digitization project of constituent assembly acts curated by Valditara and Lamarque with Intesa Sanpaolo

The project on «How the Constitution is born. The rights of freedom 75 years later». Curated by professors Giuseppe Valditara (now minister) with Elisabetta Lamarque and supported by Intesa Sanpaolo, the project concerns the digitization and republication of the Proceedings of the Constituent Assembly on the 75th anniversary of our Charter.

All the Proceedings of the Constituent Assembly, of the Commission for the Constitution (known as the «Commission of 75») and the typewritten reports of the discussions will be available on an internet site (ed. Giappichelli) for study and consultation,

with efficient and indexable search methods and downloadable in word and pdf format.

Currently the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly are collected in eight large paper volumes (over 7,000 pages) published in 1970 by the Chamber of Deputies, they can be consulted online only in photographic format. An appreciable effort which however does not make it easy to find or consult these important documents.

The Constitution is the result of a Constituent Assembly elected by universal suffrage in conjunction with the referendum on the institutional form of the State, which with a large popular vote, decreed the end of the monarchy and the birth of the Republic. The Constitutional Charter was designed by a restricted commission of 75 members of the Constituent Assembly, chosen on a proportional basis.

It was in that venue that the fundamental principles took shape and the programmatic understanding between the various forces present was defined.

From the Proceedings, the work of mediation that lasted 18 months of intense work emerges clearly and profoundly, which led to an admirable dialogue between different political and juridical cultures, mainly Catholic, Communist, Socialist and Liberal. Overcoming the initial ideologies without however giving up on them, these forces and the people who expressed them had the ability to converge on a shared dictate, capable of launching the new page of Italian democracy with impetus. On December 22, 1947, the text of the Constitution was approved by a majority of more than 85 percent of the Assembly and entered into force on January 1, 1948.

Our Constitution, a model of programmatic synthesis and accessibility also to less educated people, is therefore the fundamental outcome of a logical process

and dialectic from whose fruits we still benefit today, finding in the Document a beacon and an anchor of democracy.

To support the dissemination of the scientific and cultural value of the project, a short documentary video was produced (edited by 3D productions), screened during the meeting, with which the events that led to the drafting and approval of the Constitutional Charter, the historical and political climate of the time, the end of the war, the referendum for the monarchy or the republic.

The meeting is introduced by Jacques Moscianese, head of Institutional Affairs of Intesa Sanpaolo. The readings (a selection of excerpts from the Proceedings) will be entrusted to Irene Grazioli, Luca Lazzareschi and Gianluca Gambino.