Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest
overview about Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest
Italy has been represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 51 times since making its debut as one of only seven countries to compete at the first contest in 1956, which took inspiration from the Sanremo Music Festival. The Italian participating broadcaster in the contest is Radiotelevisione italiana (RAI). It competed at the contest without interruption until 1980, discontinuing its participation on a number of occasions during the 1980s and 1990s. After a 13-year absence starting in 1998, the country returned to the contest in 2011. Italy has won the contest three times, along with an additional 16 top-five finishes. Italy hosted the contest in Naples (1965), Rome (1991), and Turin (2022).
In 1958, "Nel blu, dipinto di blu" performed by Domenico Modugno finished third. Commonly known as "Volare", the song became a huge international hit, topping the US Billboard Hot 100 and winning two Grammy Awards at its first edition. "Uno per tutte" by Emilio Pericoli also finished third in 1963, before Italy won for the first time in 1964 with "Non ho l'età" by Gigliola Cinquetti. Cinquetti returned to the contest in 1974 and finished second with "Sì", losing to "Waterloo" by ABBA. Italy then finished third in 1975 with "Era" by Wess and Dori Ghezzi.
“Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest” enters the record as overview about Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Italy, Eurovision and Song can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q729577. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1956, 1980, 1998 and 2011.
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This entry incorporates text from “Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.