Leopoldo Cassese was born in Atripalda (AV) on 20th January 1901.

After graduating in Literature in 1925 from the Federico II University in Naples, he graduated from the School for Archivists and Paleographical Librarians in Florence, where he was a pupil of Luigi Schiaparelli, with whom he also collaborated on the Guida storica e bibliografica degli Archivi e delle Biblioteche d’Italia.

In 1930, he became director of the State Archives in L’Aquila; of this period, his Study on the ancient Archives of the Municipality of L’Aquila and the transcription of the Code of the Statutes of the Municipality (13th-14th centuries) are worthy of note.

From 1934, however, he held the same position at the Salerno State Archives until his death. Here too, he devoted himself to study and research, publishing the Guida storica dell’Archivio di Stato di Salerno and developing a keen interest in the past of the Salerno Medical School, whose surviving documents preserved in the State Archive he studied in depth.

Parallel to his managerial activities, from 1951 onwards he also devoted himself to university teaching, as a professor of Archivistics at both the Federico II University in Naples and the Sapienza University in Rome.

He also oriented his interests towards the history of southern Italy and in particular the peasant struggles between the 19th and 20th century, also thanks to the rapprochement with Marxism that he had with the approach of the Second World War and the influence of certain friendships such as those with Piero Gobetti, Giorgio Pasquali, Luigi Russo and Tommaso Fiore and with fellow countrymen Guido Dorso and Carlo Muscetta.

During the war period, he worked to secure archival materials from bombing and, once the conflict was over, he laboriously dedicated himself to the reconstruction and redevelopment – through exhibitions, debates, conferences – of the entire documentary and cultural heritage that he held dear.

Leopoldo Cassese died in Rome on 3rd April 1960.

You can consult the birth certificate on the Ancestors Portal: Archivio di Stato di Avellino > Stato civile italiano > Atripalda > 1901

The original is kept at the State Archives of Avellino

For more on the figure of Leopoldo Cassese, see the entry in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiania edited by Pietro Laveglia.

Archivio di Stato di Avellino > Stato civile italiano > Atripalda > 1901