The article deals with the evolution and transformation of Italian party government in the period 1948-1996. Considering the two crucial dimensions of "government formation" and "cabinet organization and decision-making", the article compares the period before and after 1992. The comparison shows the extraordinary experience of the Jour years 1992-1996: universally defined as the years of the "Italian transition". If the parties controlled both the processes of government formation and cabinet decisionmaking in the period 1948-1992, in the following period of 1992-1996 (...) both processes were controlled more by the president of the Republic than by the parties. Theparties were so unimportant in the four years of the Italian transition, that we can define this one as a period of an unprecedented semipresidentialism with residual party government. (shrink)