Piero Calamandrei (21 April 1889 – 27 September 1956) was an Italian author,

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

soldier A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a Conscription, conscripted or volunteer Enlisted rank, enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, a warrant officer, or an Officer (armed forces), officer. Etymology The wo ...

, university

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

, and politician. He was one of Italy's leading authorities on the law of

civil procedure Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and regulations along with some standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits (as opposed to procedures in criminal law matters). These rules govern how a lawsuit or ca ...

Early life and education

Calamandrei was born in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

. After studies in

Pisa Pisa ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Tuscany, Central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for the Leaning Tow ...

and

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, he assumed a professorship at the

law school A law school (also known as a law centre/center, college of law, or faculty of law) is an institution, professional school, or department of a college or university specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for b ...

at the University of

Messina Messina ( , ; ; ; ) is a harbour city and the capital city, capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of 216,918 inhabitants ...

in 1915. He fought as a volunteer in the 218th infantry regiment in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, rising to the rank of captain, and turning down a further promotion to resume teaching. In 1918, he resumed teaching at the University of

Modena Modena (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It has 184,739 inhabitants as of 2025. A town, and seat of an archbis ...

, then went on to teach at the law school in

Siena Siena ( , ; traditionally spelled Sienna in English; ) is a city in Tuscany, in central Italy, and the capital of the province of Siena. It is the twelfth most populated city in the region by number of inhabitants, with a population of 52,991 ...

, and finally, in Florence. His notable works include ''La cassazione civile'' (Appellate Review of Civil Judgments) (1920) and ''Studi sul processo civile'' (1930). He also co-founded the journals ''Rivista di diritto processuale'' (1924), ''Il foro toscano'' (The Tuscan Courts) (1926) and '' Il Ponte'' (The Bridge) (1945), and participated in the 1942 revision of the Italian code of civil procedure.

Career

Calamandrei was highly critical of

Italian fascism Italian fascism (), also called classical fascism and Fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian fascism is associated with a series of political parties le ...

; he signed

Benedetto Croce Benedetto Croce, ( , ; 25 February 1866 – 20 November 1952) was an Italian idealist philosopher, historian, and politician who wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, historiography, and aesthetics. A Cultural liberalism, poli ...

's 1925 Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals and was linked to the Florentine journal '' Non mollare!'' (''Don't Give Up!'') published between January and October 1925. After the fall of the fascist regime in 1943, the Allies named him rector of the

University of Florence The University of Florence ( Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'') (in acronym UNIFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The f ...

. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly of Italy in 1945 as a member of the Action Party (PdA), a liberal socialist and

social liberal Social liberalism is a political philosophy and variety of liberalism that endorses social justice, social services, a mixed economy, and the expansion of civil and political rights, as opposed to classical liberalism which favors limited g ...

party, and to the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...

in 1948 as a member of the

Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a Social democracy, social democratic and Democratic socialism, democratic socialist political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parti ...

(PSI). On 4 December 1952, Calamandrei penned the antifascist

poem Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

, ''Lapide ad ignominia'' ("A Monument to Ignominy"). The German general

Albert Kesselring Albert Kesselring (30 November 1885 – 16 July 1960) was a German military officer and convicted war crime, war criminal who served in the ''Luftwaffe'' during World War II. In a career which spanned both world wars, Kesselring reached the ra ...

who was responsible for various

war crimes A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...

during the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

occupation of Italy had been sentenced to death, a sentence that was later commuted. When Kesselring was freed, he refused to repent for his crimes and claimed the Italians ought to build him a monument for his good work there. Calamandrei responded with this poem, stating that if Kesselring returned, he would indeed find a monument but one stronger than stone and comprising the fighters within the

Italian resistance movement The Italian Resistance ( ), or simply ''La'' , consisted of all the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social Republic during the Second World War in Italy ...

who "willingly took up arms, to preserve dignity, not to promote hate, and who decided to fight back against the shame and terror of the world". Calamandrei's poem appears in monuments in the towns of

Cuneo Cuneo (; ; ; ) is a city and in Piedmont, Italy, the capital of the province of Cuneo, the fourth largest of Italy’s provinces by area. It is located at 550 metres (1,804 ft) in the south-west of Piedmont, at the confluence of the ri ...

and Montepulciano. Calamandrei died in Florence at the age of 67.

Works

* * * - III edition doubled, Le Monnier, 1954; introduction by Paolo Barile, Firenze, Ponte alle Grazie, 1989. * ''Delle buone relazioni fra giudici e avvocati nel nuovo processo civile. Due dialoghi'', Firenze, Le Monnier, 1941 * ed. privata 1941 G. Mazzoni Rajna ed., Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1965; preface by Giorgio Luti, Vallecchi, 1989; Christophe Carraud ed., Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2013, . * ''Costruire la democrazia. Premesse alla Costituente'', Edizioni U, 1946; Montepulciano (Siena), Le Balze, 2004. * , preface by

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (; 9 December 1920 – 16 September 2016) was an Italian politician, statesman and banker who was the President of Italy from 1999 to 2006 and the Prime Minister of Italy from 1993 to 1994. A World War II veteran, C ...

, Laterza, 2006. * ''Parlare di Firenze'', Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1958. * ''Opere giuridiche'', Mauro Cappelletti ed., 10 voll., Morano, Napoli * ''Scritti e discorsi politici'' (vol.1: Storia di dodici anni; vol.II: Discorsi parlamentari e politica costituzionale),

Norberto Bobbio Norberto Bobbio (; 18 October 1909 – 9 January 2004) was an Italian philosopher of law and political sciences and a historian of political thought. He also wrote regularly for the Turin-based daily '' La Stampa''. Bobbio was a social lib ...

ed., La Nuova Italia, Firenze 1966 * ''Lettere 1915-1956'', 2 voll., Giorgio Agosti and Alessandro Galante Garrone ed., Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1968. * ''Scritti ed inediti celliniani'', Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1971. * ''La burla di Primavera con altre fiabe, e prose sparse'', Palermo, Sellerio, 1987. * ''In difesa dell'onestà e della libertà della scuola'', Palermo, Sellerio, 1994. * ''Diario (1939-1945)'', Giorgio Agosti and Alessandro Galante Garrone ed., Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1982; riedizione 1997. * ''La Costituzione e leggi per attuarla'', Milano, Giuffré, 2000. * ''Futuro postumo: testi inediti 1950'', Silvia Calamandrei ed., Montepulciano (SI), Le Balze, 2004. * ''Costituzione e le leggi di Antigone'', Firenze, Sansoni, 2004. * ''Ada con gli occhi stellanti. Lettere 1908-1914'', Palermo, Sellerio 2005. * ''Zona di guerra. Lettere, scritti e discorsi (1915-1924)'', S. Calamandrei and A. Casellato ed., Collana Storia e Società, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2007. * ''Una famiglia in guerra. Lettere e scritti (1939-1956)'', with Franco Calamandrei, Alessandro Casellato ed., Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2008. * ''Fede nel diritto'', Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2008. * ''Per la scuola'', Palermo, Sellerio, 2008. * ''Lo Stato siamo noi'', preface by Giovanni De Luna, Milano, Chiarelettere, 2011. ollection of writings 1946 - 1956* ''Chiarezza nella Costituzione'', introduction by C. A. Ciampi, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2012. * ''Non c'è libertà senza legalità'', Roma-Bari, Laterza 2013. * ''Il fascismo come regime della menzogna'', Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2014. * ''Il mio primo processo'', Milano, Henry Beyle, 2014. * ''Un incontro con Piero Della Francesca'', Milano, Henry Beyle, 2015. * ''Gli avvocati'', Milano, Henry Beyle, 2015. * ''Diario'' (1939–45), edizione integrale riscontrata su manoscritto, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2015. * * ''Vino colorato artificialmente con sostanza vietata dalla legge'', Milano, Henry Beyle, 2016. *

References

* * Alessandro Galante Garrone, ''Calamandrei'', Milano, Garzanti, 1987. * ''Piero Calamandrei: ventidue saggi su un grande maestro'', a cura di Paolo Barile, Milano, Giuffrè, 1990. * Roberta Gambacciani Lucchesi, ''Piero Calamandrei: i due volti del federalismo'', Firenze, Polistampa, 2004.

External links

* – University of Milan, 1955 (in Italian)
''Lapide ad ignominia''
(in Italian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Calamandrei, Piero 1889 births 1956 deaths Politicians from Florence Action Party (Italy) politicians Italian Democratic Socialist Party politicians Popular Unity (Italy) politicians Members of the National Council (Italy) Members of the Constituent Assembly of Italy Deputies of Legislature I of Italy Italian anti-fascists Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals 20th-century Italian jurists University of Pisa alumni Academic staff of the University of Messina Academic staff of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Academic staff of the University of Siena Academic staff of the University of Florence Italian military personnel of World War I Members of Giustizia e Libertà Italian magazine editors Italian magazine founders