand54.27 to 45.73 in percentage terms. The turnout was almost 90 percent.
There were attempts at contestation by the monarchy, based on the thesis that in order to prevail the republic would not only have to overcome the suffrages of the monarchy but also achieve an absolute majority of voters, including blank and invalid ballots. And indeed Umberto II of Savoyascended to the throne for a short time after his father’s treacherous abdication and called for it «the king of May», he left Italy for Portuguese exile on 13 June without recognizing the republican victory.
The first days of the newborn Republic
In the meantime, the Prime Minister, the Christian Democrat Alcide De Gasperi, had assumed the functions of provisional head of state.
There were protests from the monarchist side, even bloody ones: on 11 June in Naples the police killed nine Savoy supporters among the crowd intending to attack the headquarters of the Communist Party in via Medina, which had displayed the tricolor flag without the coat of arms of the royal house.
The referendum, a milestone
The legend of manipulation of the results it spread for a long time, but the small amount of consensus gathered by the monarchist parties, which later merged into the neo-fascist social movement at the beginning of the 1970s, amply demonstrated that there was no room to reopen the institutional question.
In its parable the Italian Republic has gone through periods of great growth and others of painful crisis. Some people think that the constitutional structure needs profound changes, indeed we will soon be voting on a controversial justice reform. But the choice of June 1946 remains an indisputable milestone in our national history.
Go to all the news of Rome
Subscribe to the Corriere Roma newsletter
December 31, 2025 (changed January 1, 2026 | 07:50)
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
