And by February, it had already confined eleven northern municipalities, several days ahead of its neighbors. Within the European Union, Italy is often a "laboratory " of sorts, a country in the vanguard, especially in the political arena: thus pre-war fascism, but also the formula of post-war Christian democracy as well as the most recent waves of populism were developed in Italy. In the words of Italian historian Marc Lazar, this country acts as a "seismograph ", "recording the first signs of the quakes " that will then shake the continent.