Alessandro Passerin d'Entrèves

Alessandro Passerin d'Entrèves was an Italian philosopher and historian of law. He was 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

He undertook university studies at the University of Turin. He then undertook a doctorate at the University of Oxford.
At Oxford, his thesis was 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.
D'Entreves was involved in the Italian resistance during World War II in the Aosta Valley.
He was Serena Professor of Italian at Oxford from 1946 to 1957. While at Oxford, D'Entreves was a member of the Oxford Dante Society. He 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. D'Entreves was president of the International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy from 1967 to 1971.
His most notable books include The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought, Thomas Aquinas, Marsilius of Padua, Richard Hooker ; Natural Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy ; Dante as a Political Thinker ; and The Notion of the State: An Introduction to Political Theory.
His hobbies included alpinism, and he also had "a deep interest in and love of music" and was an "avid collector of classical records".