Francesco Alberoni

Francesco Alberoni (born 31 December 1929, in Borgonovo Val Tidone, Piacenza) is an Italian journalist and a professor of sociology. He was a board member and senior board member (chairman) of RAI, the Italian state television network, from 2002 to 2005.

Alberoni was among the few regular front page writers of Corriere della Sera, Italy's most popular newspaper, which published his articles from 1973 to 2011. He wrote a four-column editorial titled "Public & Private" (begun in 1982) for the Monday edition. He is the widower of Rosa Giannetta.

Although Alberoni claims he was a model student and real perfectionist at school, he admits he did not like the military-like discipline imposed on schoolchildren by the Fascist regime. According to his autobiography he was a born leader, who always invented games and adventures for the group of boys who usually gathered around him. Because there weren't any books in his house, he discovered the pleasures of reading only after the end of Second World War in 1945. Reading took most of his afternoons at the City Library, his favoured subjects being history and philosophy.

Alberoni studied at the Liceo Scientifico, and then moved to Pavia to study medicine where he graduated. Here he also met the friar Agostino Gemelli, who was intrigued by Alberoni's thinking and bright intelligence, and pushed him to pursue studies in the field of social behavior. During his studies in Pavia met Vincenza Pugliese (1929–1992) whom he married in 1958.

From his marriage to Vincenza Pugliese he has three children: Margherita (born in 1959), Francesca (born in 1961) and Paolo Giovanni Agostino (born in 1968) named after friar Agostino Gemelli. Later he lived with Laura Bonin, from whom had a fourth son: Giulio (named after the famous ancestor). In 1998 married Rosa Giannetta, the former mistress of the Italian architect Roberto Guiducci.