Road signs in Italy

Road signs in Italy conform to the general pattern of those used in most other European countries. They are regulated by the Codice della Strada and by the Regolamento di Attuazione del Codice della Strada in conformity with the 1968 Vienna Convention on [Road Signs and Signals].
Italy signed the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals on November 8, 1968 and ratified it on February 7, 1997.
The modern traffic signs in Italy were first designed by Michele Arcangelo Iocca in 1959.

Design

Distances and other measurements are displayed in metric units.
Warning signs are usually placed 150 metres before the area they're referring to; if they're farther or nearer, an additional sign displays the actual distance in metres. Prohibition signs and mandatory instruction signs, instead, are placed exactly at the beginning of the area of validity.

Colours and shapes

Signs follow the general European conventions concerning the use of shape and colour to indicate function of signs:

Type of sign	Shape	Border	Background colour
Warning	Triangular	Red	White
Prohibition	Circular	Red	White
Mandatory instructions	Circular	White	Blue
Supplementary	Rectangular	Black	White
Information	Rectangular	White	White Blue Green

Colours of directional road signs

On motorways, directional signs are green with white lettering.
On main roads, directional signs with more than one destination are blue with white lettering.
Within cities, directional signs with more than one destination are white with black lettering.

On main roads and within cities, the colour of a directional sign with a single destination depends on the type of destination:

if the destination is a city that is reached by means of a motorway, the sign is green and carries the motorway name as well as the destination
in the other cases when the destination is a city, the sign is blue
if the destination is a city district, a hospital or an airport, the sign is white
if the destination is a geographical feature or a tourist attraction, the sign is brown
Typeface

A version of the Transport typeface employed on road signs in the UK, called Alfabeto Normale, is used on Italian road signs. A condensed version, called Alfabeto Stretto, is also used for long names that wouldn't fit. Each name uses one font, but names in Alfabeto Normale and in Alfabeto Stretto can co-exist on one sign.
The font is officially regulated by the 1992 Codice della Strada, article 39 section 125. It defines both Alfabeto Normale and Alfabeto Stretto for uppercase letters, lowercase letters and digits, "positive" and "negative". However, there are regulations about the use of Alfabeto Normale dating back to 1969.
Uppercase is used in most cases. Lowercase is sometimes used for city districts and tourist attractions.

Language

The standard language is Italian. In some autonomous regions or provinces bilingual signs are used.

These are some examples of the Italian sign "Passo carrabile" in the bilingual variants:

Warning signs

Temporary signs

Regulatory signs

Priority signs

Prohibition signs

Mandatory signs

Indication signs

Additional panels

Complementary signage

Obsolete signs (No longer used)

Similar systems

Albania largely shares the same road signage system used in Italy, with the main exception being that the language used is Albanian. European route numbers are not displayed on road signs in Albania.
Burundi largely shares the same road signage system used in Italy, except that the language used is French.
Malta's road signage system is a mixture of that of Italy's as well as the United Kingdom's.
San Marino and the Vatican City—both microstates located within Italy—almost wholly share the same road signage system used in Italy.
Sierra Leone largely shares the same road signage system used in Italy, except that the language used is English.
Lebanon largely shares the same road signage designs used in Italy — except those languages used are bilingual and have different symbols.
Both Libya and Eritrea, which were formerly under Italian rule, largely share the same road signage system used in Italy, with the main exception being the language.