Overview
- President Sergio Mattarella received an honorary master’s degree in Politics, Institutions and Market from the University of Florence’s Cesare Alfieri school during its 150th anniversary events on March 10.
- In his lectio doctoralis he quoted Silvano Tosi’s 1957 preface to Tocqueville to warn against a regression to a “cesarist tyranny” and urged that such a backslide not be allowed.
- He said the main actors on today’s global stage are technological and financial powers asserting a right to operate outside state or supranational rules, which erodes national sovereignty.
- He called for re‑centering the person, universal values, community, and the balance of rights and duties as safeguards for democratic life.
- The ceremony at the Teatro del Maggio concluded with a prolonged standing ovation, and he later visited the Tuscan Institute of the Resistance in Florence.