L'epurazione del Senato del Regno 1943-1948. Prefazione di Piero Aimo

The last five years in the century-old history of the Senate of the Kingdom saw this institution - already weak and marginal in the Italian liberal age - declining further up to its suppression, even if it revived again, in a more democratic guise, in the Republican Constitution. The research begins with the transformation of the Senate in accordance to the fascist model and reconstructs the thwarted process of the purge. The volume, based on extensive original documents, describes, with great precision, the tasks, composition and functioning of special organs – High Commission and High Court of Justice – established by the sanctioning legislation. The inquisitorial and judgmental activities collided with the senators’ tenacious opposition so that the purge process was brought to a substantial failure. The senators’ articulated defense strategy, a different and more moderate political climate, the complicity and resistance of ordinary courts were indeed successful. The conspicuous and patient archival analysis has enabled to enrich the volume with a remarkable documentary and statistical appendix, including a biographical survey on 432 senators in office since August 1944, when the purge process started. The work also offers valuable suggestions to constitutional history and could stimulate further studies to the causes and outcomes of constitutional “transitions” that characterized a large part of the institutional history of European and non-European States during the last two hundred years