Giampaolo Pansa
Pansa in 2010
Born	(1935-10-01)1 October 1935 Casale Monferrato,Italy
Died	12 January 2020(2020-01-12) (aged 84) Rome, Italy
Alma mater	Istituto Balbo atCasale Monferrato University of Turin
Occupations	Writer Reporter Journalist-commentator Newspaper editor-in-chief Essayist (History) Novelist
Children	Alessandro Pansa 1962–2017

Giampaolo Pansa (1 October 1935–12 January 2020) was anItalian journalist, commentator, andnovelist. Most of his writings were rooted in modern or contemporary history, notably with regard to theItalian Resistance and the years ofBenito Mussolini.^[1][2][3][4]

Giampaolo Pansa was born and raised inCasale Monferrato, Italy, an industrial town near thePo river, located in theprovince of Alessandria, inPiedmont. His father, Ernesto Pansa, the fifth of six children, grew up in poverty. Because Ernesto was the last child to leave home and marry, his widowed mother (Caterina Zaffiro) moved in with him. As a result, the young Giampaolo developed a close relationship with his grandmother -- who was born in 1869 in the little village ofCaresana located north of the Po river.^[5]

The Pansas werefarm workers, but a generation later, they transitioned to industrial work. AsGiampaolo grew up, there were three career options he could take, but working in the localMarl quarries was the least appealing. Another possibility would have been a job at one of the manycement factories in the town.

The third, and as it seemed at the time "cleanest" option would have involved following his father's example and working at theEternitasbestos plant.^[6] He attended school locally at theIstituto Balbo (secondary school), where he received aclassical education, opening the way for university admission and a chance to move away.

Graduating from school with top marks and a"cum laude" commendation for his final exams, Pansa enrolled at theUniversity of Turin, where he studied for a degree inpolitical sciences.^[7] One of his teachers,Alessandro Galante Garrone, encouraged him to study the history of the Second World War and of the Italian Resistance.^[8]

Pansa completed his university studies on July 16, 1959 with a degree inPolitical Sciences, submitting a dissertation titled 'The Resistance in the Province of Alessandria (1943–1945)'. The work was supervised byGuido Quazza. An expanded version appeared as a book in 1967,^[9] titled for publication as "Guerra partigiana tra Genova e il Po"("The Partisan War between Genoa and the Po").^[10]

The novelist's work on the wartime antifascist resistance also earned him the "Einaudi Prize", worth 500,000lira, and brought him to the attention of the editors and owners at the prestigious Turin-based daily newspaper,La Stampa.^[11]

In 1961 Giampaolo Pansa joinedLa Stampa and, and over the next thirty years contributed to all of Italy's' leading papers.^[12]

• 1961–1964,La Stampa: He undertook an apprenticeship under the directorship ofGiulio De Benedetti, between January 1961 and June 1962. Some of his most memorable contributions during this period concerned theVajont disaster.^[13][14]
• 1964–1968,Il Giorno: Working for theMilan-based paper under the directorship ofItalo Pietra, Pansa reported on events in theLombardy region.^[12]
• 1969–1972,La Stampa: Pansa then returned to La Stampa shortly afterAlberto Ronchey took over as director of the newspaper, covering thePiazza Fontana bombing in Milan.^[15]
• 1972–1973,Il Messaggero: Leaving hisnorthern home-base, he moved toIl Messaggero in Rome to serve as Editor-in-chief under the directorship ofAlessandro Perrone, who during the previous five years had pioneered the application ofcomputer graphics and other technological innovations that made Messaggero a uniquely influential newspaper-technology benchmark for Italy. Under Pansa's leadership, the paper maintained a moderate center-left editorial stance, while overseeing a major Rome-based daily during a period of increasing terrorism and anarchism, aligning closely with the country's ruling establishment. He led an editorial team that was influenced by the quarrelsome relationship betweenDirector Perrone and his cousin Ferdinando Perrone, another major shareholder and a constant presence in the offices. Pansa's term as editor ended after Messaggero was sold toMontedison in May 1974.^[16]
• 1973–1977,Corriere della Sera: At the start of July 1973, Pansa joinedCorriere della Sera inGenoa, then under the directorship ofPiero Ottone, seen by commentators of the time as representative of a younger "more dynamic" generation of newspaper directors. Employed as a "special correspondent", Pansa used his time at Corriere to burnish his credentials as an investigative journalist, notably through a series of pieces produced in partnership with his friendGaetano Scardocchia, which contributed to the uncovering of theLockheed scandals.^[17]
• 1977–1991,la Repubblica: Pansa joined in November 1977 as a "special correspondent", and in October 1978 accepted a complementary position as the paper's deputy director.Eugenio Scalfari (co-founder, director, and editor-in-chief) and Pansa guided Repubblica through a difficult period ofintensified political instability and street terrorism, from which the tabloid emerged with a growing readership which made it, in 1988, the country's top newspaper with circulation at 730,000 copies.^[3][18] He left in 1991 to pursue other interests, but in 2000 returned tola Repubblica as a regular contributing editor.

In parallel with his newspaper work, during the 1980s Pansa also worked regularly for several weekly news magazines.

• 1983–1984,Epoca: He created the "Quaderno italiano" (loosely, "Italian notebook") column, which was then led bySandro Mayer.^[19]
• 1984–1987,L'Espresso: He joined in 1984 and created the well-received "Chi sale e chi scende" (loosely, "Who's on the up and who's on the down") column.^[20]
• 1987–1990,Panorama: Pansa moved to theMilan-basednews magazine in 1987, raising his profile as a columnist through his "Bestiario" ("Bestiary") column. Then, as now,Panorama was produced under the aegis of theArnoldo Mondadori Editore (publishing conglomerate), who had founded the magazine back in 1939. Since 1985, it has operated under the directorship ofClaudio Rinaldi. During his time there, Giampaolo Pansa became a co-director. His "Bestiario" column further built his reputation for exposing "national malpractice", without descending into hypocrisy.^[20][21]
• 1991–2008,L'Espresso: He returned toL'Espresso in 1991, bringing his "Bestiario" column with him. At the same time,Giovanni Valentini moved over tola Repubblica, andGiulio Anselmi took over as the director ofL'Espresso. Meanwhile, Giampaolo Pansa was installed as co-director. When Anselmi also moved back to the world of daily newspapers,Daniela Hamaui became the magazine's director, while Pansa remained in place as co-director till 2008, the year of his 73rd birthday.^[3][20] According to Pansa,Espresso Director Hamui reacted to his decision to "retire" by screaming throughout the day on which he told her of his decision, "Why do you go away? Why?", following through, after he had left his desk, with a series of angry telephone calls and e-mails.^[22]

Through Pansa's career as a journalist, publications produced by the press conglomerate known today asGEDI Gruppo Editoriale predominated. He worked without any significant break between 1977 and 2008 for two of the group's most successful titles,la Repubblica and thenL'Espresso. During his years atla Repubblica, his political perspective aligned with center-left parties, including theSocialist Party and other opposition parties in theChamber of Deputies. Nevertheless, he was also critical of theCommunist Party in his political investigations and commentaries.^[23][24] His political perspectives were also on display in a book he published under the title "La Repubblica di Barbapapà. Storia irriverente di un potere invisibile" ("TheRepublic of Daddy Beard. Irreverent history of an invisible power").^[25][a] By the time it was published in 2014, Pansa had become critical of "Barbapapà's" approach.^[24] In his biography, Pansa presented a case for the creator ofRepubblica demonstrating political bias and, on occasion, heightened self-regard; he also paid tribute to the sheer genius and total dedication to work, which he saw as among of his old boss's formidable array of qualities.^[26]

After thePiazza Fontana bombing, Pansa created a "counterinformation" dossier that helped identify misinformation spread by the authorities in connection with the aftermath of the bomb massacre.^[27] He refused to join in with the more virulent aspects of the campaign that ensued: he refused, for example, to be join the 757 politicians, journalists and "intellectuals" who signed the angryOpen letter of June 1971, targeting (the subsequently assassinated)Police Commissioner Calabresi following the (never explained) death of the alleged bomb suspectGiuseppe Pinelli in police custody, and the associated cover-up.^[28] Pansa was also among the first of the habitually left-wing journalists to assert, in response to theterrorism of the 1970s and 1980s, that "theRed Brigades were red" – left-wing killers instead of not fascist revivalists trying discredit the political left. Pansa's early and persistent rejection of this theory discredited him in the eyes of many "progressive intellectuals".^[29] His investigations of theRed Brigades led to him being targeted, along with his friend and colleagueWalter Tobagi. As matters turned out, however, it wasTobagi rather than Pansa that was gunned down on a Milan street.^[30]

Pansa also became known as a creator ofneologisms and sarcastic "definitions", frequently untranslatable and involving politics. He castFausto Bertinotti as "il parolaio rosso" (loosely, the "Red Word") while he identified Italy'sChristian Democratic Party as the "White Whale", aliterary allusion referencing the party's ability to survive a thousand battles.^[31][32] He described the irrepressible loyalists surrounding the politicianClemente Mastella as "truppe mastellate" ("mastellated troops"), in a conscious echo of the term "truppe cammellate" ("camel-mounted troops").^[33] TheCommunist Party was the "red elephant"^[34] while the right-wing politicianArnaldo Forlani was "thewere rabbit".^[35] In 1980 he published as article inla Repubblica under the headline "Il giornalista dimezzato" (loosely, "journalism trashed"), in which he castigated what he perceived as the hypocritical conduct of colleagues, who, in his words, "surrendered half of their own professionalism to the party".^[36][b]

Reports of Pansa's retirement fromL'Espresso on 30 September 2008 tended to explain it not by pointing out that the move came the day before his seventy-third birthday, but by quoting his justification that he found himself opposed to the magazine's editorial line.^[37][38] While Giampaolo Pansa focused primarily on publishing novels and historical essays during his final twelve years, he still contributed to political magazines and newspapers, including the following:

• 2008–2010,Il Riformista, Rome^[39]
• 2009–2016,Libero, Milan: here he took the opportunity, in 2011, to reintroduce his "Bestiario" column.^[39]
• 2016–2018,La Verità, Milan^[40]
• 2018–2019,Panorama, Milan^[41]
• 2019–2020,The Post Internazionale, Rome (online)^[42]

He later attributed his decision to leaveLa Verità in 2018 to what he saw as the paper's"Northern League" drift, while insisting that he had himself always enjoyed complete freedom from the editor to write what he wished.^[40][c]

The focus to which Pansa would return most frequently in his books and essays was onthe wartime resistance, which he had studied for hisuniversity degree.^[10][43]

In "Le notti dei fuochi" ("Nights of fire"), published in 2001, Pansa explored the critical period between 1919 and 1922, covering the birth of theSquadrismo movement,Mussolini's March on Rome, and the inauguration ofFascism.^[44] He followed, in 2002, with "I figli dell'Aquila" ("Children of the eagle"), the story of a volunteer soldier inthe army of the so-called"Italian Social Republic ("Repubblica Sociale Italiana").^[45][d] Then came the"Blood of the vanquished" cycle,^[47] a short series of books on the violence committed by partisans against fascists during and after thewar. Despite appearing more than half a century after the events described, there was an element of uneasy shock discernible beneath even in the positive critical reaction which came primarily from representatives of mainstream intellectual centre-left.^{[citation needed][48][e]} Pansa had turned for his sources to authorities such asGiorgio Pisanò asAntonio Serena: there were also many personal stories from those who might be identified, in terms of the series title, as the "vanquished". Pansa's historiographical approach with the six volume cycle was in aggregate unconventional, described by one source as a mixture of "historical novel",serious "Feuilleton commentary" and political polemic. Its overall style and structure were more recently analyzed in some depth byNicola Gallerano.^[47][49] In 2011 the publication of "Poco o niente. Eravamo poveri. Torneremo poveri" ("Little or nothing. We were poor. We will always be poor") marked an abrupt change. The book was a portrait of the poor in northern Italy at the cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was the story of Pansa's grandmother and of his own parents.^[50]

As the first volume in theBlood of the vanquished ("Il sangue dei vinti") cycle became more widely read, Pansa received criticism. There were complaints that he had tarnished the still iconic narrative ofthe wartime resistance, and that he had been motivated not by virtuous idealism, but by the lure of personal economic gain. The attacks came from many sides:Giorgio Bocca, a long-standing antagonist among Pansa's fellow journalists, was particularly withering with his references to "[journalist]-skinheads of the left".^[51]

There were allegations thatBlood of the vanquished represented little more than a device intended to attract further editorial commissions from theBerlusconi media empire, while others asserted that the author had merely recycled and embellished incidents and events that had already been identified and recorded by others.^[52][53] Other detractors said that almost all the sources he had used were revisionist ones representing only the fascist viewpoint.^[54] That was one accusation that Pansa always rejected with particular vigour, insisting that he had used sources from across the political spectrum and shed new light on a part of history that deserved to be better known than it was. He stated he had done nothing to detract from the importance ofwartime antifascist resistance. He pointed to the various descriptions included of atrocities committed by certain fascist fighters against resistance partisans before being killed themselves. Not all the critics were persuaded. There are reports of book launches at which Pansa found himself engaged in savage discussions about hisBlood of the vanquished cycle, not just with members of the far-left but also by "academics" who charged him with the crime of"revisionism".^[55] At one event inReggio Emilia, attended by angry groups both from the left and the right, fighting broke out.^[56] The episode came to the attention ofPresident Giorgio Napolitano andSenate PresidentFranco Marini, who condemned "the attack on Gaimpaolo Pansa" and "deplored the violence suffered": "We cannot accept what happened – in this case serious – to an intellectual who produces a work of historical reflection which I believe is worthwhile ... of course some share the opinions and some refute them, but there must be freedom for all works of history and literature".^[57]

There were also more nuanced reactions such as that ofErnesto Galli della Loggia, who reacted positively to Pansa's contributions, but still wondered in print what it said about the Italians that people were generally content to ignore many historical crimes for years on end, only taking an interest and providing opinions when a high-profile intellectual from the political left, such as Giampaolo Pansa, placed some such matters on the public agenda.^[58] Even the historianSergio Luzzatto, whose initial bemusement overBlood of the vanquished had translated into a harsh negativity, later came round to an acceptance that the series contained "nothing made up" and demonstrated a reassuring "respect for history".^[59][60] Italian journalistMassimo Fini reviewed Pansa's work positively, but criticized him for relying too heavily on theHistory of the Civil War in Italy, a 3-volume history of theItalian Civil War published by fascist essayistGiorgio Pisanò in 1966.^[61]

During his final years, Pansa lived with his wife atSan Casciano, a small town in the hills beyondSiena.^[62] It is atSan Casciano that his physical remains were interred following a funerary mass attended by townsfolk and journalist colleagues on 14 January 2020.^[63] He died inRome on 12 January 2020 after several months of suffering with seriousColitis.

Giampaolo Pansa married Lidia "Lillina" Casalone fromMortara in 1960.^[62] The marriage was followed by the birth, in 1962, of the couple's son,Alessandro. In 1993, Pansa also acquired a nephew called Giacomo through his marriage to "Lillina".^[64]

Giampaolo Pansa later married Adele Grisendi, aparty member originally fromMontecchio Emilia (RE). They lived as a "de facto couple" between 1989 and 2020, latterly inTuscany. Adele Grisendi is a writer and former trades union organiser who for many years worked in a top position with theCGIL.^[65] She describes herself as a passionateJuventus supporter.^[66] She contributed extensively to the"Blood of the vanquished" cycle.^[67] They met on 23 November 1989, when she cautiously approached him and asked a question while they were travelling together on the train fromRome toFlorence.^[f] They moved in together a couple of months later.^[69]

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