Head of State Giorgio Napolitano closed the festivities for the 150th anniversary of Italian Unity, underscoring that each and every event that took place over the course of the year had been \u201can explosion of patriotic participation\u201d. The Head of State defined the event as having been a great success, and how the celebrations had become \u201can important element in our daily life as Italians, dense in meaning and potential\u201d.<\/P>
\n
The President recalled the many events, even at grass-roots level, that studded the year-long festivities: 9700 events and conferences, the involvement of 10,600 schools, publications of all sorts, over 4,000 requests for the logo from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, 4500 personal letters from citizens of every region of Italy. Napolitano declared that \u201cthe year of celebrations marking Italy\u2019s new beginning on 17 March 1861 has ended, but the unflagging determination to cultivate this legacy of unity remains\u201d, he underscored. Not only because some events are meant to continue, and not only because soon it will be 100 years since the start of the First World War. \u201cWe will all do our part, as we did during the festivities, and we will do so convinced of cultivating not a superficial and ritualistic movement, but an authentic and vital one of social and political action, one that teaches and fosters national participation and is capable of elevating the civil consciousness, cohesion and desire for progress of all Italians\u201d. <\/P>
\n
The celebrations for the 150th anniversary of Italian Unity, Under-Secretary of the Presidency of the Council Paolo Peluffo pointed out, have achieved the goal that was set back in 2006 within a broader plan for reviving the history, values and symbols of the State launched by then-President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi: to help Italians take back their nation. \u201cItalians consider the day on which the festivities come to an end as important a day as the 17th of March 2011, when over 13 million families flew the tricolor flag!\u201d the Under-Secretary concluded.<\/P>
\n