The Modigliani family in politics: his brother Giuseppe Emanuele
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The Modigliani family in politics: his brother Giuseppe Emanuele
Amedeo Modigliani is rarely connected to one of the most important personalities of Italian socialism and anti-fascism: Giuseppe Emanuele Modigliani, the painter's older brother.
This unmistakeable figure, physically also for his thick, long, white beard, was one of the founders of the Socialist Party in Livorno in 1894 (two years after its birth in Genoa). Emanuele, the eldest of Eugenie’s four sons, began his political life at just 22 years of age, working as both a municipal councillor and as a lawyer, after his degree in law, in social and political causes, defending manual labourers and workers and helping them to claim their rights.
In 1913, in the first elections with universal suffrage, Emanuele entered the Lower House of Parliament and remained for four terms. He was one of the main figures of Italian pacifism. With the advent of fascism, he was attacked and his own home was destroyed, while he was the civil claimants’ lawyers in the Matteotti trial, until he was forced to flee overseas.
In Paris during those years, he was a reference point for all anti-fascist expatriates.
Menè and his faithful companion Vera were persecuted in France by the Vichy collaborationist government and towards the end of 1943, they luckily managed to take refuge in Switzerland, thank to help from Joyce Lussu.
He returned to Italy with Ignazio Silone in the final months of 1944, and represented the PSIUP in the national assembly and he was elected to the Constituent Assembly in the first free elections in June 1946. In January 1947, Modigliani followed Saragat to found the PSLI, and became its parliamentary group president until his death in October of the same year.
Sources: https://www.italianieuropei.it/it/la-rivista/archivio-della-rivista/item/802-giuseppe-emanuele-modigliani-a-proposito-del-pacifismo-riformista.html
Il socialismo e la demacrazione occidentale nel pensiero di G.E. Modigliani by Maurizio Vernassa - University di Pisa