Gianni Agnelli

Giovanni "Gianni" Agnelli (12 March 1921 – 24 January 2003), nicknamed L'Avvocato ("The Lawyer"), was an Italian industrialist and principal shareholder of Fiat.

As the head of Fiat, he controlled 4.4% of Italy's GDP, 3.1% of its industrial workforce, and 16.5% of its industrial investment in research.

He was the richest man in modern Italian history.

Agnelli was regarded as having an impeccable and slightly eccentric fashion sense, which has influenced both Italian and international men's fashion.

He joined a tank regiment in June 1940 when Italy entered World War II on the side of the Axis powers.

He fought on the Eastern Front, being wounded twice.

He also served in a Fiat-built armoured-car division during the North African campaign, for which he received the War Cross of Military Valor.

After the armistice of Cassibile, Agnelli became a liaison officer with the occupying American troops due to his fluency in English.

His grandfather, who had manufactured vehicles for the Axis powers during the war, was forced to retire from Fiat but named Valletta to be his successor.

His grandfather died, leaving him head of the family but Valletta running the company.

Fiat then began producing Italy's first inexpensive mass-produced car, with the Fiat 600 being a success.

At the age of 14, his father was killed in a plane crash, and he was raised by his grandfather, who died on 16 December 1945, fifteen days after Agnelli's mother, Virginia, died in a car crash.

Prior to his marriage on 19 November 1953 to Marella Caracciolo dei Principi di Castagneto, a half-American, half-Neapolitan noblewoman who made a small but significant name as a fabric designer and a bigger name as a tastemaker, Agnelli was a noted playboy whose mistresses included actresses, such Anita Ekberg, Rita Hayworth, Linda Christian, Danielle Darrieux, the socialite Pamela Harriman, and Jackie Kennedy.

His only son, Edoardo Agnelli, was born in New York City on 9 June 1954, seven months after the couple's wedding at the Château d'Osthoffen in France.

He gave up trying to groom him to take over Fiat, seeing how the boy was more interested in mysticism than making cars; his son studied religion at Princeton University and took part in a world day of prayer in Assisi.

He was considered the king of Italian business from the 1960s to the 1980s.

He also developed an accessory business, with minor companies, such as Fiat Velivoli, operating in the military industry.

Agnelli was educated at Pinerolo Cavalry Academy, and studied law at the University of Turin, although he never practised law.

Known as Gianni to differentiate from his grandfather, with whom he shared his first name, he inherited the command of Fiat and the Agnelli family assets in general in 1966, following a period in which Fiat was temporarily ruled by Vittorio Valletta while he was learning how his family's company worked.

Agnelli raised Fiat to become the most important company in Italy, and one of the major car-builders of Europe, amid the Italian economic miracle.

Agnelli became president of Fiat in 1966.

He opened factories in many places, including the Soviet Union in the Russian city of Tolyatti, Spain, and South America, such as Automóveis in Brasil; he also started international alliances and joint-ventures like Iveco, which marked a new industrial mentality.

Agnelli was awarded the decoration Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1967 and the Order of Merit for Labour (Cavaliere del lavoro) in 1977.

In 1969 and 1970, Fiat was joined by Ferrari and Lancia.

During the international energy crisis of the 1970s, he sold part of the company to Lafico, a Libyan company owned by Muammar Gaddafi; Agnelli would later repurchase these shares.

He was also closely connected with Juventus, the most renowned Italian football club, of which he was a fan and the direct owner.

In the 1970s, which were marked by labour tensions, Fiat expanded to the east and agreements with Poland, Turkey, and Yugoslavia were strengthened.

Agnelli was born in Turin; he maintained strong ties with the village of Villar Perosa, near Turin in the Piedmont region, of which he served as mayor until 1980.

His father was the prominent Italian industrialist Edoardo Agnelli.

His maternal grandmother was American; his mother was Princess Virginia Bourbon del Monte, daughter of Carlo, 4th Prince of San Faustino, head of a noble family established in Perugia, who was married with the American heiress Jane Allen Campbell.

Agnelli was named after his grandfather Giovanni Agnelli, the founder of the Italian car manufacturer Fiat.

His son, who seemed burdened by the mantle of his surname, committed suicide on 15 November 2000 by jumping off a bridge near Turin; Agnelli joined police at the scene.

The Agnellis had one daughter, Countess Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen.

She is the mother of John Elkann, Lapo Elkann, and Ginevra Elkann.

She has five other children from her second marriage to Count Serge de Pahlen: Maria de Pahlen, Peter de Pahlen, Anna de Pahlen, and Tatiana de Pahlen.

In 2002, he left his paintings to the city of Turin, which established the Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli.

Following his death in 2003, control of the firm was gradually passed to his grandson and chosen heir, John Elkann.

Although Agnelli continued to be involved with other women during his marriage, including Ekberg and the fashion designer Jackie Rogers, the Agnellis remained married until his death of prostate cancer in 2003 at the age of 81.

For most of his life, Agnelli was considered to be a man of exquisite taste.

Into the 2020s, the de Pahlens remain involved in a dispute with the Elkanns over Agnelli's inheritance.