Venturi, Franco

Born May 16, 1914, in Rome. Italian historian. Professor at the University of Turin and director of the Institute for the History of the Risorgimento at Turin University.

In 1933, Venturi was sentenced to 18 years in prison for organizing a student antifascist manifestation in Turin. He fled to France. During World War II, in 1943—45 he was one of the organizers of the partisan movement in the Piedmont. Venturi is known as a historian of the European Enlightenment movement in the 18th century, particularly in France and Italy, and of the revolutionary and democratic movement in Italy, France, and Russia in the 19th century. His work on Russian Narodnichestvo (Populism), which he views as part of the general European revolutionary and socialist movement, is the most important non-Russian work on the subject .