Name: Sandro

Surname: Pertini

Sandro Pertini, born Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Pertini (Stella, 25 September 1896 - Rome, 24 February 1990), was an Italian politician, journalist and partisan. He was the seventh president of the Italian Republic, in office from 1978 to 1985, the first socialist and the only member of the PSI to hold the office. During the First World War, Pertini fought on the Isonzo front and, for various merits in the field, was proposed for the silver medal for military valor in 1917, but having been reported as a socialist sympathizer on neutral positions, the honor it was conferred only in 1985. In the postwar period it joined the Unitary Socialist Party of Filippo Turati and distinguished itself for its energetic opposition to fascism. Persecuted for his political commitment against Mussolini's dictatorship, in 1925 he was sentenced to eight months in prison, and then forced into exile in France to avoid being placed in confinement for five years. He continued his anti-fascist activity abroad and for this reason, after returning under a false name to Italy in 1929, he was arrested and sentenced by the Special Court for the Defense of the State first to imprisonment and subsequently to confinement. Only in 1943, at the fall of the fascist regime, he was freed. He helped rebuild the old PSI by founding the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity together with Pietro Nenni and Lelio Basso. On 10 September 1943 he participated in the battle of Porta San Paolo in an attempt to defend Rome from German occupation. He later became one of the leading figures of the Resistance and was a member of the military junta of the National Liberation Committee representing the PSIUP. In Rome he was captured by the SS and sentenced to death; he managed to save himself by escaping from the Regina Coeli prison together with Giuseppe Saragat and five other socialist exponents thanks to an intervention by the partisans of the Matteotti Brigades. In the Resistance struggle he was active in Rome, Tuscany, Valle d'Aosta and Lombardy, distinguishing himself in various actions that earned him a gold medal for military valor. In April 1945 he participated in the events that led to the liberation from Nazi-fascism, organizing the Milan insurrection and voting on the decree that sentenced Mussolini and the other fascist hierarchs to death. In republican Italy he was elected deputy in the Constituent Assembly for the socialists, then senator in the first legislature and deputy in the following ones, always re-elected from 1953 to 1976. He held the office of president of the Chamber for two consecutive legislatures, from 1968 to 1976 of deputies, he was finally elected president of the Italian Republic on 8 July 1978. Going often beyond the "low profile" typical of the institutional role he held, his presidential term was characterized by a strong personal imprint that earned him considerable popularity, so much so that to be remembered as the "president most loved by the Italians" or the "president of the Italians". As head of state he gave the office to six presidents of the Council: Giulio Andreotti (whose courtesy resignation he presented in 1978 he rejected), Francesco Cossiga (1979-1980), Arnaldo Forlani (1980-1981), Giovanni Spadolini (1981- 1982), Amintore Fanfani (1982-1983) and Bettino Craxi (1983-1987). He appointed five senators for life: Leo Valiani in 1980, Eduardo De Filippo in 1981, Camilla Ravera in 1982 (first female senator for life), Carlo Bo and Norberto Bobbio in 1984; finally he appointed three judges of the Constitutional Court: in 1978 Virgilio Andrioli, in 1980 Giuseppe Ferrari and in 1982 Giovanni Conso. Democratic and reformist exponent of Italian socialism, during his career he worked hard for the growth of the PSI and for the unity of the Italian socialists, strenuously opposing the split of 1947 and supporting the reunification of the left. As President of the Republic in 1979 he conferred, for the f