Edoardo Agnelli (2 January 1892 – 14 July 1935) was an Italian entrepreneur and

industrialist A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...

and principal family shareholder of the Italian car company

Fiat Fiat Automobiles S.p.A. (, , ; originally FIAT, it, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino, lit=Italian Automobiles Factory of Turin) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, formerly part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and since 2021 a subsidiary ...

Early life

Born in

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Northern Italy, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and the ...

, he was the son of

Giovanni Agnelli Giovanni Agnelli (13 August 1866 – 16 December 1945) was an Italian businessman, who founded Fiat car manufacturing in 1899. Early life The son of Edoardo Agnelli and Aniceta Frisetti, he was born in 1866 in Villar Perosa, a small town near ...

, the founder of Fiat, and married ''

Don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name *Don, Benin, a town in Benin *Don, Dang, a vill ...

na'' Virginia Bourbon del Monte (1899–1945), a daughter of Carlo del Monte, Prince di San Faustino and his

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

-born wife Jane Campbell.

Family

Agnelli had seven children: * Clara (1920-2016, wife of Prince Tassilo zu Fürstenberg, mother of

Prince Egon von Fürstenberg Egon, Prinz von Fürstenberg (Eduard Egon Peter Paul Giovanni Prinz zu Fürstenberg; 29 June 1946 – 11 June 2004) was a socialite, banker, fashion and interior designer, and a member of the former German princely family of Fürstenberg. In 1 ...

and Princess Ira von Fürstenberg) *

Gianni Gianni is an Italian name (occasionally a surname), a short form of the Italian Giovanni and a cognate of John meaning God is gracious. Gianni is the most common diminutive of Giovanni in Italian. People with this given name * Gianni Agnelli (i ...

(1921–2003) * Susanna (1922–2009), wife of Count Urbano Rattazzi *

Maria Sole Agnelli use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , death_cause = , body_discovered = , resting_place = , resting_place_coordinates = ...

(born 1925) *

Cristiana Cristiana is an Italian and Portuguese given name, from Cristiano. It is also a feminine given name in Romania, being the feminine form of Cristian. * Cristiana Capotondi * Cristiana Cucchi * Cristiana Peres * Cristiana Oliveira See also * Cris ...

(1927), wife of Count Brandolino Brandolini d'Adda *

Giorgio Agnelli Giorgio Agnelli (12 May 1929, in Turin – 11 May 1965, in Rolle) was a member of the Agnelli family. He was the second son of Virginia Agnelli (born Donna Virginia Bourbon del Monte) and of the industrialist Edoardo Agnelli. His brother, Gianni A ...

(1929–1965) *

Umberto Umberto is a masculine Italian given name. It is the Italian form of Humbert. People with the name include: * King Umberto I of Italy (1844–1900) * King Umberto II of Italy (1904–1983) * Prince Umberto, Count of Salemi (1889–1918) * Umberto I ...

(1934–2004) Agnelli's oldest son,

Gianni Agnelli Giovanni "Gianni" Agnelli (; 12 March 192124 January 2003), nicknamed ("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 a ...

, was head of

from 1966 to 2003 and made the company the most important in Italy and one of the major car builders of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. Agnelli's daughter Susanna Agnelli is the first woman to have been

Minister of Foreign Affairs A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between cou ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. His grandson

Andrea Andrea is a given name which is common worldwide for both males and females, cognate to Andreas, Andrej and Andrew. Origin of the name The name derives from the Greek word ἀνήρ (''anēr''), genitive ἀνδρός (''andrós''), that ref ...

, Umberto's son, is chairman of Juventus F.C. since 2010.

Sports

Elected by the then ''assemblea di soci'' (membership assembly) as president of Italian club

Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...

on 24 July 1923, Agnelli became one of the most important directors in the ''Old Ladys and Italian football history, and the one to whom credit can be given for transforming it from a club with local status to a national institution as long as having started a series of sporting successes that turned it the Italy's most winning club in latter 1950s during the administration of his son

. Under his management, which lasted until his death in 1935, the Turinese club established itself as a major force at national stage having won six Italian league championships —at the time the only top flight competition in the country—, including five in a row, being the first team to do so, a national record for the next 82 years as well as being placed among the best continental sides during the

interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...

reaching during four consecutive seasons in first 1930s the Central European Cup semi-finals. His presidency is also renowned as the beginning of the almost uninterrupted

society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...

between the football club and the Agnelli family, the oldest and longest-lasting in Italian sports, making Juventus also one of the first

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...

sporting clubs '' ante litteram'' in the country.

Death

Agnelli died in a plane accident on July 14, 1935, when he was returning from Forte dei Marmi in his father's

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...

, a

Savoia-Marchetti SM.80 The Savoia-Marchetti SM.80 is a two-seat monoplane amphibious aircraft, amphibian tourer, with a single, tractor configuration, tractor engine mounted above the wing, designed in Italy in the early 1930s. The SM.80bis is a four-seat variant, powe ...

piloted by Arturo Ferrarin, en route to

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

. The seaplane’s floats bumped a wandering tree trunk, causing the plane to overturn. Agnelli died after being struck on the back of the head by the

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

; Ferrarin was uninjured.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Agnelli, Edoardo 1892 births 1935 deaths Businesspeople from Verona Edoardo 2 Fiat people Italian industrialists Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in Italy Juventus F.C. directors Juventus F.C. chairmen and investors Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1935 Businesspeople from Turin Automotive businesspeople