Aldo Moro

Aldo Romeo Luigi Moro (23 September 1916 – 9 May 1978) was an Italian statesman and a prominent member of the Christian Democracy party. He served as 38th Prime Minister of Italy, from 1963 to 1968, and then from 1974 to 1976. He was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war Prime Ministers, holding power for a combined total of more than six years; due to his accommodation with the Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer, known as Historic Compromise, Moro is widely considered one of the most prominent fathers of the Italian centre-left and one of the greatest and most popular leaders in the history of the Italian Republic.

Moro was considered an intellectual and a patient mediator, especially in the internal life of his party. He was kidnapped on 16 March 1978 by the Red Brigades and killed after 55 days of captivity.

Early life
Aldo Moro was born in 1916 in Maglie, near Lecce, in the Apulia region, into a family from Ugento. His father was a school inspector, while his mother was a teacher. At age of 4, he moved with his family to Milan, but they soon moved back to Apulia, where he gained a classical high school degree at Archita lyceum in Taranto. Until 1939, he studied Law at the University of Bari, an institution where he was later to hold the post of ordinary professor (an equivalent to a tenured, full professor in the U.S. academic system) of Philosophy of Law and Colonial Policy (1941) and of Criminal Law (1942).

In 1935, he joined the Italian Catholic Federation of University Students (Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana, FUCI) of Bari. In 1939, under approval of Giovanni Battista Montini whom he had befriended, Moro was chosen as president of the association; he kept the post till 1942 when he was forced to fight in the World War II and was succeeded by Giulio Andreotti, who at the time was a law student from Rome. During his university years, Italy was ruled by the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, and Moro took part in students competitions known as Lictors of Culture and Art organised by local fascist students' organisation, the University Fascist Groups. In 1943, along with other Catholic students, he founded the periodical La Rassegna, which was published until 1945.

In July 1943, Moro contributed, along with Mario Ferrari Aggradi, Paolo Emilio Taviani, Guido Gonella, Giuseppe Capograssi, Ferruccio Pergolesi, Vittore Branca, Giorgio La Pira, Giuseppe Medici and Andreotti, to the creation of the Code of Camaldoli, a document planning of economic policy drawn up by members of the Italian Catholic forces. The Code served as inspiration and guideline for economic policy of the future Christian Democrats.

In 1945, he married Eleonora Chiavarelli (1915–2010), with whom he had four children: Maria Fida (born 1946), Agnese (1952), Anna, and Giovanni (1958). In 1963 Moro was transferred to La Sapienza University of Rome, as a professor of the Institutions of Law and Criminal Procedure.