Gian Giacomo Gallarati Scotti

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Gian Giacomo Gallarati Scotti

Gian Giacomo Gallarati Scotti (2 September 1886 – 4 January 1983) was an Italian politician. He was the 5th podestà of Milan. He was a recipient of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus.

Biography

Born in Oreno (today a hamlet of Vimercate), the sixth of eight children, he came from a noble family: his father Gian Carlo (1854–1927) was Prince of Molfetta and Count of Candia, while his mother was Maria Luisa Melzi d'Eril (1856–1937), daughter of Giacomo dei Duchi di Lodi and Giuseppina Barbò dei Conti di Casalmorano. Tommaso Gallarati Scotti was her firstborn brother.

He graduated in Law at the University of Genoa. In 1912, he entered the diplomatic career. Gallarati Scotti served many years in the colonies, becoming commissioner of the government in the first post-war period in Tobruk. In the early 1920's, at the beggining of his colonial career, he lost an arm, as a result of an infection due to a gunshot.

In 1926, back in Italy, he was called to the office of podestà of Oreno (at that time still an independent municipality). In 1927, he married Ida Mocenigo Soranzo (1898–1969), the last descendant of a Venetian doge family, from which he had four daughters.

In 1934, he was Senator of the Kingdom and the following year mayor of Vimercate, after the annexation of Oreno to this town. He held this position until June 1938, when he was called by the Government of Rome to become Mayor of Milan, although he had never distinguished himself for his attachment to the Fascist government, and despite the fact that his older brother Tommaso Gallarati Scotti, Italian ambassador to Madrid (1944–1946) and London after the war, was a known anti-fascist.

After July 25, 1943 and the fall of Mussolini, the new head of government Pietro Badoglio, with whom he had already worked in the colonies, replaced him on August 14 with a prefectural commissioner. Placed on trial for collaborationism with Fascism, Gallarati Scotti was first convicted but then acquitted in Cassation.

From that moment, and especially from the birth of the Italian Republic, Gian Giacomo retired to private life, completely abandoning the political scene. Since then he dedicated himself mainly to initiatives aimed at the safeguard of the natural environment, particularly of the bears of the Alps. On these topics he produced several publications, among which L'orso bruno di Linneo (1958), La protezione dell'orso bruno in Italia (1960) and Gli ultimi orsi bruni delle Alpi (1962).

In 1983, shortly before his death, he was awarded by King Umberto II the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation, the highest honor of the House of Savoy.

He died in his Venetian residence on January 4, 1983, at the age of 97, the last surviving senator of the Kingdom of Italy.

References

• Mauri, Michele (2002). Trittico vimercatese. Gian Giacomo Caprotti detto Salai. Gaspare da Vimercate. Gian Giacomo Gallarati Scotti. Missaglia.

External links

Preceded by Guido Pesenti

Podesta of Milan 1938–1943

Succeeded by Piero Parini