Giovanni Spadolini

Giovanni Spadolini
President of Italy Acting
In office 28 April 1992 – 28 May 1992
Prime Minister	Giulio Andreotti
Preceded by	Francesco Cossiga
Succeeded by	Oscar Luigi Scalfaro
President of the Italian Senate
In office 2 July 1987 – 14 April 1994
Preceded by	Giovanni Francesco Malagodi
Succeeded by	Carlo Scognamiglio Pasini
44th Prime Minister of Italy
In office 28 June 1981 – 1 December 1982
President	Alessandro Pertini
Preceded by	Arnaldo Forlani
Succeeded by	Amintore Fanfani
Minister of Defence
In office 4 August 1983 – 17 April 1987
Prime Minister	Bettino Craxi
Preceded by	Lelio Lagorio
Succeeded by	Remo Gaspari
Minister of Public Education
In office 20 March 1979 – 4 August 1979
Prime Minister	Giulio Andreotti
Preceded by	Mario Pedini
Succeeded by	Salvatore Valitutti
Minister of Culture
In office 23 November 1974 – 12 February 1976
Prime Minister	Aldo Moro
Preceded by	None
Succeeded by	Mario Pedini
Personal details
Born	(1925-06-21)21 June 1925 Florence, Kingdom of Italy
Died	Rome, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Political party	Republican Fascist Party (1943–1945) Italian Republican Party (1959-1994)
Alma mater	University of Florence
Profession	Teacher, journalist, historian

Giovanni Spadolini (21 June 1925 – 4 August 1994) was a Republican Italian politician, the 44th Prime Minister of Italy, newspaper editor, journalist and a noted historian.

Biography

Early life and career

Spadolini was born in Florence in 1925. In his youth, working in a public library, Spadolini was a republican and fascist-aligned activist, and wrote for the periodical Italia e Civiltà ("Italy and Civilization"), near to Giovanni Gentile, and in a number, Spadolini explicited his anti-Masonry, anti-liberalism and anti-semitism. In 1944, during the Italian Civil War, he joined in to the Italian Social Republic.

In the post-war time (1945–1950), Spadolini revised the majority of his old ideas, and became a moderate conservative to liberal. He also rejected his old anti-semitism for the Zionism. He studied law at the University of Florence and shortly after graduation, was appointed professor of contemporary history in the faculty of political science. He also became a political columnist for several newspapers, like Il Borghese, Il Messaggero and Il Mondo, becoming editor-in-chief of the Bologna paper Il Resto del Carlino in 1955, doubling its circulation during his tenure. In 1968, Spadolini moved to Milan where he took over the editorship of Italy's largest newspaper, Corriere della Sera, which job he held until leaving journalism to enter politics. In 1972, he was elected as a senator, going on to serve as minister of the environment and then minister of education. Then in 1979, he was appointed secretary of the small but powerful Italian Republican Party (PRI).

As a journalist, he sometimes used the pseudonym Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. Before entering politics, he was editor of Il Corriere della Sera from 1968 to 1972.

Giovanni Spadolini served as Ministro dei Beni e delle Attività culturali (Minister for Cultural Assets and Activities) from 1974 to 1976.

He was leader of the Italian Republican Party (PRI) from 1979 to 1987, during both the 10th and the 11th Legislatures.

Prime Minister

He served as Prime Minister of Italy from 1981 to 1982, the first in the post-1945 Republic to do so who was not a member of Christian Democracy, pledging to clean up corruption (in particular a scandal involving certain Italian political figures connected with a Masonic lodge known as P2) and mounting terrorist violence.

In 1982, he also refused to meet Yasser Arafat during his official visit to Italy, together Marco Pannella's Radical Party, in a boycott protest against the murder of Stefano Gaj Taché, a Jewish children, by PLO's terrorists. On 1980, after the Bologna massacre, he supported the involvement of the Gheddafi's Libya and Palestine, along the Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga, despite the majority that accused the neo-fascists. On foreign politics, he was a neutral and non-interventionist, but also moderate Americanist. During the Falklands War, he was distant from Argentina like United Kingdom.

In 1982, after a political crisis between the Minister of the Treasury Beniamino Andreatta (DC) and the Minister of Finances Rino Formica (PSI), Spadolini resigned and formed a new government identical to the former, that collapsed on November 1982 when socialist Bettino Craxi removed his party's support.

Post-government career

However, under his rule, the PRI obtained the 5% of all votes for the first time in the 1983 general election.

From 1987 to April 1994 he was President of the Italian Senate. He became Acting President of Italy on 28 April 1992, upon the resignation of President Francesco Cossiga, for a month. Following the electoral success of Silvio Berlusconi's House of Freedoms, he lost the chairmanship of the Senate to Carlo Scognamiglio Pasini by a single vote. He died four months later in Rome, on 4 August 1994.

He's currently considered a statist by several people.

References

Political offices
Preceded by None, office established	Italian Minister of Culture 1974–1976	Succeeded by Mario Pedini
Preceded by Mario Pedini	Italian Minister of Public Instruction 1979	Succeeded by Salvatore Valitutti
Preceded by Arnaldo Forlani	Prime Minister of Italy 1981–1982	Succeeded by Amintore Fanfani
Preceded by Lelio Lagorio	Italian Minister of Defense 1983–1987	Succeeded by Remo Gaspari
Preceded by Francesco Cossiga	President of Italy Acting 1992	Succeeded by Oscar Luigi Scalfaro
Italian Senate
Preceded by Title jointly held	Italian Senator for Lombardy 1972 – 1991	Succeeded by Title jointly held
Preceded by Title jointly held	Italian Lifetime Senator 1991 – 1994	Succeeded by Title jointly held
Preceded by Giovanni Francesco Malagodi	President of the Italian Senate 1987 – 1994	Succeeded by Carlo Scognamiglio
Party political offices
Preceded by Oddo Biasini	Secretary of the Italian Republican Party 1979 - 1987	Succeeded by Giorgio La Malfa
Preceded by None, group established	Chairman of the Republican Group in the House 1977 – 1979	Succeeded by Biagio Pinto