Aldo Moro: it is not easy to talk about him, nor it has been so far. For years, his tragic end has been catching people on an emotional roundabout. Though, many years have passed, and we can turn back and reconsider his personality as a whole, as an extremely rich and complex figure.
Aldo Moro (1916-78) was a democratic politician who considered politics as a means for freeing forces and energies inside human activities. From this perspective, he entrusted politics with the duty to develop relations among people, and to improve and harmonize the different social drives.
As a young professor, he expressed these ideas during his law classes at the Bari University. Later, as a DC deputy, he transferred them in the Constituent Assembly – such ideas permeated our Constitution.
Aldo Moro started his career as a law professor in 1938 – first at Bari University and later, since 1963, in Rome. He was first elected a deputy in 1946 in the constituency of Bari.
After being Minister of Grace and Justice (1955-57) and Minister of Public Education (1957-59), Moro was elected DC’s Political secretary (1959-64) and became a leading figure in Italian politics. From then on, whatever the role he was playing, he tried to share government responsibilities with social and political forces outside the executive, i.e. the left. His actions were prudent and attentive to social balances and country traditions; he always considered his party’s unity as a condition for the democratic development.
Later, Moro became President of the Council in the first centre-left government (1963-1968), so he could consider both the potential and the limits of a reform policy that was openly resisted. From late 1960s on, the conflict involved the Communist party: the restraint of the cold war added to increasing inner tensions, and sometimes Moro was caught up in a contrasting situation, and in a minority position within his party.
For a long time, Moro played the role of Minister of Foreign Affairs (1969-72, 1973-74), promoting the détente between the blocks, the improvement of international organizations such as the United Nations, the integration of former colonies, the peace in the Mediterranean.
He was again President of the Council of two centre-left governments (1974-76). After being elected President of DC National Council in 1976, he worked to build the texture which sustained the government of national solidarity, in order to go over the Country crisis, on the basis of the Republican original project.
He was kidnapped by BR on March 16, 1978, and killed on the following May, 9.
Aldo Moro was the leading Italian politician during the 1960s and 1970s; he sustained the constitutional and republican political project, which he interpreted through a deep knowledge both of the Country’s political, social an ideal forces, and of the complex and ever-changing international scenario.
When considering his life, his ideas, his tragically interrupted project, we also consider what Italy was, is now, and may become again.
The exhibition is divided into 19 virtual rooms
- His Youth
- FUCI
- Law studies
- War and Liberation
- The Family
- The Professor
- The Costituent
- The Constituency
- Parliament and the Party
- Grace and Justice
- Public Education
- Towards Centre-Left (1959-63)
- Centre-Left (1963-68)
- Foreign Affairs (1969-72)
- Foreign Affairs (1973-74)
- Presidency of the Council (1974-76)
- Governments of National Solidarity (1976-78)
- Kidnapping and Imprisonment
- The Man