Country Italy Selected entrant Sergio Endrigo Final result 10th, 7 points | Selection process Internal Selection Selected song "Marianne" 1968 • 1969► | |
Italy was represented by Sergio Endrigo, with the song '"Marianne", at the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest, which took place on 6 April in London. As in 1967, Italian broadcaster RAI chose one of the winning singers from that year's Sanremo Music Festival as their performer but with a different song from that with which they had won the festival.
Although "Marianne" failed to make a great impression on the national juries at Eurovision, it caught the attention of the United Kingdom's representative Cliff Richard, who later in the year would take an English-language version into the UK Top 30.
At Eurovision
On the night of the contest Endrigo performed 11th in the running order, following France and preceding the United Kingdom. "Marianne" was a lilting, melodic midtempo song and rather different in style from most previous Italian entries. At the close of voting "Marianne" had received 7 points (2 each from Spain, Switzerland and Yugoslavia, and 1 from Portugal), placing Italy 10th of the 17 entries.