Giovanni Agnelli

Giovanni Agnelli (13 August 1866 – 16 December 1945) was an Italian industrialist who helped create Fiat S.p.A. in 1899. The company became central to Italy’s car industry and drove much of the country’s early-20th-century industrial growth. He also served as a senator from 1923 to 1944.

Agnelli was born in Villar Perosa, near Pinerolo in Piedmont, to Edoardo Agnelli and Aniceta Frisetti. Both sides of the family were landowners with deep roots in Turin’s business and financial circles just as the city began to industrialize. His father, who was mayor of Villar Perosa, died when Agnelli was five. He attended the Collegio San Giuseppe in Turin and then pursued a military career. In 1893 he returned to Villar Perosa and became mayor in 1895, a post he kept until his death in 1945. His grandson Gianni Agnelli later succeeded him as mayor. Gianni was raised by Giovanni after his own son, Edoardo Agnelli, died in a 1935 plane crash.

In the late 1800s, Agnelli learned about the new horseless carriage and saw a chance to apply his engineering and business instincts. In 1898 he met Count Emanuele Cacherano di Bricherasio, who was seeking investors for a car project. Agnelli seized the opportunity, and Fiat was founded the following year. He married Clara Boselli; they had two children, Aniceta Caterina (1889–1928) and Edoardo (1892–1935). By 2000, the couple had more than seventy descendants.

On 11 July 1899, Agnelli joined the group that founded Fiat—short for Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino—paying $400 for his stake. Within a year he became managing director, and in 1920 he was named chairman. The first plant opened in 1900 with 35 workers producing 24 cars. The company quickly gained a reputation for engineering talent. By 1903 it turned a small profit and made 135 cars; by 1906 that number reached 1,149. Fiat went public on the Milan stock exchange, and Agnelli bought as many shares as he could. He navigated scandals and labor unrest, including the Biennio Rosso. He asked Giovanni Giolitti to send troops to clear Fiat’s factories, but Giolitti refused. After the revolt ended and workers handed him the factory keys, he did not retaliate. Instead, he offered a contract linking wages to productivity during an economic slump.

During World War I, Agnelli worked with financier Riccardo Gualino to transport U.S. aid to Europe in 1917. They invested in two American ventures: the Marine & Commerce Corporation of America, which exported coal, and the International Shipbuilding Company, which built motorized vessels. Both failed after the war because they were designed for wartime demand, though they had returned large profits. In early 1918, Agnelli and Gualino tried to take over Credito Italiano but failed, instead joining its board. Agnelli served as vice-president of Gualino’s SNIA S.p.A. from 1917 to 1926. In the early 1920s, SNIA began making artificial textile fibers. Deep in debt, Agnelli offered to help Gualino in exchange for Fiat shares, and by 1927 he became Fiat’s majority shareholder. In 1920, the two men helped recapitalize the private bank Jean de Fernex and bought a third of the shares of Alfredo Frassati, publisher of La Stampa. They also backed a proposal for a high-speed railway linking Milan, Genoa, and Turin, and pursued projects in cement and cars. Their partnership ended around 1926 after Gualino invested in the French auto industry.

After World War I, Fiat rose from 30th to third place among Italian industrial firms. Ford’s first factory opened four years after Fiat’s founding. In 1906, Fiat’s first U.S. dealer opened on Broadway in Manhattan. A monarchist, Agnelli wanted a non-ideological, centrist political movement that was Atlanticist, pro-European, and favored modernizing, internationalist capitalism—opposed to both the left and populist, nationalist, or fascist right. He supported Giolitti. Before joining the National List in 1924, he considered the Economic Party for the 1919 election. He held many prestigious roles between the wars and kept Fiat focused on international expansion.

Agnelli had known Benito Mussolini since 1914. In 1923, Mussolini appointed him a senator for the National Fascist Party. His newspaper La Stampa kept its distance from Mussolini. Thanks to his ties to the House of Savoy, Agnelli could maintain some independence from the fascist regime. For instance, he made Curzio Malaparte—whom Mussolini disliked—the editor of La Stampa. He also hired the liberal anti-fascist Franco Antonicelli as his grandson’s private tutor, allowed his nephews to study with the anti-fascist Augusto Monti, and brought in another anti-fascist, Massimo Mila, as their music teacher. He chose as his accountant Vittorio Valletta, known to the regime for his social democratic views, membership in Freemasonry, and secret contacts with exiled anti-fascists.