For more than 40 years Franco Della Peruta was extremely active in cultural, academic and Italian politics, leaving a profound mark as a researcher and cultural organizer. He gave an original interpretation of the Risorgimento and studied the ways in which the worlds of work and popular life emerged in political life, and the material conditions out of which this path was made. He maintained a constant and close relationship with the problems of organization of the historical sources in both archives and libraries.
Keywords: Risorgimento, social history, Italian historiography