Senators for life in Italy (Italian : senatori a vita) are members of the Italian Senate who are either appointed, limited in number up to five, by the Italian president "for outstanding patriotic merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field" or are former presidents and thus senators for life ex officio .
Every president of the Italian Republic has made at least one appointment of a senator for life, with the exception of Oscar Luigi Scalfaro (since in his term there were more than five). President Giorgio Napolitano appointed Professor Mario Monti on 9 November 2011 and conductor Claudio Abbado, researcher Elena Cattaneo, architect Renzo Piano and Nobel-laureate physicist Carlo Rubbia on 30 August 2013. The president who appointed the highest number of senators for life was Luigi Einaudi, who made eight appointments during his term.
Senators for life can decide not to be part of any parliamentary group, as opposed elected senators who, if not affiliated with any specific political movement, automatically become members of the Mixed Group.
The Italian Constitution provides that the president of the republic may appoint up to five senators for life. Until 2020 it was debated whether five was intended to be the maximum overall number of senators for life, or if each president had the ability to appoint up to five senators regardless of how many had been appointed by their predecessor and were still living. Until 1984 the former interpretation enjoyed the support of a majority of scholars. In that year, however, President Sandro Pertini applied the latter interpretation. Pertini's successors applied varying standards. Oscar Luigi Scalfaro appointed none, in deference to the stricter reading, while both Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Giorgio Napolitano appointed five each.
Eventually, the 2020 constitutional reform ended the debate by establishing unambiguously a limit of five overall appointed senators.
| Senator | Known for | Date of appointment | Appointed by | End of appointment (reason) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enrico De Nicola | President (1946–1948) | 12 May 1948 | ex officio | 1 October 1959 (death) |
| Guido Castelnuovo | Mathematician | 5 December 1949 | Luigi Einaudi | 27 April 1952 (death) |
| Arturo Toscanini | Conductor | 5 December 1949 | Luigi Einaudi | 7 December 1949 (resignation) |
| Pietro Canonica | Sculptor, painter and conductor | 1 December 1950 | Luigi Einaudi | 8 June 1959 (death) |
| Gaetano De Sanctis | Historian | 1 December 1950 | Luigi Einaudi | 9 April 1957 (death) |
| Pasquale Jannaccone | Economist | 1 December 1950 | Luigi Einaudi | 22 December 1959 (death) |
| Carlo Alberto Salustri | Poet | 1 December 1950 | Luigi Einaudi | 21 December 1950 (death) |
| Luigi Sturzo | Priest | 17 September 1952 | Luigi Einaudi | 8 August 1959 (death) |
| Umberto Zanotti Bianco | Archeologist | 17 September 1952 | Luigi Einaudi | 28 August 1963 (death) |
| Luigi Einaudi | President (1948–1955) | 11 May 1955 | ex officio | 30 October 1961 (death) |
| Giuseppe Paratore | Politician and attorney | 9 November 1957 | Giovanni Gronchi | 26 February 1967 (death) |
| Giovanni Gronchi | President (1955–1962) | 11 May 1962 | ex officio | 17 October 1978 (death) |
| Cesare Merzagora | Politician | 2 March 1963 | Antonio Segni | 1 May 1991 (death) |
| Ferruccio Parri | Prime Minister (1945) | 2 March 1963 | Antonio Segni | 8 December 1981 (death) |
| Meuccio Ruini | Politician | 2 March 1963 | Antonio Segni | 6 March 1970 (death) |
| Antonio Segni | President (1962–1964) | 6 December 1964 | ex officio | 1 December 1972 (death) |
| Vittorio Valletta | Industrialist | 28 November 1966 | Giuseppe Saragat | 10 August 1967 (death) |
| Eugenio Montale | Poet and prose writer | 13 June 1967 | Giuseppe Saragat | 12 September 1981 (death) |
| Giovanni Leone | Prime Minister (1963, 1968) President (1971–1978) | 27 August 1967 15 June 1978 | Giuseppe Saragat ex officio | 23 December 1971 (elected President) 9 November 2001 (death) |
| Pietro Nenni | Politician | 25 November 1970 | Giuseppe Saragat | 1 January 1980 (death) |
| Giuseppe Saragat | President (1964–1971) | 29 December 1971 | ex officio | 11 June 1988 (death) |
| Amintore Fanfani | Prime Minister (1954, 1958–1959, 1960–1963, 1982–1983, 1987) | 10 March 1972 | Giovanni Leone | 20 November 1999 (death) |
| Leo Valiani | Historian, politician and journalist | 12 January 1980 | Sandro Pertini | 18 September 1999 (death) |
| Eduardo De Filippo | Actor | 28 September 1981 | Sandro Pertini | 31 October 1984 (death) |
| Camilla Ravera | Politician | 8 January 1982 | Sandro Pertini | 14 April 1988 (death) |
| Carlo Bo | Poet | 18 July 1984 | Sandro Pertini | 21 July 2001 (death) |
| Norberto Bobbio | Philosopher | 18 July 1984 | Sandro Pertini | 9 January 2004 (death) |
| Sandro Pertini | President (1978–1985) | 29 June 1985 | ex officio | 24 February 1990 (death) |
| Giovanni Spadolini | Prime Minister (1981–1982) | 2 May 1991 | Francesco Cossiga | 4 August 1994 (death) |
| Giovanni Agnelli | Industrialist | 1 June 1991 | Francesco Cossiga | 24 January 2003 (death) |
| Giulio Andreotti | Prime Minister (1972–1973, 1976–1979, 1989–1992) | 1 June 1991 | Francesco Cossiga | 6 May 2013 (death) |
| Francesco De Martino | Politician | 1 June 1991 | Francesco Cossiga | 18 November 2002 (death) |
| Paolo Emilio Taviani | Politician | 1 June 1991 | Francesco Cossiga | 18 June 2001 (death) |
| Francesco Cossiga | President (1985–1992) | 28 April 1992 | ex officio | 17 August 2010 (death) |
| Oscar Luigi Scalfaro | President (1992–1999) | 16 May 1999 | ex officio | 29 January 2012 (death) |
| Rita Levi-Montalcini | Neurologist | 1 August 2001 | Carlo Azeglio Ciampi | 30 December 2012 (death) |
| Emilio Colombo | Prime Minister (1970–1972) | 14 January 2003 | Carlo Azeglio Ciampi | 24 June 2013 (death) |
| Mario Luzi | Poet | 14 October 2004 | Carlo Azeglio Ciampi | 28 February 2005 (death) |
| Giorgio Napolitano | Politician President (2006–2015) | 23 September 2005 14 January 2015 | Carlo Azeglio Ciampi ex officio | 15 May 2006 (elected President) 22 September 2023 (death) |
| Sergio Pininfarina | Designer and politician | 23 September 2005 | Carlo Azeglio Ciampi | 3 July 2012 (death) |
| Carlo Azeglio Ciampi | Economist and politician Prime Minister (1993–1994); President (1999–2006) | 16 May 2006 | ex officio | 16 September 2016 (death) |
| Mario Monti | Economist and politician Prime Minister (2011–2013) | 9 November 2011 | Giorgio Napolitano | currently serving |
| Claudio Abbado | Conductor | 30 August 2013 | Giorgio Napolitano | 20 January 2014 (death) |
| Elena Cattaneo | Scientist | 30 August 2013 | Giorgio Napolitano | currently serving |
| Renzo Piano | Architect | 30 August 2013 | Giorgio Napolitano | currently serving |
| Carlo Rubbia | Physicist | 30 August 2013 | Giorgio Napolitano | currently serving |
| Liliana Segre | Holocaust survivor and activist | 19 January 2018 | Sergio Mattarella | currently serving |
Carlo Rubbia is an Italian particle physicist and inventor who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984 with Simon van der Meer for work leading to the discovery of the W and Z particles at CERN.
Mario Monti is an Italian economist and academic who served as the Prime Minister of Italy from 2011 to 2013, leading a technocratic government in the wake of the Italian debt crisis.
Oscar Luigi Scalfaro was the president of Italy from 1992 to 1999. A member of Christian Democracy (DC), he became an independent politician after the DC's dissolution in 1992, and was close to the centre-left Democratic Party when it was founded in 2007.
Giorgio Napolitano was an Italian politician who served as the president of Italy from 2006 to 2015, the first to be re-elected to the office. Due to his dominant position in Italian politics, some critics have sometimes referred to him as Re Giorgio. In office for 8 years and 244 days, he was the longest-serving and longest-lived president in the history of the Italian Republic, which has been in existence since 1946. Although he was a prominent figure of the First Italian Republic, he did not take part in the Constituent Assembly of Italy that drafted the Italian constitution; he is considered one of the symbols of the Second Italian Republic, which came about after the Tangentopoli scandal of the 1990s.
Events from the year 2012 in Italy:
Elena Cattaneo is an Italian pharmacologist and co-founding director of the University of Milan's Center for Stem Cell Research.
For the Autonomies is a heterogeneous, mostly centrist, centre-left and regionalist, parliamentary group which has been active, with slightly different names and compositions, in the Italian Senate since 2001.
The Legislature XVII of Italy started on 15 March 2013 and ended on 22 March 2018. Its composition was the one resulting from the general election of 24–25 February 2013, called after the dissolution of the houses of Parliament announced by President Giorgio Napolitano on 22 December 2012.
The Legislature XVI of Italy started on 29 April 2008 and ended on 14 March 2013. Its composition resulted from the snap election of 13–14 April 2008, called after President Giorgio Napolitano dissolved the houses on 6 February 2008. The dissolution of the Parliament was a consequence of the defeat of the incumbent government led by Romano Prodi during a vote of confidence in the Senate.
The Legislature XV of Italy started on 28 April 2006 and ended on 28 April 2008. Its composition resulted from the election of 9–10 April 2006, called after President Ciampi dissolved the houses on 11 February 2006, at the end of the previous legislature. This legislature was the second shortest in the history of the Italian Republic, lasting exactly two years, and ending when President Giorgio Napolitano dissolved the houses on 6 February 2008, after a vote of no confidence on the incumbent Prodi Cabinet.
The Legislature XIV of Italy started on 30 May 2001 and ended on 27 April 2006. Its composition resulted from the general election of 13 May 2001. The election was called by President Ciampi, after he dissolved the houses of Parliament on 8 March 2001. The legislature ended after its natural course of five years, soon after the houses were dissolved again by Ciampi on 11 February 2006.