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Luigi Gasparotto

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Luigi Gasparotto
Minister of Defence
In office
4 February 1947 – 1 June 1947
Prime MinisterAlcide De Gasperi
Preceded byCipriano Facchinetti (War)
Giuseppe Micheli (Navy)
Mario Cingolani (Air Force)
Succeeded byMario Cingolani
Minister for Post-War Assistance
In office
10 December 1945 – 13 July 1946
Prime MinisterAlcide De Gasperi
Preceded byEmilio Lussu
Succeeded byEmilio Sereni
Minister of Aeronautics
In office
14 January 1945 – 21 June 1945
Prime MinisterIvanoe Bonomi
Preceded byCarlo Scialoja
Succeeded byMario Cevolotto
Minister of War
In office
4 July 1921 – 26 February 1922
Prime MinisterIvanoe Bonomi
Preceded byGiulio Rodinò
Succeeded byPietro Lanza di Scalea
Member of the Parliament
Member of the Senate
In office
8 May 1948 – 24 June 1953
ConstituencySenator by right
Member of the Constituent Assembly
In office
25 June 1946 – 31 January 1948
ConstituencySingle national constituency
Member of the Chamber of Deputies of Kingdom of Italy
In office
27 November 1913 – 9 December 1928
ConstituencyMilan
Personal details
Born(1873-05-31)31 May 1873
Sacile, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy
Died29 June 1954(1954-06-29) (aged 81)
Cantello, Lombardy, Italy
Political partyLabour Democratic Party
Alma materUniversity of Padua
ProfessionLawyer

Luigi Gasparotto (31 May 1873 – 29 June 1954) was an Italian lawyer and politician. He served several times as a government minister and was one of the founders of the Labour Democratic Party. He was also president of Fiera Milano.

Biography

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Gasparotto was born in Sacile, Province of Pordenone. His father, Leopoldo Gasparotto, a small landowner and Garibaldian, educated him to democratic and secular ideals. Moving to Milan, he practiced the profession of lawyer and frequented the Lombard Democratic Society. From 1897 he adhered to Freemasonry, attending the Milanese institution.[1]

Gasparotto opposed to the Italian military in intervention in Libia in 1911-1912 and was elected deputy of the Kingdom of Italy in Milan in 1913.[1] As a combatant during World War I, he was decorated with three ilver Medals of Military Valor. After the war he was among the founders of the National Combatants Association and promoted a movement of ex-combatants called "National Renewal," of radical inspiration with which he was reconfirmed in the Chamber of Deputies in 1919, and again in June 1921 with Social Democracy.

Gasparotto served as Minister of War from July 1921 to February 1922 in the First Bonomi government, during which he promoted the rite of the Unknown Soldier. Elected deputy again in 1924, he was vice president of the Chamber. Although he did not adhere to the Aventine Secession against Benito Mussolini he was part of the opposition in the courtroom and resigned as vice president in December 1926. After the legislature ended in 1928, he withdrew from political life.

After the armistice of Cassibile of September 1943, Gasparotto was part of a committee of anti-fascists that tried to organize, without success, the defense of Milan against the Germans. His son Leopoldo became an Italian resistance movement leader, but was captured by the Germans in December 1943 and killed in Fossoli on 22 June 1944.

In the transitional constitutional period Gasparotto was Minister of Aeronautics from January to June 1945. At the end of World War II in 1945, he was called to the National Council and from December 1945 to July 1946 he was Minister for Post-War Assistance in the First De Gasperi government. Elected Deputy to the Constituent Assembly in June 1946 for the National Democratic Union, he was the first Italian Minister of Defence, created by the merger of three ministries (War, Navy, and Air Force) under the Third De Gasperi government (February – May 1947).

Senator of the Republic by appointment, in Legislature I (1948), after the resignation of Giuseppe Paratore, Gasparotto was nominated for the Presidency of the Senate, but he renounced his candidacy shortly before the vote. He was vice-president of the mixed group[clarification needed] until 1953.

Gasparotto died on 29 June 1954 in his country house in Cantello.[2]

References

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  1. ^ a b L'Italia 1945-1955: la ricostruzione del Paese e le forze armate (PDF). Congresso di Studi Storici Internazionali CISM- Sapienza Università di Roma (in Italian). Centro Alti Studi per la Difesa (Rome). November 20, 2012. p. 51. ISBN 978-88-98185-09-2. OCLC 884271366. Retrieved July 8, 2021. (Conference Proceedings)
  2. ^ GASPAROTTO, Luigi di Lucio D'Angelo - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 52 (1999)
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