The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (Italian: Ministero degli affari esteri e della cooperazione internazionale or MAECI) is the foreign ministry of the government of the Italian Republic. It is also known as the Farnesina as a metonym from its headquarters, the Palazzo della Farnesina in Rome. The current Minister of Foreign Affairs is Antonio Tajani.
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The Ministry of the Colonies (Ministero delle colonie) was the ministry of the government of the Kingdom of Italy responsible for the governing of the country's colonial possessions and the direction of their economies. It was set up on 20 November 1912 by Royal Decree n. 1205, turning the Central Direction of Colonial Affairs within the Ministry for Foreign Affairs into a separate ministry. Royal Decree n. 431 of 8 April 1937 renamed it the Ministry of Italian Africa (Ministro per l'Africa italiana) after the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, which resulted in the Italian annexation of the Ethiopian Empire and the birth of Italian East Africa. It was suppressed on 19 April 1953 by law n. 430.
The Palazzo della Farnesina is an Italian government building located between Monte Mario and the Tiber River in the Foro Italico area in Rome, Italy. Designed in 1935, it has housed the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs since its completion in 1959. A reference to "La Farnesina" is often to be intended as a metonymy for the hosted institution, namely the Ministry itself.
The minister of foreign affairs is the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Italy. The office was one of the positions which Italy inherited from the Kingdom of Sardinia where it was the most ancient ministry of the government: this origin gives to the office a ceremonial primacy in the Italian cabinet.
The current minister is Antonio Tajani, a member of Forza Italia, who is serving in the government of Giorgia Meloni since 22 October 2022.