More recently, liberals have been split primarily among the centre-right The People of Freedom/Forza Italia and the centre-left Democratic Party.
In the 19th century both early Italian political groupings, the Historical Right and the Historical Left, were composed of monarchist liberals and functioned mainly as loose parliamentary groups, while radicals organised themselves as the Radical Party, and republicans, who were influenced also by socialism, as the Italian Republican Party.
After the end of World War II, both Liberals and Republicans reorganised themselves, followed by more liberal parties in the upcoming decades (notably including the new Radical Party), and, despite their modest results in elections, they were often part of the Italian government, in alliance with Christian Democracy.
Since 1992–1994, following the Tangentopoli scandals, the subsequent Mani pulite inquiries and the resulting shake-up of the Italian party system, the liberal movement has been strongly divided.
[1] Italian liberals are basically divided between the centre-right Forza Italia (successor of the former Forza Italia, itself primarily a merger of liberal and Christian-democratic forces, and The People of Freedom, which integrated the more conservative National Alliance) and the centre-left Democratic Party (a merger of social democrats, progressive Christian democrats and social liberals, the latter two mainly organised in Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy in the early 2000s).