[1] Leone Cattani was born in Rieti, a small industrial city and regional capital a short distance to the north of Rome.
He was the youngest of the four recorded children of Antonio Cattani (1873–1939), a primary school teacher (later a director of studies), originally from nearby Antrodoco.
[2] The move to Crema meant living close to Milan, which is where Cattani undertook his university studies, receiving a degree in social sciences in 1925 and in jurisprudence in 1927.
[1] The FUCI had traditionally valued its political neutrality, but the growing intrusiveness of the Fascist government was hard to ignore, which was reflected in internal conflicts within "the federation", and in 1926 Cattani resigned from it.
He refused to join his group of young liberals to the new Action Party because he believed that the republican aspirations of its leaders, notably Ugo La Malfa and Ferruccio Parri, would rule out the creation of a broadly based anti-Fascist party capable of attracting middle class voters who were still, in his judgement, predominantly monarchist.
After the fall of Mussolini he joined with Nicolò Carandini, Giambattista Rizzo, Mario Pannunzio and others to reconstruct the Italian Liberal Party.
[1] Taking his cue from Croce and Einaudi, Cattani always defended democracy against the excesses of Fascism and Communism, continuing to favour a progressive and reforming model of liberalism.
In December 1944 Brosio joined the (second) Bonomi government while Cattani became secretary general of the Italian Liberal Party:[1] with fascism apparently vanquished, he identified Communism as the more pressing danger, and worked to limit the powers of the CLN, which was dominated by the Italian Communist Party, and for its dissolution following Liberation (25 April 1945).
Directly after the war Cattani was a member of the (nominated, not elected) National Council ("Consulta Nazionale") established in September 1945,[3] and he saw to it that his party was part of the short-lived Parri government to represent the (non-Communist) left-wing wing of the CLN.
[4] The referendum of 2 June 1946 was held to determine the future of the monarchy and, more broadly, to confer democratic legitimacy on the constitutional arrangements that would follow.
During the sessions of the Council of Ministers held overnight on 12/13 June 1946 he was the only member of the government to vote against the taking of power by De Gasperi as provisional head of state.
Nevertheless, once the Republic had been proclaimed, Cattani quickly became a foremost defender of the state's legitimacy in the face of proposals to undergo further discussions ahead of a second referendum.
When in June 1948 Nicolò Carandini took the initiative and launched the Independent Liberal Movement ("Movimento Liberale Indipendente"; MLI),[6] Cattani stood aside from the project and for several years withdrew completely from the political scene.
[7] After less than a year he resigned from this office, however, in order to avoid having any involvement in condoning a major building project on the Monte Mario hill.
Leopoldo Piccardi, a member of the Radical Party secretariat, was accused of having been involved in Italo-German discussions in 1938/39 in which racial arguments had been addressed.
In 1968 he was one of the promoters of the Pannunzio Centre at Turin, along with Arrigo Olivetti, Nicolò Carandini, Pier Franco Quaglieni and Mario Soldati.