Ignazio Marino

Ignazio Marino
Marino in 2012
33rd Mayor of Rome
In office 12 June 2013 – 31 October 2015
Preceded by	Gianni Alemanno
Succeeded by	Virginia Raggi
Member of the Senate
In office 28 April 2006 – 22 May 2013
Constituency	Lazio (2006; 2008) Piedmont (2013)
Member of the European Parliament for Central Italy
Incumbent
Assumed office 16 July 2024
Personal details
Born	Ignazio Roberto Maria Marino (1955-03-10) 10 March 1955 (age 69) Genoa, Italy
Political party	AVS (2024–present) Greens/EFA (2024–present)
Other political affiliations	DS (2006–2007) PD (2007–2015) Independent (2015–2024)
Alma mater	Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Profession	Surgeon, University professor

Ignazio Roberto Maria Marino^[1] (pronounced [iɲˈɲattsjo maˈriːno]; born 10 March 1955) is an Italian transplant surgeon who was Mayor of Rome from 2013 to 2015.

As a surgeon, he trained with Thomas Starzl, who had pioneered liver transplantion in humans. In 1992–1993, as a member of Thomas Starzl's team at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States, he conducted two baboon-to-human liver transplants. He founded the ISMETT organ transplant center in Palermo, Sicily; Marino was the CEO and the Director of ISMETT from 1997 until 2002. In 2001 he performed the first organ transplant in Italy for a person with HIV. The patient lived for 18 years with full function of the transplanted organ. As a civil rights activist, on October 18, 2014, as Mayor of Rome, Marino registered the marriages of 16 same-sex couples. Same-sex marriages were illegal in Italy at the time, and by registering the marriages, Mayor Marino wanted to force the hand of national legislators to clarify a deepening legal muddle around same-sex unions.^[2] Same-sex civil unions were eventually legalized in Italy in 2016.

In the United States he has held chairs as Professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

From 2009 to 2015 he was a member of the center-left Democratic Party and held a seat in the Italian Senate from 2006 until his election as mayor of Rome. He was elected Mayor of Rome in June 2013. Shortly after his victory in the elections, he was approached by an organized crime network that rigged public contracts and embezzled funds. Marino took the case to prosecutors, starting the 2014 Rome corruption scandal. In 2015, at the beginning of October, the opposition parties of M5S and Fratelli d'Italia, started a false scandal against Mayor Marino. On 12 October 2015, Marino resigned from the Office of Mayor to prove his innocence. Subsequently, on October 29 he retired the resignation.^[3] Nevertheless, on 30 October he was ousted from his position after 26 of the 48 members of the City Council resigned. On 7 October 2016, the Judge of Preliminary Hearing of Rome (G.U.P. Roma) acquitted Prof. Marino at the first instance over the allegations of embezzlement, fraud, and forgery. On 9 April 2019, the Italian Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) definitively confirmed the first acquittal.^[4] It stated that the Mayor's expenses were made in the interests of Rome for institutional aims and that the alleged facts "did not take place" according to article 530 of the Italian C.P.P., ruling that even the opening of the investigation was not necessary.^[5]

Currently, Ignazio Marino is Professor of Surgery at the Thomas Jefferson University, School of Medicine, and holds the role of Executive Vice President for both Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health.