Concetto Marchesi
Concetto Marchesi (1 February 1878 – 12 February 1957) was an Italian Latinist and politician. He represented the Italian Communist Party in the Constituent Assembly of Italy from 1946 to 1948 and in the Chamber of Deputies from 1948 to 1957.
Concetto Marchesi

PubliFoto · Italian magazine Radiocorriere, N. 31, year XXXI · Public domain
- Name
- Concetto Marchesi
- Born
- 1 February 1878
- Birthplace
- Catania, Kingdom of Italy
- Died
- 12 February 1957
- Place of death
- Rome, Italy
- Nationality
- Italy · Kingdom of Italy
- Occupation
- politician · classical philologist · poet · university teacher · translator · latinist · literary scholar · docent
- Fields
- Latin-language literature
- Honours
- Vallauri Prize
- Languages
- Italian · Latin
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Concetto Marchesi (1 February 1878 – 12 February 1957) was an Italian Latinist and politician. He represented the Italian Communist Party in the Constituent Assembly of Italy from 1946 to 1948 and in the Chamber of Deputies from 1948 to 1957.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Note VALÉORINE
Concetto Marchesi (1878–1957) was a classical philologist, docent and latinist, among other activities, of Italian and Italian nationality. The classical philologist was born in Catania and died in Rome.
Concetto Marchesi worked for Galileo Galilei, University of Messina and University of Padua and was a member of Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italian Communist Party and National Council of the Kingdom of Italy, among others. The classical philologist held the positions of member of the Constituent Assembly of Italy and rector and worked in Rome. Activity centred on Latin-language literature.
Languages used include Italian and Latin. Honours include Vallauri Prize.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Concetto Marchesi. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q3686190 · wikipedia · Concetto Marchesi
In this article
Biography
Biography
Marchesi worked between 1878 and 1957 across politician, classical philologist, poet, university teacher and translator and 3 further recorded occupations. This article rests on 33 published texts and 27 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.
Ezio Franceschini is recorded as having studied under Concetto Marchesi. The recorded working language is Italian and Latin. The field of work recorded is Latin-language literature. Places of work recorded in the authority are Rome. Employment is recorded with University of Messina, University of Padua and Galileo Galilei. Positions recorded include member of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Republic and member of the Constituent Assembly of Italy. Distinctions recorded are Vallauri Prize.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Concetto Marchesi • Born — 1 February 1878 • Birthplace — Catania, Kingdom of Italy • Died — 12 February 1957 • Place of death — Rome, Italy • Political Party — PSI (1905–1921) PCI (1921–1957) • Alma Mater — University of Florence • Discipline — Classical philology • Workplaces — Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei Accademia d'Italia University of Messina University of Padua
Early life and academic career
Early life and academic career
Marchesi studied at the Nicola Spedalieri classical high school in Catania where in 1893 he founded a newspaper, Lucifero, which in its title revealed his admiration for the young Giosuè Carducci and for the democratic and anticlerical Mario Rapisardi professor of Italian and Latin literature at the local University. When he turned 18, Marchesi was imprisoned for two months for the publication of a short book called Lucifero, a crime he had been convicted of two years previously. After his release, he left Catania and continued his studies in Florence. He graduated from the University of Florence in 1899, receiving a Laurea degree. After working at various schools, he became a high school teacher in Pisa in 1906. In 1910, he married Ada Sabbadini, the daughter of his academic teacher in Catania. In 1915, he was appointed to the chair of Latin literature at the University of Messina. There he earned another doctorate in law in 1923 with his thesis Il pensiero giuridico e politico di Tacito ("Legal and Political Thought in Tacitus"). In the same year he was appointed to the University of Padua. A member of the Italian Socialist Party since 1905, Marchesi joined the Italian Communist Party after its foundation in 1921. in 1931, according to Marchesi, he received from the instruction to swear allegiance to fascism (as it had been made obligatory for professors, under penalty of expulsion from the University). The Communists would have considered it useful to maintain in that important University a point of reference for conspiratorial political activities. In 1935 Marchesi swore a second time, when he became a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, and a third time in 1939, when he became a member of the Accademia d'Italia, which too required the swear an oath of loyalty to the Fascist Regime as it had been imposed in the Statute of the Academy and Marchesi not only swore again, but also took the membership card of the National Fascist Party.
Anti-fascist resistance
Anti-fascist resistance
• Illustration — Memorial plaque im Padua commemorating the anti-fascist appeal written by Marchesi for university students. Marchesi's contacts with the Communist Party resumed in 1942 through Lelio Basso. On May 26 Concetto Marchesi sent Maria José, through the liberal professor Carlo Anton, an anti-fascist and confidant of the princess, the willingness of the communists to support the ousting of Mussolini and the consequent new anti-fascist government, in which they would be willing to participate with a minister without portfolio. Marchesi was appointed as rector of the University of Padua in 1943 and On November 9, 1943, on the occasion of the opening of the Academic Year, he launched an appeal to the students of the University of Padua and to all young Italians to take up arms against fascism and Nazi oppression. After the establishment of the Nazi puppet regime of the Republic of Salò, Marchesi had to flee to Switzerland. In Switzerland, where he had in contact partisan group commanded by his student Ezio Franceschini and took an active part in the struggle by establishing the partisan group, FRAMA group (based on the initials of Marchesi and Franceschini) led by himself and Franceschini. After the fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile called for national reconciliation under the new puppet regime, Marchesi wrote a scathing critique of Gentile's call for the reconciliation in Italy. The article appeared anonymously in a clandestine newspaper of the Milanese communists in a version that ended with the sentence: "For the supporters of the German invader and his fascist henchmen, Senator Gentile, the people's justice has issued the sentence: DEATH!". The concluding words were not part of Marchesi's original text and had been added by Girolamo Li Causi. But they were attributed to Marchesi's after Palmiro Togliatti reproduced the article in Rinascita of 1 June 1944 and preceded it with a note entitled "Death Sentence". After Gentile's assassination, which was condemned by the CLN, Marchesi himself joined the debate and defended the act without mentioning Gentile's name.
After Liberation and later life
After Liberation and later life
In September 1945 he was appointed to the National Consultation, where he was president of the education and fine arts commission. In June 1946 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly on the PCI list, and participated in the writing of the Italian Constitution. His dissent with Togliatti is well known, because he refused to include the Lateran Pacts in article 7 of the Italian Constitution. From 1947, Marchesi was a member of the Central Committee of the PCI. Marchesi concluded his academic career at the University of Padua after his retirement in October 1953. In 1956, during the 8th Congress of the PCI, Marchesi commented on the accusations launched against Joseph Stalin by Nikita Khrushchev during the 20th Congress of the CPSU, ironically stating that "Tiberius, one of the greatest and most infamous emperors of Rome, found his implacable accuser in Cornelius Tacitus, the greatest historian of the principality. Stalin, less fortunate, was given Nikita Khrushchev". In that same speech, supporting Palmiro Togliatti's line, he vehemently attacked the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the intellectuals who were defending it. Marchesi died in 1957 and his commemoration at the Chamber of Deputies was held by Togliatti.
Works
Works
• Battaglie, Tipografia dell'Etna, Catania 1896. • La vita e le opere di C. Elvio Cinna, Niccolò Giannotta Edit., Catania 1898. • Documenti inediti sugli umanisti fiorentini della seconda meta del sec. XV. Appendice alla Vita e Opere di Bartolomeo della Fonte, Niccolò Giannotta Edit., Catania 1899. • Bartolomeo Della Fonte, Bartholomaeus Fontius. Contributo alla storia degli studi classici in Firenze nella seconda meta del Quattrocento, Niccolò Giannotta Edit., Catania 1900. • I Cantores Euphorionis, Bencini, Firenze-Roma 1901. • Il compendio volgare dell'etica aristotelica e le fonti del libro VI del Tresor, E. Loescher, Torino 1903. • M. Tullio Cicerone, L'oratore. Testo critico commentato ad uso delle scuole da Concetto Marchesi, Libreria editrice A. Trimarchi, Messina 1904. • L'etica nicomachea nella tradizione latina medievale. Documenti e appunti, Libreria editrice A. Trimarchi, Messina 1904. • Il volgarizzamento toscano del libro "Della vecchiezza" di Cicerone, 1904. • Paolo Manuzio e talune polemiche sullo stile e sulla lingua nel Cinquecento, Visentini, Venezia 1905. • Per la tradizione medievale dell'etica nicomachea, Tip. F. Nicastro, Messina 1905. • La prima traduzione in volgare italico della Farsaglia di Lucano e una nuova redazione di essa in ottava rima, Unione tipografica cooperativa, Perugia 1905. • I primordii dell'eloquenza agraria e popolare di Roma, Tipi della Rivista di storia antica, Padova 1905. • La libertà stoica romana in un poeta satirico del I secolo. A. Persio Flacco, tip. dell'Unione coop. editrice, Roma 1906. • Il volgarizzamento italico delle Declamationes pseudo-quintilianee, 1906. • Di alcuni volgarizzamenti toscani in codici fiorentini, Unione tipografica cooperativa, Perugia 1907. • Le fonti e la composizione del Thyestes di L. Anneo Seneca, E. Loescher, Torino 1907. • Le allegorie ovidiane di Giovanni del Virgilio, Unione tipografica cooperativa, Perugia 1908. • Q. Orazio Flacco, poeta cortigiano?, tip. dell'Unione coop. editrice, Roma, 1908. • Il Tieste di L. Anneo Seneca. Saggio critico e traduzione (di) Concetto Marchesi, F. Battiato, Catania, 1908. • Gli amori di un poeta cristiano, Tipografia dell'Unione editrice, Roma, 1909. • Le donne e gli amori di Marco Valerio Marziale, Tipografia dell'Unione editrice, Roma, 1910. • Il dubbio sull'anima immortale in due luoghi di Seneca, Tipografia dell'Unione editrice, Roma, 1910. • Due grammatici latini del Medio evo, Unione tipografica cooperativa, Perugia, 1910. • La terza satira oraziana del primo libro, E. Loescher, Torino, 1910 • Valerio Marziale, Formiggini, Genova, 1914 • Seneca, Principato, Messina, 1920 • Petronio, Formiggini, Roma, 1921 • Giovenale, Formiggini, Roma, 1921 • Tacito, Principato, Roma-Messina, 1924 • Storia della letteratura latina, 2 voll., Principato, Milano-Messina, 1925-1927; 8ª edizione riveduta, Principato, Milano-Messina, 1957-1958 • Storia della letteratura romana, Principato, Milano-Messina, 1931 • Augusto fra i poeti e gli storici del primo secolo, Olschki, Firenze, 1938 • Motivi dell'epica antica, Principato, Milano-Messina, 1942 • La persona umana nel comunismo, Realtà, Roma, 1946. • Scuola pubblica. Discorso pronunciato all'Assemblea costituente nella seduta del 22 aprile 1947, Tipografia della Camera dei deputati, Roma, 1947 • Disegno storico della letteratura latina, Principato, Milano-Messina, 1948 • Divagazioni, Neri Pozza, Venezia 1951 • Antifascismo bandiera di libertà. Conferenza tenuta a Bologna il 28 novembre 1954 nel Salone del Podestà, Soc. Tip. Ed. Bolognese, Bologna, 1955 • Nel decennale della Resistenza, a cura de Il Risorgimento, Milano, 1955
Career and activity
Career and activity
Concetto Marchesi worked in Latin-language literature. He was employed by University of Messina, University of Padua and Galileo Galilei. Recorded positions include member of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Republic, member of the Constituent Assembly of Italy and rector. He belonged to Italian Communist Party, National Council of the Kingdom of Italy, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and Royal Academy of Italy. He worked at Rome.
Identity
Identity
Concetto Marchesi is recorded with the occupation classical philologist. Recorded with the occupation university teacher. Recorded as politician, classical philologist, poet, university teacher and translator.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
Explore 1878–1957
The full dated record · 10 entries
1878
Concetto Marchesi was born on 1 February 1878.
1921
Recorded as member of: Italian Communist Party.
1927
Receives Vallauri Prize.
1928
Recorded as member of: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
1943
Recorded as position held: rector.
1946
Recorded as member of: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
1948
Recorded as position held: member of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Republic.
1953
Recorded as position held: member of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Republic.
1957
Dies at Rome.
1957
Concetto Marchesi died on 12 February 1957.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Catania.
Birth place
Rome.
Death place
Context
Primary material
Context
The circumstances in which Concetto Marchesi stands. Established in Bibliothèque nationale de France under 11939499n. Established in Library of Congress under n79049616. Formation and teaching. Each of those relationships is stated by the authority record rather than inferred from style.
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q3686190: Concetto Marchesi
General reference · Wikidata
reference work
- “Concetto Marchesi”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Franceschini, Ezio. Concetto Marchesi: linee per l'interpretazione di un uomo inquieto. Antenore. 1978. 978-88-8455-339-3.
- 2.MARCHESI, Concetto - Enciclopedia. Treccani.
- 3.MIELI, PAOLO. Concetto Marchesi, le due vite di un grande latinista. Corriere della Sera. 2019-09-16.
- 4.Anonimo. Concetto Marchesi ANPI. www.anpi.it.
- 5.Gianotti, Gian Franco. Le armi della metafora: Marchesi e il caso Gentile. Studi Storici. 27. 3. 743–748. 1986. 0039-3037.
- 6.Corriere della Sera - L'ASSASSINIO DI GENTILE E LA SENTENZA DI TOGLIATTI. www.corriere.it.
- 7.Concetto Marchesi / Deputati / Camera dei deputati - Portale storico. storia.camera.it.
- 8.Turi, Gabriele. Concetto Marchesi da Tiberio a Stalin.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
authority record
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 18 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
38,988 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Conceição LimaAuthor
- Concepció FerrerAuthor
- Concepción Arenal PonteAuthor
- Concepción Silva BelinzonAuthor
- Concha BuikaAuthor
- Concha EspinaAuthor
- Concha MeléndezAuthor
- Concha MéndezAuthor
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Concetto Marchesi?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.