Epicarmo Corbino. L'uomo, lo studioso (Epicarmo Corbino. The man, the scholar)

Born in a wealthy family then afflicted by financial problems, Epicarmo Corbino was forced to move towards the technical studies in order to gain a job immediately. After graduating, he joined a local firm which dealt with the transport of foodstuffs. It was the first training for his future career. Great intelligence, natural curiosity, love of learning and a strong inclination to the observation of economic facts represented the key ingredients of a mixture that generated the vocation of the researcher in the mind of young Corbino. Restless spirit, he successfully took part in a competition for the corps of Port Authorities. Afterwards, he went from one port to another fot the next twelve years. Even in this new phase of his life, he never stopped studying and writing for newspapers and journals. Educated according to religious principles, he was a parsimonious man and maintened a sober lifestyle. Favorable circumstances rekindled the spark of the early vocation for study. Some outstanding economists, for instance Einaudi, suggested he participated in academic competitions. And so, although he never crossed the threshold of a university, he took part in the competition at the chair of Politica economica e Legislazione doganale at the Higher Istituto Superiore di Scienze Economiche e Commerciali in Naples and won. In Naples, where he had good relationships with colleagues, Corbino found himself at ease, until he was attacked by the fascist regime, whose party he had always refused to join. Because of his writing he was dismissed from teaching to which he came back only in 1944-1945. The cursus honorum of Corbino as economist and politician is well known: secretary of Industry, Trade and Employment in the first Badoglio government in 1943, secretary of the Treasury in the first and second Cabinet De Gasperi (1945-1946). Together with the governor of the Bank of Italy, Einaudi, he worked to prepare the ground for monetary stabilization of the lira (1947).