Italy was represented by Toto Cutugno, with the song '"Insieme: 1992", at the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest, which took place on 5 May in Zagreb. "Insieme: 1992" was chosen internally by broadcaster RAI as the Italian entry, and had to be edited down to comply with Eurovision song duration rules, as the original studio version ran to 4 minutes 20 seconds.

On the night of the final Cutugno performed 19th in the running order, following Sweden and preceding Austria. Prior to the contest few observers had ranked "Insieme: 1992" among the favourites for victory, but voting patterns quickly established that the contest was going to be a three-horse race between Italy and two of the pre-contest favourites, France and Ireland.

Italy took the lead for the first seven rounds of voting before surrendering it to Ireland, who held it for the next nine rounds, with France never far behind. Ironically, it was the Irish jury which handed the lead back to Italy with a maximum 12 points vote. Italy then scored strongly from the remaining juries while Ireland and France faltered, winning victory on the penultimate vote with a maximum 12 from Cyprus. At the close of the voting "Insieme: 1992" was the surprise contest winner, with 149 points against Ireland and France who ultimately finished joint second on 132 points apiece. Italy had received only three 12 points votes against France's six, but had scored more consistently across the board.

It was noted that the voting of the "Italian" jury itself was decidedly idiosyncratic – they had awarded no points at all to either Ireland or France and had given their 12 to Austria, who finished 10th. RAI didn't arrange a jury in that year: instead there was a jury of Croatians voting that was settled up in a hotel near the hall.

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