L'ITALIA. - A Milan-based Catholic daily founded on 22 June 1912. From the outset it has been, and remains, the expression of the united aims of Lombard Catholics; indeed, it brought together the currents that had already found voice in L’Osservatore Cattolico of Fr. Albertario (1864) and La Lega Lombarda of Marquis Cornaggia Medici (1886): the intransigent current and the “liberal” current respectively.
By 1908, as the times matured, the two papers were drawing closer and ever more oriented toward the positive participation of Catholics in political life; they were therefore merged into L’Unione under the direction of Filippo Meda, the most authoritative exponent of this unitary conception. After five years the paper, transferred to the Roman publishing house, changed its name and became L’Italia under the direction of Paolo Mattei Gentili, later a deputy. For a time it issued a weekly supplement, La Domenica, and during the German occupation (1944–45) it itself became a weekly to avoid compliance with the demands of the Italian Social Republic. It resumed normal publication at the war’s end and, under the direction of Pio Bondioli, for a time bore the title L’Osservatore before reverting to its original name. At present (1950) it is edited by Mons. Ernesto Pisoni and, by agreements reached under the aegis of Catholic Action, its distribution covers Lombardy (excluding the dioceses of Como and Bergamo, which have their own dailies) and Piedmont; it is linked with its fellow papers in the Roman Information Service, from which it receives Roman and Vatican news.