ITALY, THE. - A Milanese Catholic daily newspaper founded on 22 June 1912. It was then, and remained, the expression of the unity of purpose of Lombard Catholics; indeed, the currents that had already found expression in L'osservatore cattolico of Fr. Albertario (1864) and La lega lombarda of Marquis Cornaggia Medici (1886) converged in it; the former intransigent, the latter "liberal."
In 1908, once the times had ripened, the two newspapers had by then come close together and were increasingly 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 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 some time it published a weekly, La domenica, and during the period of the German occupation (1944-45) it itself turned into a weekly so as not to submit to the impositions of the Italian Social Republic. It resumed its normal periodicity at the end of the war and, under the direction of Pio Bondioli, was called for some time L'osservatore, later resuming its old title. At present (1950) it is directed by Msgr. Ernesto Pisoni and, by agreements reached under the aegis of Catholic Action, its circulation area is Lombardy (excluding the dioceses of Como and Bergamo, which have their own dailies) and Piedmont; it is linked with the other confreres in the Roman Information Service, from which it receives the Roman and Vatican news bulletin.
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Enrico Lucatello