Italy: Marco Mengoni is awarded the 'Sanremo' win

12 February 2023 at 02:33 CET

Sanremo 2023 winner Marco Mengoni Photo: Rai

The 73rd 'Festival di Sanremo' has found its winner. On Saturday 11 February, Marco Mengoni took the trophy with the song 'Due Vite', and will represent Italy at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest.

A grand lineup of 28 competing songs were performed a total of 3 times over 5 nights. On the evening of Saturday 11 February, and into the early hours of Sunday morning, Sanremo selected the winner of its 2023 edition.

It was Marco Mengoni who emerged victorious on the night, with the song Due Vite.

The ballad received 45.53% of the final vote (of a 'super-final', made up of the 5 highest-placed songs from the week). Runner-up Cenere received 16.64%.

The Teatro Ariston in Sanremo, in the Liguria region of Italy, played host once more to the latest edition of Festival di Sanremo. Italian broadcaster Rai aired the contest over 5 nights of shows, during which the 28 competing songs were performed, intertwined with a varied programme of entertainment on each night.

Voting was made up of a public televote (34%), a jury comprising members of the press (33%) and a demoscopic jury of 300 members of the public (33%). This voting was conducted all through the week and then again at Saturday night's final.

Marco Mengoni had the honour of taking the win, 10 years after winning Sanremo in 2013. He will now represent Italy in Liverpool in May.

Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest

Italy is one of the 14 founding participants of the Eurovision Song Contest and arguably the country responsible for the entire Eurovision format! The original Contest was modelled on the popular Festival de Sanremo, which began in 1951 and continues to this day.

Italy has won the Eurovision Song Contest on 3 occasions. In 1964, Gigliola Cinquetti stormed the scoreboard in Copenhagen with Non Ho L'età, receiving nearly 3 times as many votes as the runner-up. Subsequently, the 1965 event was held in Naples.

In 1990, Toto Cutugno won the Contest with European unity anthem Insieme: 1992, taking us to Rome the following year where the 2 Italian winners, Toto and Gigliola, took on presenting duties. Allora!

The Italians struck gold again in 2021 with alt-rock band Måneskin. Their self-penned track Zitti E Buoni (English translation: ‘Shut Up and Behave’) won the Eurovision Song Contest and became a global streaming hit, along with their follow-up song I Wanna Be Your Slave.