“The more you have the good fortune to advance in your life path at an advanced age, the more you feel the emptiness of those who have been very dear presences, which have gradually disappeared over the years”. The President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano is moved at the end of his speech in memory of Luigi Spaventa, an illustrious 20th century economist who died last January at the age of 88.
Spaventa, one of the best-known Italian economists of the second half of the last century together with Nobel laureate Franco Modigliani, Paolo Sylos Labini and Federico Caffè, was commemorated today at the Bocconi University in Milan in the presence of the President Mario Monti, the head of the ECB Mario Draghi, the President of Bank of Italy Ignazio Visco and various politicians who had worked with him, such as Giuliano Amato.
Luigi Spaventa not only served as a teacher but also served the state in politics, first as a parliamentarian and then as Minister of the Budget under the Ciampi government (93-94), and finally as president of Consob succeeding the late Tommaso Padoa Schioppa.
President Napolitano took advantage of the memory of his dear friend to criticize the current political class, recalling that differently from the past today political clashes produce "loss of every notion of civil confrontation and of every habit of institutional and personal respect", whereas Spaventa instead "profoundly represented those values".
The Head of State also recalled that Spaventa was involved in Parliament from 1976 to 1983, perhaps enigmatically specifying that it was "two shortened legislatures, a very Italian practice, by the early dissolution of the Chambers".
