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Benedetto Croce (Italian pronunciation: [beneˈdetto ˈkroːtʃe]; February 25, 1866 – November 20,...

Benedetto Croce (Italian pronunciation: [beneˈdetto ˈkroːtʃe]; February 25, 1866 – November 20, 1952) was an Italian critic, idealist philosopher, and occasionally also a politician. He wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, methodolgy of history writing and aesthetics, and was a prominent liberal, although he opposed laissez-faire free trade. His influence on Antonio Gramsci is quite notable. Croce was born in Pescasseroli in the Abruzzo region of Italy. He came from an influential and wealthy family, and was raised in a very strict Catholic environment. Around the age of 16, he turned away from Catholicism and developed a personal view of spiritual life, in which religion cannot be anything but an historical insitution where the creative strength of mankind can be expressed. He kept this position for the rest of his life. In 1883, an earthquake hit the village of Casamicciola, Ischia, where he was on holiday with his family, destroying the home they lived in. His mother, father, and only sister were all killed, while he was buried for a very long time and barely survived. After the incident he inherited his family's fortune and much like Schopenhauer before him