ROME - Italy on Wednesday marked the 40th anniversary of the assassination of statesman Aldo Moro, on what is the national day of memory of victims of terrorism.

Moro was kidnapped in a bloody 1978 ambush by the Red Brigades, an extreme-left terrorist group, and murdered after 55 days in captivity during which terrorists tried to negotiate a prisoner exchange with authorities. His bullet-ridden body was left in the trunk of a parked car in central Rome.

"Italy renders tribute to the memory of a true statesman," Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni tweeted, "His political and cultural vision marked our 20th century. His murder weighs on the conscience of the Republic."

Italian President Sergio Mattarella laid a wreath beneath a plaque dedicated to Moro in Rome's Via Caetani, where his body was found, in the presence of Gentiloni, Lazio Governor Nicola Zingaretti, Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi, military officials, and delegations from various political parties.

In remarks at the Quirinal presidential palace, Mattarella said that "the unity of the Italian people defeated the terrorist menace" in the 1970s.

In a tacit reminder to squabbling political parties unable to form a government in the wake of Italy's last general election, he added that "there are moments in which national unity must prevail over legitimate differences".

A former prime minister, law professor, and member of the 1947 Assembly that wrote Italy's first democratic constitution in the aftermath of World War II, Moro was a senior member of the centrist Christian Democratic Party. He promoted dialogue with the Italian Communist Party, which like the Christian Democratic Party dominated Italian politics for decades after World War II.