Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli

Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli
Earl Poldi
Portrait of Count Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli painted by Francesco Hayez, 1851
Predecessor	Giuseppe Poldi Pezzoli
Successor	Extinct House
Born	27 July 1822 Milan
Died	6 April 1879 Milan
Father	Giuseppe Poldi Pezzoli
Mother	Rosa Trivulzio
Religion
Occupation	Art collector

Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli (Milan 27 July 1822 - 6 April 1879) was an Italian count who gathered art from Italian Renaissance and left Italy one of the first private museum which bears his name, the Museo Poldi Pezzoli.

Son of Giuseppe Poldi Pezzoli (1768 - 1833) and Rosa Trivulzio (1800 - 1859), Gian Giacomo grew up surrounded by a rich, cultural and artistic, environment. His father was a wealthy landowner, and had recently come into possession of a large fortune and the title of earl left to him by his uncle (which includes among other things the famous Milanese palace which later became a museum, Museo Poldi Pezzoli). His mother was the descendant of one of the noblest and wealthiest families of Milan, the Trivulzio Family. This enabled Gian Giacomo to get in touch the nobles of his time and with the literary landscape, artistic and cultural of the early nineteenth century.

From 1849 he undertook to gather an important collection includes paintings of Sandro Botticelli, Piero della Francesca, Antonio del Pollaiolo, Francesco Guardi , Andrea Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini and Bernardo Daddi, as well as many valuable items of furniture, weapons, bronzes, pottery, goldsmith's works, carpets. The headquarters of this new private museum was his father's palace that he had it restored for the occasion.

Poldi Pezzoli sadly died of a heart attack in his home, while he was in the study room, which is the only room that survived the bombing raid in 1943. According to his will the collections and his house, at his death, were to be donated to the people of Milan which then had to undertake to maintain the system implemented by the founder. The museum was officially opened to the public in 1881.

Gian Giacomo and his collection had a big political role, he was a nationalist at a time when there was no Italian nation. His love for the Italian Risorgimento's ideals is show by his active participation the rebellion of the Five Days which sparked the First Italian War of Independence With the other Milanese nobles he bought an artillery command for the Lombard army and subsidized the Piedmontese army. In 1848 he also obtained an official role, although not prominent: he was sent to Venice as Special Commissioner of the Provisional Government of Lombardy in the Venetian provinces