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THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM

I. THE CROWN AND THE MINISTRY

*404. Status of the Sovereign.*--The constitutional system of Italy
comprises, according to the phraseology of the _Statuto_, a
"representative monarchical government." The throne is hereditary,
after the principle of the Salic Law; that is, it may be inherited
only by and through males. Elaborate provision is made for the
exercise of regal authority in the event of the minority or the
incapacity of the sovereign. During a minority (which terminates with
the close of the king's eighteenth year) the prince who stands next in
the order of succession, provided he be twenty-one years of age, is
authorized to act as regent. In the lack of male relatives the regency
devolves upon the queen-mother, and in default of a queen-mother the
regent is elected by the legislative chamber.[539] Upon ascending the
throne, the king is required to take an oath in the presence of the
legislative chambers faithfully to maintain and observe the
constitution of the realm. The monarch is declared to be sacred and
inviolable in his person, and there is settled upon him a civil list
of 16,050,000 lire, of which amount at present, however, the sum of
one million lire is repaid annually to the state. Since 1870 the royal
residence has been the Palazzo del Quirinale, a palace which for
generations, by reason of its elevated and healthful situation, was
much frequented by the popes.

[Footnote 539: Arts. 11-17. Dodd, Modern
Constitutions, II., 6.]

*405. Powers and Functions of the Crown.*--On paper, the powers of the
crown appear enormous; in reality they are much less considerable, as
is inevitably the fact wherever monarchy is tempered by
parliamentarism. In the king alone is vested, by the _Statuto_, the
executive power, and to him alone this power, in theory, still
belongs. The exercise of it, however, devolves almost wholly upon a
group of ministers, who are responsible, not to the crown, but to the
parliament. In no continental country has there been a more deliberate
or a more unreserved acceptance of the essential principles which
underlie the parliamentary system of Great Britain. No one of the (p. 369)
three sovereigns of united Italy has ever sought for an instant to
establish anything in the nature of personal government. The principle
that the ministry shall constitute the working executiv