Giovanni Cassandro (21 April 1913 - 10 October 1989) was an Italian Jurist by training, with a particular focus on Legal history. During the 1930s he worked as a government archivist, first in Venice and then in Naples, which gave him the opportunity to develop an abiding specialism in the wider history of Italy, especially with regard to the south. He also took a growing interest in politics, becoming a liberal activist during the closing years of the dictatorship and a member of the team around Benedetto Croce that re-established the Liberal Party after the arrest of Mussolini in July 1943. He served as party secretary in 1944 and again during 1946/47. Cassandro remained active in national politics till 1947, when he accepted a professorship in Legal history at the University of Bari. He