Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli
Feltrinelli in the late 1960s
Born	(1926-06-19)19 June 1926 Milan, Italy
Died	14 March 1972(1972-03-14) (aged 45) Segrate, Italy
Allegiance	Kingdom of Italy
Service/branch	Italian Co-belligerent Army
Years of service	1944–1945
Rank	Soldier
Unit	"Legnano" Combatant Group
Battles/wars	Italian Civil War
Spouse(s)	Bianca dalle Nogare (m. 1947–56); Alessandra de Stefani (m. 1956–64); Inge Schönthal (m. 1960–69); Sibilla Melega (m. 1969–72)

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (19 June 1926 – 14 March 1972) was an influential Italian publisher and businessman active following the Second World War. He founded a vast library of documents mainly in the history of international labor and socialist movements. He became a militant and clandestine left-wing activist during the Years of Lead.

Feltrinelli is perhaps most famous for his decision to translate and publish Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago in the West after the manuscript was smuggled out of the Soviet Union. He died violently under mysterious circumstances.

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli was born in 1926 into one of Italy's wealthiest families, perhaps originating in Feltre. His father Carlo controlled numerous companies including Credito Italiano, Edison and Legnami Feltrinelli, which managed vast lumber holdings in central Europe, some having provided sleepers for the enormous extension of Italian railway tracks in the nineteenth century. Carlo died in 1935. At the instigation of Giangiacomo's monarchist mother, Benito Mussolini had him created marquess of Gargnano at the age of twelve. His mother Giannalisa Gianzana Feltrinelli married in 1940 Luigi Barzini, editor of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. During the Second World War the family left the Villa Feltrinelli in Gargnano north of Salò to be occupied by Mussolini and moved to Monte Argentario.

The young Giangiacomo first took an interest in the living conditions of workers and the poor during discussions with the staff who ran his family's estate. He came to believe that under capitalism most people could never attain his privileges and were compelled to sell their labour for a pittance to industrialists and landowners. During the latter stages of the Second World War, Giangiacomo joined the Legnano Combat Group and at the same time enrolled in the Italian Communist Party (PCI), fighting the invading German army and the remnants of Mussolini's regime.