Piero Pisenti (March 20, 1887 – September 29, 1980) was an Italian Fascist journalist and politician. Pisenti was born in

Perugia Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and pa ...

Umbria it, Umbro (man) it, Umbra (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , ...

, to a family of university professors. In 1912 he graduated in

jurisprudence Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...

at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continu ...

. The following year he moved to Pordenone,

Friuli Friuli ( fur, Friûl, sl, Furlanija, german: Friaul) is an area of Northeast Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity containing 1,000,000 Friulians. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli Venezia Giuli ...

, where he began his political career as a member of the town council, which he held from 1915 to 1919, elected on

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

list. In 1920 he founded in Pordenone the far right party Unione del Lavoro (Labour Union), which was later absorbed into the

National Fascist Party The National Fascist Party ( it, Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian Fascism and as a reorganization of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. Th ...

(PNF). He entered the PNF in 1921, and soon became a captain of the

Blackshirts The Voluntary Militia for National Security ( it, Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, MVSN), commonly called the Blackshirts ( it, Camicie Nere, CCNN, singular: ) or (singular: ), was originally the paramilitary wing of the Nation ...

in Friuli, as well as a national-level figure of Fascism, and editor of '' Giornale del Friuli''. In 1926 Pisenti was expelled from the PNF, as he disagreed on some internal regulations of the party. The following year, however, he was readmitted into high office, becoming one of Benito Mussolini's closest collaborators (Mussolini described him as "the man who, throughout twenty years of Fascism, has had the bravery of his very own brilliant heterodoxy"). In 1924 he was elected as to the

Italian Chamber of Deputies The Chamber of Deputies ( it, Camera dei deputati) is the lower house of the bicameral Italian Parliament (the other being the Senate of the Republic). The two houses together form a perfect bicameral system, meaning they perform identical funct ...

, a position he held without interruptions until 1939. After the

armistice An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from the ...

of September 8, 1943, he remained loyal to Mussolini, and joined the leadership of the Italian Social Republic - in November of that year, he was appointed its Minister of Justice. His predecessor had initiated a "show" trail of Grand Council members who moved against Mussolini. While he opposed this tactic and attempted to free the prisoners, he gave into pressure and refused to pardon the former Fascist leaders who had organized the fall of Mussolini in 1943 (including

Galeazzo Ciano Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari ( , ; 18 March 1903 – 11 January 1944) was an Italian diplomat and politician who served as Foreign Minister in the government of his father-in-law, Benito Mussolini, from 1936 until 1 ...

Emilio De Bono Emilio De Bono (19 March 1866 – 11 January 1944) was an Italian general, fascist activist, marshal, and member of the Fascist Grand Council (''Gran Consiglio del Fascismo''). De Bono fought in the Italo-Turkish War, the First World War and t ...

and Carlo Pareschi), and who were sentenced to death in the Verona trial. After the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Pisenti was arrested and jailed for a year. After the sentence was carried out, he returned to Pordenone and worked as a lawyer. In 1977 he wrote the controversial essay ''RSI - Una Repubblica necessaria'' ("The RSI talian Social Republic- A Necessary Republic"), in which he defended the politics of the Republic. Pisenti died in Pordenone in 1980.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pisenti, Piero 1887 births 1980 deaths People from Perugia People of the Italian Social Republic Italian male journalists University of Bologna alumni Alpini Italian anti-communists 20th-century Italian journalists 20th-century Italian male writers