Vittorino Veronese

Vittorino Veronese (1 March 1910 – 3 September 1986) was an Italian anti-fascist lawyer and activist who served as UNESCO’s Director-General from 1958 to 1961. Three years after the appointment as the Director-General, Veronese had to resign due to health concerns.

Veronese would continue to hold roles within the Catholic Church after his career with UNESCO, and to be prominent in the international sphere until his death in 1986 at the age of 76.

Early life and career Vittorino Veronese was born in a country town near Venice, Vicenza on 1 March 1910. His father worked in a local electric plant as a chief technician, and his mother was a school teacher.

Veronese graduated from the University of Padua with a doctoral degree in law before he reached twenty-one. He worked as a lawyer for ten years after graduation, then started to pursue a career in the fields of sociology and education.

During the war years, he worked together with democratically-minded scholars and directed a review, named “Studium”. From 1952 to 1956 he served as a representative on UNESCO's executive board, and was elected as the board's chairperson between 1956 and 1958. As a UNESCO Director-General, Vittorino Veronese would lead member nations to sign the Paris Convention against Discrimination in Education in 1960.

Also in 1960, 19 newly independent African nations (including Burkina Faso, Chad, Gambia, and Nigeria) were granted membership. This was the first educational conference held by African leaders where the focus was determined by member nations and general concerns of middle Africa. Veronese was initially competing for the lay auditor position to the Second Vatican Council with Guitton, debating back and forth to decide which one of them should have the honor. Their speeches were regarded as “Attestations of Reverence” by the Roman Curia: “The Italian spoke simply and briefly; M. Guitton was more rhetorical”.

Following the council Veronese became a consultor to the secretariat of Nonbelievers. In 1967 he was a member of the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace, in which he chaired the study Committee for the Problems of Peace and the International Community. In March 1972 he was appointed a member of the College of Lawyers of the Sacred Consistory.

In 1967, Veronese was awarded an honorary doctorate in law by Université Laval in Quebec.