On the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of Alcide De Gasperi’s death, commemorated in 2024, numerous publishing initiatives were undertaken to explore and shed light on his life and legacy. Among these, particular mention should be made of the bibliography compiled by the Fondazione Alcide De Gasperi and regularly updated online.
In 2025, Carocci published Jacopo Cellini’s book Alcide De Gasperi. La cultura di un politico cattolico. A scholar of the history of European integration and of the relationship between religion and politics in the twentieth century, Cellini had previously published Universalism and Liberation: Italian Catholic Culture and the Idea of International Community, 1963–1978 (Leuven University Press, 2017); this significant study examines Italian Catholic culture and its relationship to the idea of an international community.
For his recent volume on De Gasperi, Cellini draws on a broad range of sources, most of which have already been published, such as the Edizione critica di De Gasperi. Scritti e discorsi (Il Mulino, 2006–9). At the same time, he seeks to identify unpublished material relating to one of the most extensively studied political figures in twentieth-century Italian history: for example, he makes use of De Gasperi’s correspondence and personal papers, preserved at the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence, where Cellini is currently a Research Fellow.
The consultation of De Gasperi’s personal library, preserved at the library of the municipality of Borgo Valsugana, has also proved particularly fruitful. This source is especially significant in light of the statesman’s working methods, as he frequently relied on books and data when preparing his speeches and writings.
Cellini’s work is intended as an intellectual biography of Alcide De Gasperi. Its aim is to understand how his political culture was formed, which religious convictions and ideas shaped his political decisions, and how he approached such fundamental issues as democracy, freedom, social justice, the nation and European integration.
Cellini’s narrative traces De Gasperi’s life from his early years, when Trentino was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, through his experience in the Italian Popular Party, his imprisonment, the rise of Fascism and the years of political isolation, to the reconstruction of Italy after 1943 and his role in the founding of Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democracy) and in the European integration process.
The book begins with the intellectual formation of the young De Gasperi in the early years of the twentieth century, when he first became interested in public affairs. These were the years in which the figure of Romolo Murri was gaining prominence within Italian Catholic circles, while Modernism was condemned by Pope Pius X in the September 1907 encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis. At the same time, a growing conviction was emerging within the Catholic world – and in De Gasperi in particular – that a sufficient degree of autonomy in political and social affairs was possible.
De Gasperi collaborated with the bishop of Trento, Celestino Endrici, who would later work for his release from prison following the dissolution of the Partito Popolare Italiano (PPI, or Italian Popular Party) (Chapters 1 and 2). De Gasperi’s political career began with the foundation, by Luigi Sturzo, of the first Catholic political party in Italy, the PPI (Chapter 3). He became its secretary in May 1924, following Sturzo’s forced resignation. It was also during this period that De Gasperi experienced first-hand the difficulties inherent in the relationship between the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the Catholic laity. Despite the PPI’s declared non-confessional character, the party was subject to significant interference from ecclesiastical authorities. A revealing example occurred in September 1924, following the assassination of Giacomo Matteotti, when Sturzo considered the possibility of an alliance between the PPI and the socialists as a way out of the political crisis. Pope Pius XI, however, vetoed this proposal.
During the Fascist period, De Gasperi, who worked at the Vatican Library and wrote a fortnightly column for L’Illustrazione Vaticana, did not openly express criticism of Pius XI’s approach to Fascism (Chapter 4). The regime was regarded as an opportunity for the church to restore the values of traditional society, within which the Catholic laity was assigned a merely subordinate role.
De Gasperi’s political profile was later reinvigorated by his close relationship with Giovanni Battista Montini and by the foundation of the new Catholic party, Christian Democracy. The Vatican decided to establish the party in response to the crisis of Fascism and its wars, seeking an additional instrument through which to exercise political influence in Italy. By this stage, the church had come to accept the legitimacy of the democratic system and the protection of political rights, although the ecclesiastical authorities retained the task of assessing whether the democratic order was consistent with Christian principles.
The postwar period was marked by the drafting of the Italian constitution, and the Holy See is known to have insisted that the 1929 Lateran Concordat be incorporated into the new constitutional framework (Chapters 5 and 6). The Vatican leadership was likewise wary of Giuseppe Dossetti, who was encouraged to moderate his reformist ambitions and conform to the party line. De Gasperi himself experienced Vatican interference when, in 1952, he opposed the so-called Sturzo Operation. This involved the possibility, in the run-up to the municipal elections in Rome, of an agreement between Christian Democracy and the Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement), an arrangement advocated by leading Vatican figures in order to avoid the risk of a socialist–communist mayor in the capital.
What emerges from Cellini’s book is De Gasperi’s conviction that Catholicism should play a decisive role in shaping the forms of civil society, but also his belief that it was the responsibility of a Catholic layperson to carve out a sphere of autonomy for political action. In his view, the ecclesiastical hierarchy did not necessarily have the task of determining the general rules governing collective life.
The book is therefore particularly interesting because it does not merely offer a biographical reconstruction of De Gasperi – an area already covered by a vast body of literature – but instead focuses on his cultural background and the ideals that shaped his choices, thus providing an in-depth portrait of the leader’s intellectual and political outlook.
