By a ruling released on March 17, 2025, the Civil Court of Naples, upheld the appeal of a U.S. citizen, assisted by the law firm Family Law Italy of Rome (attorneys Stefano Cuomo and Marco Calabrese), who went to Court to have his application for recognition of Italian citizenship by line of descent granted, due to the impossibility of getting an appointment from the Italian Consulate in the US.
Several issues were addressed to the Court and positively resolved:
Firstly, in the event of the inability of the competent consular representation to guarantee an appointment within a reasonable time, the Court of Italy can be directly addressed. The Court of Naples, implicitly considered the application admissible, thereby confirming the case-law already made on the point by the orders issued, among others, by the judgments of the Court of Rome, Docket no. 24260/2019, Order of 10.12.2020 and Docket. no. 39713/2018, Order of 25.2.2020.
Secondly, the bloodline was considered as uninterrupted despite the circumstance of the naturalization as a U.S. citizen of the Italian ancestor; naturalization occurred after the birth of his daughter, mother of the plaintiff, who was four years old at that time.
On closer inspection, this ruling is in line with the previous case-law of some Courts of Appeals, and deviates from the recent rulings of the Supreme Court who established the “minors’ rule” meaning that the minors children follow the father’s citizenship (see most recently Cass. Civ. Ord., no. 454/2024). Together with the very recent rulings of the Court of Catania No. 221/2025 and a few other judgments, this decision of the Court of Naples seems not to follow the guidelines of the Supreme Court.
Good news for those who live in the United States and want to apply for Italian citizenship by bloodline.