After having worked as a journalist, film critic, and cultural animator (he created one of the first film clubs in Milan), Pillitteri began his political career within the PSI. The PSI–PSDI's unification led to the establishment of the PSU. Following a split in 1969, he joined the PSDI and in 1970 became part of the Milan councilor for culture. During his mandate, the city went through a moment of great artistic and cultural vivacity. Among the exhibitions held in those years there was the one dedicated to nouveau realism, which culminated with
Christo's installations in
Piazza del Duomo in Milan. Ten years after its foundation, Pillitteri,
Pierre Restany, and Guido Le Noci organized a festival to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its birth. In 1975, with the PSI's autonomist turn looming, Pillitteri founded the Unitary Movement of Socialist Initiative, which merged into the PSI on the threshold of the "revolution of the forty-year-olds" that in July 1976 brought
Bettino Craxi to the party secretariat. As councilor with responsibility for private construction, he developed the general master plan of Milan. He was an uninterrupted member of the municipal council for over a decade until 1980, also holding the position of councilor with responsibility for the budget. Following his appointment as regional secretary of the PSI, he was elected as a deputy in the
1983 Italian general election, remaining in this position for eleven years until 1994. Pillitteri became mayor of Milan, succeeding fellow PSI member
Carlo Tognoli on 21December 1986, at the helm of a municipal council that saw the political alliance with
Christian Democracy (DC), following the coalition of the
Pentapartito. In 1987, following disagreements with the DC, an unprecedented
red–red–green coalition was launched by the PSI with the
Italian Communist Party and the
Federation of the Greens. In the
1990 Italian local elections, he achieved significant personal success as the PSI achieved 20% of the votes in Milan. He later recalled that in the 1980s Milan was a capital city, where the likes of
Mikhail Gorbachev, the
14th Dalai Lama, and future
King Charles III came to the city. Pillitteri was re-elected as a deputy in the
1992 Italian general election, the last of the
First Italian Republic. During his time as a deputy, he was a member of the IV Commission for Defense, the VII Commission of Education, and XII Commission for Social Affairs. He also presented a total of 51 bills. Since then, he returned to his journalistic career; he also hosted programs on small broadcasters and was often a guest commentator. Parallel to his twenty-five year political career within the PSI, Pillitteri collaborated with several important socialist newspapers, such as
Avanti!, and was also co-director of the newspaper ''L'Opinione delle Libertà
. including among others Anna Kuliscioff
(1986), Maestri Autori Eventi
(1986), Fra suspense e psicanalisi. Il cinema di Alfred Hitchcock
(1991), Un cuore grande così: Edmondo De Amicis
(1989), Cinema come politica
(1992), Io li conoscevo bene
(1994), La Baracca di Fellini
(1995), Il cinema tra fiction e falsità. Simili, facsimili, quasi falsi, falsi storici. Quando il cinema all'italiana manipola la nostra storia
(2000) Evìto. Dos pesos y dos misuras
(2002) Quando Benedetto divenne Bettino
(2007) Non è vero ma ci credo. Immagini, simulacri, inganni
(2009), and Luca Comerio. Milanese. Fotografo, pioniere e padre del cinema italiano
(2011), and Tutto poteva accadere'' (2015). In 2022, Pillitteri was head of the press office of MM, the Milan metro company. ==Electoral history==