Smoking in Italy has been banned in public places including bars, restaurants, discotheques and offices since 2005.
He described how indigenous people in Cuba used tobacco by lighting dried herbs wrapped in a leaf and inhaling the smoke.
[3] According to ItalianSmokes.com, in 1561, Bishop Prospero Santacroce while in Portugal discovered the healing properties of a tobacco type called Nicotiana Rustica.
Around 1574, Niccolo Tornabuoni, who served as the Florentine ambassador to Paris, introduced the seeds of another tobacco variety known as Nicotiana Tabacum to Tuscany.
By the end of the 16th century, various new strains were derived and were cultivated in Tuscany, Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto, Marche, Umbria, Campania, Sardinia, and Sicily.
For more than 300 years, the growth of tobacco in Italy was influenced by a complex taxes and regulations imposed by the different states before their unification into the modern nation in 1859.
[6] Philip Morris advertised heavily in Italy and across Western Europe, especially through sponsorship of Formula I auto racing.
[8][9] In 1986, Health Minister Costante Degan unsuccessfully tried to implement a smoking ban in bars and restaurants, but the push would be neglected amid other concerns.