In Italy, the comune (plural comuni) is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.

The comune provides many of the basic civil functions: registry of births and deaths, registry of deeds, contracting for local roads and public works, etc.

It is headed by a mayor (sindaco) assisted by a legislative body, the Consiglio Comunale, and an executive body, the Giunta Comunale. Mayor and members of Consiglio Comunale are elected together by resident citizens: the coalition of the elected Mayor (who needs an absolute majority in the first or second round of voting) gains the three fifths of the Council's seats. The Giunta Comunale is chaired by mayor who appoint others members, called assessori. The offices of the comune are housed in a building usually called the Municipio, or Palazzo Comunale. Since the start of 2009 there have been 8,100 comuni in Italy; they vary considerably in area and population.

For example, the comune of Rome (Lazio) has an area of 1,307.71 km² and a population of 2,761,477, and is both the largest and the most populated comune in Italy; Fiera di Primiero, in the province of Trentino, is the smallest comune by area, with only 0.15 km², and Pedesina (province of Sondrio) is the smallest by population, with only 34 inhabitants. The smallest non-alpine comune in Italy is Montelapiano (CH), the fourth is Carapelle Calvisio (AQ), both in the mountainous region of Abruzzo.

George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.

Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves.

The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In 1988, the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death.

Giorgio Gaber, byname of Giorgio Gaberscik (25 January 1939 - 1 January 2003), was an Italian singer-songwriter, actor and playwright. He was also an accomplished guitar player and author of one of the first rock songs in Italian ("Ciao ti dirò", 1958). Together with Sandro Luporini, he pioneered the musical genre known as teatro canzone ("song theatre").

The new underground auditorium of the Pirelli Tower in Milan is dedicated to him.

He was born in Milan into a lower middle-class family. His father, Guido Gaberscik, was born in Trieste, when the city was still part of Austria-Hungary, most probably to Italianized Slovene immigrants from the Gorizia region. The surname Gaberscik is in fact of Slovene origin (Gaberščik). His mother was from the Veneto region. The two met and married in Veneto and later moved to Milan, where Giorgio was born.

Gaber began to play as rehabilitation for an injury to his hand which required constant but not strenuous activity to recover his motor skill. Since his health as a child was not the best and his older brother Marcello played guitar, he was encouraged to play as well. The outcome was good both in terms of his health and artistically, and at only fourteen years of age he was engaged to play at a New Eve's party and earned his first paycheck of 1,000 lire.