[1][2] He attended the city's classical lyceum,[3] and was a tennis partner of Clara Petacci, mistress of Benito Mussolini, during her stays at the Grand Hotel Rimini.

Sitting on boards of the local party, Zangheri was concerned by its intake of intellectual socialists unable to respond to the acute socio-economic crises of the time.

[4] Zangheri studied with the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy at the University of Bologna, graduating with a thesis on the problems and aspects of Italian socialism.

[4] Zangheri joined the editorial committee of Movimento operaio  [it], a Marxist historiographic journal founded in 1949, and also directed the magazines Emilia and Stuidi Storici; the latter was run by the Istituto Gramsci [it].

In 1998, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage appointed Zangheri as president of the scientific commission for a national edition of Gramsci's works;[2] he resigned in 2000.

[2][5] Following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Zangheri cosigned an appeal from historians endorsing Giuseppe Di Vittorio's support for the striking workers, against the beliefs of the PCI's leadership.

[10] While Zangheri bemoaned how Bologna was a net fiscal contributor and deprived of its full funding by the central government,[12] the council was recognised for its administrative efficiency.

[3] Despite this, Zangheri was sometimes vilified by Bologna's citizens, especially by young people out on the streets during the social unrest in 1977, when he was regularly met[13] with a popular protest chant of "Zangherì, Zangherà".

[8][10] Reflecting on his time in office thirty years later, Zangheri said that the PCI made mistakes and failed to "understand much about those young people",[8] and he chose "excessive rigidity" because he "couldn't choose otherwise".

[4] During his visits to Rome, Zangheri frequently met with a circle of friends from Romagna, including journalist Sergio Zavoli, painter Alberto Sughi, and sometimes filmmaker Federico Fellini and poet Tonino Guerra.