Ludovico Fulci

Ludovico Fulci (1 January 185028 June 1934) was a lawyer and professor of jurisprudence from Sicily who became a national Italian politician. He can, for most purposes, be considered to have been a member of the Radical Party ("Partito Radicale storico"). During an unusually lengthy parliamentary career, he served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies ("Camera dei deputati"), between 1882 and 1913, and then - some thought in defiance of his own his anti-Monarchist principals - accepted nomination by the king as a senator in 1919, serving in the senate until his death in 1934.

Biography Provenance and early years Ludovico Fulci was born in Santa Lucia del Mela, a small municipality located in the hills to the west of the provincial capital, Messina. He was the son of Antonio Fulci by his marriage to Nicolina Taccone, who was also of aristocratic provenance. The Fulci of Santa Lucia del Mela were a family from the minor nobility, originally from Tropea. They had moved from Calabria to Sicily during the sixteenth century. Ludovico's father, Antonio Fulci, was a lawyer who also held a teaching chair in Civil law at the University of Messina. Fulci combined his university teaching and his national political duties with membership of the Provincial Council for Messina, of which he became vice-president. and, eventually, president.

One project in which he was closely involved during this period involved a new aqueduct constructed for Messina.

Fulci's advocacy skills were also on display when he teamed up with fellow-lawyer Francesco Crispi to head up the defence team for the posthumous retrial as to facts held at the assize court in Rome, following the execution in Trieste of Guglielmo Oberdan. Trieste at this time was still an Austrian city subjugated, according to Italian nationalists, to a form of illegitimate military occupation. Oberdan's alleged crime was that he had plotted to assassinate the Austrian emperor. His last words were "viva Italia!" and he accordingly rapidly acquired martyr status among patriotic Italians. Fulci may not have shared Crispi's (late-flowering) monarchist sentiments, but he was just as much of an Italian patriot.

Legal scholarship Fulci's monograph "L'evoluzione del diritto penale. La forza irresistibile" (loosely, "The evolution of criminal law. The irresistible force") appeared in 1891 and was still in print 90 years later. It was considered an important contribution to legal doctrine, notably by Cesare Lombroso and by Francesco Carrara who wrote a warmly appreciative critique of it shortly before his death.

Personal Ludovico Fulci's marriage to Rosa Guerrera, which took place in 1913, was followed by the births of the couple's three sons, Nicola, Alfredo and Francesco. and as a junior government minister between 1901 and 1903. Nicolò Fulci died in the earthquake.

Freemasonry provides important context for Ludovico Fulci's life, and for the anti-clerical secularism underpinning his Radical Party politics. In 1880 he joined the Adonhiram Lodge in Messina. On 9 April 1919 the Messina "Liberty Lodge" accepted him for membership of the Grand Orient of Italy, appointing him an Honorary Grand Master,

Awards and honours