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Gianni Agnelli

Immagine dalla pubblicazione di Juventus
From a Juventus publication

Giovanni Agnelli, known as Gianni and to everyone as «l'Avvocato» (Turin, 12 March 1921 – Turin, 24 January 2003), was an Italian industrialist who served for thirty years as president of FIAT and was later appointed senator for life[1]. Grandson of the company's founder, he led the group from the 1960s to the mid-1990s, chaired Juventus and Confindustria, and from the 1960s until 1996 headed FIAT, first as chief executive and then as chairman[2].

The founder's grandson

He was the son of Edoardo Agnelli, born in Verona in 1892 and died in Genoa in 1935, and the grandson of Giovanni Agnelli, the senator who had founded FIAT[1]. Orphaned of his father at an early age, he grew up alongside his grandfather[3]. He did military service during the Second World War, then took part in the resistance, and graduated in law in 1943[1][2]. In 1945, the year both his grandfather and his mother Virginia Bourbon del Monte died, he became vice-president of FIAT and president of Riv, the family's bearing factory; that same year he was elected mayor of Villar Perosa, the town in the Val Chisone tied to the family[1][2][3].

For the next twenty years the company was effectively run by Vittorio Valletta, while the young Agnelli devoted himself to other roles. On 22 July 1947, at the age of twenty-six, he became president of Juventus, the second member of the family to hold the post after his father Edoardo: under his presidency the team won the league titles of 1950 and 1952, and on 18 September 1954 he stepped down from the role, though he never distanced himself from the club[4]. In 1953 he married Marella Caracciolo[3].

At the helm of FIAT

In 1959 he took over the presidency of IFI, the family's holding company, and in 1963 became chief executive of FIAT[2]. On 30 April 1966, at the shareholders' meeting held at the headquarters on Corso Marconi 20, it was Valletta himself who proposed him as his successor to the chairmanship[3]. The words with which he marked the handover have remained part of company lore:

«From today, Mr. Agnelli is no longer just his grandfather's grandson».

Vittorio Valletta, FIAT shareholders' meeting, 30 April 1966

Of himself and his profession, Agnelli used to say: «A boss who does not demand that the business turn a profit is a very bad boss»[3].

Under his leadership FIAT became one of the world's largest automotive groups and expanded its presence into many other industrial and financial sectors[1]. On 18 June 1969 he signed with Enzo Ferrari the agreement under which FIAT took a 50% stake in the Maranello carmaker, with the right to rise to 90% upon the founder's death; a car enthusiast, he had been having custom Ferraris built since 1948, and in 2003 the Formula 1 car was named F2003-GA in his honour[5]. From 1974 to 1976 he was president of Confindustria[1].

The years of crisis and the March

The 1970s and the early 1980s were marked by labour conflict in Turin's factories. On 11 September 1980 FIAT announced about fifteen thousand layoffs, concentrated mainly in Turin; more than thirty days of strikes and picket lines at the factory gates followed. On 14 October, after a meeting at the Teatro Nuovo, supervisors and white-collar staff marched through the city centre in the March of the Forty Thousand, and two days later the dispute was settled on the company's terms, with twenty-two thousand workers placed on redundancy funds[6]. The negotiations were handled by chief executive Cesare Romiti, who asked Agnelli to stay out of them[6].

The Lingotto and the final years

In 1991 he was appointed senator for life[1]. In 1996 he stepped down as chairman of FIAT, keeping the honorary title until his death; he also chaired the Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli and the publisher of the newspaper La Stampa[1]. In 1997 the group's headquarters moved from Corso Marconi to the former Lingotto factory, where Agnelli as a young man had come to know his grandfather's offices: «This is where I used to come to see my grandfather: telephone wires hung from the ceiling and the walls were covered with maps. I brought the furniture and the ficus plant with me»[3].

On the roof of that same building, in 2002, he inaugurated the Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli, donated to the city: a suspended glass case designed by Renzo Piano, known as the «Scrigno», which houses twenty-five masterpieces from the couple's collection[1][7]. His final years were marked by two family losses: the death of his grandson Giovanni Alberto in 1997 and that of his son Edoardo in 2000[3]. His brother Umberto outlived him only briefly, dying in 2004; his grandson John Elkann would later become chairman of FCA[3].

Death and the city's farewell

He died at Villa Frescot, on the Turin hills, at 8.30 am on 24 January 2003[3]. His body lay in state at the Lingotto and, according to reports of the time, about one hundred thousand people lined up to pay their last respects[8]; among them many former workers, such as Mario Antino, who had come to the factory from Basilicata in 1947 and recounted having waited two hours in the cold to be the first in line[3]. The funeral procession reached the Cathedral after a long route through the city; after the service it went up the Val Chisone to Villar Perosa, where l'Avvocato was buried in the family tomb atop the hill, beside his mother, his grandfather, his father, his grandson, and his son[3].

Pages linking here

Related articles: Giovanni Agnelli (1866–1945), John Elkann, Lingotto, March of the Forty Thousand, Pinacoteca Agnelli, Stabilimento di Mirafiori

Sources

  1. Treccani
  2. MuseoTorino
  3. La Voce e il Tempo — 25 January 2023
  4. Juventus
  5. Ferrari — 24 January 2023
  6. Il Post — 14 October 2020
  7. MuseoTorino
  8. Quattroruote — 20 January 2023

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