Chamber of Deputies Camera dei deputati |
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Type | |
Type |
Lower house of the Parliament of Italy
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Leadership | |
President of the Chamber
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Structure | |
Seats | 630 |
Political groups
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Government (369) Opposition Parties (261) |
Elections | |
Two-round system (current house was elected under a semi-proportional system) | |
Last election
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24–25 February 2013 |
Next election
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2018 or earlier |
Meeting place | |
Palazzo Montecitorio, Rome | |
Website | |
http://en.camera.it/ and http://www.camera.it/leg17/46 |
Government (369)
Opposition Parties (261)
The Chamber of Deputies (Italian: Camera dei deputati) is a house of the bicameral Parliament of Italy (the other being the Senate of the Republic). The two houses together form a perfect bicameral system, meaning they perform identical functions, but do so separately. Pursuant to article 56 of the Italian Constitution, the Chamber of Deputies has 630 seats, of which 618 are elected from Italian constituencies, and 12 from Italian citizens living abroad. Deputies are styled The Honourable (Italian: Onorevole) and meet at Palazzo Montecitorio. The Chamber and the parliamentary system of the Italian Republic and under the previous Kingdom of Italy is a continuation of the traditions and procedures of the Parliament and Chamber of Deputies as established under King Charles Albert, (1798-1849), during the Revolutions of 1848, and his son Victor Emmanuel II, (1820-1878) of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont which led in the "Italian unification 'Risorgimento' movement" of the 1850s and 1860s, under the leadership of then Prime Minister, Count Camillo Benso of Cavour ("Count Cavour").
The seat of the Chamber of Deputies is the Palazzo Montecitorio, where it has met since 1871, shortly after the capital of the Kingdom of Italy was moved to Rome at the successful conclusion of the Italian unification Risorgimento movement.