Paolo Emilio Taviani

Paolo Emilio Taviani (6 November 1912 – 18 June 2001) was an Italian political leader, economist, and historian of the career of Christopher Columbus.

Taviani was born in Genoa on 6 November 1912.

His mother, Elide Banchelli, was an elementary school teacher.

His father, Ferdinando, was a headmaster and one of the founders of the Genoese section of the Italian People's Party (1919).

After graduating from the Classical “Liceo”, Taviani went on to university where he earned a law degree in 1934.

The same year he obtained his journalist’s license and began working for various Catholic oriented newspapers.

In 1936 he obtained a second degree in social sciences from the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa ( Collegio Mussolini i.e. present day Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies) and in 1939 he earned a third degree in Letters and Philosophy from the Catholic University of Milan.

The next year he was professor of History and Philosophy in the public “Licei” as well as assistant lecturer in Geography at the University of Genoa.

But the fascists’ belligerent policies and, above all, the racial laws of 1938 shattered that illusion.

By the eve of the war, Taviani was firmly in the camp of the anti-fascists.

From 1943 he was professor of Demographics in the Faculty of Law in Genoa.

Already in secondary school Taviani joined the catholic group that was most sensitive to social issues.

At university he became head of the Genoese branch of FUCI (Federazione Universitaria dei Cattolici Italiani).

Following the Lateran Pacts, Taviani, a young man at the time, shared in the illusion that Fascism might one day evolve into a movement for social justice inspired by Catholic values.

Consequently, at the age of 18 he joined the PNF.

On 27 July 1943 just before the fall of the regime, Taviani founded in Liguria the section of the “Partito-Cristiano-Sociale Democratico” (later Christian Democracy, DC) bringing together young people from the Christian Social Movement with the older members of the People's Party.

Immediately after 8 September, under the pseudonym of Riccardo Pittaluga, Taviani founded the Committee for National Liberation in Liguria (CLNL) as representative of the Christian Democracy.

His clandestine activities often brought him among the partisans in the mountains (it was in these years that he became close friends with the commanders Aldo Gastaldi, "Bisagno" and Aurelio Ferrando, "Scrivia").

Taviani maintained contacts with Allied military missions that had parachuted behind enemy lines.

He was also editor of La Voce d'Italia a banned periodical published by the Resistance in Liguria.

Within the CLNL Taviani often argued the need for a single military command that could effectively coordinate the efforts of volunteers from so many different political backgrounds.

On the night of 23 April 1945 the CLNL assumed the leadership of the insurrection in Genoa.

On the evening of 25 April the German commander surrendered to representatives of the CLNL.

The next morning it was Taviani who announced that the city had been liberated in a radio address broadcast by the BBC: "Genoa is free. People of Genoa, rejoice! For the first time in the history of this war a military unit has surrendered to the spontaneous forces of a people: the people of Genoa!"

For his activity in the Resistance Taviani would later receive the Gold Medal for Merit in War in Italy, Gold medals for Merit in the United States and the Soviet Union, the title of Grand Official of the Légion d'Honneur in France.

Taviani wrote about the Resistance in the Breve storia dell’insurrezione di Genova, in the collection of short stories Pittaluga Racconta as well as in dozens of articles.

His early years in the Resistance marked Taviani's entire political career.

From 1947 to 1950 he was first Vice-secretary, then National Political Secretary of the Christian Democratic Party.

In the party he always supported the secular basis that De Gasperi had wanted.

He was a partisan leader in Liguria, a Gold Medal of the Italian resistance movement, then a member of the Consulta (National Assembly gathered to direct the transformation of the monarchy into a Republic) and the Constituent Council, later of the Italian Parliament from 1948 until his death.

Several times minister in the Republic’s governments.

He was author of studies on economics and important works on Christopher Columbus, University professor and journalist.

Giorgio Napolitano, the then-President of the Republic of Italy, described him as such: "Eminent political and government figure who for decades continued to bear witness to the diversity of ideals that inspired the Resistance."

In the elections from 1948 to 1976 Taviani always managed to obtain the most votes among the deputies elected from Liguria.

From 1963 he was President of Italian Federation of Volunteers for Freedom (FIVL).

In 1987 he was appointed President of the Historical Museum of the Liberation of Rome "Via Tasso".

On 25 April 1994, he gave a passionate speech in defence of the values of the Resistance during a large demonstration which was strongly opposed by supporters of the Centre-Right coalition.

In 2001 Taviani celebrated the first Memorial Day in Italy remembering the mass extermination of Jews at the "Via Tasso" Museum.

Immediately after the war, Taviani became involved in the task of transforming the monarchy into a republic.

Appointed to the Consulta he was later elected to the Constituent Council where he drafted the articles regarding property in the Constitution of the Italian Republic (arts. 41-45 in the final text).