Oscar Luigi Scalfaro Dies at 93 ROME - Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, who was the president of Italy during a tumultuous period in the 1990s marked by a widespread corruption scandal that felled an entire political class, died here on Sunday. He was 93. His death was announced by Italy's current president, Giorgio Napolitano. Mr. Scalfaro's political career was inextricably linked to the vicissitudes of Italy's Christian Democratic Party, which dominated Italian politics for 40 years. Born in the Piedmont town of Novara on Sept. 9, 1918, he won a seat with the party in 1946 in the constituent assembly that established the Italian Republic, and two years later he was elected to the lower house in the country's first general election. He went on to be re-elected in every legislature until 1992. As the party continued to confirm its popular majority in Parliament, Mr. Scalfaro was a junior minister and then a minister in several governments. As interior minister from 1983 to 1987, he drafted several international accords to fight terrorism and organized crime. In these areas, he said, "no one wins alone and no one loses alone." But Mr. Scalfaro also witnessed the decline of the Christian Democrats, one of several parties to be overcome by the so-called clean hands investigation of the early 1990s, which looked into allegations of widespread corruption involving Italy's political and business classes. The party was disbanded in 1994. Mr. Scalfaro was elected president on May 25, 1992, during a particularly tense time in Italy. The corruption investigation was making career-ending headlines. The Sicilian Mafia had begun an all-out attack on the state, killing a top prosecutor just two days before Mr. Scalfaro's election. The lira, then Italy's currency, was in deep crisis (it was devalued that September). Over the next seven years, Mr. Scalfaro steered Italy through various political crises and oversaw the formation of four separate governments. Even though the Italian presidency is a largely symbolic office with no executive power, Mr. Scalfaro was a reassuring presence during a turbulent time. His official biography, on the Web site of the Quirinale, the president's office, recalls that during those years he "made a tremendous effort to hearten the country and reassure international observers of the solidity of Italian institutions." He became a senator for life in 1999, after completing his term as president. Mr. Napolitano remembered Mr. Scalfaro on Sunday as an example of "moral integrity" who "faced one of the most difficult moments of our history firmly and steadfastly." In a telegram of condolence, Pope Benedict XVI called Mr. Scalfaro "an illustrious Catholic statesman" who "did his best to promote the common good and the perennial ethical and religious values of Christianity that is proper to Italy's historical and civic tradition." Mr. Scalfaro is survived by a daughter, Marianna.