Early life and academic career Marchesi studied at the Nicola Spedalieri classical high school in Catania where in 1893 he founded a newspaper, Lucifero, which in its title revealed his admiration for the young
Giosuè Carducci and for the democratic and anticlerical
Mario Rapisardi professor of Italian and Latin literature at the local University. When he turned 18, Marchesi was imprisoned for two months for the publication of a short book called
Lucifero, a crime he had been convicted of two years previously. After his release, he left Catania and continued his studies in Florence. He graduated from the
University of Florence in 1899, receiving a Laurea degree. After working at various schools, he became a high school teacher in Pisa in 1906. In 1910, he married Ada Sabbadini, the daughter of his academic teacher in Catania. In 1915, he was appointed to the chair of Latin literature at the
University of Messina. There he earned another doctorate in law in 1923 with his thesis Il pensiero giuridico e politico di Tacito ("Legal and Political Thought in Tacitus"). In the same year he was appointed to the University of Padua. A member of the
Italian Socialist Party since 1905, Marchesi joined the
Italian Communist Party after its foundation in 1921. in 1931, according to Marchesi, he received from the instruction to swear allegiance to fascism (as it had been made obligatory for professors, under penalty of expulsion from the University). The Communists would have considered it useful to maintain in that important University a point of reference for conspiratorial political activities. In 1935 Marchesi swore a second time, when he became a member of the
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, and a third time in 1939, when he became a member of the
Accademia d'Italia, which too required the swear an oath of loyalty to the Fascist Regime as it had been imposed in the Statute of the Academy and Marchesi not only swore again, but also took the membership card of the
National Fascist Party.
Anti-fascist resistance Marchesi's contacts with the Communist Party resumed in 1942 through
Lelio Basso. On May 26 Concetto Marchesi sent Maria José, through the liberal professor Carlo Anton, an anti-fascist and confidant of the princess, the willingness of the communists to support the ousting of Mussolini and the consequent new anti-fascist government, in which they would be willing to participate with a minister without portfolio. Marchesi was appointed as rector of the
University of Padua in 1943 and On November 9, 1943, on the occasion of the opening of the Academic Year, he launched an appeal to the students of the University of Padua and to all young Italians to take up arms against fascism and Nazi oppression. After the establishment of the Nazi puppet regime of the
Republic of Salò, Marchesi had to flee to Switzerland. In Switzerland, where he had in contact partisan group commanded by his student
Ezio Franceschini and took an active part in the struggle by establishing the partisan group, FRAMA group (based on the initials of Marchesi and Franceschini) led by himself and Franceschini. The article appeared anonymously in a clandestine newspaper of the Milanese communists in a version that ended with the sentence: "For the supporters of the German invader and his fascist henchmen, Senator Gentile, the people's justice has issued the sentence: DEATH!". The concluding words were not part of Marchesi's original text and had been added by
Girolamo Li Causi. But they were attributed to Marchesi's after
Palmiro Togliatti reproduced the article in
Rinascita of 1 June 1944 and preceded it with a note entitled "Death Sentence". After Gentile's assassination, which was condemned by the
CLN, Marchesi himself joined the debate and defended the act without mentioning Gentile's name.
After Liberation and later life In September 1945 he was appointed to the National Consultation, where he was president of the education and fine arts commission. In June 1946 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly on the PCI list, and participated in the writing of the Italian Constitution. His dissent with Togliatti is well known, because he refused to include the
Lateran Pacts in article 7 of the Italian Constitution. From 1947, Marchesi was a member of the Central Committee of the PCI. Marchesi concluded his academic career at the University of Padua after his retirement in October 1953. In 1956, during the 8th Congress of the PCI, Marchesi commented on the accusations launched against
Joseph Stalin by
Nikita Khrushchev during the
20th Congress of the CPSU, ironically stating that "
Tiberius, one of the greatest and most infamous emperors of Rome, found his implacable accuser in
Cornelius Tacitus, the greatest historian of the principality. Stalin, less fortunate, was given Nikita Khrushchev". In that same speech, supporting Palmiro Togliatti's line, he vehemently attacked the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the intellectuals who were defending it. Marchesi died in 1957 and his commemoration at the Chamber of Deputies was held by Togliatti. == Works ==