Giuseppe Dozza

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Giuseppe Dozza
Mayor of Bologna
In office
25 April 1945 – 2 April 1966
Preceded byMario Agnoli (Podestà)
Succeeded byGuido Fanti
Member of the Constituent Assembly
In office
25 June 1946 – 31 January 1948
ConstituencyBologna
Personal details
Born(1901-11-29)29 November 1901
Bologna, Italy
Died28 December 1974(1974-12-28) (aged 73)
Bologna, Italy
Political partyItalian Communist Party
OccupationPolitician

Giuseppe Dozza (29 November 1901 – 28 December 1974) was an Italian politician, the first Mayor of Bologna after the end of World War II.

Biography

The resistance

One of the founders of the Communist Party of Italy, Dozza was immediately persecuted by the Fascist regime and expatriated in France in the 1920s.[1] He returned to Italy only in 1943 to participate in the resistance movement in his hometown Bologna. The National Liberation Committee already decided that once Bologna has been freed, Dozza would have become its Mayor.[2]

Member of the Constituent Assembly

In the 1946 general election, Dozza is elected at the Constituent Assembly, participating in the drafting of what would later become the Italian Constitution.[1]

Mayor of Bologna

Once elected Mayor, Dozza began immediately to instil confidence in citizens and encouraged them to participate in the reconstruction of the city.

Dozza had committed himself to the autonomous battle of Bologna, demanding more decentralized powers and claiming the financial autonomy of local authorities. Dozza brought solidarity to workers in crisis and equipped the first industrial areas that were the avant-gardes of the economic boom.[3]

Dozza established the tax councils, which combined the need for self-government of Bologna with the principle of "progressive taxation" and with the principle of control of citizens in finding economic resources. They worked at full speed with transparency and without inflicting too heavy tax burdens on the middle classes and saving the popular classes.[3]

In the early 1950s, Dozza's administration also provided a generous sum of money to the University of Bologna, gathering the consensus of the world of culture and that of the productive forces that liked Dozza's plan to fund research on the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.[3]

Dozza saw the solidity of his electoral consent when he won the 1956 local elections against the Christian Democratic leader of Bologna Giuseppe Dossetti. In the last ten years of his term, Dozza concentrated on more ambitious designs, such as the ring road, the fair district and the revival of cultural life.[3]

However, in 1962 Dozza became ill and was forced to resign four years later.[4] During his final years of his service for the city, Umbro Lorenzini (1925-2000), who was an assessor at that time, helped him with different projects, such as Bologna's orbital road. He died on 28 December 1974, at the age of 73,[5] and is buried in the Certosa di Bologna monastery.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b "Donne e Uomini della Resistenza: Giuseppe Dozza". ANPI.it. 25 July 2010. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  2. ^ "Giuseppe Dozza designato sindaco dopo la liberazione". BibliotecaSalaborsa.it. 4 December 2017. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d "Giuseppe Dozza: l'anniversario del sindaco della ricostruzione". BolognaToday.it. 28 December 2015. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  4. ^ "Dimissioni del sindaco Giuseppe Dozza ed elezione di Guido Fanti". Comune.Bologna.it. 2 April 1966. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  5. ^ "Giuseppe Dozza, 73, Mayor of Bologna". The New York Times. 30 December 1974. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  6. ^ "Il ricordo del sindaco di Bologna Giuseppe Dozza a 42 anni dalla morte". La Repubblica. 28 December 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2018.

External links