The mundial scream at Spagna '82, the game of scopone on the plane with Bearzot, Zoff and Causio, the intervention on the spot during the Vermicino tragedy, from which the idea of establishing the Civil Protection was born. But also the famous quote "free whistle in the open square" and the intransigence towards the members of the Red Brigades guilty of the Moro crime. For these and many other things Sandro Pertini, seventh president of the Italian Republic in chronological order, is still remembered today as the most loved by Italian citizens. Today we celebrate the anniversary of his birth, which took place on 25 September 1896 in San Giovanni di Stella, a fraction of the municipality of Stella, in the province of Savona, which today has less than 1.000 inhabitants.
Pertini, who died in Rome on February 24, 1990, was in office at the Quirinale from 1978 to 1985, the first socialist and still the only exponent of the PSI to hold the function of Head of State. “There can be no true freedom without social justice, just as there can be no true social justice without freedom,” was another of the most famous quotes from a political leader whose personal history boasts an active role in both world wars and in the anti-fascist resistance. During the First World War, Pertini fought on the Isonzo front, and for various merits in the field he was awarded a silver medal for military valor in 1917. In the first post-war period he joined Filippo Turati's Unitarian Socialist Party and distinguished himself for his energetic opposition to fascism. Persecuted for his political commitment against Mussolini's dictatorship, in 1925 Pertini was sentenced to eight months in prison, and then forced into exile in France.
In 1929 he returned to Italy but was immediately arrested. Only in 1943, with the fall of the fascist regime, was he freed. He helped rebuild the old PSI together with Pietro Nenni and Lelio Basso. On September 10, 1943 he participated in the battle of Porta San Paolo in an attempt to defend Rome from German occupation. He later became one of the leading figures of the Resistance and was a member of the military junta of the National Liberation Committee representing the socialists. But he didn't end there: in Rome he was even captured by the Nazi SS and sentenced to death, however daringly managed to save himself by escaping from the Regina Coeli prison together with Giuseppe Saragat (he too later became President of the Republic, from 1964 to 1971) and five other socialist exponents.
In republican Italy he was elected deputy to the Constituent Assembly for the socialists, then senator in the first legislature and deputy in subsequent ones, always re-elected from 1953 to 1976. He held the position of Speaker of the Chamber for two consecutive legislatures, from 1968 to 1976 of deputies, finally he was elected President of the Republic on 8 July 1978. His mandate covered particularly difficult years, marked for example by the Irpinia earthquake, by the mafia massacres of the early 80s, by the attack on the Bologna station in 1980. To these events Pertini was always able to oppose a human and political style of great sensitivity, as when he actively participated, on live TV on unified networks, in the attempt to rescue little Alfredino, who had fallen into a well in Vermicino, near Rome. The rescue failed and the baby died: a tragedy that deeply marked the country, so much so that it led to the establishment of the Civil Protection to manage this kind of emergency.
In the story of the disappearance of Enrico Berlinguer, Pertini was particularly involved. Finding himself in Padua for state reasons, he went to the hospital to ascertain the conditions of the communist leader. A few hours after his death, he ordered his body to be transported on the presidential plane, saying: "I'm taking him away as a close friend, as a son, as a comrade in the fight". During the funeral in Piazza S. Giovanni on June 13, 1984, Nilde Iotti, from the box of the authorities, publicly thanked Pertini, unleashing a moving applause from the participating crowd. Of him, Ronald Reagan he said, after receiving it in 1982: “Sandro Pertini arrived today. He is 84 years old and a wonderful gentleman. We had a great conversation. He loves the United States very much. There was a touching moment when he walked past the Marine holding our flag. He stopped and kissed her ”.
Pertini was among the presidents who chose not to live in the Palazzo del Quirinale, and maintained his residence in his Roman apartment, according to Pertini himself at the express wish of his wife. In fact, he lived for many years in a 35 m² attic overlooking the Trevi fountain. He used to spend his summer holidays in Selva di Val Gardena, staying in the local police station, in order not to disturb the citizens with additional security measures during their stay. Another curiosity: Pertini never obtained a driving license.
