Today L'Unità, the historic newspaper of the Italian Communist Party founded by Antonio Gramsciwould have turned 96 years old. Founded February 12, 1924, would therefore have approached the century of life, were it not for the fact that after having tried to re-emerge from bankruptcy twice (first closure in 2000, second in 2014), the newspaper that managed to become the house organ of the the newborn Democratic Party definitively closed its doors almost three years ago, in June 2017. The history of the Italian left in the twentieth century passed on its columns: born as an openly communist newspaper, it subsequently gradually embraced more moderate and reformist positions following the evolutions of the relevant party.
The Unity was therefore from 1924 to 1991 official organ of the Italian Communist Party, then of the Democratic Party of the Left (1991-1998), of the Democrats of the Left (1998-2000 and 2001-2007) and, finally, of the Democratic Party (2015-2017). The last office was in via Barberini, in Rome, even if the first issues of l'Unità – Newspaper of the workers and peasants (this was the original name of the masthead) were printed in Milan, on a proposal by Antonio Gramsci made on 12 September 1923 to the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Italy. The first headquarters of l'Unità was in Via Santa Maria alla Porta, near Corso Magenta, in Milan
The newspaper initially had a modest average circulation, around 20.000 copies, but soon reached 34.000 copies in the weeks following the Matteotti crime in June 1924. Strongly engaged in the anti-fascist struggle in the very first years of the regime, the publication of The unit was suspended in 1926 by the prefect of Milan Vincenzo Pericoli, jointly with the organ of the Italian Socialist Party, theCome on!. On August 27, 1927, the first number of the clandestine edition came out of the newspaper after only seven months from its closure, the seat is in Lille (France) in 40, Rue d'Austerlitz thanks to the new director, the lawyer Riccardo Ravagnan. Later it will also be published in Italy in Turin, Milan, Rome.
On 1 July 1942 The Unit returns to Italy, albeit in hiding. The clandestine diffusion of the newspaper continued throughout the Second World War and with the arrival of the allies, the official publication of the newspaper resumed in Rome on 6 June 1944, under the new direction of Celeste Negarville. In the 70s, during the years of lead, L'Unità experienced its best season, reaching 240.000 copies a day and including editorials and contributions by intellectuals of the caliber of Pier Paolo Pasolini. In the days of the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, year 1978, The Unit harshly condemns the Red Brigades, defined as "enemies of democracy", and proclaims the general strike.
The newspaper's front page for November 11, 1989, the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, opens with the headline: The most beautiful day in Europe. The director of the newspaper then was Massimo D'Alema, who in July 1990 left the post to Renzo Foa, the sheet's first journalist director, and therefore not a party leader. In 1991 L'Unità changes its subtitle, from "organ of the Italian Communist Party" to "Journal founded by Antonio Gramsci". Circulation in the 80s drops to around 156.000 copies per day. From 1992 to 1996 the newspaper passed into the hands of Walter Veltroni, which relaunches the newspaper as a place for debate on the centre-left. Then the inexorable decline, until the closure three years ago.
