Giorgio Napolitano (Italian pronunciation: ; born 29 June 1925) is an Italian politician and former lifetime senator, the 11th and current President of the Italian Republic. His election took place on 10 May 2006, and his term started with the swearing-in ceremony held on 15 May 2006. He is the first President of Italy to have been a member of the Italian Communist Party.

Giorgio Napolitano was born in Naples. In 1942 he matriculated at the University of Naples Federico II. He adhered to the local Gioventù Universitaria Fascista ("University Fascist Youth"), where he met his core group of friends, who shared his opposition to Italian fascism. As he would later state, the group "was in fact a true breeding ground of anti-fascist intellectual energies, disguised and to a certain extent tolerated".

A theatre enthusiast since high school, during his university years he contributed a theatrical review to the IX Maggio weekly magazine, and had small parts in plays organized by the Gioventù Universitaria Fascista itself. He played in a comedy by Salvatore Di Giacomo at Teatro Mercadante in Naples. Napolitano dreamed of being an actor and spent his early years performing in several productions at the Teatro Mercadante. He later measured himself against Joyce and Eliot.