Oscar Luigi Scalfaro

Senator Oscar Luigi Scalfaro
9th President of Italy
In office May 28, 1992 – May 15, 1999
Prime Minister	Giuliano Amato Carlo Azeglio Ciampi Silvio Berlusconi Lamberto Dini Romano Prodi Massimo D'Alema
Preceded by	Francesco Cossiga
Succeeded by	Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
President of the Chamber of Deputies
In office April 24, 1992 – May 25, 1992
Preceded by	Leonilde Iotti
Succeeded by	Giorgio Napolitano
Minister of Education
In office July 26, 1972 – July 7, 1973
Prime Minister	Giulio Andreotti
Preceded by	Riccardo Misasi
Succeeded by	Franco Maria Malfatti
Lifetime Senator
Incumbent
Assumed office May 19, 1999
Constituency	Former President
Personal details
Born	September 9, 1918 (1918-09-09) (age 93) Novara, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Political party	Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Maria Inzitari (1924-1944)
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Oscar Luigi Scalfaro (Italian pronunciation: [ˈɔskar luˈiːʤi ˈskalfaro]; born September 9, 1918^[1]), Italian politician and magistrate, was the ninth President of the Italian Republic from 1992 to 1999, and is currently a senator for life. Formerly a member of Christian Democracy, he currently belongs to the centre-left Democratic party.

Biography

Scalfaro was born in Novara, Province of Novara.^[1]

He graduated in Law from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (”Catholic University of the Sacred Heart“) in Milan on July 30, 1941 . On October 21, 1942 he entered the magistrature. In 1945, after the end of World War II, he became a public prosecuting attorney, and to date he is the last Italian attorney to have obtained a death sentence (but the accused was pardoned before the execution could take place). In 1946 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly and later in 1948 he became a deputy representing the district of Turin. He was re-elected ten times in a row until 1992. Within the Democrazia Cristiana party he was associated with its left wing.

On May 25, 1992 he was elected as President of the Italian Republic, after a two week stalemate of unsuccessful attempts to reach agreement. The killing of anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone prompted his election. His mandate ended in May 1999, and he automatically became a lifetime member of the Senate.

In recent times, Scalfaro was the chairman of the committee that advocated the abrogation, in the referendum of June 25 and 26, 2006, of the constitutional reform that had been passed in parliament the previous year by the former center-right majority. Along with all the center-left (and a few center-right personalities, too), Scalfaro considered it to be dangerous for national unity and for other reasons. The opponents of the reform won a landslide victory in the referendum.

Scalfaro is the oldest surviving former Italian president and is the second oldest member of the Senate, after Rita Levi-Montalcini. He consequently took the temporary presidency of the newly-elected assembly which followed the 2006 general election, as Levi Montalcini refused the role because of her age. This made him one of the three politicians in Italian history to have presided over the three highest-ranked offices in the Italian Republic: President of the Republic, President of the Senate, and President of the Chamber of Deputies; the others are Sandro Pertini and Enrico De Nicola).

A staunch Catholic, and in the past a rather conservative and anti-communist politician, Scalfaro distrusted many members of the DC who changed support to Forza Italia and is on very bad terms with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He openly supported the center-left coalition, which included two communist parties, that won the 1996 and 2006 elections. Despite his age, he also actively campaigned, for the "no" side, in the June 2006 referendum on a constitutional reform proposed by Berlusconi's House of Freedom coalition during its control of the government.

Scalfaro in 2009.

During the Second World War, in 1944, he lost his 20-year-old wife Maria Inzitari. Since then, he has not been married. He has a daughter, Marianna.

After the 2008 parliamentary election, he was again asked to preside as pro tempore Speaker of the Senate after Rita Levi-Montalcini again refused the post, but this time he too declined to serve.

Honours and awards

As President of the Italian Republic, Scalfaro was Head of several Italian Orders: Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (28 May 1992 to 15 May 1999), Military Order of Italy, Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity, Order of Merit for Labour and the Order of Vittorio Veneto. He was also awarded the Gold Medal for meritorious school, culture and art^{[clarification needed]} (July 31, 1973).

He also received several foreign honours:

Knight of Magistral Grace of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (1950)

Bailiff Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

Collar of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana (Estonia)

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland)

Knight Grand Cross of the Grand Order of King Tomislav ("For outstanding contribution to the promotion of friendship and development co-operation between the Republic of Croatia and the Italian Republic." - 17 December 1997)

Knight of the Order of the Three Stars, First Class (Latvia)

Grand Cross of the Order of Vytautas the Great (Lithuania)

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Page at Senate website (Italian).

External links

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro - full access article
• (Italian) La biografia del presidente

Political offices
Preceded by Riccardo Misasi	Italian Minister of Public Instruction 1972 - 1973	Succeeded by Franco Maria Malfatti
Preceded by Virginio Rognoni	Italian Minister of the Interior 1983 - 1987	Succeeded by Amintore Fanfani
Preceded by Leonilde Iotti	President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies 1992	Succeeded by Giorgio Napolitano
Preceded by Francesco Cossiga	President of the Italian Republic 1992 - 1999	Succeeded by Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
Order of precedence
Preceded by Alfonso Quaranta President of the Constitutional Court	Italian order of precedence Former President of the Italian Republic	Succeeded by Carlo Azeglio Ciampi Former President of the Italian Republic

Persondata
Name	Scalfaro, Oscar Luigi
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	September 9, 1918
Place of birth	Novara, Italy
Date of death
Place of death