Italy was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 with the song "", written by Marco Mengoni, Davide Petrella, and Davide Simonetta, and performed by Mengoni himself. The Italian participating broadcaster, (RAI), announced in June 2022 that the winning performer(s) of the Sanremo Music Festival 2023 would earn the right to represent them at the contest.

Background

Prior to the 2023 contest, (RAI) had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest representing Italy forty-six times since its first entry at the inaugural contest in . Since then, it has won the contest on three occasions: in with the song "" performed by Gigliola Cinquetti, in with "" by Toto Cutugno, and in with "" by Måneskin. RAI has withdrawn from the Eurovision Song Contest a number of times, with its most recent absence spanning from 1998 until 2010. It made its return in , and its entry "Madness of Love", performed by Raphael Gualazzi, placed second—its highest result, to that point, since its victory in 1990. A number of top 10 placements followed in subsequent editions, including its third victory in 2021. As hosts in , it placed sixth with "Brividi" by Mahmood and Blanco.

As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, RAI organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. Between 2011 and 2013 and since 2015, the Sanremo Music Festival has regularly been used to select the Italian entrant to the contest, at first through an intermediate stage of internal selection among the contestants, and after 2014 (when a full internal selection took place), the winner of the festival has always earned the right of first refusal to represent Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Before Eurovision

Sanremo Music Festival 2023

Italian broadcaster RAI confirmed that the performer that would represent Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 would be selected from the competing artists at the Sanremo Music Festival 2023, the 73rd edition of the event. According to the rules of Sanremo 2023, the winner of the festival will earn 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 someone else via their own criteria. The competition took place between 7 and 11 February 2023, with the winner being selected on the last day of the festival.

For the fourth year in a row, Amadeus served as the artistic director and presenter of Sanremo, alongside participant Gianni Morandi, and was joined on stage by Chiara Ferragni, Francesca Fagnani, Paola Egonu and Chiara Francini, each on a different night. 28 artists, six of which directly qualifying from the newcomers' section (held on 16 December 2022), competed in the festival. This took place over the course of five consecutive nights, articulated as follows:

On each of the first two nights, half of the entrants performed their songs, and were judged by three separate panels from a jury of journalists. On the third night, all of the songs were performed and voted through a 50/50 split system by means of televoting and a demoscopic jury. The results were combined with those of the previous nights. On the fourth night, the contestants each performed a cover of a song, and were voted by the same system used on the first three nights. On the last night, the 28 entries once again performed, going through the same system used on the first four nights, to be added up to the results obtained that far; ultimately, a final voting round (again a sum of televoting and the two juries) was held among the top 5, which determined the winner.

The first 22 competing artists were announced on 4 December 2022. On 16 December, the six artists qualifying from the section were announced, alongside the titles of all 28 competing songs. Two former Eurovision Song Contest entrants were among the competing artists: Anna Oxa () and Marco Mengoni (). Additionally, Mara Sattei's song was written by Damiano David, who won the as the vocalist and frontman of Måneskin.

Artist Song Songwriter(s)Anna Oxa""Anna Hoxha, Fiorenzo Zanotti, Francesco Bianconi, Giuseppe RinaldiAriete""Arianna Del Giaccio, Dario Faini, Edoardo D'Erme, Vincenzo CentrellaArticolo 31""Alessandro Aleotti, Antonio Colangelo, Daniele Silvestri, Federica Abbate, Luca Paolo Aleotti, Colapesce Dimartino"Splash"Antonio Di Martino, Lorenzo UrciulloColla Zio""Andrea Arminio, Andrea Malatesta, Francesco Lamperti, Giorgio Pesenti, Tommaso Bernasconi, Tommaso ManzoniComa_Cose""Carlo Frigerio, Fabio Dalè, Fausto Zanardelli, Francesca MesianoElodie""Elodie Di Patrizi, Federica Abbate, Francesco Catitti, Jacope EttorreGianluca Grignani""Enrico Melozzi, Gianluca GrignaniGianmaria""Antonio Filippelli, Gianmarco Manilardi, Gianmaria Volpato, Vincenzo Centrella, Vito PetrozzinoGiorgia"", Francesco Roccati, Massimiliano Dagani, Mario Marco Gianclaudio FracchiollaI Cugini di Campagna""Fabio Gargiulo, Dario Mangiaracina, Veronica LucchesiLazza""Dario Faini, , Jacopo LazzariniLDA""Alessandro Caiazza, Luca D'AlessioLeo Gassmann""Giorgio Pesenti, Leonardo Gassman, Marco Paganelli, Riccardo ZanottiLevante""Claudia LagonaMadame""Francesca Calearo, Iacopo Sinigaglia, Nicolas BiasinMara Sattei""Damiano David, Davide Mattei, Enrico BrunMarco Mengoni"", , Marco MengoniModà"", Francesco Silvestre Mr. Rain""Federica Abbate, Lorenzo Vizzini Bisaccia, Mattia BalardiOlly""Emanuele Lovito, Federico Olivieri, Julien BoverodPaola e Chiara"" Alessandro La Cava, Chiara Iezzi, Paola Iezzi, Eugenio Maimone, Federico Mercuri, Giordano Cremona, Jacopo Ettore, Leonardo GrillottiRosa Chemical"Made in Italy", Manuel Franco Rocati, Oscar Inglese, Paolo AntonacciSethu""Giorgio De Lauri, Marco De LauriShari""Luciano Fenudi, Maurizio Pisciottu, Riccardo Puddu, Shari NoiosoTananai""Alberto Cotta Ramusino, Alessandro Raina, , Paolo AntonacciUltimo""Niccolò MoriconiWill""Andrea Pugliese, Simone Cremonini, William Busetti

Final The 28 Big Artists each performed their entry again for a final time on 11 February 2023. A combination of public televoting, press jury voting and demoscopic jury voting selected the top five to face a superfinal vote, then the winner of Sanremo 2023 was decided by a combination of public televoting (34%), demoscopic jury voting (33%) and press jury voting (33%). Marco Mengoni was declared the winner of the contest with the song "". +Final – 11 February 2023ArtistSongPlace 1Elodie""9 2Colla Zio""20 3Mara Sattei""19 4 Tananai "" 5 5Colapesce Dimartino"Splash"10 6Giorgia""6 7Modà""11 8 Ultimo ""4 9 Lazza ""2 10 Marco Mengoni "" 1 11Rosa Chemical"Made in Italy"8 12I Cugini di Campagna""21 13Madame""7 14Ariete""14 15 Mr. Rain ""3 16Paola e Chiara""17 17Levante""23 18LDA""15 19Coma_Cose""13 20Olly""24 21Articolo 31""16 22Will""26 23Leo Gassmann""18 24Gianmaria""22 25Anna Oxa""25 26Shari""27 27Gianluca Grignani""12 28Sethu""28 + Superfinal – 11 February 2023 Artist Song Demoscopic jury(33%) Press jury(33%) Televote(34%) Total Place 1Ultimo"" 4 5 20.39% 12.25% 4 2Tananai"" 5 3 11.15% 11.15% 5 3Lazza"" 3 2 18.28% 16.64% 2 4 Marco Mengoni "" 1 1 32.31% 45.53% 1 5Mr. Rain"" 2 4 17.87% 14.43% 3

At Eurovision 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 in 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 on 13 May 2023. In addition to its participation in the final, Italy was also required to broadcast and vote in one of the two semi-finals. This was decided via a draw held during the semi-final allocation draw on 31 January 2023, when it was announced that Italy would be voting in the first semi-final.

Voting Points awarded to Italy

+ Points awarded to Italy (Final) Score Televote Jury 12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points 5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point

Points awarded by Italy

+ Points awarded by Italy (Semi-final) Score Televote 12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points 5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point

+ Points awarded by Italy (Final) Score Televote Jury 12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points 5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point

Detailed voting results The following members comprised the Italian jury:

Carlo Massarini Fabrizio D'Alessio Maria Grazia Fontana Stefania Zizzari Tiziana Donati (Tosca) + Country Televote Percentage Rank Points 01 16.54% 2 10 02 2.21% 12 03 3.33% 10 1 04 3.02% 11 05 3.97% 9 2 06 1.94% 14 07 6.33% 6 5 08 5.73% 7 4 09 7.97% 5 6 10 23.39% 1 12 11 5.06% 8 3 12 1.70% 15 13 8.47% 3 8 14 1.98% 13 15 8.35% 4 7 Detailed voting results from Italy (Final) Country Jury Televote Juror A Juror B Juror C Juror D Juror E Rank Points Percentage Rank Points 01 10 6 11 8 14 12 1.68% 19 02 13 11 12 18 12 16 1.34% 21 03 16 12 8 2 9 7 4 3.29% 10 1 04 15 24 13 17 25 19 2.61% 13 05 9 4 14 7 11 10 1 1.96% 15 06 8 13 15 11 13 15 1.82% 16 07 17 21 5 12 4 11 2.94% 11 08 3 9 16 16 19 13 1.31% 22 09 14 3 6 3 3 3 8 3.53% 8 3 10 22 22 17 25 23 24 8.31% 4 7 11 12 7 20 2 13 2 5 6 1.56% 20 13 21 23 18 20 24 23 6.09% 5 6 14 2 5 7 4 8 4 7 3.37% 9 2 15 20 19 9 19 16 18 1.23% 23 16 18 10 4 6 10 9 2 2.81% 12 17 6 18 3 5 5 6 5 1.22% 24 18 23 25 19 23 20 25 15.80% 1 12 19 1 2 20 9 1 2 10 12.64% 3 8 20 24 17 21 21 17 21 12.98% 2 10 21 19 14 22 24 18 20 2.00% 14 22 5 8 10 14 6 8 3 1.70% 17 23 4 1 1 1 15 1 12 3.90% 6 5 24 12 7 23 15 7 14 1.69% 18 25 25 16 24 22 21 22 3.68% 7 4 26 11 15 25 10 22 17 0.54% 25

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