Mattarella remembers Norberto Bobbio 20 years after his death: “He left a precious legacy for European and Italian civil conscience”

On January 9, 2004, exactly twenty years ago, he died in Turin Norberto Bobbio. Philosopher, jurist, historian and political scientist, Bobbio was considered the greatest legal theorist and political philosopher in the second half of the twentieth century. Among the founders of the Venetian Action Party in 1942, he participated in the Liberation struggle, first in Padua and then in Piedmont. After the Liberation, he participated in the elections for the Constituent Assembly as a candidate of the Action Party in the Padua-Rovigo-Vicenza-Verona constituency.
Con Piero Calamandrei, Ferruccio Parri, Arturo Carlo Jemolo and others, he returned briefly to the political scene during the 1953 elections with the Popular Unity movement, which aimed to counter the majoritarian electoral law, and contributed to preventing the triggering of the majority bonus. In 1967 he participated in the Constituent Assembly of the Unified Socialist Party, which split again after the failure of the 1968 elections. He never held political office until his nomination as senator for life in July 1984 by Sandro Pertini.
On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of his death, Bobbio was remembered by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella with a message: “On the twentieth anniversary of the death of Norberto Bobbio, the Republic renews its homage to an illustrious intellectual of the Italian and international cultural panorama – writes the Head of State – Attentive scholar of the phenomena that gave impetus to the most significant historical events of the last century, Norberto Bobbio developed doctrines that constitute a precious legacy for European and Italian civil conscience”.

“In his reflections – continues Mattarella – he was able to combine, with an innovative approach, disciplines initially considered heterogeneous, offering an integrated vision of the principles that are the foundation of society, the State and law. His analyzes and the theories developed by him, his teachings are and will be the subject of in-depth studies in the most prestigious places of culture. His commitment – concludes the President of the Republic – constitutes a significant contribution to the worldwide doctrinal development of the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms, pluralism, democracy and equality, key values ​​of our Constitution and the basis of peaceful coexistence . The Republic, grateful to Norberto Bobbio for having illustrated the country with his very high merits in the scientific field, wanted him to be a senator for life.”

Son of Luigi Bobbio e di Rosa Caviglia, Norberto Bobbio was born on 18 October 1909 in Turin. He studied at the “Massimo d’Azeglio” Gymnasium-Liceo in Turin, graduating in Law in 1931 and two years later in Philosophy with a thesis on Husserl’s phenomenology. Having won the competition for tenured professor at the end of 1938, he taught Philosophy of Law in the Faculty of Law of the University of Siena (1938/40), Padua (1940/48) and Turin (1948/72). In Turin from 1972 he was a professor of Political Philosophy at the Faculty of Political Sciences, of which he was dean in the three-year period 1972/75, and to which he belonged until 1984, the year in which he retired as professor emeritus.

Having joined the management of the “Review of Philosophy” since 1935, he was its co-director for a long time together with Nicola Abbagnano, and later became its managing director. Co-director of International journal of philosophy of lawhe directed for a few years To understandorgan of the Société européenne de culture, in which it has actively participated since its foundation in 1950. Between 1950 and 1956 he was president of the People’s Book Center.

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From 1953, for some years, he directed the “Gioele Solari” Institute of Political Sciences of the University of Turin. He was president, from 1961 to 1993, of the Piero Gobetti Study Center in Turin. From 1960 to 1965 he held the position of president of the Turin Resistance Club.
National member of the Academy of Sciences of Turin since 1960; from 1958 he was a corresponding member and, from 1966, a national member of the Accademia dei Lincei. He has been a corresponding member of the British Academy since 1965 and of other national and international scientific institutions. For his scientific merits he has been awarded, in Italy and abroad, numerous prizes, such as the Balzan International Foundation Prize and the Giovanni Agnelli Prize.