Capital punishment in Italy

Before the unification of Italy in 1860, capital punishment was performed in almost all pre-unitarian states, except for Tuscany, where, starting from 1786, it was repeatedly abolished (most recently in 1859) and reintroduced.

In Italy, the first pre-unitarian state to abolish the death penalty was the Grand Duchy of Tuscany as of 30 November 1786, under the reign of Pietro Leopoldo (soon to become Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor) following about fourteen years of de facto moratorium.

Some thirty years later, capital punishment was definitively abolished nationwide in the 1889 Penal Code with the almost unanimous approval of both Houses of Parliament under suggestion of Minister Giuseppe Zanardelli.

In 1926, it was reintroduced by dictator Benito Mussolini to punish those who made an attempt on the king, the queen, the heir apparent or the Prime Minister as well as for espionage and armed rebellion.

The president, Enrico de Nicola, declined to pardon the three convicts, and they were executed by a firing squad on 4 March 1947, at Basse di Stura riverside, in the suburbs of Turin.

The Italian Constitution, signed on 27 December 1947, and in force since 1 January 1948, completely abolished the death penalty for all common military and civil crimes during peacetime.

[15] Whatever the polls, none of the political parties represented in the Italian parliament, not even the right-wing ones, propose the reintroduction of the death penalty, and generally shared support for international initiatives against it has remained constant since the last decade of the twentieth century.

[16][17] The 2007 law amending the Constitution, which made the pre-existing limited ban on capital punishment absolute, was passed with a majority of more than two-thirds of those entitled to vote.