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.

Cassandro remained active in national politics till 1947, when he accepted a professorship in Legal history at the University of Bari.

He later moved north, taking a series of professorships straddling the interface between Law and History at the Sapienza University of Rome.

[1][2][3] Giovanni Italo Cassandro was born in Barletta, an ancient coastal town a short distance to the north-west of Bari.

[3] This gave him the opportunity to get to know the historian-politician Roberto Cessi who had himself worked at the Venice Archives Department between 1908 and 1920, and was now based at the nearby University of Padua as professor of medieval and modern history.

Within the party hierarchy he tended to favour moderate centrist positions, frequently finding himself in alliance with his friend Benedetto Croce.

Although he had been a member of the (nominated) National Council during 1945/46,[2] there is no indication that he sought election to the "Constituent Assembly" when the country reverted to parliamentary democracy.

1947 marked a decisive move from politics into the mainstream universities sector for Giovanni Cassandro, who had been taking work as a free-lance teacher since 1938.