In 1907, the Banco di Roma founds a branch in Tripoli and builds significant interests in banking, shipping and agriculture. The bank has powerful connections; the president Ernesto Pacelli is the uncle of the future Pope Pius XII, and the vice-president is Romolo Tittoni, the brother of Tommaso Tittoni, Italy's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister several times between 1903 and 1909. The bank also financed the important newspaper Corriere d'Italia that would campaign for the Italo-Turkish War in 1911.[1]
Emigration out of Italy is expected to reach 1 million, mainly to the United States. Minimum wages in the US are five times higher than in Italy and remittances are an important source of income.[2]
January 6 – Education reformer Maria Montessori opens her first Casa dei Bambini, or Children's House, in Rome.
April
April 28 – The vulcano on the island of Stromboli is erupting large quantities of ash, damaging vineyards in Calabria and Sicily.[3]
June
June 22 – Bakers declare a general strike throughout the whole of Italy after the government postponed consideration of a bill prohibiting night work.[4]
July
July 15 – Former Minister of Public Instruction, Nunzio Nasi, is imprisoned on charges of embezzling USD 300,000.[5]
July 21 – Hundreds are wounded in Palermo (Sicily) in a clash between crowds and the police at a demonstration in favour of Nunzio Nasi, former Minister of Public Instruction, charged with embezzlement.[6]
August
Borghese (left) and Barzini (right) in the 1907 Peking to Paris race
October 23 – A magnitude 5.9 earthquake strikes Calabria, at a depth of 33.0 km. The event caused 167 deaths and major damage. The town Ferruzzano was the epicentre where many houses collapsed almost completely, and 158 persons, or 8% of its population, were killed.[7]
March 2 – Lea Schiavi, Italian dissident journalist writing for left-wing journals in opposition to the Italian fascist government led by Benito Mussolini (d. 1942)
July 24 – Vitaliano Brancati, Italian novelist and screenwriter (d. 1954)
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