Francesco Alberoni

Francesco Alberoni (31 December 1929 – 14 August 2023) was an Italian journalist and a professor of sociology. He was a board member and senior board member (chairman) of RAI, the Italian state television network, from 2002 to 2005.

Alberoni was among the few regular front page writers of Corriere della Sera , Italy's most popular newspaper, which published his articles from 1973 to 2011 During his studies in Pavia, he met Vincenza Pugliese (1929–1992) whom he married in 1958.

From his marriage to Vincenza Pugliese he has three children: Margherita (born in 1959), Francesca (born in 1961) and Paolo Giovanni Agostino (born in 1968), named after friar Agostino Gemelli. Later, Alberoni lived with Laura Bonin, from whom he had a fourth son: Giulio In the book, which further develops and expands the ideas and theoretical models from Movements and Institutions, he maintains that the experience of falling in love is in essence the nascent state (or "ignition state") of a collective movement made up exclusively of two people. This time, however, Alberoni explores the subject in greater detail, using as much as possible the language of love stories rather than the abstract jargon of psychoanalysis or sociology. This book, which was rigorously scientific and at the same time innovative in its linguistic slant, turned into an international best-seller translated into twenty languages. After more than ten editions, it is still in print in Italy.

Alberoni's next works were L'amicizia ("Friendship") of 1984, and Erotismo ("Eroticism") of 1986, in which he compares male and female eroticism. Then followed The Nuptial Flight (Garzanti, Milan, 1992), where he took a closer look at pre-adolescent and adolescent crushes on film stars, and then at the general feminine tendency to seek out superior love objects.

His sociology books include Genesi (1989), which illustrates his theories about the fundamental experience of the nascent state, the difference between the nascent state and Nirvana, the concept of democracy, and what he termed "Cultural Civilizations".

Collections of brief essays on the subject of collective movements, a number of which were included in The Sources of Dreams (Rizzoli, Milan, 2000), were later published under the more appropriate title of My Theories and My Life. His essays from Corriere della Sera are usually in collected into book editions by Rizzoli.

Alberoni's books have had a great success both in Italy and abroad, having been translated in many countries, including Japan, Spain, France, Denmark, Brazil, Sweden, Turkey and Israel.

His books composed of newspaper articles have been pointed out by some critics as lacking scientific analysis, allegedly reducing to platitudinous advice about today's life and love matters.

The most recent books are considered by critics innovative and notable both for originality of the content as well as writing style. Specifically "Mystery of falling in love" in the second part of the treatise offers an original critique to the most important theories of falling in love, especially with reference to the French social school. "Sex and Love" is the first systematic analysis in the field and is a break-through in its approach to the subject.

Death Alberoni died of kidney disease in Milan, on 14 August 2023, at the age of 93.