20 Facts About Giampaolo Pansa

Giampaolo Pansa was an Italian journalist, commentator, and novelist.

Giampaolo Pansa was born and raised in Casale Monferrato, Italy, an industrial town near the Po river, located in the province of Alessandria, in Piedmont.

Giampaolo Pansa attended school locally at the Istituto Balbo, where he received a classical education, opening the way for university admission and a chance to move away.

Giampaolo Pansa completed his university studies on July 16,1959 with a degree in Political Sciences, submitting a dissertation titled 'The Resistance in the Province of Alessandria '.

In 1961 Giampaolo Pansa joined La Stampa and, and over the next thirty years contributed to all of Italy's' leading papers.

In parallel with his newspaper work, during the 1980s Giampaolo Pansa worked regularly for several weekly news magazines.

Giampaolo Pansa worked without any significant break between 1977 and 2008 for two of the group's most successful titles, la Repubblica and then L'Espresso.

Giampaolo Pansa became known as a creator of neologisms and sarcastic "definitions", frequently untranslatable and involving politics.

Giampaolo Pansa cast Fausto Bertinotti as "il parolaio rosso" while he identified Italy's Christian Democratic Party as the "White Whale", a literary allusion referencing the party's ability to survive a thousand battles.

Giampaolo Pansa described the irrepressible loyalists surrounding the politician Clemente Mastella as "truppe mastellate", in a conscious echo of the term "truppe cammellate".

Giampaolo Pansa later attributed his decision to leave La Verita in 2018 to what he saw as the paper's "Northern League" drift, while insisting that he had himself always enjoyed complete freedom from the editor to write what he wished.

In "Le notti dei fuochi", published in 2001, Giampaolo Pansa explored the critical period between 1919 and 1922, covering the birth of the Squadrismo movement, Mussolini's March on Rome, and the inauguration of Fascism.

Giampaolo Pansa had turned for his sources to authorities such as Giorgio Pisano as Antonio Serena: there were many personal stories from those who might be identified, in terms of the series title, as the "vanquished".

That was one accusation that Giampaolo Pansa always rejected with particular vigour, insisting that he had used sources from across the political spectrum and shed new light on a part of history that deserved to be better known than it was.

Giampaolo Pansa stated he had done nothing to detract from the importance of wartime antifascist resistance.

Giampaolo Pansa died in Rome on 12 January 2020 after several months of suffering with serious Colitis.

Giampaolo Pansa married Lidia "Lillina" Casalone from Mortara in 1960.

In 1993, Giampaolo Pansa acquired a nephew called Giacomo through his marriage to "Lillina".

Giampaolo Pansa later married Adele Grisendi, a party member originally from Montecchio Emilia.

Giampaolo Pansa contributed extensively to the "Blood of the vanquished" cycle.