Partito Liberale Italiano (PLI) - Re-foundation of the party

Italian political party, founded in 1922. Its members included Giovanni Giolitti, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, Antonio Salandra, and Benedetto Croce. Dissolved in 1925, it re-formed in 1943 and took part in the CLN (National Liberation Committee). It participated in all the centrist governments, and from 1972 almost all the coalition governments. Its longest-serving leader was Giovanni Malagodi (1954–72), but the party gradually lost its more progressive members, who went on to found the Radical Party. In the 1990s it was deeply damaged when a number of prominent members were involved in enquiries on corruption in public life.