Gianteresio Vattimo was born on 4 January 1936 in Turin, Italy. A philosopher and cultural commentator, he served in the European Parliament and supported the turn of continental philosophy to a realistic view of religion, art, and sexual freedom during the 1960s. Awarded a Humboldt Foundation scholarship in 1963, he studied at Heidelberg. He was made Assistant Professor at the University of Turin the following year and Professor of Aesthetics in 1969. Appointed Professor of Theoretical Philosophy in 1982, he was also elected Member of the European Parliament in 1999 and 2009.
A participant of the 2012 Subversive Film Festival, Vattimo was also a speaker at the National Congress of the Grand Orient of Italy. He was a Member of the Academy of Sciences of Turin and awarded the Official Great Merit of the Italian Republic in 1997. Important publications include The Adventure of Difference (1980), The End of Modernity (1985), Nietzsche (1985), Art’s Claim to Truth (1985), Beyond Interpretation (1994), Emancipation (2004), After the Death of God (2006), Hermeneutic Communism (2011), and A Farewell to Truth (2011).
