19 Facts About Giovanni Leone

Giovanni Leone was President of the Chamber of Deputies from 1955 to 1963.

Giovanni Leone was the first Italian president to resign because of a scandal.

Giovanni Leone grew up in Pomigliano d'Arco, where he attended the classic lyceum, graduating in 1924.

In 1943, along with his father, Giovanni Leone was among the founders of the Christian Democracy, the PPI's heir led by Alcide De Gasperi.

In 1946, Giovanni Leone was among the main supporters of the "neutrality" in the 1946 institutional referendum, in which Italians voted to abolish the monarchy of the House of Savoy.

Giovanni Leone remained substantially foreign to the large and small factions in which the DC quickly split up, although he could be considered close to the party's conservative wing.

Thanks to his super partes position, the respect of all DC's internal factions, alongside the undoubted consideration gained from the other political forces during the works of the Constituent Assembly, in 1950, Giovanni Leone assumed the position of Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies and then, from May 1955, the one of President, which he held continuously until June 1963.

Giovanni Leone formed a one-party cabinet, composed only by DC's members and externally supported by Italian Socialist Party, Italian Republican Party and Italian Democratic Socialist Party.

Giovanni Leone accused the PCI of political profiteering from the tragedy, promising to bring justice to the people killed in the disaster.

In December 1963, after only five months of government, when the congress of the PSI authorized a full engagement of the party into the government, Giovanni Leone resigned and Aldo Moro, the secretary of the DC and leader of the more leftist wing of the party, became the new prime minister, ruling Italy for more than four years.

Giovanni Leone was selected as the DC's official candidate for the presidency, but Fanfani decided to run against him.

However, neither Fanfani nor Giovanni Leone succeeded in being elected, in fact, during the 1964 presidential election, the social-democratic leader Giuseppe Saragat succeeded in gaining the majority of votes.

Fanfani retired after several unsuccessful ballots and, at the twenty-second round, Giovanni Leone was selected as the Christian democratic candidate for the presidency, being slightly preferred to Aldo Moro.

Giovanni Leone's majority was the narrowest one ever obtained by an elected president and with twenty-three rounds of voting the 1971 presidential election remains still today the longest presidential election in the Italian republican history.

Giovanni Leone's presidency was considered quite revolutionary for the role held by his wife, Vittoria.

However, Vittoria Giovanni Leone completely changed the role and had been widely regarded as the most prominent first lady of the Italian Republic.

In June 1978, after months of polemics, Giovanni Leone resigned as President of the Republic.

Giovanni Leone died in Rome on 9 November 2001 at his villa on the Via Cassia.

Giovanni Leone was portrayed as a key antagonist in the 2020 film Rose Island, which tells the story of the Republic of Rose Island and the government's attempts to destroy it.