Italy in The Song 5

Italy participated and hosted The Song 5 with the song "Wildfire" written by Alex Seaver, Chrissy Costanza and Drakos Vedius. The Italian broadcaster Radiotelevisione italiana (RAI) held a national final in order to select the Italian entry for the first contest in Finland. An open call for submissions was held which resulted in the shortlisting of two entries. The Italian broadcaster asked from the delegations to rank each song in a scale from 1 to 10. The song with the biggest average would represent Italy.

Background
Prior to the fifth edition, Italy has participated in The Song four times since its first entry. Italy had won the contest on one occasion: in the third edition with the song "Guess Who's Back" performed by Il Tre. However, its worst finish was when it placed eight in the second edition with "Groovy" by Tancredi. In the fourth edition, Fulminacci represented the nation with the song "Canguro", placing second with 192 points.

La Canzone
On December 26, RAI announced that they would choose the representative of the nation via the national selection "La Canzone". The same day, RAI, announced the twp possible Italian entries.

Final
The winner was Against The Current with the song "Wildifre". The song had an average of 7.68 out of 10, 0.08 more from the runner-up Elodie, that received an average of 7.60 out of 10.