Napolitano, president who helped save Italy from possible default, dies at 98

FILE PHOTO: Former Italian President and senator Giorgio Napolitano speaks following a talk with Italian President Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinal Palace in Rome, Italy, April 13, 2018. REUTERS/Tony Gentile/File Photo

ROME (Reuters) - Giorgio Napolitano, who died on Friday aged 98, was one of modern Italy's most important presidents as he steered the country away from the brink of default during Europe's debt crisis and later out of political paralysis.

A career politician who joined the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1945, the mild-mannered, bespectacled Napolitano was picked by parliament to become Italy's 11th president in 2006 and re-elected for a then-unprecedented second term seven years later.