I need to find a string and need to print the line above it.

case1: The same line won't have the more than one matching pattern

ie) consider a file containing

$cat > para
returns between the paragaraphs
italic or bold    
quotes by placing
italic

Here i need to find for italic, and i need to get the output as below

returns between the paragaraphs
quotes by placing

How can i get the output like this?