ROME ? Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, a past president of Italy who helped write its post-war constitution and was a founding member of the former Christian Democrats, died Sunday in Rome. He was 93.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano paid tribute to his predecessor as "a protagonist in the democratic political life" and called him an example of "moral integrity."
No cause of death was immediately reported.
Scalfaro held numerous prestigious posts before becoming Italy's ninth postwar president, a position that is largely ceremonial but carries the significant role of moral compass for the country.
As president from 1992-1999, Scalfaro was often called upon to resolve Italy's recurrent political crises, either choosing a new premier or calling early elections. He once called Italy's volatile political situation "pathological."
The National Magistrates Association remembered Scalfaro as a "strenuous defender of constitutional values and the autonomy and independence of the magistrates."
A devout Roman Catholic with a law degree from the Catholic University of Milan, Scalfaro spent the war years working to help imprisoned anti-Fascists and their families.
Then, in 1946, he won a seat in the assembly that wrote the constitution for the Italian Republic, declared in late 1947 after a popular referendum abolished the monarchy.
Scalfaro, a native of the northern city of Novara, was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in the republic's first general election in 1948 and remained a deputy until he was elected president in 1992.
He also was one of the founding figures of the former Christian Democrats, for decades Italy's most powerful party until its demise in corruption scandals in the early 1990s.
Scalfaro held junior posts at various ministries through the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1966, he gained his first Cabinet position when Premier Aldo Moro appointed him transportation minister.
In subsequent governments, Scalfaro served two more stints as transport minister and was education minister and interior minister. He was vice president of the Chamber of Deputies from 1976 to 1983.
He became a senator for life after completing his term as president.
He is survived by a daughter, Marianna.
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