ABSTRACT
Giolitti's retreat from the summit of political leadership may appear to be one of the paradoxes of modern Italian history, for his abrupt withdrawal closely followed one of his greatest triumphs, the passage of the Electoral Reform Act of 1912, which he had ushered through parliament against considerable opposition. His program of reforms also made him the most significant Italian practitioner of European New Liberalism. The Catholics, who usually supported conservative positions, were to help preserve a balance in political life by countering the gains socialists were bound to make after most Italian workers received the right to vote. The millions of new voters proved to be impossible to manipulate, and the number of radical deputies who refused to play the game of trasformismo in the Chamber increased. Thus the Gentiloni Pact of 1913, an electoral alliance between Catholics and Giolittian liberals, became an element in Giolitti's scheme of equilibrium politics.
