Papa francesco massimo cacciari biography

Massimo Cacciari graduated in Philosophy at University of Padua in 1967 with a thesis on Critique of Judgement by Kant with professors Sergio Bettini and Dino Formaggio.

However, in a surprise move in 2005, Cacciari again ran for mayor of Venice, and was elected by a slight majority against former magistrate Felice Casson, the very magistrate who years earlier had famously indicted Mayor Cacciari for criminal negligence arising out of the 1996 fire at Venice's La Fenice opera house.

Massimo Cacciari has founded several philosophical reviews and published essays centered on the "negative thought" inspired by authors like Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

In the 1980s, Cacciari also worked with the renowned Italian composer of avant-garde contemporary/classical music Luigi Nono.

In the 1970s he was responsible for industrial politics for the PCI Veneto section and, in 1976, he was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies, where he was a member of the Parliamentary commission for industry (1976–1983).

After the death of Enrico Berlinguer (1984), Cacciari left the Communist Party and switched to more moderate positions, although he never left the centre-left coalition.

In the 1970s he was responsible for industrial politics for the PCI Veneto section and, in 1976, he was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies, where he was a member of the Parliamentary commission for industry (1976–1983).

After the death of Enrico Berlinguer (1984), Cacciari left the Communist Party and switched to more moderate positions, although he never left the Center-Left coalition.

Nono, a political activist whose music represented a revolt against bourgeois cultural constructs, collaborated with Cacciari, who arranged the philosophical lyrics on such works of Nono's as Das Atmende Klarsein, Io, and the opera Prometeo.

After a brief affiliation with Potere Operaio, a radical left-wing worker's party, Cacciari joined the Italian Communist Party (PCI), holding positions which seemed to bear little connection to his philosophical interests.

In 2002, he founded the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vita-Salute San Raffaele in Milan, where he was appointed Dean of the Department in 2005. He received prestigious awards such as the Hannah Arendt Award for Political Philosophy in 1999, the Darmstadt Academy Award (2002), the Gold Medal from Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid (2005), the Gold Medal “Pio Manzù” from the President of the Italian Republic (2008), the Premio De Sanctis for essay writing, the Honorary Degree in Architecture from the University of Genoa (2002), in Political Sciences from the University of Bucharest (2007), and in Classical Philology from Alma Mater in Bologna (2014).

He has been awarded the honorary citizenship of Sarajevo for his political and cultural action during war and the siege on the city, and of Siracusa for his work on Plato and Neoplatonism.

He cofounded and co-directed magazines that marked the political, cultural and philosophical context in Italy between the 1960s and the 1990s, such as Angelus Novus, Contropiano, Laboratorio politico, Centauro, Paradosso.

Among his publications: Krisis, Milan, 1976; Dallo Steinhof, Milan, 1980; Icone della legge, Milan, 1985; The Necessary Angel, Milan, 1986; Zeit ohne Kronos, Klagenfurt, 1986; Drama y duelo, Madrid, 1987; Méridiéens de la decision, Paris, 1992; Geofilosofia dell’Europa, Milan, 1994; L’Arcipelago, Milan, 1996; Le dieu qui danse, Paris, 2000; Hamletica, Milan, 2009; TheUnpolitical, Yale University Press, 2009; Doppio ritratto.