La Stampa (The Press) is one of the best-known, most influential and most widely sold^{[citation needed]} Italian daily newspapers. Published in Turin, it is distributed in Italy and other European nations. The publication is owned by Fiat SpA.

History[link]

It was founded in 1867 with the name Gazzetta Piemontese. In 1895 the newspaper was bought (and by then edited) by Alfredo Frassati (father of Pier Giorgio Frassati), who gave it its current name and a national perspective. For criticising the 1924 murder of the socialist Giacomo Matteotti, he was forced to resign and sell the newspaper to Giovanni Agnelli.

It launched a website in 1999.

Since May 26, 2006, it has published a monthly magazine: "Specchio+" (Mirror). Until January 26, 1999, to April 7, 2006, it was called "Specchio" and was published as weekly magazine.

On February 1, 2006, it published the controversial Muhammad Drawings.^{[citation needed]}

In the last years, many rumors were defused about the buyout of La Stampa by Italian publishers such as Caltagirone Editore, Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso and De Agostini.^{[citation needed]}

People[link]

Editors

• Mario Calabresi (Editor)
• Massimo Gramellini (Vice-Editor)
• Roberto Bellato (Vice-Editor)
• Umberto La Rocca (Vice-Editor)
• Federico Geremicca (Vice-Editor, Rome)

Columnist & Journalists

• Massimo Gramellini (Columnist)
• Barbara Spinelli (Columnist)
• Mario Deaglio (Columnist)
• Lucia Annunziata (Columnist)
• Guido Ceronetti (Columnist)
• Anna Mina Mazzini aka Mina (Columnist)
• Maurizio Molinari (Journalist)
• Stefania Miretti (Columnist)
• Roberto Beccantini (Columnist)
• Altiero Scicchitano (Columnist)
• Fiamma Nirenstein (Columnist)
• A. B. Yehoshua (Columnist)

Former journalists

• Norberto Bobbio
• Giovanni Arpino
• Carlo Fruttero
• Franco Lucentini
• Enzo Bettiza

References[link]

External links[link]

	Italy portal
	Journalism portal

• Official website (Mobile) (Italian)
• lastampashop (Italian)
• Radio Nostalgia, the La Stampa-owned local radio station. (Italian)

This Italian newspaper-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Marco Travaglio
Marco Travaglio in Trento, 2010.
Born	Marco Travaglio (1964-10-13) October 13, 1964 (age 47) Turin, Italy
Years active	1988 – present

Marco Travaglio (Italian pronunciation: [ˈmarko traˈvaʎʎo]; born 13 October 1964) is an Italian investigative journalist, writer and commentator.

Biography[link]

Travaglio was born in Turin and earned a degree in history from the University of Turin. In 1992 he began to pursue journalism as a career. He started out writing for Catholic publications such as Il nostro tempo ("Our time"), then worked under the renowned journalist Indro Montanelli for newspapers such as Il Giornale and La Voce and gained the attention of Montanelli himself who once used to say about him: "No, Travaglio does not kill anyone. With a knife. He uses a more refined and not legally punishable weapon: the archives"

Since 14 September 2006, Marco Travaglio has been a regular guest in the TV program AnnoZero, hosted by Michele Santoro (also mentioned by Berlusconi in the Bulgarian Edict).

Recently, Travaglio has contributed as a columnist to prominent national newspapers and magazines, such as La Repubblica, L'Unità (with his old columns "Bananas", "Uliwood Party" and "Zorro") and Micromega. He still contributes to L'espresso with the column "Signorno'". In September 2009 he contributed to the formation of the independent newspaper, called Il Fatto Quotidiano ("The Daily Fact").

Political and judicial events of national importance, ranging from Mani pulite to the troubles of controversial political figure Silvio Berlusconi, have been Travaglio's main area of interest.

The journalist became well known in 2001, after participating in a TV show on state-owned national channel Raidue called Satyricon and hosted by Daniele Luttazzi. There, He presented his brand-new book, and bestseller, L'odore dei soldi ("The Smell of Money", co-authored by Elio Veltri), which investigates the origin of Mr Berlusconi's early fortunes. Berlusconi started a lawsuit for slander, but since the book reports official facts already known by the judiciary authorities, he was condemned to pay the legal expenses.^[1]

The show, aired during the campaign for the Italian general election, was heavily criticized by Berlusconi and his party and labeled by them as a politically motivated, non-objective personal attack. After Mr Berlusconi's victory at the elections, both Travaglio and Luttazzi (together with other prominent journalists that had criticized Mr Berlusconi's or investigated his history) have never appeared again on state-owned TV shows until September 2006 (shortly after Berlusconi lost the elections and left power), causing a long debate about freedom of information and censorship in Italy.

Awards and Honors[link]

The National Association of German Journalists (DJV Deutscher Journalisten-Verband) honored Marco Travaglio in 2009 bestowing on him the award for "Press Freedom". The decision, taken by the seven members jury of the association, was accompanied by the following statement from Michael Konken, President of the association of german journalists. Konken stated: «We honour in Marco Travaglio a brave and talented colleague, fighting againsts many obstacles to defend freedom of speech and press in Italy». Other recipients of the Award in previous years include the journalist Miroslav Filipović and the Russian reporter Ol'ga Kitova. Filipović received the award for his articles on the atrocities committed against civilians in Kosovo by the Yugoslav Army, while Olga Kitova was honoured for her struggle in denouncing corruption in Russia.

Publications[link]

Books by Marco Travaglio (usually co-authored with other investigative journalists) include:

• Bravi ragazzi (Italian for Good fellas), published in 2003 and reporting on politicians Cesare Previti and Silvio Berlusconi's alleged (and later confirmed by court's sentence ^[2]) corruption of judges
• Lo chiamavano Impunità ("They Call Him Impunity", a humorous reference to the spaghetti western Lo chiamavano Trinità), published in 2003, about the SME-Ariosto inquiry and court trial
• Mani Sporche (Italian for "Dirty Hands") that reports about the years following the national scandal "Mani pulite" (Italian for "Clean Hands")
• Il Bavaglio ("The Gag") mostly about the Italian politicians' plans to limit freedom of speech and the investigative means of Italian Prosecutors investigating political corruption
• Per chi suona la banana ("For Whom the Banana Tolls"; the title is a pun on For Whom the Bell Tolls, with a reference on the banana republic)
• Italia Anno Zero, Chiarelettere, 2009, ISBN 978-88-6190-051-6 (coauthors: Beatrice Borromeo and Vauro Senesi)

On 10 May 2008, Marco Travaglio commented on Renato Schifani's election as president of the Senate that one should "simply ask of the second highest office of the state to explain those relationships with those men who have subsequently been condemned for association with the Mafia" on the RAI current affairs talk show television program Che tempo fa.^[3][4][5]

The statement of Travaglio resulted in fierce and almost universally negative reactions including from the centre left, except for Antonio Di Pietro who said that Travaglio was "merely doing his job". Some called for chief executives at RAI to be dismissed.

The popular political commentator Beppe Grillo supported Travaglio, while Schifani announced he would go to Court and sue Travaglio for slander.^[6] Schifani said Travaglio's accusation was based on "inconsistent or manipulated facts, not even worthy of generating suspicions", adding that "someone wants to undermine the dialogue between the government and the opposition."^[5] Mister Schifani himself enjoys immunity as leader of the parliament.

In 2009, the German Association of Journalists awarded Travaglio its yearly prize for Freedom of the Press, describing him as a "brave and critical colleague [...] exposing continually the attempts of Italian politicians, especially Silvio Berlusconi, to influence the media to their advantage and to negate critical reports."^[7]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Marco Travaglio

• Il fatto quotidiano Independent journal of which Travaglio is the vice director.
• Voglio scendere Blog by Travaglio and fellow journalists and authors Pino Corrias and Peter Gomez (Italian)
• L'Antefatto Official website of Travaglio's independent newspaper, Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italian)
• Unofficial Fan site featuring a column and some other contributions by Travaglio not published elsewhere (Italian)
• Interview with Marco Travaglio (Italian)
• La Repubblica newspaper: the controversial interview with Travaglio by Luttazzi (Italian)
• Signornò [1] L'Espresso-Opinioni (Italian)
• V-day 8 September 2007 Bologna Video (Italian)
• V2-day 25 April 2008 Turin Video (Italian)
• No CAV day 8 July 2008 Rome (Italian)

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (May 2008)

The Honourable Gianfranco Fini
President of the Chamber of Deputies
Incumbent
Assumed office April 30, 2008
Preceded by	Fausto Bertinotti
Constituency	XI - Emilia Romagna
Deputy Prime Minister
In office June 11, 2001 – May 17, 2006 Serving with Marco Follini (2004–2005), Giulio Tremonti (2005–2006)
Prime Minister	Silvio Berlusconi
Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office November 18, 2004 – May 17, 2006
Prime Minister	Silvio Berlusconi
Preceded by	Franco Frattini
Succeeded by	Massimo D'Alema
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
Incumbent
Assumed office July 12, 1983
Personal details
Born	(1952-01-03) January 3, 1952 (age 60) Bologna Italy
Nationality	Italian
Political party	Future and Freedom (since 2010) The People of Freedom (2009-2010) National Alliance (1995-2009) Italian Social Movement (1968-1995)
Spouse(s)	Daniela Di Sotto (1988–2007) Elisabetta Tulliani (2008-)
Children	Giuliana Fini Carolina Fini
Residence	Rome
Alma mater	La Sapienza
Profession	Journalist Politician

Gianfranco Fini (born January 3, 1952 in Bologna) is an Italian politician, President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, leader of the center-right Future and Freedom party, and the former leader of the conservative National Alliance and the post-fascist Italian Social Movement. He was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Silvio Berlusconi’s government from 2001 to 2006.

Biography[link]

Family origins[link]

His grandfather, a communist activist, died in 1970. His father, Argenio "Sergio" Fini (Bologna 1923 - Rome 1998), was a volunteer with the Italian Social Republic (the nazi Germany puppet state in Northern Italy in 1943-45); he later declared feeling close to the Italian Socialist Democratic Party, but he withdrew from political activity after his son became involved in the Movimento Sociale Italiano.

His mother, Erminia Marani (Ferrara 1926 - Rome 2008), was the daughter of Antonio Marani, who took part along with Italo Balbo in the march on Rome, which signaled the beginning of fascism in 1922. The name Gianfranco was chosen in remembrance of a cousin, who was killed when he was 20 years old by partisans soon after the liberation of Northern Italy on April 25, 1945.

Personal events[link]

In the 1980s he met Daniela Di Sotto, at that time married to Sergio Mariani, a friend and party officer. Mrs. Di Sotto ended her marriage to stay with Fini. Mariani would try to kill himself soon after. ^[1][2] In 1985 they had their only daughter, Giuliana. Fini and Di Sotto married in a civil ceremony in Marino in 1988. They separated in 2007.

Five months after his separation, his relationship with Elisabetta Tulliani, a lawyer, was revealed. In December 2007, they had a daughter, Carolina.^[3] Their second daughter is called Martina.

Political life[link]

From the beginning to the role of Deputy of Giorgio Almirante[link]

Gianfranco Fini attended "Laura Bassi" high school in Bologna. His first known involvement with politics occurred in 1968 when, the 16-year-old Fini was involved in clashes with communist activists, among them a protest in front of a cinema against the screening of the John Wayne movie The Green Berets. At this time, he became involved with the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist political party.

He then began his political career in the Fronte della Gioventù (Youth Front), the MSI youth organization.

Three years later, he moved with his family to Rome. In August 1976 he served his military service in Savona, then in Rome at the Ministry of Defence. In 1977 he became national secretary of the Fronte della Gioventù, chosen by Giorgio Almirante, MSI secretary, notwithstanding his fifth place among seven candidates elected in the national secretariat of the youth movement.

In the meantime, Fini had also graduated with a degree in pedagogy from La Sapienza University in Rome. He also collaborated with the party's newspaper, Il Secolo d'Italia, along with the youth movement magazine Dissenso.

Fini was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies on June 26, 1983, as a member of the MSI. Re-elected in 1987, in September he was nominated by Almirante to be his successor as the party's secretary.

In 2009 it emerged that as early as 1980 Almirante had identified Fini as one among a group of young Italians who were "young, non-fascist, non-nostalgic, who believe, as I do by now, in these institutions, in this Constitution. Because only in this way the MSI can have a future".^[4]

From the Italian Social Movement to National Alliance[link]

Gianfranco Fini in 2004.

Giorgio Almirante died in May 1988, and at the party's congress in Sorrento that year, Fini defeated the right wing of the party, headed by Pino Rauti, and was elected party secretary. He remained in the national secretariat of the MSI until January 1990, when at the next party congress in Rimini, Pino Rauti was elected secretary. But in July 1991, after a tough electoral defeat in administrative and regional elections in Sicily, Fini returned to his role as party secretary. He held this post until the dissolution of party in 1995.

During his time as national secretary, he confirmed the MSI’s role as the inheritors of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist legacy with a number of famous polemical statements, including: "Dear comrades, MSI claims its right to refer to fascism" (1988), "We are fascists, the heirs of fascism, the fascism of the year 2000" (1991), "After almost half a century, the idea of fascism is alive" (1992), "There are phases where freedom is not among the key values" (1994), "Mussolini was the greatest Italian statesman of the twentieth century", "Fascism has a tradition of honesty, correctness and good government" (1994). ^[5]

In the autumn of 1993, Fini ran for mayor of Rome, garnering enough votes to participate in a runoff election that resulted in the victory of Francesco Rutelli. Nevertheless, for the first time an MSI candidate received significant support in a major election. Silvio Berlusconi, then an entrepreneur but not involved in politics, affirmed on that occasion his preference for Fini: "If I had to vote in Rome, my preference would go to Fini.^[6]

After Berlusconi's election in 1994, for the first time in Italy's political history, an Italian government included four ministers from the MSI party, including the Deputy Prime Minister Giuseppe Tatarella, although Fini did not directly take part as a minister. (Fini was not a minister at that time.)

During the 1990s Fini gradually began to move the MSI away from its neo-fascist ideology to a more traditionally conservative political agenda. In January 1995, the Party's congress in Fiuggi marked a radical change, afterwards referred to as la svolta di Fiuggi (the turning point at Fiuggi) and merged the MSI-DN with conservative elements of the disbanded Christian Democrats to form the National Alliance (AN), of which Fini assumed the presidency.

The new party took a decisive stance distancing itself from fascism, and some MSI members (Pino Rauti, Erra, Staiti) dissented and seceded to form the new Tricolor Flame party.

Government experiences[link]

Fini and his party have been part of Berlusconi's right-wing House of Freedoms coalition which won the 1994 and 2001 parliamentary election. Fini became deputy prime minister in 2001 and foreign minister in November 2004.

From February 2002 to 2006, he represented the Italian Government at the European Convention. Following the April 2008 general election, Fini was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies on April 30, 2008 on the fourth ballot, receiving 355 votes.

His most widely known legislative acts have been:

• The Bossi-Fini Act, a restrictive law on immigration;
• The Fini-Giovanardi Act (2006), a restrictive law on drugs. The act abolishes any distinction between soft drugs (cannabis) and hard drugs (heroin, cocaine), punishing the user on the base of the quantity of active ingredient in the dose. As administrative sanctions, personal use of drugs is punished with a fine and the suspension of passport, driving license and/or weapon carrying permit. The cultivation of a single plant is punished with 1 up to 6 years of imprisonment.

From National Alliance to the People of Freedom[link]

After some discord between the party's factions in 2005, a congress dismantled the factions and confirmed Fini as president of the party.

In 2006, Fini announced the removal of the symbol of the flame and of the "M.S.I." writing from AN symbol. The move, after facing opposition from party members such as Maurizio Gasparri was finally denied.

Fini began a personal evolution towards more liberal positions in the 2000s, notwithstanding the opposition of the rest of his party. In particular:

• in 2005 he announced a positive vote (three yes, one no) on a referendum on artificial insemination aimed at removing some limits introduced by the Act n.40/2004 of the same Berlusconi II Cabinet.
• in December 2006 he declared he would be in favour of public acknowledgement of civil unions, including homosexual ones, although nonetheless in opposition to the centre-left government proposed bill on the theme.

At the end of January 2007, Berlusconi declared that Fini would be his only successor in case of unification of centre-right parties, provoking dissent from the Northern League and the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC).

In 2007 Berlusconi proclaimed the dissolution of his Forza Italia party and the birth of a new unitary party of the centre-right, the People of Freedom. At first, Fini reacted coldly, affirming that AN would not participate, judging the way the new party was born confused and superficial, and expressing open dissent against his ally of the "former coalition".

However, two months later, he moved closer to Berlusconi again, soon after the fall of the Prodi II Cabinet. They agreed to present the two parties under the same symbol of the People of Freedom in the April 2008 parliamentary election, and then to proceed towards a unitary centre-right party.

Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies[link]

After the electoral victory, on 30 April 2008 after four rounds of voting, Fini was elected President (speaker) of the Chamber of Deputies, with 335 votes from a total of 611. He then resigned the presidency of AN in anticipation of unification with the new People of Freedom party.

Commenting on the homage to every victim of terrorism made by the President of the Republic, the former member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) Giorgio Napolitano, he announced "the end of the post-war period", of "the cleavage between the right and society", and of "overcoming minority status". ^[7]

Pursuing his path of revision of the values of the Italian right, at the 2008 youth fest Atreju 2008 he asserted that the Right has to acknowledge those rights "present in the Constitution: freedom, equality and social justice. Values that determined and still determine the path of the Right, that are values of any democracy and that are fully anti-fascist".^[8]

In his role of Speaker of the Chamber, he more than once rebuked the government, criticising their extensive use of the confidence votes.^[9]

He fought against the bad practices of absenteeism and double-voting by MPs in the Italian Parliament, promoting a digital voting system (to be implemented from March 2009) to prevent other MPs from voting on behalf of absent members, judging it "immoral"^[10] 19 MPs out of a total of 630 refused, however, to allow their fingerprints to be recorded, and the system was implemented on a voluntary basis.

He also negatively judged the desire of the Berlusconi government to intervene with a decree in the case of Eluana Englaro^[11] and supported the need to defend the secularism of the State, being then criticized by members of UDC and of his own party.^[12] In recent times he has become more and more vocally critical of the government platform, which he considers too biased towards the far-right federalist coalition party Lega Nord. This has brought him into conflict with Berlusconi himself.

He founded the parliamentarian group "Futuro e libertà per l'Italia" (Future and Freedom for Italy).

Controversies[link]

The strongest criticisms of Fini from the Right are related to moves away from the traditional policies of the party. Apart from the "Social Right" area of his traditional rival Pino Rauti, the right-wing intellectual Marcello Veneziani accused Fini of having lost any connection to right-wing thought (whether traditional, nostalgic, modern or conservative) and of representing an "astral" right, with no similarity to any other European right-wing group.^[13]

Further criticism of Fini came from the Lega Nord with respect to some aspects of federalism and immigration, and from Forza Italia regarding justice.

Fini has lately been accused of being incoherent by some "theo-con" members, for holding socially conservative political positions while at the same time being separated and never married in Church.

• In 1999 Fini asked for forced hospitalization of drug users, without distinction between different illegal drugs.^[14]
• On January 29, 2006, after Senate approval of the Fini-sponsored drug bill which strengthened the law against marijuana and promoted it to a class 1 drug, putting it in the same category as heroin and cocaine, giving dealers the same penalty as dealers in hard drugs and users the same fines for consumption, Fini, as a guest on the popular TV-Show Che tempo che fa, hosted by Fabio Fazio, admitted to having smoked marijuana while on vacation in Jamaica.^[15]
• In May 2008, he sparked outrage when he said that the burning of an Israeli flag was much worse than the murder of a 29-year-old man in Verona, savagely beaten to death by a local group of skinheads.^[16]
• He ignited controversy when he stated that the racial laws were not the sole responsibility of the Fascist regime, but also that Italian civil society and the Roman Catholic Church had to have their share of the blame as well.^[17]
• At a press conference to the Foreign Press Association, he was asked for his thoughts on Benito Mussolini. A journalist reminded him that 15 years earlier he had called the dictator the greatest statesman of the century. Fini replied: "I'm fascinated by your question.... clearly the answer is in what I've done in the past 15 years. Today my answer is no, I have changed my mind, otherwise I would be schizophrenic."^[18]
• In August 2010, after becoming a leading critic of Berlusconi and threatening Berlusconi's majority in parliament, a newspaper owned by the Berlusconi family implicated Fini with a condo in Monte Carlo. The condo was previously owned by the National Alliance political party. The party sold the condo in 2008 to an offshore company and it was leased back to the younger brother of Fini's girlfriend.^[19]

References[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Gianfranco Fini

External links[link]

• BBC profile

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Governor Nichi Vendola
President of Apulia
Incumbent
Assumed office 2005
Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies
In office 1992–2006
Personal details
Born	(1958-08-26) 26 August 1958 (age 53) Bari, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Political party	Left Ecology Freedom
Profession	journalist

Nicola "Nichi" Vendola (born 26 August 1958) is an Italian left-wing politician and currently the President of Apulia.

Life[link]

Born in Terlizzi, province of Bari (Puglia), Vendola had been a member of the Italian Communist Youth Federation since the age of 14; he studied literature in university, presenting a dissertation about the controversial poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini. Vendola then went on to become a journalist for l'Unità, and a leading member of the Italian gay organisation Arcigay.

A member of the National Secretariat of the Italian Communist Party, he fiercely opposed the dissolution of the party proposed by Achille Occhetto in 1991, which lead to the formation of the Democratic Party of the Left. Vendola instead joined the Communist Refoundation Party.

In 1992 Vendola was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, to a seat which he held until 2005. As a member of the Antimafia Commission, he came to prominence as a strong opponent of the Mafia and organised crime presence in the economy and society.

In 2005, Vendola ran for the first primary election ever held in Italy, held by the centre-left coalition The Union to choose their candidate for the presidency of the Apulia region. He won the primary over the rival Francesco Boccia. Many moderates in the alliance criticised the choice, since it appeared impossible that a communist and homosexual could be elected president of a southern Italian region such as Apulia, generally considered to be conservative and strongly Catholic.^[1] Vendola, though, declares himself as "believer" (in the line of Pax Christi): he once said that "the most important book for a communist like me is the Bible".

Vendola during a SEL meeting.

In the regional election in Apulia, held in April 2005, he narrowly defeated the outgoing president Raffaele Fitto, candidate for the centre-right coalition the House of Freedoms, thus becoming the first member of the Communist Refoundation Party to be elected as president of any Italian region.

Vendola is also a poet: some of his poems have been collected in a book, named L'ultimo mare ("The last sea"). His figure has inspired a biographical film, Nichi.

Vendola was one of the two major candidates running for the place of Chairman of the Communist Refoundation party in the July 2008 congress, but lost to an alliance led by the other major candidate, Paolo Ferrero, formerly Minister for Social Solidarity in the Prodi II Cabinet. Following the defeat, Vendola's supporters have renounced to all positions as party executives. On 24 January 2009, at Chianciano Terme, Vendola split from Communist Refoundation and founded the Movement for the Left. In December 2009, Vendola became the first leader of the newly-founded party Left Ecology Freedom, which the Movement for the Left had fully merged into.

In late 2009 his candidacy for re-election was put under question by his centre-left allies from the Democratic Party, who asked him to step down in order to allow the choice of a candidate able to achieve wider support from other political parties, namely the Christian-democratic Union of the Centre. After Vendola refused to step down, chances of having a new primary election quickly increased, and, after some weeks of heated debate, they were ultimately called for 24 January 2010, with Francesco Boccia once again running as Vendola's challenger, supported by the Democratic Party. Vendola easily won the election with more than 67% of the votes, being therefore picked again as leader of the centre-left coalition, and went on to defeat centre-right candidate Rocco Palese by a wide margin.

In July 2010, during a general congress of the so-called "Factories of Nichi", Mr. Vendola announced his candidacy for the Primary Elections of the Italian centre-left, which should anticipate the 2013 Italian general elections. Following his candidacy, the Democratic Party judged sharply his candidacy, while nationwide polls show Vendola winning either over Democratic Party Secretary Pier Luigi Bersani, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy at the time.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Horowitz, Jason (January 19, 2011). "Nichi Vendola, a gay, ex-communist governor, becomes the unlikely rival to Italy's Berlusconi". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/19/AR2011011906191.html. Retrieved 2011-01-23. 
• Ireland, Doug (November 11, 2010). "A gay prime minister for Italy?". Gay City News. http://www.gaycitynews.com/articles/2010/11/10/gay_city_news/news/doc4cdaf136ac067380423658.txt. Retrieved 2010-11-13. 
• Madar, Chase (January 2011). "Nichi Vendola, the Italian Obama". Le Monde diplomatique. http://mondediplo.com/2011/01/15italianobama. Retrieved 2010-12-31. 
• Mane, Saviona (October 20, 2010). "Catholic, communist and gay". Haaretz. http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/catholic-communist-and-gay-1.309190. Retrieved 2010-11-13. 
• Willan, Philip (December 12, 2010). "Gay left-winger gives electorate a real alternative to Berslusconi era". Herald Scotland. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/world-news/gay-left-winger-gives-electorate-a-real-alternative-to-berslusconi-era-1.1073869. Retrieved 2010-12-12. 

External links[link]

• (Italian) Official homepage
• (Italian) La fabbrica di nichi
• "i-Italy Meets Nichi Vendola" (video). i-Italy. November 2010. http://www.i-italy.org/16114/i-italy-meets-nichi-vendola. Retrieved 2010-12-04. 

v t e Presidents of Regions of Italy     Abruzzo: Gianni Chiodi (PdL) Aosta Valley: Augusto Rollandin (UV) Apulia: Nichi Vendola (SEL) Basilicata: Vito De Filippo (PD) Calabria: Giuseppe Scopelliti (PdL) Campania: Stefano Caldoro (PdL) Emilia–Romagna: Vasco Errani (PD) Friuli–Venezia Giulia: Renzo Tondo (PdL) Lazio: Renata Polverini (PdL) Liguria: Claudio Burlando (PD) Lombardy: Roberto Formigoni (PdL) Marche: Gian Mario Spacca (PD) Molise: Michele Iorio (PdL) Piedmont: Roberto Cota (Lega Nord) Sardinia: Ugo Cappellacci (PdL) Sicily: Raffaele Lombardo (MpA) Trentino–Alto Adige/Südtirol: Lorenzo Dellai (UpT) Tuscany: Enrico Rossi (PD) Umbria: Catiuscia Marini (PD) Veneto: Luca Zaia (Lega Nord)

Medal record
Competitor for  Italy
Men’s Rowing
Olympic Games
Gold	1984 Los Angeles	Coxed Pairs
Gold	1988 Seoul	Coxed Pairs
Silver	1992 Barcelona	Coxed Pairs
World Rowing Championships
Gold	Milan 1987	Coxed pair
Gold	Bled 1989	Coxed pair
Gold	Tasmania 1990	Coxed pair
Gold	Vienna 1991	Coxed pair

Giuseppe Abbagnale (born May 24, 1959) is an Italian competition rower and Olympic champion.

He received a gold medal in coxed pairs, with Giuseppe di Capua (cox) and his younger brother Carmine, at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles,^[1] and again at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.^[2] The crew won silver medals at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona behind another pair of brothers, Greg and Jonny Searle.^[3]

References[link]

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