Tristano Codignola (;

Assisi Assisi (, also ; ; from ; Central Italian: ''Ascesi'') is a town and comune of Italy in the Province of Perugia in the Umbria region, on the western flank of Monte Subasio. It is generally regarded as the birthplace of the Latin poet Prope ...

, 23 October 1913 –

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

, 12 December 1981) was an Italian politician.

Biography

Son of Ernesto Codignola, pedagogist and manager of the Florentine publishing house La Nuova Italia, and Anna Maria Melli, Tristano Codignola was born in Assisi in 1913. After graduating in law in 1935, he devoted himself a lot to the company inherited from his father of which he was first director (1936) and managing director then (1945); in January 1942 he was arrested for activities against the fascist regime and in June was sentenced to political confinement in the prison of Florence and then of Lanciano, from where however he left in November thanks to an amnesty, even if supervised by the

OVRA The OVRA, unofficially known as the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism (), was the secret police of the Kingdom of Italy during the reign of King Victor Emmanuel III. It was founded in 1927 under the regime of Italian f ...

. He was a prominent exponent of

liberal socialism Liberal socialism is a political philosophy that incorporates Liberalism, liberal principles to socialism. This synthesis sees liberalism as the political theory that takes the inner freedom of the human spirit as a given and adopts liberty a ...

and therefore among the founders of the Action Party (which brought together associations such as

Justice and Freedom In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes'' of Justinian, a ...

), formed in 1943 by politicians who like him had fought Nazifascism, and of which he was the representative during the Italian civil war, actively participating in the Florentine Resistance. Following the killing of

Giovanni Gentile Giovanni Gentile ( , ; 30 May 1875 – 15 April 1944) was an Italian pedagogue, philosopher, and politician. He, alongside Benedetto Croce, was one of the major exponents of Italian idealism in Italian philosophy, and also devised his own sys ...

, while not sparing severe criticism of the figure of the philosopher and his adhesion to the

Italian Social Republic The Italian Social Republic (, ; RSI; , ), known prior to December 1943 as the National Republican State of Italy (; SNRI), but more popularly known as the Republic of Salò (, ), was a List of World War II puppet states#Germany, German puppe ...

, he took a tough position against the authors of the attack on the illegal paper ''La Libertà'' of 30 April 1944. Immediately after the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Codignola continued his experience in the Action Party, on whose lists he was elected deputy to the

Constituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

in 1946. In the election of 1948 he was candidate on the Socialist Unity list but was not elected. In December 1949 Codignola joined the split of June of that year from 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) led by

Giuseppe Romita Giuseppe Romita (7 January 1887 – 15 March 1958) was an Italian socialist politician. He served several times as a cabinet minister and member of the Italian Parliament. Early life and education The son of Guglielmo Romita and Maria Gianneli, ...

and called "Socialist Unification Movement", which merged with some politicians who left the Socialist Party of Italian Workers (PSLI), into the Unitary Socialist Party (PSU); this one in turn in the 1951 merged with the same PSLI, that was renamed "Socialist Party (Italian Section of the Socialist International)". The PS(SIIS) changed its name again in 1952 to

Italian Democratic Socialist Party The Italian Democratic Socialist Party (, PSDI), also known as Italian Social Democratic Party, was a social-democratic political party in Italy. The longest serving partner in government for Christian Democracy, the PSDI was an important for ...

(PSDI).

Giuseppe Saragat Giuseppe Saragat (; 19 September 1898 – 11 June 1988) was an Italian politician and statesman who served as President of Italy from 1964 to 1971. Early life Saragat was born on 19 September 1898 in Turin, Piedmont, Kingdom of Italy, to Sard ...

, at the PSDI congress of 1951, being closer to the

Christian Democrats Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics. Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well a ...

, managed to impose his own line and in December 1952 Codignola was expelled from the party for his opposition to the so-called "Scam law" (''legge truffa''); for this reason, in February the following year, he gave birth to Socialist Autonomy, that joined the Popular Unity movement, of which he became secretary. In the 1953 general election UP obtained only the 0.6% of the vote and Codignola was not elected this time either, but the votes to this party, combined with those of the

National Democratic Alliance The National Democratic Alliance (NDA; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Rāṣṭrīya Lokatāntrik Gaṭhabandhan'') is an Indian big tent Political group, multi-party political alliance, led by the country's biggest political party, the Bharatiya Janata Pa ...

, were sufficient to prevent the government coalition from reaching the quorum to obtain the majority prize. In 1957 he joined other socialist politicians in the PSI, of which he became responsible for public education of the party, a position he held until the 1976 congress. In 1981 he was expelled from the PSI for having signed a highly critical manifesto against the secretary

Bettino Craxi Benedetto "Bettino" Craxi ( ; ; ; 24 February 1934 – 19 January 2000) was an Italian politician and statesman, leader of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) from 1976 to 1993, and the 45th Prime Minister of Italy, prime minister of Italy from 1 ...

and the leadership of the PSI; together with the other expelled politicians he founded the "League of Socialists". However, he died at the end of that same year, during a conference of the neo-movement in

References

External links

Tristano Codignola's profile on treccani.itTristano Codignola's profile on anpi.it
{{DEFAULTSORT:Codignola, Tristano 1913 births 1981 deaths People from Assisi Action Party (Italy) politicians Italian Democratic Socialist Party politicians Socialist Autonomy politicians Popular Unity (Italy) politicians Italian Socialist Party politicians Members of the Constituent Assembly of Italy Deputies of Legislature III of Italy Deputies of Legislature IV of Italy Senators of Legislature V of Italy Politicians of Umbria