Minister of Grace and Justice
What position did Adone Zoli take from Jul 1951 to Jul 1953?
Adone Zoli Adone Zoli ( 16 December 1887 – 20 February 1960 ) was an Italian politician who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Italy from May 1957 to July 1958 ; he was the first senator to have ever held the office . A member of the Christian Democracy , Zoli served also as Minister of Grace and Justice , Finance and Budget , during the 1950s . Early life . Adone Zoli was born in Cesena , Emilia-Romagna , in 1887 . He grew up in a wealthy and Catholic observant family . In 1907 , he graduated in law at the University of Bologna , starting a career as a lawyer firstly in Genoa , then in Bologna and finally in Florence , where he met Tommaso Brunelli , a Catholic lawyer , elected deputy from Italian Peoples Party ( PPI ) in 1919 , who greatly influenced Zolis political ideology . During these years he married Lucia Zoli , his cousin , from whom he had three children . Adone Zoli fought in the World War I as a volunteer , taking party in the battle of Caporetto and obtained , at the end of the conflict , two crosses for war merit and one for military honor . After the war he participated in various congresses of the PPI founded by Don Luigi Sturzo . In 1920 , he became a member of partys national council , while in October 1921 he was appointed in the national direction , a position that he held until the dissolution of the party in 1926 , imposed by the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini . For all his political career , Zoli remained strong anti-fascist . Resistance movement . In 1943 , he joined the partisan resistance by setting up the anti-fascist committee in Florence and later joining the National Liberation Committee ( CLN ) , a political umbrella organization and the main representative of the resistance movement fighting against the German occupation of Italy in the aftermath of the armistice of Cassibile . In November 1943 he was arrested with two of his children and sentenced to death by the Nazis , but it was freed by his partisan comrades . In February 1944 , he underwent a new arresting attempt , this time failed , but his wife and three children were arrested instead . In December 1943 , he was among the founders of the Christian Democracy , the new centrist party , heir of the PPI , led by Alcide De Gasperi . After the liberation from the Nazis , Zoli served deputy mayor of Florence in the municipal government chaired by Gaetano Pieraccini . Political career . On 25 September 1945 , Zoli was appointed in the National Council , an unelected provisional legislative assembly set up in the Kingdom of Italy after the end of World War II . He remained in office until 1 June 1946 , when new election were held , in which Zoli decided not to run . After the 1948 general election , Zoli was elected in the Senate of the Republic for the constituency of Florence , with nearly 70,000 votes . Minister of Justice . As a close ally of De Gasperi , in July 1951 he was appointed Minister of Grace and Justice in De Gasperis seventh government . During his ministry he worked to improve conditions of prisoners , which were still subjected to fascist laws and regulations , in accordance with the principle of the re-educational function of the penalty , expressed by the new republican Constitution . Zoli implemented important measures that included the abolition of the head shaving for prisoners sentenced to short penalties and the exemption from the obligation to wear prison clothes for prisoners . He also established that the condemned should be called by prison officers by name and no longer by matriculation number . He also increased the courses of education , cinematographic and theatrical performances , and allowed to keep in the cell the necessary to write , as well as the photographs of their families . In addition , Zoli supported the plan , started by communist leader , Palmiro Togliatti , to grant amnesty for crimes committed for political ends from the march on Rome to 18 June 1946 . This law , approved by parliament in 1953 , increased Zolis popularity . The 1953 general election was characterised by changes in the electoral law . Even if the general structure remained uncorrupted , the government introduced a superbonus of two-thirds of seats in the House for the coalition which would obtain at-large the absolute majority of votes . The change was strongly opposed by the opposition parties as well as DCs smaller coalition partners , who had no realistic chance of success under this system . The new law was called the Scam Law by its detractors , including some dissidents of minor government parties who founded special opposition groups to deny the artificial landslide to Christian Democracy . The campaign of the opposition to the Scam Law achieved its goal . The government coalition won 49.9% of national vote , just a few thousand votes of the threshold for a supermajority , resulting in an ordinary proportional distribution of the seats . Technically , the government won the election , winning a clear working majority of seats in both houses . But frustration with the failure to win a supermajority caused significant tensions in the leading coalition . De Gasperi was forced to resign by the Parliament on 2 August . On 17 August , President Einaudi appointed Giuseppe Pella as new Prime Minister and Zoli was not confirmed at the Ministry of Justice . Minister of Finance . On 12 January 1954 , after only 5 months in power , Prime Minister Pella was forced to resign , after a strong confrontation with many members of DC , regarding the appointment of Salvatore Aldisio as new Minister of Agriculture . President Luigi Einaudi appointed Amintore Fanfani as new head of the government . Fanfani formed a one-party government composed only by members of the Christian Democracy and Zoli was appointed Minister of Finance However , the cabinet lasted only 23 days when it failed to win approval in the Parliament , being rejected by the Chamber of Deputies with 260 votes in favor , 303 votes against and 12 abstentions out of 563 present . On 10 February , Mario Scelba sworn in as new Prime Minister . Fanfanis first government was the shortest-lived cabinet in the history of the Italian Republic . Since De Gasperis retirement in 1953 Fanfani emerged as the most probable successor , a role confirmed by his appointment as party secretary in June 1954 , a position that he would held until March 1959 . Minister of Budget . In April 1955 , Giovanni Gronchi was elected new President of the Republic . After the election , a political crisis between Prime Minister Scelba and DCs leader Fanfani broke out . In July 1955 , Scelba resigned from the office , and Segni received the task of forming a new cabinet . Zoli was appointed Minister of Budget . In May 1957 , the Italian Democratic Socialist Party ( PSDI ) withdrew its support to the government and on 6 May , Segni resigned . Prime Minister of Italy . President Gronchi gave Zoli the task of forming a new cabinet , and on 20 May , Zoli sworn in as new head of government . He formed a one-party cabinet , composed only my members of the Christian Democracy , in which he kept the ad interim Ministry of Budget . On 4 June 1957 , the government obtained the confidence vote in the Senate , with 132 votes in favor and 93 against , and on 7 June in the Chamber of Deputies , with 560 votes in favor , 305 against and 11 abstensions . The government externally supported by the Italian Liberal Party ( PLI ) , the Italian Republican Party ( PRI ) , the PSDI , the monarchist parties and also by the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement ( MSI ) ; it was the first time in republican history , that the MSI supported a government . The support of the neo-fascists raised many criticisms and Zoli then simply declared that MSI votes were not necessary for the majority . The next day , however , he realized that the count was wrong and that the MSIs support had actually been decisive . Then Zoli , a staunch anti-fascist , resigned on the following 10 June , but he was invited by President Gronchi to withdraw his resignation and to remain in power until the natural dissolution of the Italian Parliament in 1958 . During his premiership , the Parliament approved a law in October 1957 that extended compulsory social security insurance to small farmers , sharecroppers and tenant farmers , while a law of 13 March 1958 extended pension insurance to fishermen . Zoli also approved the request of the MSI to bury the body of Benito Mussolini in Predappio , his hometown ; a request that was also supported by Pietro Nenni , leader of the Italian Socialist Party ( PSI ) , who was a personal friend of Mussolini during the 1910s . The Duces body was buried in Predappio on 30 August 1957 . In the 1958 general election , the Christian Democracy gained 42.4% of votes , nearly doubling Palmiro Togliattis Communist Party , which arrived second . However , the poor results of the other small centrist and secular parties kept the same problems of political instability within the centrist coalition , which characterised the previous legislature . As he promised few months before , Zoli resigned after the new general election and , on 1 July 1958 , Amintore Fanfani sworn in as new Prime Minister at the head of a coalition government with the PSDI , and a case-by-case support of the PRI . Death and legacy . Adone Zoli died in Rome on 20 February 1960 , at the age of 72 . He was buried in the family grave in the cemetery of San Cassiano in Predappio , a few meters from the crypt of Mussolini . In 1963 , the President of the Republic Giuseppe Saragat recognized , with a presidential decree , the Adone Zoli Center for Economic and Social Policy , an institute founded in memory of the former Prime Minister . External links . - Adone Zoli – Senate of the Republic