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In a famous speech  on “the value of cities”, delivered in Geneva in 1954, La Pira asserted the right of cities to survive and therefore the duty of administrators to work in the cause of peace. In Florence during the years of the Cold War he organized the Christian Conferences for…

In his capacity as mayor, Giorgio La Pira did not neglect the industrial, commercial and financial development of Florence. Among the many achievements realized under his administration are the Milk Depot, the Novoli fruit and vegetable Market, the network of municipal pharmacies, the rebuilding of the bridges blown up by…

Giorgio La Pira died on 5 November 1977, “in the Sabbath without eventide” of which he himself had spoken. The next day the body was exposed in San Marco, where the Florentines flocked to take leave of the “holy mayor” and political and cultural personalities arrived from all over the world: men…

La Pira spent the last years of his life among the young, a guest of the Opera per la Gioventù Youth Organization). It was the new generations  which had chiefly been at the centre of all he had to say. After 1965, though he was no longer mayor of Florence,…

The fame of this outstanding personality, whom the Florentines already called the “holy mayor”, very soon spread even outside Italy. But La Pira’s activities also brought him attacks of every sort and kind. He was accused of playing the game of the Communists: the Florence newspaper La Nazione attacked him…

In Florence La Pira found the most fertile territory in which to make use of his political commitment. The city became a workshop in which to put his ideas into practice, applying that commitment to the concrete problems of the poor. His was a vast and remarkable administrative undertaking which…

The “Dossettian” left wing of the DC withdrew from the government in 1949. In 1951, after much pressure brought to bear on him, partly by religious authorities, La Pira agreed to head the list of Christian Democrat candidates for the administrative elections of 10 and 11 June. A decisive factor…