Sergio Mattarella Gallery

Sergio Mattarella, OMRI, OMCA (Italian pronunciation: [ˈsɛrdʒo mattaˈrɛlla]; born 23 July 1941) is an Italian politician, lawyer and judge who has been President of Italy since 2015. He was a member of Parliament from 1983 to 2008, serving as Minister of Education from 1989 to 1990 and as Minister of Defence from 1999 to 2001. In 2011, he became an elected judge on the Constitutional Court. On 31 January 2015, he was elected by parliament to be the 12th President of the Italian Republic. He is the first Sicilian to have held the post.

Sergio Mattarella was born in Palermo of a prominent Sicilian family. His father, Bernardo Mattarella, was an anti-fascist who, alongside Alcide De Gasperi and other prominent Catholic politicians, helped found the Christian Democracy (DC) party, which dominated the Italian political scene for almost fifty years, with Bernardo serving as a minister several times. Sergio Mattarella's brother, Piersanti Mattarella, was also a Christian Democratic politician and President of Sicily from 1978 until his death in 1980, when he was killed by the Sicilian Mafia.

During his youth, Sergio Mattarella was a member of Azione Cattolica, a large Catholic lay association. In 1964, he graduated in law at the Sapienza University of Rome; after a few years he started teaching Parliamentary procedure at the University of Palermo.

On 31 January 2015 Mattarella was elected President of the Italian Republic at the fourth ballot with 665 votes out of 1,009, with support from the Democratic Party (PD), New Centre-Right (NCD), Civic Choice (SC), Union of the Centre (UDC) and Left Ecology Freedom (SEL).

Mattarella was officially endorsed by the Democratic Party, after his name was put forward by the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Mattarella replaced Giorgio Napolitano, who had served for nine years, the longest presidency in the history of the Italian Republic. His first statement as new President was: "My thoughts go first and especially to the difficulties and hopes of our fellow citizens".

His first presidential visit was on the day of his election, when he visited the Fosse Ardeatine where, in 1944 during World War II, the Nazi occupation troops killed 335 people as a reprisal for a partisan attack. Mattarella stated that "Europe and the world must be united to defeat whoever wants to drag us into a new age of terror".