Marco Respinti
Marco Respinti is a Milan-based journalist, a Senior Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center, and the Director of the Centro Studi Russell Kirk.
He was born in Milan, Italy, in 1964, where he continues to live and work today. Marco is a Roman Catholic, married and the father of two sons. He is a journalist, essayist, translator, and lecturer.
A scholar of Anglo-American conservative thought, he contributes to such daily national newspapers as Libero, Il Foglio, cronache di liberal, Il Tempo, and l’Occidentale, Ragionpolitica, il Quintuplo and 1 Channel (online), as well as to the weekly magazines Tempi and Oggi, the monthly journals Il Timone and Radici Cristiane, and the quarterly Cristianità.
From its founding in August 2002 and up to its discontinuation in November 2009, he worked as a Senior Editor at il Domenicale, the first and only Italian independent national weekly magazine of culture based in Milan, Italy, serving also as its Managing Editor from March 2009. Then, from its founding in November 2010 and up to its discontinuation in April 2012, he worked at La Bussola Quotidiana, a Roman Catholic daily journal of opinion.
Marco studied Philosophy and History at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, and since the early 1990s has written for several newspapers, journals, and magazines. In 1998 he became a journalist [giornalista pubblicista] until 2005 and was then accredited and enrolled in the Italian guild of journalists upon passing the required exam [giornalista professionista]. His journalistic activities, consistently in the field of culture, include hundreds of articles, reviews, short and long essays, notes, opinions, comments, editorials, and regular columns published in various newspapers, journals, and magazines in Italy and abroad, among which are il Domenicale, Il Foglio, il Giornale, Libero, Secolo d’Italia, Avvenire, l’Occidentale, Ragionpolitica, La Bussola Quotidiana, L’Indipendente, Ideazione, Charta Minuta, Fondazione Liberal, cronache di liberal, L’Opinione, Cristianità, Studi Cattolici, Fogli, Tracce, Percorsi di cultura politica (also in the capacity of “direttore responsabile”), Il Timone, Radici Cristiane, Historia, Frontiere, Cultura & Identità, La Voce di Romagna, Formiche, L’Arno, Gazzetta Ticinese (Italian-speaking Switzerland), The Intercollegiate Review, The University Bookman, Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture (United States), Right Now! (Great Britain), and Projección Mundial (Mexico). As a commentator, he also appears on radio and television shows.
His activities as an editorial consultant and adviser for journals, magazines, and publishing houses in Italy developed through the years while he worked variously as a contributor to a number of publications, a high school teacher, and as a mentor for professional schools in journalism, prior to working as a full-time journalist.
He is a frequent lecturer on various subjects and a radio show host. Originally mentored in the United States of America by the late Russell Kirk, D. Litt. (1918–1994), he has been involved in Anglo-American conservative circles since 1989, attending, through the years and up to the present, numerous summer schools, lectures, and public events, interviewing notable people, collecting memoirs, periodicals, and books, and being a guest at The Philadelphia Society.
His attention to this world of ideas and principles is his foremost professional and scholarly interest and goal.
A Senior Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, in Mecosta, Michigan, since 1996, he is the General Director of its Italian branch, the Centro Studi Russell Kirk, based in Milan.
He is also President of the Columbia Institute, a cultural and educational organization devoted to serve and protect the Western heritage of life, liberties, and property, operating toward the restoration of the humane and virtuous society of responsible citizens, limited government, free enterprise, natural family, and traditional moral values.
Marco was present at the first Vanenburg Society meeting held in the Vanenburg Castle near Putten, in the Netherlands, in 2006, which, through the efforts of De Edmund Burke Stichting of The Hague, the Netherlands, called for the renewal of European culture. He also attended the third meeting, in Madrid, 2008, as well as the fourth, in Budapest, 2009. Prior to the fourth meeting, at the request of its Board of Trustees, he formally joined the Vanenburg Society and its offspring, the Center for European Renewal, based in The Hague, as a Founding Member. In Spring 2010 Marco joined the Board of Trustees of CER.
An alumnus and a speaker at the Leadership Institute (Arlington, Va.), Marco has also lectured widely outside Italy, including at various places in the United States for the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (Wilmington, De.) and Young America’s Foundation (Herndon, Va.); in Great Britain for the Italian Cultural Institute of London; in the Czech Republic for the Občanský Institut–Civic Institute of Prague; in Madrid, Spain, invited by Instituto de Estudios de la Democracia, Cátedra de pensamiento político “Alexis de Tocqueville,” at the Colegio Mayor Universitario de San Pablo; in the Netherlands at Vanenburg Castle; and in Budapest, Hungary, for the Center for European Renewal.
He has translated and edited works by Edmund Burke, Charles Dickens, Thomas Stearns Eliot, Russell Kirk, J. R. R. Tolkien, Colin Duriez, Régine Pernoud and Gustave Thibon.
Specifically, he has published:
- his translation and edition of Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke [“Riflessioni sulla Rivoluzione in Francia,” Ideazione, Roma 1998];
- his translation and edition of The Life of Our Lord by Charles Dickens[“La storia di Gesù,” Gribaudi, Milano 1997];
- his translation and edition of The Idea of a Christian Society [“L’idea di una società cristiana,” Gribaudi, 1998] and The Rock, first Italian version ever, by T.S. Eliot [“La Roccia. Un libro di parole,” Biblioteca di Via Senato, Milano 2004];
- his translation and edition of The Roots of American Order [“Le radici dell’ordine americano. La tradizione europea nei valori del Nuovo Mondo,” Mondadori, Milano 1996] and The American Cause [under the same title in a series of articles for the weekly magazine of culture il Domenicale, Milano 2003] by Russell Kirk;
- his revision of the translation of The Silmarillion [“Il Silmarillion,” Bompiani, Milano 2004] as well as his translation and edition of Letters from Father Christmas, Revised Edition 1999 [“Le lettere di Babbo Natale,” Bompiani 2004] by J.R.R. Tolkien;
- his translation and edition of Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings: A Guide to Middle-earth [“Tolkien e il Signore degli Anelli. Guida alla Terra di Mezzo,” Gribaudi, Milano 2002] by Colin Duriez;
- his translation and edition of Histoire et lumière, [“Testimoni della luce,” Gribaudi 1999] and his new edition of Lumière du Moyen Àge [“Luce del Medioevo,” Gribaudi, 2000] by Régine Pernoud;
- and his new combined edition in one volume of Diagnostics. Essai de physiologie sociale and Retour au réel. Nouveaux diagnostics [“Ritorno al Reale. Prime e seconde diagnosi in tema di fisiologia sociale,” Effedieffe, Milano 1998] by Gustave Thibon.
For magazines and periodicals Marco has also translated and edited dozens of articles or essays by notable conservative scholars and authors: among them, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Flannery O’Connor, Christopher Dawson, Ronald W. Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Gerhart Niemeyer, Peter J. Stanlis, Russell Kirk, Roger Scruton, Lee Edwards, Joshua Muravchik, Patrick J. Buchanan, Michael Novak, E. Christian Kopff, George Weigel, Gleaves Whitney, Clyde N. Wilson, Derek Turner, Annette Y. Kirk and Jeffrey O. Nelson.
Among his contributions to books, notable are the essays:
- L’inventore del Polo delle Libertà: Barry Goldwater. Un “excursus” sul conservatorismo nordamericano [“The Man Who Invented the Freedom Coalition: Barry Goldwater. An ‘excursus’ on American Conservatism”] in the book, by many authors and with an introduction by Vittorio Feltri, Rivoluzione blu. La sfida di destra alla terza via [“Blue Revolution: A Conservative Challenge to the ‘Third Way’ ”], Koinè/Nuove Edizioni, Roma 1999;
- L’Europa fuori dall’Europa [“Europe outside Europe”] in the book, edited by Fulvio Di Blasi and Giuseppe Romano, L’Europa fra radici e progetto. Civiltà cristiana o relativismo etico? [“Europe between Roots and Project: Christian Civilization or Ethical Relativism?”], Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli(Catanzaro) 2005
- La “crociata” per il logos incarnato: ragione e fede [“The ‘Crusade’ for the Incarnated Logos: Faith and Reason”] in the book, edited by Gaetano Quagliariello, Alla ricerca di una sana laicità. Libertà e centralità dell uomo [“In Search of a Healthy Lay Thought: Freedom and the Centrality of Man”], Cantagalli, Siena 2007.
He has also published, with Enrico Passaro, the book Paganesimo e cristianesimo in Tolkien. Le due tesi a confronto [“Paganism and Christianity in Tolkien: Confronting the Two Thesis”], Il Minotauro, Roma 2004, and contributed two essays in the book, edited by Gianfranco De Turris, “Albero” di Tolkien. Come “Il Signore degli Anelli” ha segnato la cultura del nostro tempo [“‘Tree’ by Tolkien: How ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Has Marked the Culture of Our Times”], Bompiani, Milano 2007.
Marco is the author of:
- Ronald W. Reagan. Un americano alla Casa Bianca [“Ronald W. Reagan: An Americanat the White House”], Rubbettino, 2005, a book which also features his translation and edition of essays by Patrick J. Buchanan, Edwin J. Feulner, Jr., Dinesh D’Souza, Father Robert A. Sirico, Paul Craig Roberts and Peggy Noonan;
- Processo a Darwin [“Darwin on Trial”], Piemme, Casale Monferrato (Alessandria) 2007;
- Gli artigli del dragone. Crimini, violazione dei diritti umani e cultura di morte nella Cina del terzo millennio [“The Dragon’s Claws: Crimes, Violations of Human Rights, and the Culture of Death in the Third Millenium’s China”],Piemme, Casale Monferrato 2008
- L’ora dei “Tea Party”. Diario di una rivolta americana [“Tea Party Time: A Journal of an American Revolt”], Solfanelli-Columbia Institute, Chieti-Milano 2010, a collection of previously published articles that is the first volume of the series US Polis that he edits for Solfanelli
- Marco is the editor of the series of books, US Polis, published in Chieti by Solfanelli in conjunction with the Columbia Institute in Milan.
The Italian translations of Régine Pernoud’s Villa Paradis: souvenirs (1992), published as Villa Paradis. Luci e ombre del XX secolo (Gribaudi, 2005), as well as William A. Dembski’s Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology (1999), published as Intelligent design. Il ponte fra scienza e teologia (Alfa & Omega, Caltanissetta 2007), bear Marco’s introductions. The Italian translation of Christopher Dawson’s The Dividing of Christendom (1965), published in 2009 by D’Ettoris Editore in Crotone as La divisione della Cristianità Occidentale, edited by Paolo Mazzeranghi, begins with his presentation, and the Italian translation of Thomas E Woods, Jr.’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (2004), published in 2012 by D’Ettoris Editore in Crotone as Guida politicamente scorretta alla storia degli Stati Uniti d’America, edited by Maurizio Brunetti, starts with an “Invitation to Reading” of his.
In 2008 Marco was nominated as the Coordinator for Italy for the World Congress of Families based in Rockford, Illinois.
His website is marcorespinti.org and he can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)