The alliance between the Lega Nord (LN) and Forza Italia (FI), later Popolo della Libertà (PDL), continued, uninterrupted, for over a decade, until November 2011. The problems that beset it under the fourth Berlusconi government are known; however, there is a lack of academic analysis of how such an alliance was seen and experienced by the people who made up the fabric of its constituent organisations. Based on interviews with institutional representatives and members from both parties, this article addresses the question of how people within them saw their ally and its leaders, and what they thought of the centre-right alliance under the fourth Berlusconi government. The analysis reveals that, although the LN's rhetoric, style and uncompromising stances on policy were the target of much criticism within the PDL, the latter nonetheless showed much respect for its ally, the way it was led, its ability to communicate effectively and its rootedness at the local level. However, LN members and representatives were, in turn, extremely critical of the PDL and its leader, and very much conceived of the alliance as a ‘marriage of convenience’. This notwithstanding, it is reasonable to expect that the PDL and the LN may find ways to rebuild their alliance in the future, if indeed the PDL continues to exist in its present form, due to their fundamental compatibility at the ideological level and their understanding of each other's priorities.

This article seeks to reposition the popular cinematic genre commedia all'italiana within the context of the rapid expansion of the media industries which accompanied Italy's postwar economic miracle. The article looks at three distinct aspects of the relationship between commedia all'italiana and other media. First, it outlines the important role played by the media during the boom in disseminating images of consumer lifestyles, and highlights the way in which commedia all'italiana participated in this process. Second, through a discussion of media appearances by Vittorio Gassman and Nino Manfredi, the article emphasises the extent to which their commedia all'italiana star personas were constructed and circulated in a multimedia context. Finally, it examines how the genre represented other media, focusing in particular on the representation of gender in advertising scenes. Through close readings of commedia all'italiana advertising scenes, the article notes points of continuity with and difference from advertising imagery that was circulating at the time. The article argues that in order to further our understanding of commedia all'italiana and its relationship to Italian society, it is essential to understand the genre's relationship to other media production of the period, which both influenced the comedies' representations and was influenced by them in turn.

Following consideration of the most common representations of migrants in Italian cinema, where they are often portrayed as victimised and minor subjects, this article analyses a film by Davide Sordella and Pablo Benedetti, Corazones de Mujer (2008) as a ‘post-migration alternative’. This film considers a different way of depicting ‘foreigners’, and addresses the complex issues of gender and sexuality as they emerge at the interface between Western and Arab cultures. Within the conceptual framework of Judith Butler's ‘gender performativity’ and Rosi Braidotti's ‘nomadic subject’, this article aims to suggest an alternative way of representing migrants in Italian cinema as agents of social and gender transgressions.

In the mid-1970s the reform of Italy's radio and television system led to the end of RAI's monopoly and the advent of commercial television stations. This resulted in a reorganisation of the system according to the precepts of daily life and domesticity, with viewers at the centre of the relationship with the medium. This article, by analysing televisual archives such as game shows, explores how television formed part of the changes taking place in society and reveals how it became a kind of meeting-place, coinciding with the rise of an affluent society, between aspirations and desires and stereotypical models dictated by the market. These models were able to express new values that went beyond the boundaries of ideological affiliations and were in effect a response to the search for new forms of identity. In particular, television's place became an open space that was defined through modes of socialisation. It thus constructed a wider intimacy, a ‘mediatised hearth’, that progressively eroded the barriers between the private and the public sphere and led unexpectedly towards a ‘relationship of interest’ between television, competitors, viewers and financial backers. A new community then emerged, characterised more by possessing than by existing.

Historians agree that the liberation of Florence (11 August 1944) was a key moment in the war in Italy for political, rather than military, reasons. This was the case, above all, because the Allies found for the first time, in a city of great international importance, an administration that at both city and provincial level was an expression of the antifascist forces. The parties as well as the organisations had, it transpired, worked to create the foundations of popular self-government during the struggle against the Germans and the Fascists and, in particular, during the months immediately preceding the Liberation. It was in Florence itself that, confronted with such a demonstration of the maturity and organisation of the Resistance, the Allied forces were compelled to rethink their relationship with the various partisan and antifascist forces. The difference between Florence and Rome was such that the Allies had, at the very least, to acknowledge the institutional and social ambitions of the Resistance movement and the desire of the partisans to change the way the country would be run after the war. These aspirations were a key aspect of the Resistance in Florence and Tuscany and, as the Allies discovered, the partisans in the North shared these same hopes and ambitions.

The Reinterpretation of Italian Economic History: From Unification to the Great War is the first major study of the liberal Italian economy to appear in English for more than 20 years. It is also the first based on new statistical reconstructions of industrial and aggregate development for the period. Above all, the book represents the culmination of over four decades of ‘painstaking, meticulous, sophisticated and innovative research by one of Italy's finest economic historians' (Toniolo 2007, 130).