In Memoriam: The Passing of an Icon

Midmorning New Year’s Day [2022], this author received a sad message from Professor Francesco Forte’s assistant, Angelo Saccaro: “Francesco’s heart today stopped working, but he lives long in our hearts and minds.” His assistant’s sentiments well describe our feelings in response to the loss of Francesco Forte (1929 – 2022). On 11 February 2022, he would have been 93. Though awarded Professore Emerito, he rejected the notion of retirement.

Francesco’s legacy is his son Stefano (Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained theoretical physicist), granddaughter and a multitude of former students and colleagues. Francesco published over 300 articles, countless commentaries and editorials in newspapers and periodicals, and 43 books. During his professional career of over 70 years, he refereed hundreds of papers, organized innumerable sessions, made countless presentations, and guided many young scholars to present their research at professional conferences. In political and diplomatic circles, Francesco was considered highly reliable, knowledgeable, and a discreet source of information.

Francesco was a truly noble person, world-class economist, academician, politician, and popular columnist with a sharp eye, applying sound economic analysis to national and international issues. Whether for the general public or academic colleagues, his writing was honest, crisp, and straightforward. He pulled no punches.

Canadian fiscal theorist Albert Breton (2011) (University of Toronto) aptly described Forte’s work in a promotional paragraph on the book jacket of Forte’s Principles of public economics: A public choice approach:

“Classic, unconventional and imaginative, erudite and profound, a sure guide to a new understanding and at times to a rediscovery of principles with which one was certain to be familiar. Francesco Forte achieves much of this originality by blending propositions that live in parts of economics and other disciplines that seldom communicate with each other. The volume makes a real contribution to public economics.” (Breton, December 29, 2010).

Micros Ricerche: Road to Paris, Rome, the World, and the Perfect Couple

Francesco was the consummate scholar, a true Renaissance man, bon vivant, and a most enjoyable colleague. Francesco and Carmen (Cignoli) Forte, his lovely wife of 59 years, were warm, inviting, hospitable, and genuinely easy to be with. They lived in a Beaux Arts building (built in the 1930s) across from a tree-lined park in Torino, Italy. Their apartment was on the top floor of a five-story building. Their other properties included a villa on the Italian Riviera in the fishing village of Portofino.

Francesco’s orientation was to the political centers of the world via Rome and the capital cities of Europe. He described their Torino address, which also served as the business address for Micros Ricerche as the beginning of the road to Paris, some 773 km (480 miles) to the northwest. Equally important for Francesco’s professional work, a short walk from their apartment was the Porta Susa train station which linked Torino to the world. A trip to Rome was by high-speed rail via Milan, Bologna, and Florence. Traversing the 450 miles to Rome took four hours. The train was comfortable and quiet enough for both cell phone communication and study. His frequent travels by train to Rome’s Termini (Central Station) were conveniently scheduled. It was but a short taxi ride to his Rome apartment or his office at La Sapienza University of Rome.

Access to their elegant eight room apartment in Torino was gained by ringing Micros Ricerche from the street entrance. Once granted entry to the common area, an iron elevator cage with wooden doors overlooking a grand staircase slowly climbed to the fourth floor. Francesco’s lovely wife, Carmen, passed away in January 2017, a few days after her 86^th birthday. They first met 65 years earlier in 1951 and had been married for 59 years. He described her as the perfect northern Italian beauty, mother, and wife. Francesco and Carmen had warm smiles that immediately put people at ease. They were the perfect couple but differed on how they spent their time. Carmen read novels and handled family matters. The Huffpost published an interview with Francesco (unedited) on Carmen’s passing and their 59-year marriage:

"It wasn't easy to be married to someone who wrote, who worked late. She liked being alone. And she wasn't afraid to come anywhere: even to Africa, by helicopter, among the Somali rebels." Six and a half decades (having met in 1951) together: "When you choose someone for life you feel the need to be with a person who is a piece of us". In every little thing. "When I was traveling I used to make the 8 o'clock phone call. Always. Now at 8 I can't make my phone call anymore." (Della Serra, 2017)

Francesco was always on the go, facing countless deadlines, attending an endless number of meetings, conferences, and lectures. He set up meetings in distant countries (Europe, Africa and the United States) and entertained business and professional colleagues in Rome, Torino, and Portofino. In these settings, he was comfortable teaching economics, sorting through world events and political issues, exercising his finely honed intellect and applying his economic tools. He was not shy about exposing harsh political realities.

Early Life

Francesco was born to a prominent Italian family in Busto Arsizio in 1929. His hometown is located in the province of Varese in Lombardy in northern Italy about 35 km (22 miles) north of Milan. His father was a prosecutor and his mother was a painter. Francesco once told me his grandmother had been a baroness. Francesco became well grounded in civil law and academics very early in his life. His interest in economics, law and politics began in discussions with his father and his maternal uncle, Carlo Gray, a high-court judge and jurist. Gray wrote extensively on the work of Antonio Rosmini (1797–1855), a theologian and philosopher. Gray spent much time with Francesco and exposed him to advanced topics in philosophy, religion, and jurisprudence.

Francesco attended the University of Pavia, one of Europe’s oldest universities with roots dating to the eighth century. It was chartered as an institution of higher education in 1361 by the Holy Roman emperor Charles IV. The gathering of scholars and students was given special privileges and recognition equivalent to the University of Paris and University of Bologna, which were major institutions of that time. Until the end of the nineteenth century, Pavia was the only university in greater Lombardy devoted to jurisprudence, philosophy, medicine and liberal arts. Today it has over 20,000 students scattered throughout several schools and programs offered as part of the noncontiguous Pavia campus.

After graduating in Law from Pavia in 1951, Francesco remained at Pavia as a teacher and research assistant to Benvenuto Griziotti, a major contributor to the Italian school of public finance. His next career steps included positions in Milan (1954–57) and Urbino (1957–59). In the late 1950s he had an appointment at Harvard Law School to write a book on Italian tax law. From 1959–61 and 1966–68, he held appointments at the University of Virginia. (His time at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) (1969–70) to complete James Buchanan’s appointment will be discussed separately in Concluding Vignette). In 1961- 84 he was appointed to succeed Luigi Einaudi and hold the Einaudi chair in public finance at Torino. During this period, he also held political appointments and consulted with business, but academia and writing consumed much of his career.

Francesco also held appointments at the Brookings Institution (1966–67), International Monetary Fund (1997), World Bank (1998) and ENI (1967–75). In 1975 he became vice president of ENI, the Italian national energy company. Earlier he served as consultant to Enrico Mattei who extensively reorganized AGIP, the energy company that became ENI in 1953. From the late 1980s to 1990s, he was Mayor of Bormio, a popular ski resort in the Province of Sondrio (Lombardy) where his family had lived during the time his father was a government official. From 1979 to 1987, Francesco was a representative in the Italian parliament. From 1987 to 1994 he served as a senator representing the region where he was born and had spent his formative years. In the 1980s, he also held cabinet positions in the governments formed by Amintore Fanfani (fifth term as prime minister 1982–83) and avowed socialist prime minister Bettino Craxi (1983–87). In 1984, Francesco returned to academia as a full professor of economic policy and financial science at La Sapienza University of Rome. He also had appointments at other universities teaching diverse subjects such as law, tourism, fashion, and technology. However, Sapienza was his home as Professore Emerito. Not to abandon politics, in the 1990s Francesco was an advisor to Silvio Berlusconi.

Political Marketing of Ideas and Naming Nutella

Francesco was an influential columnist in major newspapers and periodicals including Panorama, L’Espresso, La Stampa, Il Sole 24 Ore, and Il Giornale. He wrote essays and textbooks in public finance, monetary economics, economic policy, industrial economics and economics of cultural heritage. In 2017, he published “To be honest”, the story of his long public service and professional political activity.

One of his lesser-known successes came while he was an economic consultant to Gruppo Dolciario Ferrero, the candy company. From 1956–67, he advised the firm on many issues, but one that is indicative of his ability to enter the market for persuasion was the naming of Nutella. Spreadable chocolate hazelnut was to revolutionize how people consumed chocolate. Originally sold as a solid block, the Ferrero company had developed a spreadable creamy version in 1951 to be marketed as Supercrema Gianduja, but it was not successful because of poor marketing. In 1963, Francesco was asked by Ferrero's son, Michele, to revamp the image of Supercrema Gianduja and market it throughout Europe as a spread rather than block chocolate. Francesco’s suggestion of Nutella was an instant success and remains widely popular. Some argue that the innovative Nutella marketing was critical to the success of the new product.

Francesco’s political and marketing instincts led him to market his political views as a liberal socialist to the point that, after the split of Palazzo Barberini in 1947, Francesco joined the Social Democratic Party. From early December 1982 to August 1983, he was economic policy director of the Socialist Party and simultaneously held several ministerial appointments. He was Minister of Finance in the Fanfani cabinet (41st cabinet of the Italian Republic) until Fanfani’s resignation in April 1983. From that period through 1987, Francesco held ministerial positions in the administration of Bettino Craxi. He was Minister of Community Policies from which he resigned in 1985 to become Deputy Undersecretary for Extraordinary Interventions in the Third World. He held this position until 1987 in the Craxi II government. Regime change in Italy occurred frequently with Francesco often called upon informally to serve key advisory roles and aid in transitions.

Francesco’s success as a politician, political advisor, and businessman may be explained by his unique personality, charm, and ability to persuade. His grounding in public sector economics was strongly principled but often unpopular. Yet, he remained a highly influential politician and economist throughout his career. In political and business circles he made friends easily and behaved strategically which enabled him to convincingly brand his politics as socialist. With his characteristic candor (and a twinkle in his eye) Francesco explained to me that such declarations were useful in advancing sound economics as part of political discourse. In addition to his political prowess and firm grounding in Italian public finance theory, the friendship he forged with James M. Buchanan had a major effect on the development of public choice and the Virginia school of political economy.

Francesco the Sherpa to Buchanan

Buchanan and Francesco first met during Buchanan’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) fellowship in 1956. Buchanan’s objective was to build upon his discovery of connections between Wicksell’s theories and the work of Italian public finance theorists. Buchanan’s wish was to pursue leads he discovered while completing his doctoral thesis at the University of Chicago. It is well known that Knut Wicksell (a major focus of Buchanan’s research) opposed simple majority voting because it might injure the poor who are usually in the minority. Wicksell’s solution to preventing the tyranny of the majority was to adopt the principle of unanimity, a point also shared by the public finance theorists of the Pavia tradition. Francesco was to serve as sherpa (interlocutor and interpreter) to facilitate Buchanan’s research to fully understand Wicksell and the contributions of Italian public finance theorists of Francesco’s alma mater, the University of Pavia.

Francesco’s role was to arrange introductions with economists and politicians. He worked closely with Buchanan to translate Italian manuscripts and technical terms to facilitate Buchanan’s research. Although Buchanan spoke some Italian and German, he was understandably less familiar with the technical jargon for which Francesco could easily provide common sense explanations. Another advantage was Francesco’s connections in academic, political, and government circles. As an outsider and lacking proficiency in the language, Buchanan would have found it difficult to meet prominent politicians and economists or to gain access to research at the Bank of Italy, government agencies and university libraries. Further to this point, Francesco provided introductions to Pavia’s elder statesmen, such as Benevenuto Griziotti, Luigi Einaudi, Sergio Steve, and other major Italian public finance theorists. Acquiring such access to Italian resources would have been far more difficult, time consuming, and likely frustrating for a man like Buchanan who was not known for his patience. Charming, well connected, and highly respected, Francesco paved the way and opened many doors to inner circles to which the 37-year-old Buchanan lacked entry. Although growing up on different continents with different languages and values, Carmen and Francesco became lifelong friends with Ann and Jim Buchanan.

Concluding Vignette

In 1959–60, it was Buchanan who was responsible for bringing Francesco (and Carmen) to Charlottesville for one of the first post-doctoral fellowships awarded at the Thomas Jefferson Center. In 1960–61, Francesco held the appointment of associate professor at the University of Virginia. Francesco, Carmen and new addition, Stefano (born in 1961) were to make Charlottesville their home for several important years. After an appointment at Brookings (1966–67), they once again returned to Charlottesville, this time with Francesco as Visiting Professor of Economics ((1966–68).

It was Francesco who answered Buchanan’s request to finish out his appointment at UCLA in 1968. The story is well known that the student riots and murders at UCLA caused Buchanan to resign his position. Buchanan’s abrupt action, although well motivated and understandable, had the potential to create bad feelings among those responsible for his appointment. These included the economics department chair and fellow faculty members. Francesco played a key role in ameliorating bad feelings by stepping in to complete Buchanan’s contract at UCLA. Francesco the diplomat was able to put a positive spin on Buchanan’s departure, one that maintained friendships and built relationships that would last throughout the careers of those involved.

Francesco’s legacy is multifaceted as was his tireless energy, immense political skills and intellectual curiosity. He embodied a rare combination of personality and keen intellect which fostered his search for answers to the complex political and economic issues of an ever-changing world. We need more gifted individuals of substance with immense charm, insight and intellectual prowess coupled with boundless energy. Francesco will be missed by his family, and the many students and co-authors he “sherpa-ed” throughout his career, which was far too short. In closing, This author expresses his heartfelt gratitude as a beneficiary of Francesco’s intellect, generosity, guidance, and patience.