Vita gazette – The President Emeritus of the Republic, Senator Giorgio Napolitano, has passed away. Flags at half-mast at Palazzo Madama. The funeral chapel will be set up in Palazzo Madama. The day of the state funeral celebrations will be declared a national mourning.

The President Emeritus of the Republic passed away on 22 September at 7.45 pm at the Salvator Mundi clinic on the Gianicolo in Rome. He was the first President of the Republic elected twice, in 2006 and 2013.

Above all, given a harsh economic crisis, the President faced what many consider the darkest period of the last 50 years. Italy needed political stability. In the name of this principle, he has always tried to avoid the early dissolution of the legislature. He had always kept the commitment made on 15 May 2006 when, as the new president, he solemnly promised in front of the Chambers that he would never be the head of state of the majority that had elected him; he always looked to the country’s general interest. The man of reform leaves us a Neapolitan of great class, elegant and fussy, as he defined himself. Attentive to every detail, tireless worker, profound knowledge of parliamentary life and the political dynamics of the entire republican history.

Born in Naples on 29 June 1925. He graduated in law in December 1947 from the University of Naples with a thesis in political economy. He married in 1959 Clio Bittoni, a lawyer, daughter of a family of anti-fascists. They have two children, Giovanni and Giulio, and two grandchildren, Sofia and Simone.

In 1945-46, he was active in the movement for Faculty Student Councils and a delegate to the first National University Congress. Since 1942, in Naples, having enrolled at the University, he was part of a group of young anti-fascists. He joined, in 1945, the Italian Communist Party, of which he was a militant and then leader until the establishment of the Democratic Party of the Left.

He joined the PCI in 1946; from the autumn of that year to the spring of 1948, he was part of the secretariat of the Italian Economic Center for the South chaired by Sen. Parador. He also actively participated in the Movement for the Rebirth of Southern Italy since its birth (December 1947) and for over ten years. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in 1953 and was part of it – except in the fourth legislature – until 1996, constantly reconfirmed in the constituency of Naples.

In the VIII (from 1981) and the IX Legislature (until 1986), he was President of the Group of Communist Deputies. In the 1980s, he was mainly involved in the problems of international and European politics, both in the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chamber of Deputies and as a member (1984-92 and 1994-96) of the Italian delegation to the North Atlantic Assembly, both through multiple political and cultural initiatives. In 1978, he became the first communist leader to obtain a visa for the United States. In the USA, he holds conferences at Aspen and Harvard. His policy looks at relations with the European social democrats and with the Atlantic Alliance. From 1981 to 1986, he was group leader of the PCI deputies. From 1989 to 1992, he was a member of the European Parliament.

On 23 September 2005, he was appointed senator for life by the President of the Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

On 10 May 2006, he was elected President of the Republic with 543 votes. He was sworn in on 15 May 2006. On 20 April 2013, he was re-elected President of the Republic with 738 votes. He was sworn in on April 22, 2013.

He resigned on 14 January 2015. He became a senator by right and for life as president emeritus of the Republic.

During his two mandates, he conferred the role of Prime Minister on Romano Prodi, Silvio Berlusconi, Mario Monti, Enrico Letta, and Matteo Renzi. After leaving the Quirinale, he became a Senator by right and for life as President Emeritus of the Republic.