Abstract

Corrado Belci, Guido Bodrato and Paola Gaiotti de Biase gave their opinions of protagonists and witnesses about one of the crucial turning points of post-1945 Italian political history and, in particular, the history of Christian Democracy (DC). The five year Zaccagnini leadership took place during the complex process of modernization and crisis, when Italian democracy faced the double challenge of economic decline and terrorism. At that time, DC was gradually losing its wide and motley Catholic constituency, which was signed by secularization and turmoil after the Vatican Council II in 1968. Both the death of Aldo Moro, and the national solidarity governments, undermined the "third stage" of the catholics party "self-reform", that Zaccagnini outlined at the beginning of his leadership.