1997 in Italy

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See also:	Other events of 1997 History of Italy  • Timeline  •  Years

Events in the year 1997 in Italy.

Incumbents

• President - Oscar Luigi Scalfaro
• Prime Minister – Romano Prodi

Events

January

• 3 January - The new Public Funding for Political Parties Act comes into force.
• 16 January - A large farmers' protest rally in Lombardy against the Milk quota paralyzes the whole Northern Italy.

February

• 5 February - Massimo D'Alema, leader of the majority Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), is appointed president of the Third Parliamentary Commission for the revision of the Constitution.

April

• 9 April - The Communist Refoundation Party (PRC), which supports externally the government, votes against the resolution that authorizes Operation Alba, a multinational peacekeeping force led by Italy and intended to help the Albanian government restore law and order in their troubled country after the 1997 rebellion in Albania. The measure is approved thanks to the favorable vote of the center-right opposition.
• 27 April - The local elections sees the center-left government coalition make some gains in different cities.

May

• 9 May - A separatist commando connected with the regionalist Lega Nord party occupies with a tank the Campanile of San Marco Square in Venice.
• 14 May - The Parliament approves the Administrative Decentralization Act (Law 15 May 1997, no. 127) which implements the regional federalism.

June

• 4 June - The Parliament approves a new Labor Law (Law 24 June 1997, no. 196) in order to reduce the high unemployment.
• 6 June - The Sicilian Mafia boss Pietro Aglieri, who was known as U Signurinu ("The Little Gentleman") for his relatively sophisticated education and had been listed by The Guardian as the emerging man of the year 1995 in Italy, is arrested in the town of Bagheria, Sicily. In 1987 he was being tried in absentia for the 1992 bombing deaths of Italy's two top Mafia investigators, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
• 15 June - A seven-part referendum is held. Voters are asked whether they approve of the repealing of laws on topics including privatisation, conscientious objectors, hunting, the judiciary and journalists, as well as whether the Ministry of Agrarian Politics shall be abolished. Although all seven proposals are approved by voters, the voter turnout of 30% is well below the 50% threshold and the results are invalidated.

September

• 26 September
  • Twenty-two Sicilian Mafiosi are sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of the magistrate Giovanni Falcone in 1992.
  • An earthquake occurs in Umbria and Marche regions, Central Italy. The foreshock occurs at 2:33 am CEST (0:33 UTC), rated 5.7 on the Richter scale, and the second – the main shock – occurs at 11:40 am CEST (9:40 UTC), rated 6.1 on the Richter scale. Eleven people die and there are many damage to heritage. In Assisi, while a group of specialists and friars are inspecting the damage to the Basilica of St. Francis, an aftershock shakes the building, causing the collapse of the vault. Two Franciscan friars who are among the group and two of the specialists are killed. Much of the cycle of frescoes of the life of St. Francis by Giotto in the Upper Church of the Basilica are slightly damaged whereas those of the sections of the vault which collapsed are almost entirely destroyed.

November

• 9 November - The Mani Pulite scandal magistrate Antonio Di Pietro is elected member of the Italian Senate in a by-election. Supported by the center-left government coalition, he defeats the right-wing journalist and former minister Giuliano Ferrara in the Mugello constituency, a left wing stronghold.

Deaths

• 13 June - Vittorio Mussolini, Benito Mussolini's son (born 1916)
• 15 July - Gianni Versace, fashion designer (born 1946)
• 25 December - Giorgio Strehler, opera and theatre director (born 1921)

References