52 Facts About Sergio Mattarella

Sergio Mattarella is an Italian politician, jurist, academic, and lawyer who has served as the president of Italy since 2015.

Sergio Mattarella served as Minister for Parliamentary Relations from 1987 to 1989, and Minister of Education from 1989 to 1990.

In 1994, Sergio Mattarella was among the founders of the Italian People's Party, serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy from 1998 to 1999, and Minister of Defence from 1999 to 2001.

Sergio Mattarella joined The Daisy in 2002 and was one of the founders of the Democratic Party in 2007, leaving it when he retired from politics in 2008.

Sergio Mattarella served as a judge of the Constitutional Court of Italy from 2011 to 2015.

On 31 January 2015, Sergio Mattarella was elected to the presidency on the fourth ballot, supported by the centre-left coalition majority led by the PD and centrist parties.

Sergio Mattarella was re-elected for a second term on 29 January 2022, becoming the second Italian president to be re-elected, the first being his predecessor Giorgio Napolitano.

Sergio Mattarella was born in Palermo on 23 July 1941 into a prominent Sicilian family.

Sergio Mattarella's father Bernardo Mattarella was an anti-fascist who, alongside Alcide De Gasperi and other Catholic politicians, founded Christian Democracy, which dominated the Italian political scene for almost fifty years, with Bernardo serving as a minister several times.

Bernardo Sergio Mattarella has been accused of being associated with the Sicilian Mafia; however, accusations were always rejected in court.

In 1964, Sergio Mattarella graduated with merit with the thesis The Function of Political Direction.

In 1966, Sergio Mattarella married Marisa Chiazzese, daughter of Lauro Chiazzese, former rector of the University of Palermo, with whom he had three children: Laura, Francesco, and Bernardo.

On 6 January 1980, his older brother Piersanti Sergio Mattarella, who was a DC politician and president of Sicily since 1978, was killed by the Sicilian Mafia in Palermo.

One of the first important positions that Sergio Mattarella held was the head of the board of arbitrators of the DC, quickly reconstituted at the end of 1981 following the Propaganda Due scandal and the establishment of the related parliamentary commission of inquiry, chaired by Tina Anselmi.

In 1987, Sergio Mattarella was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies with more than 143,000 votes, remaining close to the left-leaning faction of the party as well as to its secretary De Mita.

On 29 July 1987, Sergio Mattarella was appointed Italian Minister for Parliamentary Relations in the government led by the DC prime minister Giovanni Goria.

The government lasted until April 1988, when De Mita was sworn in as new prime minister; however, Sergio Mattarella was confirmed as minister.

Sergio Mattarella reorganized the teaching programs of two-year high schools, completing the first steps of the so-called "Brocca project", the educational system's revision program, undertaken under his predecessor Giovanni Galloni in 1988.

Sergio Mattarella oversaw the overall reform of the elementary school, which made the three teachers' module on two classes universal on 23 May 1990, leading to the overcoming of the traditional single teacher.

On 23 July 1989, Sergio Mattarella became Italian Minister of Education in the sixth cabinet of Giulio Andreotti.

In January 1990, Sergio Mattarella led the first National School Conference, which discussed the renewal of the educational system and addressed the issue of school autonomy.

On 27 July 1990, Sergio Mattarella resigned from his position, together with other ministers, upon the Italian Parliament's passing in 1990 of the Mammi Act, liberalising the media in Italy, which they saw as a favour to the media magnate Berlusconi.

In 1990, Sergio Mattarella was elected deputy secretary of the DC.

Sergio Mattarella left the post two years later to become director of Il Popolo, the official newspaper of the party.

Sergio Mattarella resigned from all his posts and was thanked by Mino Martinazzoli, the then DC leader, who expressed his support to him.

Sergio Mattarella was one of the protagonists of the renewal of the DC after Tangentopoli that would lead in January 1994 to the foundation of the Italian People's Party.

Sergio Mattarella soon found himself engaged in an internal dispute after the election of new party leader Rocco Buttiglione, who wished to steer the PPI towards an electoral alliance with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia.

Sergio Mattarella was one of the first supporters of the economist Romano Prodi at the head of the centre-left coalition known as The Olive Tree in the 1996 Italian general election.

Two years later, when the Prodi I Cabinet fell, Sergio Mattarella was appointed by Massimo D'Alema as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy with responsibility for the secret services, which he tried to reform.

The reform of the secret services proposed by Sergio Mattarella collected the indications provided by the Jucci Commission, which had worked extensively on the subject, and aimed at strengthening the political control of the services by the prime minister of Italy, in coordination with the Digis, by removing power from the Interior Ministry and Defense.

In December 1999, Sergio Mattarella was appointed Italian Minister of Defence in the D'Alema II Cabinet.

Sergio Mattarella was re-elected to the Italian Parliament in the 2001 and 2006 general elections, standing as a candidate for The Daisy in two successive centre-left coalitions: The Olive Tree and The Union.

In 2007, Sergio Mattarella was one of the founders of the Democratic Party, a big tent centre-left party formed from a merger of left-wing and centrist parties which had been part of The Olive Tree, including The Daisy and the Democrats of the Left.

On 5 October 2011, Sergio Mattarella was elected by the Italian Parliament with 572 votes to be a judge of the Constitutional Court of Italy.

Sergio Mattarella was sworn in on 11 October 2011 and served until he was sworn in as President of the Italian Republic in January 2015.

On 31 January 2015, Sergio Mattarella was elected the president of Italy at the fourth ballot with 665 votes out of 1,009, with support from the Democratic Party, New Centre-Right, Civic Choice, Union of the Centre, and Left Ecology Freedom.

Sergio Mattarella was officially endorsed by the PD after his name was put forward by Matteo Renzi, the prime minister of Italy at the time.

Sergio Mattarella stated that "Europe and the world must be united to defeat whoever wants to drag us into a new age of terror".

On 16 February 2015, Sergio Mattarella appointed Ugo Zampetti as Secretary-General to the Presidency of the Republic, the head of the presidential secretariat.

Salvini had proposed university professor Paolo Savona as Italian Minister of Economy and Finances, but Sergio Mattarella strongly opposed the appointment, considering Savona too Eurosceptic and anti-German.

Sergio Mattarella subsequently gave economist Carlo Cottarelli the presidential mandate to form a new government.

Sergio Mattarella's decision prompted furious reactions from the M5S, who called for Sergio Mattarella's impeachment, a move supported by opposition party Brothers of Italy.

Sergio Mattarella stated that during his seven-year term he never felt alone, thanking Italians to have shown "the best face of the country".

However, Sergio Mattarella rejected the resignation because the government had largely won the confidence vote in the Senate and invited the prime minister to address the Parliament, explaining the political situation.

Sergio Mattarella accepted his resignation, but Draghi remained in office as caretaker prime minister until the formation of the Meloni government following a snap general election.

In February 2023, Sergio Mattarella officially asked the government to modify the law regarding beach concessions in Italy, which was considered against both the European law and the opinion of the Italian Council of State.

Sergio Mattarella criticised the so-called Milleproroghe, a decree law promoted by the government aimed at resolving urgent provisions by the end of the current year and described by Mattarella as a "mere container of the most different regulatory interventions".

Sergio Mattarella was married to Marisa Chiazzese, daughter of Lauro Chiazzese, a professor of Roman law and rector of the University of Palermo.

Best known for its involvement in politics, Sergio Mattarella's family has held various national and regional offices spanning across two generations.

Sergio Mattarella's father Bernardo Mattarella was a member of the Constituent Assembly and served as minister in various governments from 1953 until 1963.

Sergio Mattarella is an association football fan and a supporter of Inter Milan.

On 7 February 2023, Sergio Mattarella became the first president to attend the Sanremo Music Festival.