Abstract

Because of the relations that he established with Antonio Gramsci, the figure of Enrico Macis, the examining magistrate in the trial of Gramsci and the other leading communists before the Tribunale Speciale per la Difesa dello Stato, has especially over the last few years aroused enormous interest among scholars and experts dealing with Gramsci's biography. But who exactly was enrico Macis? How did his figure and role as military examining magistrate fit into the Tribunale Speciale? What was his career? Macis emerged professionally unscathed through the two regime crises that shook italy in the first half of the twentieth century, namely the passage from the liberal State to the fascist dictatorship and from there to the democratic Republic. He was an examining magistrate for the territorial military Tribunal of Milan, military public prosecutor in the Amhara governorate after the proclamation of the empire, deputy prosecutor at the military Tribunal of Ljubljana - a position that led to his being accused of war crimes - partisan in the Monferrato area, then military prosecutor for the territorial Tribunal of Turin and, finally, military Procurator General of the Republic.