Luigi Einaudi

For the former acting Secretary General of the Organization of American States, see Luigi R. Einaudi.

Luigi Einaudi OMRI
Luigi Einaudi in December 1948
President of Italy
In office 12 May 1948 – 11 May 1955
Prime Minister	Alcide De Gasperi Giuseppe Pella Amintore Fanfani Mario Scelba
Preceded by	Enrico De Nicola
Succeeded by	Giovanni Gronchi
Deputy Prime Minister of Italy
In office 1 June 1947 – 11 May 1948
Prime Minister	Alcide De Gasperi
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Giovanni Porzio
Minister of the Budget
In office 6 June 1947 – 11 May 1948
Prime Minister	Alcide De Gasperi
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Giuseppe Pella
Governor of the Bank of Italy
In office 5 January 1945 – 11 May 1948
Preceded by	Vincenzo Azzolini
Succeeded by	Donato Menichella
Parliamentary offices Member of the Senate of the Republic In office 11 May 1955 – 30 October 1961 For life Member of the Constituent Assembly In office 25 June 1946 – 31 January 1948 Constituency National Constituency Member of the Senate of the Kingdom In office 6 October 1919 – 24 June 1946 Appointed by Victor Emmanuel III
Personal details
Born	(1874-03-24)24 March 1874 Carrù, Piedmont, Kingdom of Italy
Died	30 October 1961(1961-10-30) (aged 87) Rome, Italy
Political party	Italian Liberal Party
Spouse	Ida Pellegrini
Children	Giulio Mario
Alma mater	University of Turin
Profession	Teacher economist
Signature

Luigi Numa Lorenzo Einaudi OMRI (Italian: [luˈiːdʒi eiˈnaudi]; 24 March 1874 – 30 October 1961) was an Italian politician and economist. He served as the president of Italy from 1948 to 1955.

Early life

Einaudi was born to Lorenzo and Placida Fracchia in Carrù, in the province of Cuneo, Piedmont. In Turin he attended Liceo classico Cavour and completed his university studies; in the same years he became acquainted with socialist ideas and collaborated with the magazine Critica sociale, directed by the socialist leader Filippo Turati. In 1895, after overcoming financial difficulties, he graduated in jurisprudence, and was later appointed as professor in the University of Turin, the Polytechnic University of Turin and the Bocconi University of Milan.

As an economist Einaudi belonged to the classical school of economics in addition to Pietro Campilli, Epicarmo Corbino and Gustavo Del Vecchio.

Early political life

From the early 20th century, Einaudi moved increasingly towards a more conservative stance. In 1919 he was named Senator of the Kingdom of Italy. He also worked as a journalist for important Italian newspapers such as La Stampa and Il Corriere della Sera, as well as being financial correspondent for The Economist. An anti-fascist, he stopped working for Italian newspapers from 1926, under the Fascist regime, resuming his professional relationship with the Corriere della Sera after the fall of the regime in 1943. After the Armistice (8 September 1943) he fled to Switzerland, returning to Italy in 1944.

Einaudi was Governor of the Bank of Italy from 5 January 1945 until 11 May 1948, and was also a founding member of the Consulta Nazionale which opened the way to the new Parliament of the Italian Republic after World War II. Later he was Minister of Finances, Treasury and Balance, as well as Vice-Premier, in 1947–48. He was also a member of the neo-liberal think tank the Mont Pelerin Society.

President (1948–1955)

Luigi Einaudi with his son Giulio in 1951

On 11 May 1948 he was elected the second President of the Italian Republic. At the end of the seven-year term of office in 1955 he became Life Senator. Einaudi was a member of numerous cultural, economic and university institutions. He was a supporter of the ideal of European Federalism.

Einaudi personally managed the activities of his farm near Dogliani, producing Nebbiolo wine, for which he boasted to be using the most advanced agricultural developments. In 1950, monarchist satirical magazine Candido published a cartoon in which Einaudi is at the Quirinal Palace, surrounded by a presidential guard of honour (the corazzieri) of giant bottles of Nebbiolo wine, each labeled with the institutional logo. The cartoon was judged a lèse-majesté by a court of the time, and Giovannino Guareschi, as the director of the magazine, was held responsible and sentenced.

Luigi Einaudi died in Rome in 1961.

Family

Luigi married Countess Ida Pellegrini (1885-1968) December 19, 1903. Ida was born in Pescantina in 1885 into a family of the Veronese aristocracy , she was the daughter of Count Giulio Pellegrini. Ida attended the Regia School of Commerce in Turin, where she met her future husband, Luigi Einaudi, who was her professor at the time. Both their son Giulio, a prominent Italian publisher, and their grandson, Ludovico, a neo-Classical musician, subsequently made names for themselves.

Another son, Mario, was a Cornell University professor and active anti-fascist. The Mario Einaudi Center For International Studies is named after him. Additionally, Mario founded the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi in Turin in honor of his father.

Also the research center of the Bank of Italy, the Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF), is named in honor of Luigi Einaudi.

Bibliography

• Principi di scienza delle finanze (1932)
• Il buon governo (1954)
• Prediche inutili (1956–1959)
• Tracotanze protezionistiche (1919)
• Via il Prefetto! (1944)
• On Abstract and Historical Hypotheses and on Value Judgments in Economic Sciences, Critical Edition with an Introduction and Afterword by Paolo Silvestri. 'Routledge Studies in the History of Economics, Vol 185', New York-London, 2017, ISBN 978-0-415-51790-4.

Sources

• Acocella, N. (ed.), "Luigi Einaudi: studioso, statista, governatore", Carocci, Roma, 2010, ISBN 978-88-430-5660-6.
• Forte, F. and Marchionatti, R. (2011). Luigi Einaudi's economics of liberalism. The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, September 1–38.
• Giordano, A. (2004), Luigi Einaudi and the Dilemmas of Liberal Democracy, Notizie di Politeia, XX, 2004, n. 75, pp. 7–12 (http://www-4.unipv.it/paviagc/?page_id=236).
• Silvestri, Paolo The ideal of good government in Luigi Einaudi's Thought and Life: Between Law and Freedom, in Paolo Heritier, Paolo Silvestri (Eds.), Good government, Governance, Human complexity. Luigi Einaudi's legacy and contemporary societies, Leo Olschki, Firenze, 2012, pp. 55–95. ISBN 978-88-222-6161-8
• Silvestri, Paolo, "Preface", in L. Einaudi, On Abstract and Historical Hypotheses and on Value judgments in Economic Sciences, Routledge, London – New York, 2017, pp. XXIV-XXXII.
• Silvestri, Paolo, "The defence of economic science and the issue of value judgments", in L. Einaudi, On Abstract and Historical Hypotheses and on Value judgments in Economic Sciences, Routledge, London – New York, 2017, pp. 1–34.
• Silvestri Paolo, "Freedom and taxation between good and bad polity, and the economist-whole-man", in L. Einaudi, On Abstract and Historical Hypotheses and on Value judgments in Economic Sciences, Routledge, London – New York, 2017, pp. 94–136.

External links

• Works by or about Luigi Einaudi at the Internet Archive
• Biography at the Official Website of Presidency of Italian Republic (in Italian)
• Newspaper clippings about Luigi Einaudi in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW