Mario Pannunzio

Mario Pannunzio (5 March 1910 – 10 February 1968) was an Italian journalist and politician.

While still at university he became a regular visitor at the Caffè Aragno in the city centre, which was a favourite meeting point for cerebrally inclined intellectuals during the 1930s.

He himself became known as "lo Sfaccendato" ("the idler") at the cafe according to one commentator, although his later achievements suggest that the judgement may have rested on incomplete information.

After this, respectful of his father's wishes, he enrolled at Rome University, emerging on 6 July 1931 with a degree in jurisprudence.

The grade of his university degree was indifferent: he had been keen to obtain his degree quickly in order to clear the way for dedicating himself to his real passion, which was not for law but for art.

In 1931 he took part in the "Prima quadriennale d'arte nazionale" (art exhibition) which ran from January till August 1931, exhibiting several pictures including a portrait of his sister, Sandrina.

Between 1933 and 1935 he was involved in three magazines, founded with a group of friends:

These early experiences of journalism would be highly significant: Panunzio understood "the enormous influence of journalism", a form of communication he had been inclined to overlook when, as a very young man, he had been preoccupied with communicating through art and literary criticism.

By 1934, however, he had abandoned painting, turning instead to literary criticism.

He got to know Attilio Riccio, formerly a fellow law student, who introduced him to this new milieu, and joined the editorial team of "Il Saggiatore", a short-lived left-field cultural magazine which had originated as a student publication.

He contributed reviews and articles in which he discussed the general characteristics and purpose of the novel.

It was also around this time that he renewed his acquaintance with Arrigo Benedetti (the two had known each other as children in Lucca.) and began his long friendship with Ennio Flaiano.

It was in 1935 that Mario Pannunzio married Mary Malina, a young Hungarian actress whom he had met at a Rome theatre.

The marriage was childless.

During 1936 and 1937 Pannunzio devoted himself to cinema.

Basing himself at the newly established Experimental film centre in Rome, he directed the short film "Vecchio Tabarin" ("Old Tabarin").

He switched to journalism in 1937 invited, with Arrigo Benedetti to join the editorial team on "Omnibus".

Newly set up by Leo Longanesi, and operated under the auspices of the Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera group, the weekly news magazine was produced using the then innovative Rotogravure printing process.

Pannunzio contributed as the film critic.

However, in February 1939 "Omnibus" was closed down by the government.

By this time two years working on Longanesi's periodical had provided Pannunzio with an effective apprenticeship in an editorial office.

Identified as one of the best of Longanesi's "apprentices", Pannunzio was invited to Milan by Angelo Rizzoli who was planning to launch a new magazine using "Rotogravure".

With Benedetti, Pannunzio now set about creating a new intellectual focus for non-mainstream intellectuals.

He chose to use the title of his earlier short-lived publication, "Oggi" ("Today").

As a journalist he was the director in charge of the daily newspaper Risorgimento Liberale (Liberal reawakening) in the 1940s and of the weekly political magazine Il Mondo (The World) in the 1950s.

As a politician he was a co-founder of the revived Italian Liberal Party in the 1940s and then of the Radical Party in 1955.

Mario Pannunzio was born in Lucca, a prosperous Tuscan city a short distance inland to the north of Pisa.

He was the second son of Guglielmo Pannunzio, a lawyer of strong communist proclivities originally from the Abruzzo region.

The boy's mother, Emma Bernardini, came from a traditional catholic family from the minor aristocracy.

When Mario was 10 his father fell foul of the local Fascists and the family were obliged to relocate, ending up in Rome which is where Mario completed his schooling at the prestigious liceo classico Mamiani (classical secondary school).

(The old liberal party had been banned under the Fascist regime which preferred to operate with a one-party political structure.) The middle and later 1940s were characterised by powerful political disagreement in Italy.

On this occasion Oggi survived till January 1942 before it was closed down by the Fascist authorities after it published an article by a contributor whom they disliked.

Pannunzio returned to Rome.

Later that year the Mussolini government fell.

Pannunzio joined with Leo Longanesi to compose the editorial which appeared in Il Messaggero on 26/27 July 1943, celebrating the return of liberty.

During the German occupation of Rome (which began on 8 September 1943), Pannunzio formed a clandestine liberal grouping with like minded friends in the city, "the Italian liberal movement".

During December 1943 Pannunzio was arrested by Nazis while he was in the newspaper's print works: he spent several months in the Regina Coeli (prison).

After the liberation, Pannunzio was appointed director of "Risorgimento Liberale", which now became the official newspaper of the newly reconstituted Italian Liberal Party.

The mouthpiece of the movement, "Risorgimento Liberale"("Liberal Re-awakening") was a notionally daily newspaper, published at irregular intervals during the second half of 1943 and thereafter till the liberation of Rome (4 June 1944).

Pannunzio did not hesitate to oppose the National Liberation Committee ("Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale" / CLN), a broad coalition of political groupings united only by opposition to Fascism and, until the general election of June 1946, the closest thing occupied post-war Italy had to a government.