L'Unità, the daily newspaper that rose and fell with the once-powerful Italian Communist party, has gone through such a revival that it is now facing an attractive takeover bid by the Angelucci family, industrialists who run a rightwing tabloid.

In its heyday, L'Unità sold 300,000 copies and was read religiously by the left. Its reporters in Moscow, Beijing and Havana had such access to the communist elite that they were the envy of other foreign correspondents. But, mirroring the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Italian communists, L'Unità was forced to shut down for nine months in 2001, close to bankruptcy.