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Oscar Luigi Scàlfaro
IX President of the Italian Republic
In office May 28, 1992 – May 15, 1999
Preceded by	Francesco Cossiga
Succeeded by	Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
Born	September 9, 1918 (age 88) Novara, Italy
Political party	Christian Democracy
Spouse	Maria Inzitari (1924-1944)

Baron Oscar Luigi Scàlfaro ['skalfaro] (born in Novara, September 9, 1918) is an Italian politician and magistrate, member of the Christian Democracy, President of the Italian Republic from 1992 to 1999 and senator for life.

Scàlfaro was born in Novara, Piedmont.

He graduated in Law from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (”Catholic University of the Sacred Heart“) in Milan on June 2, 1942. On October 21, 1942 he entered the magistrature. After the end of World War II in 1945 he became a public prosecuting attorney. In 1946 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly and later in 1948 he became a deputy representing the district of Turin. He was re-elected ten times in a row until 1992. In May 25, 1992 he was elected president of the Italian Republic. He ended his mandate in 1999, and automatically became a lifetime Senator.

In recent times, Scàlfaro was the chairman of the committee that advocated the abrogation, in the referendum of June 25th and 26th, 2006, of the constitutional reform that had been passed in parliament the previous year by the former centre-right majority. Along with all the centre-left (and a few centre-right personalities, too), Scàlfaro considered it to be dangerous for national unity and for other reasons. The opposers of the reform won a landslide victory in the referendum.

Scalfaro is currently the eldest living Italian President and the second eldest senator in the Italian Senate, after Rita Levi Montalcini. He consequently took the temporary presidency of the newly-elected assembly which followed the 2006 general election, as Levi Montalcini refused the role. This made him the only politician in history to have presided over the three highest-ranked offices in the Italian republic: President of the Republic, President of the Senate and President of the Chamber of Deputies.

A staunch Catholic, and in the past a rather conservative and anti-communist politician, Scàlfaro is on very bad terms with former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, and supports the centre-left coalition that won the political elections of 2006. Despite his age, he also actively campaigned, for the "no" side, in the June 2006 referendum on a constitutional reform proposed by the House of Freedoms during its stay at the government.

During the Second World War, in 1944, he lost his 20-year-old wife Maria Inzitari. Since then, he has not been married. He has a daughter, Marianna.

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro - full access article

Presidents of the Italian Republic
De Nicola • Einaudi • Gronchi • Segni • Saragat • Leone • Pertini • Cossiga • Scalfaro • Ciampi • Napolitano

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