[2] He was the son of Vincenzo Aquilecchia, an officer in the Italian army, and his wife, Maria Letizia, née Filibeck.
At nineteen he entered the Faculty of Letters at the University of Rome and graduated with first-class honours in 1946.
[3] He was unhappy with the merger and continued giving his classes in central London, until he retired in 1989.
[1] His research was centred on Giordano Bruno and from 1996 Gianni Aquilecchia was the president of the Centro Internazionale di Studi Bruniani in Naples.
In 1996 the British Academy awarded him the Serena Medal[4] for services towards the furtherance of the study of Italian history, literature, art or economics.