Abstract

This contribution explores Alcide De Gasperi’s influence on the reconstruction of Italy after the Second World War and on the national constitution-making process. Although De Gasperi’s participation in the debates within the Constituent Assembly was mainly limited to what later became art. 7 of the Constitution, his vision has largely contributed to shape the new constitutional system in its first years. The rebuilding of the country, devastated by the war, required the pursuing of an ideal and an intense work involving the people and trying to instill a sense of a community. The method that inspired De Gasperi’s political activity – a successful mix of political and social thought and of concrete actions – made him an undisputed protagonist of the decade of the Italian constitutional history that followed the war and the end of the fascism and that is known as the period of the reconstruction. The essay explores how De Gasperi’s personal history and vision of the world has turned to be decisive for the method of the reconstruction.