Benedetto Croce

Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) was an Italian philosopher, historian and critic, the dominant figure in Italian intellectual life for half a century. Orphaned at seventeen when an earthquake killed his parents and sister, he lived on his inheritance in Naples. His Philosophy of Spirit, beginning with the Aesthetic of 1902, defined art as intuition and expression and set out an idealist account of logic, economics and ethics. He founded the review La Critica in 1903, served as minister of education, and became the leading liberal opponent of Mussolini, publishing his histories of Italy and of Europe under the dictatorship. He was a senator of the postwar republic.