[1] An illuminist, Jacobin, and communist, as he used to describe himself, Natta represented the political and cultural prototype of a PCI militant and party member for over fifty years of the Italian democratic-republican history.

[3] From 1936 to 1941, Natta completed his humanist studies at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa,[2] where Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, a future president of Italy, Guido Calogero [it], and Antonio Maccanico, among others, also graduated.

[2] In the chaos following the armistice with Italy with the Allies of World War II in 1943, he took part in the defence of Gaddurà airport in Rhodes from Nazi Germany attacks.

Captured, he refused to collaborate with the Germans and the Italian Social Republic, and was consequently interned first in a prison camp on the island, then subsequently sent to a lager in Germany.

He was, in turn, a councillor for his native comune, secretary of the local PCI federation, and in time a leading participant in the party's internal life, becoming a member of its main organs along with Luigi Longo.

He took the position of Togliatti but was a centrist, in the sense that he sought dialogue with all the other components of the party and the other democratic forces of the country, including lay people, Catholics, and other socialists.

[1] It was in these years that Natta met Enrico Berlinguer, another dolphin of Togliatti who, upon the latter's death, became deputy secretary of the new leader Luigi Longo.

[1] In 1969, he drew up the report proposing the expulsion from the party of the il manifesto group including Luigi Pintor, Aldo Natoli [it], Rossana Rossanda, and Lucio Magri, among others.

[1] The assumption of this new position, as well as an increase in responsibilities and the possibility of showing off his oratory and political strategy skills, forced Natta to have to accept, due to safety reasons, a security escort and an official state car.

[1] The period of national solidarity seemed to be the last step needed for the PCI's entry into government and the culmination of Berlinguer's Historic Compromise project dating back to 1972.

During the days of Moro's kidnapping, Natta was among the greatest supporters of the firm line (fronte della fermezza), which entailed no negotiations with the Red Brigades on the grounds that the state cannot and must not come to terms with terrorists.

[1] Age and health issues pushed Natta near retirement before Berlinguer was struck by a stroke during a rally in Padua and died a few days later, just ahead of the 1984 European Parliament election in Italy, in an atmosphere of general mourning.

To this end, he supported a trip to the Soviet Union organised by Armando Cossutta, which generated considerable controversy inside the party.

In 1988, he was forced to resign due to poor health, caused by a heart attack on the eve of an electoral rally for which he was hospitalised, and was succeeded by Achille Occhetto.