ITALIA, L’. — Milanese Catholic daily founded on 22 June 1912. It was then, and remains, the expression of the unity of purpose of Lombard Catholics; indeed, it brought together the currents that had already found expression in L'osservatore cattolico of d. Albertario (1864) and La lega lombarda of the marquis Cornaggia Medici (1886)—the former intransigent, the latter «liberal».
In 1908, the time having matured, the two newspapers were by then close to one another and increasingly oriented toward the positive participation of Catholics in political life; they were therefore merged into Unione under the direction of Filippo Meda, the most authoritative exponent of this conception of unity. Five years later, the newspaper, having passed to the Società editrice romana, changed its name and became L'I. under the direction of Paolo Mattei Gentili, later a deputy. For a time it published a weekly, La domenica, and during the period of the German occupation (1944–45) it itself became a weekly so as not to submit to the impositions of the Italian Social Republic. It resumed its normal frequency at the end of the war and, under the direction of Pio Bondioli, was called L'osservatore for a time, subsequently taking up its former title again. At present (1950) it is directed by mons. Ernesto Pisoni and, under agreements reached under the aegis of Catholic Action, its area of circulation is Lombardy (excluding the dioceses of Como and Bergamo, which have their own daily newspapers) and Piedmont; it is linked with the other fellow publications through the Roman Information Service, from which it receives Roman and Vatican news.