Paolo Ignazio Maria Thaon di Revel

Paolo Ignazio Maria Thaon di Revel

File:Paolo Ignazio Thaon.gif Paolo Ignazio Maria Thaon di Revel
Personal information
Nationality	Italian
Born	(1888-05-02)2 May 1888 Toulon, France
Died
Sport
Sport	Fencing
Medal record Men's fencing Representing  Italy Olympic Games 1920 Antwerp Épée, team

Paolo Ignazio Maria Thaon di Revel e Sant'Andrea (2 May 1888 – 1 June 1973) was an Italian politician, economist and fencer. He was Mayor of Torino (1929–35) and Italian Minister of Finance (1935–43) in the Mussolini Cabinet. After the war, he was president of the organising committee of the 1956 Winter Olympics at Cortina d'Ampezzo.

He won a gold medal in the team épée event at the 1920 Summer Olympics.

Biography

Early life and education

He was born in Toulon, the third of four siblings (two older sisters, Laura and Irene, and a younger brother, Ignazio) into the wealthy family of Count Vittorio Thaon di Revel e Sant'Andrea, minister plenipotentiary and royal consul, belonging to the subalpine aristocratic elite. His parents married in New York, and his mother, Elfrida Maria Luisa Atkinson (of Scottish descent), after following her husband to various diplomatic destinations (where their children were born), gave him an initial education followed by a tutor in residence in Turin, at the Thaon di Revel palace at 24 Via dell'Ospedale, today's Via Giolitti. He learned, along with his brothers, the study of the main subjects and languages in addition to sporting enthusiasm, fostered by the possibility of active access to training at the fencing club that was based in the family palace.

The Thaon di Revel family tradition in military, diplomatic and political training affected the direction of his studies. Relationships with his grandfather's brother Genova Giovanni Thaon di Revel but especially with his uncle Paolo, stimulated multiple interests. Passionate about mathematics, he decided to embark on economic studies and in 1910 graduated in economic law, thus following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Ottavio Thaon di Revel, minister of finance and signer of the Albertine Statute. His dissertation was entitled Contribution to the Theory of Consumption, a work that became the basis of an economic study revolving around the concept of "need"; a theme he continued to develop in the following decades (strongly supported by his friend Luigi Einaudi), until the publication, in 1967, of the volume Theory of Need: Essay on Metaeconomics, published by the S. Cognetti De Martiis Laboratory of Political Economy.

Wotld War I

At the threshold of the Great War he was an ardent interventionist and enlisted in the army with the rank of lieutenant colonel of artillery (like Genoa Thaon) of the Third Army and took part in all actions, from October 1915 to April 1918. Some missions were aerial reconnaissance, which led him to become passionate about flying. He received the War Merit Cross for valor.

He returned to Turin and met Countess Maria Angelica Salvi del Pero di Luzzano, whom he married on January 25, 1923, and with whom he had three daughters, Maria Luisa, Gabriella and Elfrida.

Political career

Returning from his wartime experience he was an commited opponent of Bolshevism, but fascinated by the ideas of national socialism. He had become acquainted with Gabriele D'Annunzio, who was in command of the air unit under which his brother Ignazio served as an aviator. As a result, he joined the National Fascist Party as early as 1919 and started actively in political administration from 1924, when he was elected town councilor in Poirino. Later, in 1929, he was appointed Mayor of Turin, a much more onerous post, which he held until 1935. During these years he worked to ensure that "the three strengths of Turin" that is, fine mechanics, electricity and the army (through the Military Academy and schools of specialization) were not changed, to which he added the nascent radio industry, threatened, like many of Turin's activities, with transfer to Milan at the behest of Mussolini. The creation of the National fashion board, on October 31, 1935, crowned these and other efforts, as did the start of the program of major public building works (the Palazzo d'Igiene, the Ortofrutticolo market, and the resurfacing of Via Roma under which the first tunnels were dug in anticipation of the future subway). This effort was driven by the dramatic employment situation with a view to stimulating employment development and investment.

He collaborated closely with the Turin Academy of Sciences, of which he was an active member, and served as president of the Turin Aero Club from 1930 to 1934[4]. He was a member of the Grand Council of Fascism and the National Council of Corporations. He became Senator of the Kingdom in 1933 and served as Minister of Finance and Treasury in the Mussolini government from 1935 to 1943. During that period he established the IGE, the National Institute of Corporate Finance, promoted the IRI-Treasury Convention of December 1936 and the autarkic economic policy.

World War II

In 1943, at his own request, he was reinstated in the army as an artillery lieutenant colonel and was sent to Sicily to prepare defenses against the Allied landings. He strenuously defended the positions to give the troops time to withdraw and was among the last officers to leave the island. After Sept. 8, 1943, he refused to join the Social Republic, and thanks to his prestige he was able to give refuge at his country estate to soldiers who had refused to take up arms as well as to partisans and displaced persons. The ANPI requested and obtained, in 2007, that a street in the town of Carmagnola, province of Turin, be named after him.

Postwar period

He was president of Italgas and the Academy of Agriculture from 1963 to 1971. He left a great contribution by donating, in 1967, to the Luigi Einaudi Foundation in Turin various sources and important documentation for scholars of Italian history of the period of the fascist regime, collected during his activity as finance minister. The archival material mainly reflects eight years of state finance that allows, due to the variety of economic and financial policy issues covered, an in-depth reconstruction of state intervention in the country's economic life (the material is divided into 33 sections).

Sports Career

He won the gold medal in team epee at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, along with Nedo and Aldo Nadi, Abelardo Olivier, Dino Urbani, and Tommaso Costantino, and became Italian champion in epee from the field in 1920 and 1921. After his youthful athletic season he continued his passionate involvement in the world of sports; after the war he was president of the organizing committee of the VIIth Winter Olympic Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italian delegate to the International Olympic Committee and promoter of the Rome Olympic Games in 1960.

Honors

• Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, 1st Class, Knight Grand Cross
• Order of the Crown of Italy, Knight Grand Cross
• 60px Colonial Order of the Star of Italy, 1st Class, Knight Grand Cross
• 60px Commemorative Medal for the Italo-Austrian War 1915–1918, 4 years of campaign
• 60px Commemorative Medal of the Unity of Italy
• Allied Victory Medal
• 60px Medal of Military Valor, War Cross of Military Valor
• Legion of Honour, Grand-officier