The “Subversive” Life of Concetto Marchesi, a Classicist and Italian Communist

The rector of Padua University, the classicist Concetto Marchesi stunned colleagues in December 1943 as he fled the city calling on students to join the partisan uprising against fascism. A lifelong Marxist, he embodied the revolutionary spirit of the Italian Communist Party — but also the compromises militants made during the long decades of dictatorship.