Alessandro Passerin d'Entrèves
Alessandro Passerin d'Entrèves was an Italian philosopher and historian of law, noted for his scholarship on political thought, particularly in the mediaeval and early modern period, and natural law theory.Early life
D'Entreves was a native of the Aosta Valley, Northern Italy.Education
D'Entreves undertook university studies at the University of Turin. He then undertook a doctorate at the University of Oxford.
At Oxford, his thesis being on mediaeval political thought and the constitutionalism of Richard Hooker. He was then briefly a professor at Messina, before going to Pavia and then Turin.
He engaged in the Italian resistance during World War II in the Aosta Valley.
He was Serena Professor of Italian at Oxford from 1946 to 1957, and taught at least one course at Harvard. In 1969, he was among the founders of the Political Science Faculty of the University of Turin, of which he later became the first president.
He was President of the International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy from 1967 to 1971.
His most notable books include Natural Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy and The Notion of the State: An Introduction to Political Theory.
His hobbies included alpinism, and he had "a deep interest in and love of music" and was an "avid collector of classical records".
