Mattarella marks 80 years of Italy's Constituent Assembly, says 'the Republic belongs to everyone'

Italy marked the 80th anniversary of the Constituent Assembly's first session on 25 June 2026 with a solemn ceremony in the Chamber of Deputies. President Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Senate President Ignazio La Russa, Chamber President Lorenzo Fontana, and lawmakers gathered in Montecitorio's chamber where the Assembly wrote the republican constitution after the 1946 referendum abolished the monarchy.

The Teatro dell'Opera di Roma orchestra and choir, conducted by Maestro Michele Mariotti, performed the national anthem and a Verdi programme. In his speech, Mattarella paid tribute to the 556 members (535 men and 21 women) who worked for 18 months from June 1946 to January 1948, restoring Italy's image and laying down a charter that, in his words, 'ensured stability for democratic institutions'.

He recalled the high human price of that transition: partisans, civilians under Nazi and Salò Republic oppression, the Italian Liberation Corps, over 600,000 soldiers interned in Germany, and Jews sent to extermination camps. He also quoted Carlo Sforza's 1945 appeal to fascism's martyrs, including Matteotti, Amendola, don Minzoni, Gramsci, and Carlo and Nello Rosselli.

Dismissing critics who saw the Assembly's work as a partisan barter between Christian Democracy, the Socialist Party, and the Communist Party, Mattarella insisted the parties obeyed a simpler principle that has taken root:

“the Republic belongs to everyone”

.