Pietro Bucalossi

Pietro Bucalossi (9 August 1905 – 15 March 1992) was an Italian physician and politician. He is remembered for his cancer research, and his austerity and small government policies while Mayor of Milan in the 1960s.

Biography

Medical career Born in San Miniato, Tuscany, Pietro Bucalossi was a graduate in medicine and surgery from the University of Pisa. He became a prominent oncologist and an associate of the National Institute of Cancer (Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori; INT), and moved to Milan in 1934. He was a lifelong member of the "Italian League for the Fight against Cancer", and was also Director of the INT from 1956 to 1974. Additionally, he wrote several medical books with his protégé, Umberto Veronesi.

War record In 1940, at the beginning of World War II, he began service as a medical captain in the Italian Royal Army. Following the events of 25 July (Benito Mussolini's deposition) in 1943, he left the army and entered both the Italian resistance movement and the National Liberation Committee as a member of the Action Party (Partito d'Azione; PdA). Although a committed partisan, by the end of the war he harboured a profound distrust of the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano; PCI) for its role in concealing the death of Mussolini.

Political career In 1947, the Action Party disbanded and Bucalossi joined the Socialist Party of Italian Workers (Partito Socialista dei Lavoratori Italiani; PSLI), a breakaway from the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano; PSI) that later became the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano; PSDI). In 1958 he was elected on the PSDI list to represent Milan in the Chamber of Deputies, where he remained for six years before resigning to become Mayor of Milan in 1964.

Known for his strong personality and short temper, Bucalossi was a sincere believer in small government (despite his party's statist, social-democratic philosophy), similar to that of an American fiscal conservative.

After his time as a deputy came to an end in 1979, he left Italian politics and returned to his job as an oncologist. He died in 1992.