Francesco Renda (18 February 1922 – 12 May 2013) was an Italian Marxist historian, Communist politician and a university professor.
[1] He was an eye-witness of the Portella della Ginestra massacre, when 11 people were killed and 27 wounded during May Day celebrations in Sicily on May 1, 1947, by the bandit and separatist leader Salvatore Giuliano and his band.
"[2] In 1951 he was elected member of the Sicilian Regional Assembly for the People’s Block (Blocco del popolo) – a coalition of the PCI and the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano, PSI) for the district of Agrigento, and was reelected in PCI for five consecutive legislatures.
He became Professor of Modern History at the Faculty of Political Science of University of Palermo and subsequently president of the Gramsci Institute in Sicily.
[5] Renda described himself in his autobiography (2007) as a historian of the peasant movement who was born and raised in that world, and then become a witness and leader of its revival.