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The following events occurred in the year 1903 in Italy.
The year is marked by the return of Giovanni Giolitti as Prime Minister. He will dominate Italian politics until World War I, a period known as the Giolittian Era in which Italy experienced an industrial expansion, the rise of organised labour and the emergence of an active Catholic political movement. [1]
Giovanni Giolitti was an Italian statesman. He was the prime minister of Italy five times between 1892 and 1921. He is the longest-serving democratically elected prime minister in Italian history, and the second-longest serving overall after Benito Mussolini. A prominent leader of the Historical Left and the Liberal Union, he is widely considered one of the most wealthy, powerful and important politicians in Italian history; due to his dominant position in Italian politics, Giolitti was accused by critics of being an authoritarian leader and a parliamentary dictator.
Giuseppe Zanardelli was an Italian jurist and political figure. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy from 15 February 1901 to 3 November 1903. An eloquent orator, he was also a Grand Master freemason. Zanardelli, representing the bourgeoisie from Lombardy, personified the classical 19th-century liberalism, committed to suffrage expansion, anticlericalism, civil liberties, free trade and laissez-faire economics. Throughout his long political career, he was among the most ardent advocates of freedom of conscience and divorce.
Francesco Crispi was an Italian patriot and statesman. He was among the main protagonists of the Risorgimento, a close friend and supporter of Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, and one of the architects of Italian unification in 1860. Crispi served as Prime Minister of Italy for six years, from 1887 to 1891, and again from 1893 to 1896, and was the first prime minister from Southern Italy. Crispi was internationally famous and often mentioned along with world statesmen such as Otto von Bismarck, William Ewart Gladstone, and Lord Salisbury.
Alessandro Fortis was an Italian politician who served as the 18th prime minister of Italy from 1905 to 1906.
Tommaso Tittoni was an Italian diplomat, politician and Knight of the Annunziata. He was Italy's foreign minister from 1903 until 1909, except for a five-month period. He also was interim prime minister for about two weeks in March 1905, making him the shortest-serving prime minister in the history of Italy.
The Gentiloni Pact was the 1913 agreement between Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti and Count Ottorino Gentiloni, president of the Catholic Electoral Union from 1909 to 1916, to swing Catholic voters behind Giolitti's coalition in the 1913 general election.
The Banca Romana scandal surfaced in January 1893 in Italy over the bankruptcy of the Banca Romana, one of the six national banks authorised at the time to issue currency. The scandal was the first of many Italian corruption scandals, and discredited both ministers and parliamentarians, in particular those of the Historical Left and was comparable to the Panama Canal Scandal that was shaking France at the time, threatening the constitutional order. The crisis prompted a new banking law, tarnished the prestige of the Prime Ministers Francesco Crispi and Giovanni Giolitti and prompted the collapse of the latter's government in November 1893. The scandal led also to the creation of one central bank, the Bank of Italy.
The Italian Catholic Electoral Union was a political organization designed to coordinate the participation of Catholic voices in Italian electoral contests. Its founder and leader was the Count Vincenzo Ottorino Gentiloni.
General elections were held in Italy on 23 November 1890, with a second round of voting on 30 November. The "ministerial" left-wing bloc emerged as the largest in Parliament, winning 401 of the 508 seats. As in 1886, the elections were held using small multi-member constituencies with between two and five seats.
Events from the year 1893 in Italy.
Events from the year 1894 in Italy.
Events from the year 1896 in Italy.
The Left group, later called Historical Left by historians to distinguish it from the left-wing groups of the 20th century, was a liberal and reformist parliamentary group in Italy during the second half of the 19th century. The members of the Left were also known as Democrats or Ministerials. The Left was the dominant political group in the Kingdom of Italy from the 1870s until its dissolution in the early 1910s.
Events from the year 1900 in Italy.
Events from the year 1901 in Italy.
Events from the year 1890 in Italy.
Events from the year 1904 in Italy.
Events from the year 1905 in Italy.
Events from the year 1906 in Italy.
Events from the year 1914 in Italy.