The story
The competition was originally named Divisione Nazionale since its origin in 1928 until the 1945–46 season where the name of the National Championship was changed to the Serie A. Upon 1959, the competition's name was changed was changed to the Eccellenza before becoming the Serie A once again 26 years after in 1985. However, shortly after the name change, in 1986 the Serie A became the Serie A1 with the second tier taking the name of the Serie A2.
Since the 1987–88 season, the championship has been played under a play-off phase format after a regular season with the title being assigned through a final (several cities to have hosted finals include Padua, Bologna and Rome). After a major restructuring in 2001, the national championship was named Super 10 leaving the Serie A1 and Serie A2 to become the second and third divisions of Italian rugby respectively. Upon the 2009–10 season, the Super 10 championship which was founded (in 2001) and operated by the L.I.R.E. (Lega Italiana Rugby d'Eccellenza) (Italian Elite Rugby Union League in Italian) had folded in 2009, the Federazione Italiana Rugby (FIR) had taken over organising the championship.
The name of championship was changed once again to the Eccellenza for the 2010–11 season. After 8 years of the Eccellenza, the competition was increased to 12 teams and was rebranded as the Top12.
Upon the year 2010, the then known Celtic League (now the Pro14) had decided to expand their competition to 12 teams and add two Italian teams, one of them being Benetton Treviso (which would mean they would stop participating in the Super 10 and another being Aironi (a newly founded team that was later replaced by Zebre in the 2012–2013 season of the Pro 12 after folding due to financial reasons and having its license revoked by the Italian Rugby Federation).
The competition's name was changed from Top 12 to Top 10 in 2020 when teams I Medicei and San Donà withdrew their participation.
For the 2023–24 season, the competition was reduced in teams from 10 to 9 (with the withdrawal of Calvisano), and returned to 10 from 2024 to 2025 with the name reverting to Serie A Elite.
From Wikipedia’s article on Serie A Elite (rugby union), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4