Italy

Coordinates: 43°N 12°E / 43°N 12°E / 43; 12

Italy (ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/; Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Italy covers an area of 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and has a largely Mediterranean and temperate climate; due to its shape, it is often referred to in Italy as lo Stivale (the Boot). With 61 million inhabitants, it is the 4th most populous EU member state. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino and Vatican City.

Since ancient times, Greeks, Etruscans and Celts have inhabited the south, centre and north of the Italian Peninsula respectively. Rome ultimately emerged as the dominant power, conquering much of the ancient world and becoming the leading cultural, political, and religious centre of Western civilisation. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the global distribution of civilian law, Republican governments, Christianity and the latin script.

Sergio Mattarella

Sergio Mattarella, OMRI, OMCA (Italian pronunciation: [ˈsɛrdʒo mattaˈrɛlla]; born 23 July 1941) is an Italian politician, lawyer and judge who has been President of Italy since 2015. He was a member of Parliament from 1983 to 2008, serving as Minister of Education from 1989 to 1990 and as Minister of Defence from 1999 to 2001. In 2011, he became an elected judge on the Constitutional Court. On 31 January 2015, he was elected by parliament to be the 12th President of the Italian Republic. He is the first Sicilian to have held the post.

Early life

Sergio Mattarella was born in Palermo of a prominent Sicilian family. His father, Bernardo Mattarella, was an anti-fascist who, alongside Alcide De Gasperi and other prominent Catholic politicians, helped found the Christian Democracy (DC) party, which dominated the Italian political scene for almost fifty years, with Bernardo serving as a minister several times. Sergio Mattarella's brother, Piersanti Mattarella, was also a Christian Democratic politician and President of Sicily from 1978 until his death in 1980, when he was killed by the Sicilian Mafia.

President

A president is the leader of a country or a division or part of a country, typically a republic, a democracy, or a dictatorship. The title "president" is sometimes used by extension for leaders of other groups, including corporate entities.

Etymologically, a president is one who presides (from Latin prae- "before" + sedere "to sit"; giving the term praeses). Originally, the term referred to the presiding officer of a ceremony or meeting (i.e., chairman), but today it most commonly refers to an executive official. Among other things, "President" today is a common title for the heads of state of most republics, whether presidential republics, semi-presidential republics or parliamentary republics.

Title

The title President is derived from the Latin prae- "before" + sedere "to sit." As such, it originally designated the officer who presides over or "sits before" a gathering and ensures that debate is conducted according to the rules of order (see also chairman and speaker). Early examples are from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge (from 1464) and the founding President of the Royal Society William Brouncker in 1660. This usage survives today in the title of such offices as "President of the Board of Trade" and "Lord President of the Council" in the United Kingdom, as well as "President of the Senate" (one of the roles constitutionally assigned to the Vice-President of the United States). The officiating priest at certain Anglican religious services, too, is sometimes called the "President" in this sense. However the most common modern usage is as the title of a head of state in a republic.

Trump

A trump is a playing card which is elevated above its normal rank in trick-taking games. Typically an entire suit is nominated as a trump suit - these cards then outrank all cards of plain (non-trump) suits. In other contexts, the term trump card can refer to any sort of action, authority, or policy which automatically prevails over all others.

Etymology

The word "trump" derives from "trionfi" or "triumph", documented as the name of a card game in 1529 and which spawned the game Ruff and Honours, which in turn led to Whist. Trionfi was also the name of the original card game for which tarot cards were designed, and in it the tarot cards had the role of what are now called trumps; later card games, beginning with Triomphe, started using one of the ordinary suits as a replacement for the tarots when a tarot pack was not available.

Trump in card games

In most games, the relative rank of cards within a suit is the same in trump and plain suits, but they may sometimes differ, for example in Klabberjass, Euchre, or Eighty Points.

President of Italy

The President of the Italian Republic (Italian: Presidente della Repubblica Italiana) is the head of state of Italy and, in that role, represents national unity and guarantees that Italian politics comply with the Constitution. The president's term of office lasts for seven years. The 11th President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, was elected on 10 May 2006, and elected to a second term for the first time in Italian Republic history, on 20 April 2013. On 31 January 2015, the incumbent President, former Constitutional judge Sergio Mattarella, was elected at the fourth ballot with 665 votes out of 1,009.

Qualifications for office

The framers of the Constitution of Italy intended for the President to be an elder statesman of some stature. Article 84 states that any citizen who is fifty or older on election day and enjoys civil and political rights can be elected President.

Those citizens who already hold any other office are barred from becoming President, unless they resign their previous office once they are elected.