Luca Coscioni

Gualtiero of Orvieto and then he studied Economics and Trade at the Rome-based University La Sapienza, where he graduated in 1991 with the maximum vote.

He deepened his work by holding a seminary in the Department of Economic and Evaluative Sciences of the University of Viterbo on forestal and agrarian development.

Coscioni was thus condemned to a progressive deterioration of his muscles which had made him a wheelchair user and rendered him unable to speak and to eat autonomously.

Coscioni was attracted by the ideas of Partito Radicale, a political organization affiliated with Marco Pannella's Nonviolent Radical Party, transnational and transparty.

Later in that year, a similar show of support accompanied his unsuccessful bid to become a member of the National Bioethics Committee.

After the adoption in February 2004 of the bill that prohibited embryonic stem cells research, and strictly limited in vitro fertilization in Italy, the LCA and the Italian Radicals launched a referendum campaign to repeal it.

That was his last public appearance, on the eve of the filing of candidates for the Italian Parliament where he was supposed to head the list of the newly founded party of the "Rose in the Fist", an alliance of Liberals, Socialists and Radicals.

Coscioni and his wife would hold a reunion with the Party officials every morning in order to continue and improve the struggle for freedom of research.

Following his wishes, Coscioni's body was cremated and his ashes was scattered into the sea in the area of Porto Santo Stefano, off the coast of Monte Argentario, near the Isola del Giglio, Tuscany, where he loved sailing before the disease had struck him.

Luca Coscioni (right) with Marco Pannella