Ettore Ciccotti (Potenza, 23 March 1863 - Rome, 20 May 1939) was a historian, lecturer and politician from Italy, member of both the Italian Chamber of Deputies and Italian Senate.
Early life
Born into a liberal family of the lawyer Pasquale Ciccotti, a landowner and several times mayor of Potenza, he studied in the local high school. In 1879 he enrolled at the Law Faculty of the University of Naples. He became a follower of Mazzini and adhered to Italian irredentism. He had a particular interest in both ancient history and for the social problems of Southern Italy, inspired by the example of the historian Giustino Fortunato.
Ciccotti, raised in the poor southern region of Basilicata, adhered to the group of socio-political thinker's known as meridionalisti ("southernists"), aspiring to solve the economic problems of Southern Italy after the Italian unification. They claimed that the economic policies of the central government of the new state discriminated against the interests of the south while favoring those of north.
Academic and political activist
In 1889, Ciccotti attended the University of Rome and gained a teaching qualification in classical antiquities. He won the competition for the ancient history chair at the Scientific-Literary Academy (Accademia scientifico-letteraria) in Milan in 1891. Meanwhile, he started to cooperate with the socialist Filippo Turati and his journal Critica Sociale. He adhered to the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), where he raised the issue of the underdevelopment of Southern Italy. His political involvement caused him the hostility of the Milanese conservatives, and in 1897 he lost his position at the Academy.
