Constitutional Assembly: this will be the second time (in his 11 years as President) that Sergio Mattarella will address the Chamber of Deputies

Desks moved, choir rehearsals, staff coming and going. The Chamber is preparing for the ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly. Excluding the swearing-in ceremonies, this will be the second time, in his eleven years as President of the Republic, that Sergio Mattarella will address the Chamber of Deputies at Montecitorio before MPs, senators and senior state officials, including Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. In total, around 700 people will attend the speech in person.

A speech that promises to be substantial in terms of both length and content. Before the Head of State takes the floor at 11 am, the Speakers of the Chambers, Lorenzo Fontana and Ignazio La Russa, will address the assembly. The central section of the chamber, where preparations have been in full swing since yesterday, will be reserved for young people (around forty secondary school pupils who took part in the ‘1946 in Comics’ initiative). This is a symbolic choice designed to highlight the role of the younger generations. The format of the ceremony, which the Chamber has been working on for months, is well-structured: it will broadly follow the procedures used for the swearing-in ceremonies of the President of the Republic. A joint-forces guard of honour is scheduled to be on duty in the square from 10.25 am. The Italian tricolour will be projected onto the façade of the Montecitorio building, featuring the 80th-anniversary logo and a reference to 25 June 1946 – the date of the first sitting of the Constituent Assembly – to emphasise that the Chamber’s premises played a leading role and ‘spectators’ of all the key stages in the establishment of the Italian Republic: from the meetings of the National Consultative Council to the announcement of the results of the institutional referendum, and from the inauguration to the work of the Constituent Assembly and its bodies. During the ceremony in the Chamber, the Teatro dell’Opera will perform a selection of Verdi’s works.

Because, amongst other things, he was also a member of the first Parliament of the Kingdom of Italia. The spotlight is also on the Sala della Lupa, where the results of the referendum were announced by the Court of Cassation in June 1946 and where an exhibition dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Constituent Assembly is now on display. The exhibition will remain open to the public at least until the end of the year, free of charge subject to booking via eventi.camera.it. Mattarella and all the senior state officials will visit it before the ceremony in the Chamber and, in particular, the Head of State will find himself, amongst other things, standing before a life-size image of his father, Bernardo Mattarella, a member of the Presiding Committee of the Constituent Assembly.

Running alongside the event is a social media project aimed at engaging young people with the key stages in the birth of the Republic: three content creators (Andrea Moccia, editor-in-chief of Geopop, Francesco Oggiano and Chiara Piotto) have taken turns – and will continue to do so – to recount the history, key figures, work and stages of the Constituent Assembly. They met Mattarella in recent days and will be honoured by President Lorenzo Fontana as ambassadors of the Chamber of Deputies. ‘Young people have a decisive power: the power to reject the pursuit of conflict, to ignore those who sow discord and hatred, and to foster digital spaces where critical thinking prevails,’ said Mattarella in one of his interviews. In this way, they would also foster an important, healthy process of cleansing the environment.”