Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019

Prior to the 2019 contest, Italy had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest forty-four times since its first entry during the inaugural contest in 1956.^[1] Since then, Italy has won the contest on two occasions: in 1964 with the song "Non ho l'età" performed by Gigliola Cinquetti and in 1990 with the song "Insieme: 1992" performed by Toto Cutugno. Italy has withdrawn from the Eurovision Song Contest a number of times with their most recent absence spanning from 1998 until 2010. Their return in 2011 with the song "Madness of Love", performed by Raphael Gualazzi, placed second—their highest result, to this point, since their victory in 1990. In 2018, Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro represented the nation with the song "Non mi avete fatto niente", placing fifth with 308 points.

The Italian national broadcaster, Radiotelevisione italiana (RAI), broadcasts the event within Italy and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. RAI confirmed Italy's participation in the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest on 5 October 2018.^[2] Between 2011 and 2013, the broadcaster used the Sanremo Music Festival as an artist selection pool where a special committee would select one of the competing artist, independent of the results in the competition, as the Eurovision entrant. The selected entrant was then responsible for selecting the song they would compete with. For 2014, RAI forwent using the Sanremo Music Festival artist lineup and internally selected their entry. Since 2015, the winning artist of the Sanremo Music Festival is rewarded with the opportunity to represent Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest, although in 2016 the winner declined and the broadcaster appointed the runner-up as the Italian entrant.

On 20 November 2018, Italian broadcaster RAI confirmed that the performer that would represent Italy at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest would be selected from the competing artists at the Sanremo Music Festival 2019.^[3] According to the rules of Sanremo 2019, the winner of the festival earns the right to represent Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest, but in case the artist is not available or refuses the offer, the organisers of the event reserve the right to choose another participant via their own criteria. The competition took place between 5–9 February 2019 with the winner being selected on the last day of the festival.^[3]

Twenty four artists competed in Sanremo 2019. Two of the twenty four competing artists (Einar and Mahmood respectively) were selected in the standalone Sanremo Newcomers competition that was held in December 2018. Among the competing artists were former Eurovision Song Contest entrants Il Volo who represented Italy in the 2015 contest. The performers were:^[4]

The 24 Big Artists each performed their entry again for a final time on 9 February 2019. A combination of public televoting (50%), press jury voting (30%) and expert jury voting (20%) selected the top three to face a superfinal vote, then the winner of Sanremo 2019 was decided. Mahmood was declared the winner of the contest with the song "Soldi". During the press conference that followed the final, Mahmood accepted to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest.^[5] However, in an interview to La Stampa published on 11 February 2019, Mahmood stated that he was reconsidering his acceptance as he and his management had to consider "how much work it entails".^[6][7] Finally, on 12 February 2019, Mahmood confirmed his participation at the Eurovision Song Contest via his social media.^[8]

The Eurovision Song Contest 2019 took place at Expo Tel Aviv in Tel Aviv, Israel and consisted of two semi-finals on 14 and 16 May and the final on 18 May 2019.^[10] According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Five" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. As a member of the "Big Five", Italy automatically qualified to compete in the final. In addition to their participation in the final, Italy is also required to broadcast and vote in one of the two semi-finals (the second one this year).

Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1–8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member, as well as the nation's televoting results, were released shortly after the grand final.^[11]

Points awarded to Italy (Final)^[12]

Score	Televote	Jury
12 points	Croatia   Malta   Spain    Switzerland	Belgium   Croatia   Germany   Malta   North Macedonia   San Marino
10 points	Austria   France   Greece   Lithuania   Netherlands	Israel   Serbia
8 points	Albania   Belgium   Cyprus   Israel   Romania   San Marino   Slovenia	Armenia   Cyprus   Czech Republic   France   Slovenia   Sweden
7 points	Armenia   Norway   Poland   Portugal   Serbia	Austria   Belarus   Greece   Hungary
6 points	Azerbaijan   Germany   Iceland	Netherlands   Portugal
5 points	Australia   Moldova   Montenegro	Albania   Azerbaijan   Finland    Switzerland
4 points	Hungary   Ireland   Sweden	Spain
3 points	Belarus   Denmark   Finland   Latvia   North Macedonia	Iceland   Lithuania   Norway
2 points	Czech Republic	Latvia   Montenegro
1 point	Georgia   Russia	Denmark   Ireland

Points awarded by Italy (Semi-final 2)[13] Score Televote Jury 12 points   Albania   Denmark 10 points   Romania   Malta 8 points   Norway   Ireland 7 points   Russia   North Macedonia 6 points    Switzerland   Azerbaijan 5 points   Moldova   Latvia 4 points   Azerbaijan   Netherlands 3 points   Netherlands   Albania 2 points   Malta   Romania 1 point   North Macedonia   Austria

Points awarded by Italy (Final)[12] Score Televote Jury 12 points   Albania   Denmark 10 points   Norway   North Macedonia 8 points   Russia   Malta 7 points   Iceland   Azerbaijan 6 points   Australia   Australia 5 points   Netherlands   Estonia 4 points   Denmark   Czech Republic 3 points    Switzerland   France 2 points   France   Sweden 1 point   Azerbaijan   Albania

The following members comprised the Italian jury:^[11]

• Elisabetta Esposito (jury chairperson) – journalist
• Annie Mazzola [it] – digital entertainer
• Mauro Severoni – audio engineer manager
• Adriano Pennini – maestro (jury member in semi-final 2)
• Stefania Zizzari (jury member in the final)
• Paolo Biamonte – journalist

Detailed voting results from Italy (Semi-final 2)^[13]

Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		E. Esposito	A. Mazzola	M. Severoni	A. Pennini	P. Biamonte	Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Armenia	7	8	9	12	12	12		15
02	Ireland	3	9	2	4	1	3	8	16
03	Moldova	12	10	4	11	16	11		6	5
04	Switzerland	16	12	16	10	11	15		5	6
05	Latvia	2	11	10	5	14	6	5	17
06	Romania	11	6	7	8	10	9	2	2	10
07	Denmark	1	3	1	3	8	1	12	11
08	Sweden	13	5	12	13	13	13		14
09	Austria	14	18	13	14	2	10	1	18
10	Croatia	17	17	18	18	17	18		13
11	Malta	4	1	3	2	6	2	10	9	2
12	Lithuania	8	15	15	16	7	14		12
13	Russia	18	14	11	15	18	16		4	7
14	Albania	6	13	6	9	5	8	3	1	12
15	Norway	15	16	17	17	15	17		3	8
16	Netherlands	9	7	14	6	3	7	4	8	3
17	North Macedonia	5	2	8	1	9	4	7	10	1
18	Azerbaijan	10	4	5	7	4	5	6	7	4

Detailed voting results from Italy (Final)^[12]

Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		E. Esposito	A. Mazzola	M. Severoni	S. Zizzari	P. Biamonte	Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Malta	3	1	2	7	6	3	8	16
02	Albania	16	10	6	13	7	10	1	1	12
03	Czech Republic	5	6	17	6	8	7	4	22
04	Germany	17	20	19	17	10	18		25
05	Russia	23	21	14	22	24	23		3	8
06	Denmark	1	3	1	3	1	1	12	7	4
07	San Marino	25	25	22	24	25	25		21
08	North Macedonia	2	2	5	2	3	2	10	12
09	Sweden	7	4	13	5	17	9	2	17
10	Slovenia	20	22	8	20	19	16		18
11	Cyprus	12	19	15	16	20	19		20
12	Netherlands	11	13	12	15	9	12		6	5
13	Greece	24	23	10	18	12	15		23
14	Israel	10	14	18	8	13	11		15
15	Norway	14	15	24	9	15	13		2	10
16	United Kingdom	19	16	20	19	21	22		24
17	Iceland	21	18	11	25	23	21		4	7
18	Estonia	6	5	9	4	11	6	5	14
19	Belarus	13	11	23	12	18	14		19
20	Azerbaijan	8	7	4	1	5	4	7	10	1
21	France	9	8	7	11	4	8	3	9	2
22	Italy
23	Serbia	15	17	16	21	16	20		13
24	Switzerland	18	12	21	14	14	17		8	3
25	Australia	4	9	3	10	2	5	6	5	6
26	Spain	22	24	25	23	22	24		11