Valerio Zanone, honorary president of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi of Rome, presents the event remembering that Naples is the fourth location of the exhibition and each location symbolically represents the multiplicity of Einaudi’s activities: politician and statesman in Rome; journalist in Milan; economist and university professor in Turin; and, finally, bibliophile and principled intellectual in Naples.

Roberto Einaudi describes the forty years’ friendship between Luigi Einaudi and Benedetto Croce – and their antagonism toward Fascism – accounting for his father’s trip to Naples in 1931. Luigi Einaudi was required to take the oath of allegiance to Fascism; otherwise he would have renounced his chair at the University of Turin. Then, he went to Naples asking his friend advice and Croce suggested him to swear a false oath as a means to keep his work at the University, but it was not an easy matter. In order to comfort Einaudi, Croce gifted him with a precious book, Antonio Serra’s Trattato on the economy during the 17^th century.

The invited speakers highlight the actuality and the importance of Einaudi’s thought in contemporary political debate: his strong sense of responsibility and his terse style that, far from being rhetorical, was much admired; his great regard for human rights, cultural heritage and environmental protection; his anticipation of the European unity in 1897, when he was just twenty-three years old.

The exhibition – including a variety of records, photographs and videos, writings and unknown documents – describes the multifaceted character of Luigi Einaudi and, at the same time, the cultural and political situation in Italy from the advent of fascism to the Constitution of the Republic and the elaboration of new Italian and European political institutions – a central period for the historical memory of Italian people.