Alcide De Gasperi

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Prime Minister of Italy
Alcide De Gasperi

Interim President of the Italian Republic
In office June 12, 1946 – July 1, 1946
Succeeded by	Enrico De Nicola
In office December 10, 1945 – August 2, 1953
Preceded by	Ferruccio Parri
Succeeded by	Giuseppe Pella

Born	3 April 1881 Tirol, Austria-Hungary
Died	19 August 1954 Trentino, Italy
Political party	Christian Democracy

Alcide De Gasperi (3 April 1881 – 19 August 1954) was an Italian statesman and politician. He is considered to be one of the Founding Fathers of the European communities, along with the Frenchman Robert Schuman and the German Konrad Adenauer.

[edit] Biography

De Gasperi was born in Pieve Tesino in the Tirol, Austria-Hungary, now part of the Province of Trento in Italy.

He studied philosophy and literature in Vienna and afterward became a journalist. In 1911 he became a Member of Parliament in the Austrian Reichsrat. His home region was transferred to Italy after the First World War. In 1919 he was one of the founders, with Don Luigi Sturzo, of the Italian Popular Party, or Partito Popolare; starting in 1921 he was an MP for the party. He later became party leader and Secretary-General.

De Gasperi served a 16-month jail sentence as an anti-fascist. After his release in 1931 he worked in the library of the Vatican; there, in 1943, during the Second World War, he organized the establishment of the first (and at the time, illegal) Christian Democracy party, or Democrazia Cristiana, drawing upon the ideology of the Popular Party. From 1945 to 1953 he was the prime minister of eight successive Christian Democratic governments. His eight-year rule remains a landmark of political longevity for one leader in modern Italian politics.

In 1946, when Italy became a Republic, he was elected Capo Provvisorio dello Stato (Provisional Head of State) Pro-Tempore and Regnante Reggente. He is the only man to have become President of the Council, Republic and Regent.

In 1952 he received the Karlspreis (engl.: International Charlemagne Prize of the City of Aachen), an Award by the German city of Aachen to people who contributed to the European idea and European peace. That same year he vetoed a coalition with former fascists and monarchists for the city of Rome elections advocated by some ecclesiastical circles (the so-called operazione Sturzo); Democrazia Cristiana won, but the governmental block lost some 11%. Subsequently, Pope Pius XII denied him audience, which he accepted as a Catholic but protested as Italian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.

De Gasperi died in Sella di Valsugana, in Trentino. He is buried in the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, a basilica in Rome.

Part of the Politics series on
Christian democracy

Parties

Christian Democratic parties
Christian Democrat International
European People's Party
European Democratic Party
Euro Christian Political Movement
Christian Dem Org of America

Ideas

Social conservatism
Sphere sovereignty
Communitarianism
Stewardship

Catholic social teaching
Neo-Calvinism
Neo-Thomism

Important documents

Rerum Novarum (1891)
Stone Lectures (Princeton 1898)
Graves de Communi Re (1901)
Quadragesimo Anno (1931)
Laborem Exercens (1981)
Sollicitudi Rei Socialis (1987)
Centesimus Annus (1991)

Important figures

Thomas Aquinas · John Calvin
Pope Leo XIII · Abraham Kuyper
Maritain · Adenauer · De Gasperi
Pope Pius XI · Schuman
Pope John Paul II · Kohl

Politics Portal · edit

De Gasperi's tomb.

De Gasperi's memorial monument.

[edit] Bibliography

Pietro Scoppola, La proposta politica di De Gasperi, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1977.
Giulio Andreotti, Intervista su De Gasperi; a cura di Antonio Gambino, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1977.
Giulio Andreotti, De Gasperi visto da vicino, Milano, Rizzoli, 1986.
Nico Perrone, De Gasperi e l'America, Palermo, Sellerio, 1995.
Alcide De Gasperi: un percorso europeo, a cura di Eckart Conze, Gustavo Corni, Paolo Pombeni, Bologna, Il mulino, 2004.
Piero Craveri, De Gasperi, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006

[edit] See also

Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement
Alcide De Gasperi - one of the EU's founding fathers Page from the Italian presidency of the EU showing how Alcide De Gasperi fits into the European Union history.
Alcide De Gasperi Biography A biography by a student of the University of Wisconsin

Preceded by Ivanoe Bonomi	Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs 1944–1946	Succeeded by Pietro Nenni
Preceded by Ferruccio Parri	Prime Minister of Italy 1945–1953	Succeeded by Giuseppe Pella
Preceded by Giuseppe Romita	Italian Minister of the Interior 1946–1947	Succeeded by Mario Scelba
Preceded by Carlo Sforza	Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs 1951–1953	Succeeded by Giuseppe Pella
Preceded by Paul Henri Spaak	President of the European Parliament 1954	Succeeded by Giuseppe Pella
Preceded by none	Secretary of the Italian Christian Democracy 1944-1946	Succeeded by Attilio Piccioni
Preceded by Guido Gonella	Secretary of the Italian Christian Democracy 1953-1954	Succeeded by Arnaldo Forlani

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