Pollen records and pollen-based climate reconstructions fromthe Italian peninsula (centralMediterranean) show\ud clear signals of vegetation change linked to variations inwater availability in theMediterranean basin over the past\ud 5 million years. Profound vegetation changes occurred in four major steps from the Pliocene to the present. The\ud subtropical taxa that dominate Pliocene assemblages declined and then disappeared between 3–2.8 and\ud 1.66Ma (at around 2.8Ma in the North and later in the South), progressively being replaced by temperate Quercus\ud forests at mid altitude. In the south Italy, Quercus expanded more at around 1.4–1.3 Ma and Fagus proportions\ud increased after 0.5 Ma. Conifer forest (first mainly composed of Tsuga then by Abies and Picea) began to expand\ud at 2.8 Ma, probably rather at high altitude, beginning at 2.8 Ma. Mediterranean-type forest, rare during the Early\ud Pleistocene, developed and increased in diversity during the Middle Pleistocene. Open landscapes, with higher\ud abundances of steppic taxa, becamemore frequent and extensive at the onset of Glacial/Interglacial (G/I) cyclicity\ud around 2.6 Ma and gradually expanded with more and more marked glacials. Climate reconstructions done on\ud selected pollen records from southern Italy suggest a decline in winter temperature and annual precipitation\ud fromthe early Pleistocene to the Holocene. Specifically, both precipitation andwinter temperature reconstructions\ud show changes in interglacial maxima and glacial minima at around 3–2.8 Ma, 2 Ma, 1.3–1.4 Ma and 0.5 Ma.\ud This critical review provides evidence that the North–South precipitation gradient, with drier conditions in the\ud South, has been a consistent feature of the Italian peninsula since the beginning of the Pleistocene