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the pope’s authority in 1870, the Risorgimento was complete. Rome was made the official capital of Italy one year later, and the modern Italian state was born. THE HEART OF ITALY Giuseppe Mazzini was nicknamed “The Beating Heart of Italy” for his tireless efforts to bring the nation together. With the modernization of Italy came a wave of industrialization, though areas south of Naples remained largely agrarian. In 1915 Italy entered World War I on the side of the Allies, but in 1922 the fascist Benito Mussolini took power, quickly turning Italy into a dictatorship. In 1929 Mussolini established Vatican City in Rome as an independent city-state and headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church; while Catholicism is no longer the sole state-sup- ported religion of Italy, Vatican City’s role in international relations continues to make it—and the pope—prevalent forces in Italian life. Italy originally stayed out of World War II, but Mussolini’s pact with German dictator Adolf Hitler forced its entrance; unprepared for the intensity of the fighting, the Italians fell to the Allies in 1943, and Mussolini was executed two years later. In 1946 Italy

became a republic, governed by a prime minister and parlia- ment , and while it has seen both periods of economic growth and political insta- bility, it remains a vital component of the Euro- pean Union today.

In Rome, the Palazzo Montecitorio is where one house of Italy’s parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, meets.

MAJOR NATIONS IN A GLOBAL WORLD: ITALY