Philosopher · Twentieth century · Italy

Antonio Gramsci

1891–1937

Sardinian Marxist, cofounder of the Italian Communist Party, imprisoned by the Fascist regime. The Prison Notebooks develop cultural hegemony and the war of position.

Facts

Born: 22 January 1891, Ales, Sardinia.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Antonio Gramsci
Died: 27 April 1937, Rome.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Antonio Gramsci
Sentence: Special Fascist tribunal, 1928: over twenty years. He wrote thirty-three notebooks in prison.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Antonio Gramsci
Party: Helped found the Communist Party of Italy, Livorno, 1921.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Antonio Gramsci

The record

Antonio Gramsci was born in Sardinia in 1891, studied in Turin, and helped found the Italian Communist Party in 1921. Arrested under Mussolini's extraordinary laws in 1926, he was sentenced in 1928. In prison he wrote the notebooks that introduced cultural hegemony: power sustained by consent across civil society, not only by state force.

He distinguished a war of manoeuvre from a war of position where Western civil institutions are dense. He refused to petition Mussolini for clemency. He died in 1937 shortly after conditional release.

A filing page records offices, dates and the main claims. The full desk article carries the longer narrative.

Images

Sparse prison cell desk with stacked notebooks and a barred window on a pale sky — writing under constraint, not a heroic mural.

Connected

Links in both directions: what this page points to, and what points here.

CountryItaly EraTwentieth century1901–2000

Articles

Desk pieces that belong with this record.

2026-10-06Antonio GramsciProsecutor Michele Isgrò stood before the Fascist tribunal in 1928 and demanded that the court stop Antonio Gramsci's brain from working for twenty years. The sentence handed down ran over twenty years, four months, and five days.Read

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