While the coronavirus pandemic certainly dominated the media – particularly in Italy, which was severely affected – many other stories made headlines around the world.
Here are some of the biggest news stories to come out of Italy throughout 2020.
Culture
The year began with the crowing of Parma, in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, as Italy’s Capital of Culture for 2020.
Parma beat competition from fellow finalists Agrigento, Bitonto, Casale Monferrato, Macerata, Merano, Nuoro, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia and Treviso to scoop the top cultural honour.
Home to the composer Verdi and famous for culinary specialties such as Parma ham and Parmesan cheese, along with its art, museums and exciting architecture, the northern city was described by the jury as “a virtuous and extremely high-quality example of local culturally-based planning”.
It was later announced that the Italian cities of Bergamo and Brescia will share the prestigious Capital of Culture title in 2023, as a symbol of hope and rebirth after both were devastated by the coronavirus pandemic.
In February, Diodato was crowned the winner of the 70th Sanremo Music Festival after five long but entertaining nights of music.
Italian singer Diodato (centre) poses with showman Rosario Fiorello (left) and artistic director Amadeus (right) after winning the 70th Sanremo Italian Song Festival, on February 8, 2020. (Photo: AAP)
Midway through the year, a Sardinian pecorino cheese wheel weighing almost 600 kilograms claimed the title of the world’s largest block of cheese made from sheep’s milk, according to Guinness World Records.
In another food feat, the Italian city of Caserta became home to the best pizzeria in the world, according to the 50 Top Pizza 2020 rankings.
Later in the year, a 96-year-old World War II veteran from Italy proved that it’s never too late to follow your dreams by becoming the country’s oldest university graduate.
Just last week, another World War II veteran made headlines after he managed to make contact with the three Italian children he almost accidentally killed in 1944 while liberating an Italian mountain village from the Nazis.
Medical marvels
In July, a 60-year-old woman from the central Italian region of Abruzzo made headlines after she prepared 90 stuffed olives in less than an hour while having an operation to remove a brain tumour.
It was a month of medical marvels, with the announcement that two Siamese twin girls from the Central African Republic, joined at the head, had been separated at Rome’s Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital.
The two girls with their mother following their separation. (Photo: ANSA)
Later in the year, October saw a strange medical event involving a rare green-furred puppy that was born on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia.
Environment
In January, a number of major Italian cities banned hundreds of thousands of vehicles from the roads following days of unrelenting smog.
A prolonged period of sunny weather with no rain and little wind triggered the so-called “smog emergency” across much of the country.
Air pollution exceeded normal levels for up to 10 consecutive days in Milan, Rome, Florence, Turin, Venice and parts of the Emilia-Romagna region.
Numerous cities introduced restrictions on driving, central heating and open flames, including a ban on diesel vehicles in central Rome that affected around 1 million drivers.
In mid-July, a sudden and violent thunderstorm left the Italian city of Palermo submerged in water, killing at least two people with others reported missing.
Photos and video footage show cars floating down streets transformed into rivers as over a metre of rain fell on the city in less than two hours.
Just days later, a sudden and violent eruption jolted awake residents of the volcanic island of Stromboli early in the morning.
Webcam video footage shows an ash plume and “lava bombs” raining down on the area.
In October, flooding from record rains cut off several villages in the mountainous regions on the French border, causing widespread damage and killing two people.
In the same month, the volcano that towers over the southern Italian island of Stromboli, off the coast of Sicily, had a major eruption.
At the start of December, Venice’s MOSE flood barrier system was raised to protect the city after a miscalculation meant it was not lifted in time to prevent flooding the previous day.
The long-awaited MOSE system, which was given its first full test in July, was praised for saving Venice from recent high tides.
In early October, MOSE’s huge yellow floodgates, which rise to separate the Venetian lagoon from the sea, succeeded in shielding the city during its first real-time test when the high tide rose to 1.2 metres.
The system again functioned successfully a few weeks later in preventing water of up to 1.35 metres from entering the lagoon.
The MOSE flood barrier system during testing on July 10, 2020. (Photo: AAP)
The year ended with a bang weather-wise, with Europe’s highest active volcano, Mount Etna, putting on a spectacular show when it erupted on December 13.
Giant orange fountains of lava and plumes of dense ash could be seen in Catania, a city on the Italian island of Sicily.
No damage was reported to the towns that dot the slopes of Etna.
Infrastructure
In February, Italy was rocked when a high-speed train derailed near Milan while travelling at nearly 300 km/h, killing its two drivers and injuring around 30 others.
Video footage from the scene shows that the front engine and at least one passenger wagon had skipped the tracks, flipping onto their side.
April saw a bittersweet moment in the history of the nation: the completion of the new Genoa bridge.
Nearly two years after the Morandi highway bridge in the Italian city collapsed and killed 43 people, workers moved the final piece of a replacement span into place in a milestone hailed by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte as a symbolic show of unity and hope.
Church bells tolled and fog horns blared as the central piece of the new bridge was hoisted into position above now-abandoned homes and businesses lining the dry Polcevera riverbed.
On August 3, almost two years to the day since the disaster, the new San Giorgio motorway bridge was officially inaugurated.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte gave a speech and cut a ribbon before jets trailing the colours of the Italian flag roared overhead as the national anthem played.
The inauguration of the new San Giorgio motorway bridge, on August 3, 2020. (Photo: AAP)
President Sergio Mattarella was the first to officially cross the new bridge, designed by famed Italian architect Renzo Piano, who gave it a sail-like structure in tribute to Genoa’s rich maritime history.
The names of the victims were read aloud, though many of their loved ones were not present, saying they didn’t want the elaborate ceremony to overshadow the lives lost in the tragedy.
Crime
In May, an Italian woman who was abducted from a Kenyan orphanage in November 2018 was released and flown back to her home country.
Silvia Romano landed at Rome’s Ciampino airport after nearly 18 months in captivity, during which time she said she had converted to Islam and taken the name Aisha.
She was greeted by the prime minister and Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio upon her arrival.
Two months later, Italian authorities were praised on the international stage after claiming to have made the biggest amphetamines bust ever, seizing 14 tonnes of drugs allegedly produced in Syria by the Islamic State (IS) group.
In August, Italy was rocked by a mysterious case involving a missing four-year-old boy after the body of his mother was found in the Sicilian countryside.
Rescue teams using tracker dogs and drones raced against time to scour a 400-hectare area of remote woodland in Sicily to find the young child named Gioele.
Gioele’s mother, 43-year-old DJ Viviana Parisi, was last seen on the morning of August 3 climbing over a motorway barrier after a minor collision with a van carrying workers in a tunnel.
Her Corsa reportedly had a punctured tyre, so Parisi stopped the car once they had left the tunnel.
Her body was found five days later in a nearby forest close to Caronia, lying at the foot of a high-voltage pylon.
Sixteen days after Gioele disappeared, Sicilian police confirmed the discovery of the child’s remains around 200 metres from the motorway where Parisi was involved in the accident.
It’s still unclear what occurred in the lead-up to the pair’s death.
In September, Italy mourned the death of Willy Monteiro Duarte, 21, who was killed after being beaten with kicks and punches in a brutal assault in Colleferro, a town south of Rome.
People attend a candle-lit procession, demanding “Justice for Willy” in Duarte’s hometown of Paliano, near Colleferro, on September 9, 2020. (Photo: ANSA)
Duarte was reportedly attacked after he had attempted to save his friend from being beaten.
Four men in their 20s from the nearby town of Artena were arrested on charges of manslaughter following Duarte’s death.
The men were known to police.
In October, two Italians who had been held hostage by Al Qaida-linked Islamist extremists in Mali were released and returned home.
Father Pierluigi Maccalli, a priest and missionary, was taken prisoner in September 2018 from his parish in Niamey, Niger, close to the Burkina Faso border, and Nicola Chiacchio was captured while holidaying in central Mali in 2019.
In the same month, a 21-year-old Italian man confessed to the double homicide of his former housemates – professional football referee Daniele De Santis and his partner Eleonora Manta – who were stabbed to death in their home in southern Italy on September 21.
According to prosecutors, after stabbing the victims several times in their home, Antonio De Marco, 21, followed them as they desperately tried to escape before killing them on the stairway of the building they lived in.
Prosecutors suspect De Marco had planned the murder long before committing it.
De Santis had officiated 130 professional football matches and was due to be the man in the middle for the first-round Coppa Italia affair between Monopoli and Modena, which took place two days after his death.
Politics
In June, Italy took part in the Black Lives Matter movement, as thousands of Italians joined people in the United States and around the world in protesting against racism and police brutality.
Thousands of people joined sit-ins in Rome, Milan, Florence, Turin, Bologna, Naples, Genoa, Bari and other cities around Italy as part of the wave of global demonstrations sparked by the death of African-American man George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
Protesters knelt in silence for eight minutes and 46 seconds, the length of time that former police officer Derek Chauvin pushed his knee into Floyd’s neck as he lay face-down on the ground.
Thousands of protesters with face masks participate in the Black Lives Matter protest in Piazza del Popolo, Rome, on June 7, 2020. (Photo: AAP)
As well as remembering institutionalised racism and police brutality in the US, demonstrators also called for Italy to address its own injustices.
In Milan, protesters marched from the Piazza Duca D’Aosta towards the street where, in 2008, 19-year-old Abdul William Guibre was beaten to death by a father and son who shouted racial slurs and claimed he had stolen from their bar.
One of those addressing the crowd in Milan said that in Italy, Black Lives Matter means not delaying legislative reform to make it easier to receive citizenship.
Foreigners born in Italy aren’t automatically eligible for citizenship until they reach 18 after continuously living in the country.
In recent years, efforts have failed to enact legislation to allow foreigners’ children born in Italy to become citizens while still minors if they’ve attended Italian schools.
In September, the Italian people voted to slash the size of their parliament by a third in a constitutional referendum which passed easily, with almost 70 per cent voting in favour.
Voters were asked whether to approve an amendment to the Italian Constitution, which would reduce the number of MPs in parliament from 630 to 400 in the Chamber of Deputies, and from 315 to 200 in the Senate.
The “yes” vote prevailed with 69.64 per cent, compared to 30.36 per cent for the “no” vote, with almost all votes counted, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
The following month, Italy overhauled its harsh anti-migrant “security decrees” introduced by former interior minister, Matteo Salvini, reinstating humanitarian protection for migrants.
The Italian government was praised for making amendments to the decrees, which were believed to have sparked racist sentiment in the country.
Sport
In November, Italy mourned the death of soccer legend Diego Armando Maradona.
Maradona died of a heart attack aged 60 in a house outside Buenos Aires.
He had been recovering from a brain operation.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Maradona reached the peak of his professional career while playing for Napoli.
The entire city of Naples went into mourning following the news.
A tribute to the late Diego Armando Maradona in Naples, on November 27, 2020. (Photo: AAP)
On December 4, the city renamed Napoli football club’s San Paolo home stadium after the star.
As the football world was still mourning Maradona’s death, news came of the loss of another soccer hero: Paolo Rossi.
Rossi, Italy’s goal-scoring star from its victorious 1982 World Cup campaign and scorer of a hat-trick against Brazil in one of the most famous matches in the competition’s history, died aged 64.
His wife, Federica Cappelletti, said he passed away in his sleep at hospital after she promised him she would care for their children and assured him that he “had already done so much”.
An unprecedented health emergency
Following the emergence of the novel coronavirus in China in mid-December 2019, the Italian government announced in late-January that it was organising a flight to the Chinese city of Wuhan – the epicentre of the outbreak – to evacuate citizens stranded there.
Just days later, on January 31, Italy confirmed its first two cases of the deadly virus in two Chinese tourists.
Italy was the fourth European country, after France, Finland and Germany, to have confirmed cases of the virus.
At the start of February, Italy reported its third case of the virus: an Italian man who was one of 56 Italian citizens evacuated days earlier from the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Within just a few weeks, the situation took a turn for the worst in Italy and the country’s northern regions became the epicentre of the first major outbreak of the virus outside Asia.
Italian authorities scrambled to contain the outbreak, placing at least 10 towns under lockdown, closing schools and cancelling the iconic Venice carnival, after over 150 cases were announced in a matter of days.
Italy became the first country in Europe to announce a death from coronavirus, when a 78-year-old man died in the Veneto region two days before the first lockdown was imposed.
As Italy continued to record new cases and deaths from the virus, the country announced that upcoming matches in the top-tier Serie A and the Europa League would be played behind closed doors in a bid to prevent the spread of infections.
By the start of March, major airlines around the world began suspending some or all flights to and from airports in northern Italy amid the outbreak.
A high concentration of new cases emerged around the city of Bergamo, northeast of Milan, and the head of the Higher Health Institute (ISS) told reporters a new red zone might be imposed there to try to stem infections.
All cultural and sporting events across northern Italy were cancelled or postponed, while schools and tourist sites in affected areas were ordered closed.
As the situation continued to worsen, the prime minister announced on March 9 that the whole country was under total lockdown in a bid to contain the spread of the virus.
Italy’s 60 million citizens and visitors were barred from leaving the country, unless for work, medical reasons or emergencies, until April 3, as Conte described it as Italy’s “darkest hour”.
Army personnel patrol a deserted Duomo Square in Milan, during Italy’s nationwide lockdown, on March 31, 2020. (Photo: AAP)
All sporting events in Italy were suspended, including Serie A games and preparatory events for the Tokyo Olympics.
The nationwide lockdown was imposed after it was announced that the death toll had risen by 97 to 463 and the number of confirmed cases stood at 9172, making Italy the most affected country in Europe.
Italy became increasingly isolated from the rest of the world in the following days, as the government imposed drastic travel restrictions and neighbouring nations tightened their borders in a bid to contain the spread of the virus.
The Australian government expanded its coronavirus travel ban to include Italy, meaning foreign nationals who had been in Italy, mainland China, Iran and South Korea weren’t allowed into Australia for 14 days from the time they left those countries.
On March 11, Conte said Italy would close all stores except for pharmacies and food shops to halt the spread of infections.
The announcement came on the day Italy recorded almost 200 more deaths linked to the virus in 24 hours.
The following day, as the country’s death toll passed 1000, the Italian government announced it would spend up to €25 billion to fight the outbreak and relieve some of the intense pressure from the country’s hospitals and economy.
In mid-march, Italy registered a one-day record death toll of 368 as healthcare system became more strained, with officials warning of a shortage of beds, ambulances and artificial respirators in the northern Lombardy region, at the epicentre of the outbreak in Europe.
Despite the dire situation, people across Italy showed their fighting spirit.
Footage circulated of residents belting out songs and ballads together from their balconies to keep each others’ spirits high amid the lockdown.
A family play lids of pots from balcony of their home where there is banner reading “Everything will be fine” in the neighbourhood of San Salvario, in Turin, during a flash mob launched throughout Italy to bring people together on March 13, 2020. (Photo: AAP)
Authorities continued to impose travel restrictions, with Sicilian officials calling for flights, trains and passenger ferries from the mainland to be cancelled in a bid to prevent the coronavirus spreading from northern Italy to the southern island, while the European Union announced it would temporarily close its external borders to travellers from outside the bloc for 30 days.
As Italy entered its second week of a nationwide lockdown, we spoke to three people living in Rome, Catania and Milan respectively about their experience of life in quarantine.
In late March, Juventus and Argentina forward Paulo Dybala and former Italy captain Paolo Maldini both tested positive for coronavirus.
Dybala was the third Juventus player to be confirmed to have had the virus, following centre-back Daniele Rugani and France World Cup winner Blaise Matuidi.
Cristiano Ronaldo would later test positive for the virus, while retired soccer star Francesco Totti’s father died after being infected.
As Cuban doctors and nurses arrived in Italy to assist with the health emergency, the government’s drastic nationwide measures were tightened in order to fight the seemingly relentless spread of the virus.
Italy also announced new travel restrictions that meant anyone entering the country must declare their presence to authorities and spend 14 days in quarantine.
In late March, a 102-year-old Italian woman by the name of Italica Grondona became a beacon of hope for the country after she recovered from the virus, having spent 20 days in hospital in the northern city of Genoa.
Italica Grondona. (Photo: ANSA)
Soon after, health experts said the country had hit a “plateau” in its infection rate before registering a drop in fatalities and ICU patients.
As Italy’s infection rate continued to slow in the lead-up to Easter, the nation remained under lockdown for the religious holiday.
Famed Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli brought some joy over the Easter period, performing a solo concert from an empty Duomo cathedral in Milan, livestreamed to millions of people around the world.
Towards the end of April, Italy’s coronavirus infection rate dropped for first time ever since the start of the pandemic.
On May 4, the nation emerged from its strict two-month lockdown and millions of people returned to work and saw their loved ones for the first time in weeks.
Melia Famoso (right) and her husband Giovanni embrace their grandchildren after two months of social distancing due to the lockdown measures to face the coronavirus pandemic, in San Donato Milanese, near Milan, on May 4, 2020. (Photo: AAP)
As restrictions continued to ease in the following weeks, including the lifting of bans on weddings and attending mass, the government also announced it would reopen its borders to tourists from early June.
The government confirmed that unrestricted travel between regions could resume from June 3 as planned, the same day the country reopened all airports in preparation for a gradual return to international tourism.
Iconic tourist sites, such as the Colosseum in Rome, also reopened their doors after being closed for around three months.
But as the nation began to return to “normality”, the effects of the two-month lockdown on its economy began to show, and Italy faced its deepest recession since World War II.
The country was exhausted and facing significant financial hardship for the foreseeable future.
In June, President Sergio Mattarella bestowed knighthood honours on 57 citizens, from medics to teachers and volunteers, for their community service during the coronavirus pandemic.
On June 15, Italy entered the next phase of its gradual emergence from lockdown as it rolled back more coronavirus restrictions, after Conte signed a new decree.
In an attempt to keep the situation under control as Italy enjoyed a lull in infections, the government, in early July, banned entry to travellers coming from 13 countries that it said presented an excessive rate of coronavirus infections.
On July 21, EU leaders emerged from a four-day and four-night summit to celebrate what they claimed was a historic rescue plan for economies devastated by the pandemic.
It was announced that Italy would receive the largest share of the €750 billion package, €209 billion or 28 per cent of the total, with Spain receiving the second-largest.
In September, Italy’s infamous former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, made headlines after he was treated in hospital for coronavirus.
The same month, millions of Italian children returned to the classroom as many schools reopened, more than six months after they were closed in the early days of the pandemic.
A mother greets her daughter at Baricco Primary School in Turin, Italy, on September 14, 2020. (Photo: AAP)
The joy was short-lived, however, as Italy began to show signs of a second wave of infections and the government introduced fresh measures.
Riots broke out in several cities – with some turning violent – when the Italian government imposed at least a month of new restrictions across the country in a bid to contain the second wave of infections, shutting down gyms, pools and cinemas, and putting an early curfew on cafes and restaurants.
Protesters claimed that businesses and families couldn’t survive another lockdown and would never recover financially.
Protesters light flares in Rome on October 27, 2020. (Photo: AAP)
In late October, the Italian government approved a €5 billion financial aid package for businesses and workers affected by the new restrictions.
In early November, Conte announced Italy’s new three-tiered lockdown system, in which the country was divided into three zones – red, orange and yellow – according to the intensity of the virus in each region.
The following week, Italy passed a grim milestone, recording more than 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.
A video circulating on social media, showing an elderly man lying dead in a Naples hospital bathroom, shocked the world and prompted Italy’s foreign affairs minister to declare the situation in the southern Italian city as “out of control”.
Soon after, Italy passed the threshold of 50,000 deaths from the virus.
As December rolled around, Italy overtook Britain to become the European country with the highest official coronavirus death toll.
In a sign of hope, Italy last week announced plans to set up hundreds of primrose-shaped pavilions in its artistic squares to dispense COVID-19 vaccines during a campaign that kicks off in January 2021.
An image of what the vaccine pavilions will look like. (Photo: ANSA)
The primrose-shaped pavilions were designed by architect Stefano Boeri, who said his team had picked the flower as it heralds the arrival of spring and symbolises regeneration.
As 2020 comes to an end, the national statistics bureau ISTAT said deaths this year in Italy would be the highest since World War II.
The Italian government last Friday tightened the coronavirus rules and imposed a nationwide lockdown over the festive season once again, in a bid to prevent a new spike in infections over the holidays.
The toughest red zone restrictions will now be in place over Christmas, New Year and the feast of the Epiphany, meaning Italy will go in and out of lockdown over the holiday period and into 2021.
