Paolo Prodi

Paolo Prodi (3 October 1932 – 16 December 2016) was an Italian historian and politician.

Early life and education Born on 3 October 1932 in Scandiano, in the province of Reggio Emilia, he was one of the nine children of the engineer Mario Prodi and the elementary school teacher Enrichetta Franzoni. He was the brother of the politician, manager, and economist Romano Prodi, the professor and politician Vittorio Prodi, the physicist , the oncologist Giorgio Prodi, and the mathematician Giovanni Prodi. In 1945, at the age of 13, Prodi saw his parish priest killed, accused by the Italian partisans of wartime collaboration with Nazi Germany. After having won a scholarship at the Augustinianum College, he graduated in political science at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, and then completed his studies at the University of Bonn as a student of Hubert Jedin. Along with Jedin, he completed his study of the Council of Trent.

Career Prodi taught modern history at the University of Trento, of which he was the rector from 1972 to 1978 and dean of the Faculty of Letters from 1985 to 1988, the Sapienza University of Rome, and the University of Bologna, of which he was the dean of the Faculty of Teaching from 1969 to 1972. He was also president of the Giunta Storica Nazionale (formerly Giunta Centrale per gli Studi Storici) and a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. In 1965, he was one of the founders of the cultural and political association , with which he published several of his major works, such as Giuseppe Dossetti e le Officine bolognesi, Il sacramento del potere. Il giuramento politico nella storia costituzionale dell'Occidente, Il Sovrano Pontefice. Un corpo e due anime, Il tramonto della rivoluzione, Settimo non rubare, Storia moderna o genesi della modernità?, and Una storia della giustizia. Dal pluralismo dei fori al moderno dualismo tra coscienza e diritto.

Considered one of the leading experts in the history of law and of the Catholic Church, Prodi founded in 1973, together with Jedin, the , which he directed for more than two decades. In the 1992 Italian general election, Prodi was a candidate for Leoluca Orlando's The Network; he later abandoned this movement, in disagreement with Orlando's stance in favour of the abrogative referendum proposals that were subjected to popular approval in the 1993 Italian referendum. In 2000, he won the saggistica (non-fiction) category of the . In 2007, he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize.

For more times, Paolo Prodi was invited by and gave some lectures at the Grand Orient of Italy."Today we are a transparent institution that has returned to history. This is demonstrated by the dozens of our cultural conferences with participants of the calibre of Margherita Hack, Rita Levi Montalcini, Umberto Galimberti, Giuseppe Mussari, Ignazio Marino, Paolo Prodi, Gian Mario Cazzaniga and many other philosophers, historians and academics of renowned and distinguished science. Has the Democratic Party now realised that the left is also the daughter of Freemasonry? The names of those who fled to Paris during Fascism, the Partisan Brigades in Spain and the Constituent Assembly, where out of 75 members 8 were Freemasons, from Cipriano Facchinetti to Arturo Labriola and Meuccio Ruini, are proof of this." "Oggi siamo un'istituzione trasparente tornata nella storia. Lo dimostrano le decine di nostri convegni culturali con partecipanti del calibro di Margherita Hack, Rita Levi Montalcini, Umberto Galimberti, Giuseppe Mussari, Ignazio Marino, Paolo Prodi, Gian Mario Cazzaniga e tanti, filosofi, storici, accademici di reputazione e scienza preclare. Il Pd si accorge adesso che la sinistra è figlia anche della massoneria? Fanno fede i nomi dei fuorusciti a Parigi durante il fascismo, le Brigate partigiane in Spagna e la Costituente, dove su 75 membri 8 erano massoni, da Cipriano Facchinetti ad Arturo Labriola, Meuccio Ruini." Gustavo Raffi, former Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy. From an interview of Alberto Statera, I massoni di sinistra? Nelle logge sono 4mila, repubblica.it (June 9, 2010)

Personal life and death Prodi was married to Dede since 1969. They had four children: Giovanni, Gabriele, Marta, and Mario, all of whom grew up in Bologna. Prodi died in Bologna on 16 December 2016 at the age of 84. The building of the Department of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Trento was named after him. The family donated his archive to the university.

Works

Honours Italy Grand Official of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation, 1975. Italian Medal of Merit for Culture and Art, 1976. Italian Medal of Merit for Culture and Art, 1987.

Foreign Cross 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1992. Austrian Decoration for Science and Art, 1994.

References

Paolo Prodi

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