44 Facts About Eugenio Chiesa

Eugenio Chiesa was an Italian accountant who found a job with a toy factory.

Eugenio Chiesa worked his way up through the ranks and, when the opportunity arose, acquired the business and became very rich.

Eugenio Chiesa was born and grew up in Milan, concluding his education with an accountancy qualification, following which he took a job in the manufacturing sector.

Eugenio Chiesa emerged as an early and effective advocate for what has survived to become the most long-lasting of Italy's various political parties.

Eugenio Chiesa fled to Lugano in Switzerland, accompanied by his two-year-old daughter, while his wife, Lucia, stayed at this stage, in Milan to look after the family business.

Eugenio Chiesa remained in Lugano for several months, during which time his supposedly inflammatory contributions to the journal "L'Italia nuova" earned him an "ammonito ufficialmente" - dated 4 August 1898 - from the Swiss parliament.

At around the turn of the century, the political heat had reduced and Eugenio Chiesa felt able to return with his family to their home in Milan.

Eugenio Chiesa now faced trial in respect of an allegedly inflammatory article he had published in the magazine "Ribelle", but with the able advocacy of Giuseppe Marcora, his distinguished defence attorney, he secured an acquittal, which in turn opened the way for a cautious return to engagement in mainstream politics.

Early in 1900 Eugenio Chiesa was duly elected to membership of the Milan city council.

Eugenio Chiesa served, between November 1900 and October 1902, as "political secretary" to the party, returning to undertake the role briefly between May and June 1908, by which time the role of "political secretary" was shared out between more than one man.

Eugenio Chiesa did not share Bovio's principled intransigence over whether senior Republican Party leaders should participate in the late king's funerary honours.

Eugenio Chiesa was robust in his insistence that he could never accept "collectivist solutions" agreed in alliance with the socialists, who would almost certainly, in terms of election results, generally emerge as the numerically weightier member of any partnership.

Eugenio Chiesa spoke out on the subject of military budgets, arguing that republicans must oppose military spending because [under the monarchical system operating in Italy] the entire social-political system rested on military power and on the related economic questions, which imposed an essentially conservative and paternalistic interpretation of the relationship between production and labour, between employers and employees, and between social classes.

Eugenio Chiesa represented the electoral district of Massa-Carrara, defeating Cherubino Binelli, the traditionalist-liberal candidate put forward what has come to be known as the "Historical Right" quasi-party in a contest dominated locally by the high level of abstentions orchestrated by anarchist activists.

Eugenio Chiesa's presumptuousness earned him no fewer than five challenges to duels, according to Guelfo Civinini, writing in the Corriere della Sera.

Eugenio Chiesa then submitted a parliamentary question on 23 February 1912 asking the government if it had been necessary to conduct an expensive war against the Ottoman empire in Libya.

In February 1913 Eugenio Chiesa participated prominently in a major street demonstration at Iesi against the government's renewal of the unpopular "Triple alliance" with Germany and Austria, whereby the participants agreed to intervene militarily in support of any alliance member in the event of foreign invasion.

Many of the leading republicans in Italy were freemasons at this time, and Eugenio Chiesa was celebrated - or, among opponents, notorious - for the energy he devoted to supporting the interests of fellow masons.

Later that year, when the Milanese "Camera del lavoro" called a general strike, Eugenio Chiesa invited "Prime Minister" Giolitti to intervene personally, as mediator between the bosses and the workers' representatives, and invoking the services of the city prefect.

Eugenio Chiesa took the precaution of putting his name forward for selection by the party and election by the voters in no fewer than six electoral districts and was included in the ballot paper for Milan constituency No 1, which would have involved representing part of the city in which he lived.

Eugenio Chiesa progressed to the run-off second ballot, but was ultimately defeated by Giuseppe De Capitani D'Arzago of the Liberal Party.

Eugenio Chiesa was one of the parliamentarians who blamed the government directly for what had happened, and he attended the funerals of the three victims.

Eugenio Chiesa's name is included in a memorandum addressed by the Austrian ambassador in Rome to the Italian Foreign Ministry, denouncing those who had set up a secret committee working to involve Italy in the war against Austria, which would risk revolution and damage monarchy.

Eugenio Chiesa himself travelled to Lyon and then to Bordeaux to promote the idea: it turned out that the French government was not prepared to accept an initiative that clearly did not have the support of the Italian government.

Italy's declaration of war took place on 23 May 1915: Eugenio Chiesa immediately asked to be conscripted into the army and sent to the front line.

Eugenio Chiesa therefore turned down any offer of a ministerial appointment.

That same month "the honorable Eugenio Chiesa" was appointed "Commissario Generale per l'Aeronautica", in the context of a broader reconfiguration which marked the start of a distancing of what became the Italian Air Force from under the direct command of the army.

Eugenio Chiesa was now responsible for coordinating and presiding over industrial mobilisation in respect of aircraft production.

Eugenio Chiesa had been on friendly terms with Georges Clemenceau for many years.

In September 1919 Eugenio Chiesa travelled to Fiume to demonstrate his support for Gabriele D'Annunzio's attempt to free the territory for annexation to Italy, in defiance of eventual Peace Conference decisions.

Eugenio Chiesa undertook to inform parliament in Rome of the widespread exasperation across Fiume, and later that month was voluble in doing so.

In May 1923, as a member of the Electoral Reform Commission, Eugenio Chiesa voted against the so-called Acerbo Project, a parliamentary device intended to ensure a permanent majority for the Fascist Party in the Chamber of Deputies.

In June 1924, following the killing of Matteotti, Eugenio Chiesa was among the first unreservedly to impute responsibility for the atrocity to the Head of Government.

In 1926, having established his credentials as an incorrigible antifascist, Eugenio Chiesa was forced into exile.

Eugenio Chiesa escaped through Switzerland, settling briefly, like a number of other Italian political exiles including his fellow former parliamentarian Cipriano Facchinetti, at Annemasse, by the Franco-Swiss border south of Geneva.

Eugenio Chiesa's final move was to Giverny, a small riverside municipality in the countryside, known to art lovers as the former home, between 1883 and 1926, of Claude Monet.

In France, Eugenio Chiesa was free to pursue his political interests and sustain a network of contacts with other Italian exiles.

Eugenio Chiesa was more deeply engaged than ever in the politics of Italian free masonry, which had come under intensifying persecution in Italy since 1923, despite the enthusiasm with which many leading Italian Freemasons initially backed the Mussolini take-over.

Eugenio Chiesa was able to find enough basic accountancy work in and around Giverny to support himself and his daughter, however.

Eugenio Chiesa was called upon to take part in the leadership of the new organisation, but there is little indication of his having been much involved in it, though he had been active in calling for its creation.

Eugenio Chiesa's ashes were interred in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

Eugenio Chiesa was initiated into the Propaganda Massonica lodge of the Grand Orient of Italy at Rome on 30 May 1913.

Eugenio Chiesa was then one of those who on 12 January 1930 went on reconstitute, at the "Taverna Gruber", now in Parisian exile, the Grand Orient of Italy.

Eugenio Chiesa was elected "Grand Master", serving for slightly more than six months till his death on 22 June 1930.