Guglielmo Imperiali

Marquis Guglielmo Imperiali (19 August 1858 – 20 January 1944) was an Italian nobleman and diplomat. A liberal associated with the political left, he was a scion of the conservative Imperiali family. His most important position was as the Italian ambassador in London during the First World War (1914–18).

Born at Salerno, Imperiali was the second child and first son of the Marquis Francesco Imperiali (1826–1904), from a cadet branch of the Princes of Francavilla, and Clementina Volpicelli, daughter of Pietro Volpicelli, a businessman and landowner, and Teresa Micheroux, from a family of French soldiers established in Naples with King Charles III of Spain. Saint Caterina Volpicelli (1839–1894), a nun and foundress of the Congregation of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was his maternal aunt.

Imperiali attended law school in Naples, graduating in 1880. He joined the foreign service in 1882, and was posted to the United States at the critical moment of the Italian lynchings in New Orleans, following the assassination of police chief David Hennessy in 1890. In October 1895, just before a posting to Brussels, he married Giovanna Maria Colonna (1867-1946), daughter of Edoardo, Prince of Summonte, from a family influential in political and court circles. Between 1901 and 1903 he was in Berlin, serving as head of mission, where he tried to strengthen the Triple Alliance and criticised the German government for recognising the Treaty of Bardo, whereby France had gained control of Tunisia over Italy. After the fall of Foreign Minister Giulio Prinetti, Imperiali was sent to Sofia, capital of Bulgaria. The recent Mürzsteg Agreement (2 October 1903) between Austria-Hungary and Russia was designed to cut the Italians out of the Macedonian Question.

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