History
The Democrats of the Left developed from the Democratic Party of the Left (Partito Democratico della Sinistra, PDS), which in turn was a reshaping of the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) into a democratic socialist party. Under the leadership of Massimo D'Alema, the party merged with other minor like-minded movements (Labour Federation, Social Christians, Republican Left, Unitarian Communists, Reformists for Europe and Democratic Federation), and took the current name, removing the hammer and sickle from its symbol and substituting it with the red carnation of the Party of European Socialists.
Massimo D'Alema became prime minister in October 1998 and was replaced as the leader of DS by Walter Veltroni. During the party's first national congress in January 2000, Veltroni received the support of the 79.9% of delegates, while the left wing of the party, at the time led by three women (Anna Finocchiaro, Fulvia Bandoli and Pasqualina Napoletano), had the support of 20.1% of them.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)