Lazare Ponticelli
| Lazare Ponticelli | |
|---|---|
Lazare Ponticelli in 2006
|
|
| Born |
24 December 1897 Cordani, Bettola, Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, Kingdom of Italy |
| Died | 12 March 2008 (aged 110 years, 79 days) Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France |
| Allegiance |
 France (1914–1915) Italy (1915–1918) |
| Service/branch |
French Army Italian Army |
| Years of service | August 1914 – November 1918 |
| Battles/wars | World War I |
| Awards |
Croix de guerre Médaille Interalliée Légion d'honneur Ordine di Vittorio Veneto |
| Other work | Piping and metal work |
Lazare Ponticelli (born Lazzaro Ponticelli, 24 December 1897, later mistranscribed as 7 December – 12 March 2008), Knight of Vittorio Veneto, was at 110, the last surviving officially recognized veteran of the First World War from France and the last poilu of its trenches to die.
Born in Italy, he travelled on his own to France at the age of eight. Aged 16, he lied about his age in order to join the French Army at the start of the war in 1914, before being transferred against his will to the Italian Army the following year. After the war, he and his brothers founded the piping and metal work company Ponticelli Frères (Ponticelli Brothers), which produced supplies for the Second World War effort and as of 2009 was still in business.
Ponticelli was the oldest living man of Italian birth and the oldest man living in France at the time of his death. Every Armistice Day until 2007 he attended ceremonies honoring deceased veterans. In his later years, he criticized war, and stored his awards from the First World War in a shoe box. While he felt unworthy of the state funeral the French government offered him, he eventually accepted one. However, he asked that the procession emphasise the common soldiers who died on the battlefield. French president Nicolas Sarkozy honored his wish and dedicated a plaque to them at the procession.
Born as Lazzaro Ponticelli in Cordani, a frazione (civil parish) in Bettola, Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, in northern Italy, he was raised in a mountain hamlet in Bettola, one of seven children born to Jean Ponticelli and Philomène Cordani. His father sold livestock on the fairgrounds and occasionally worked as a carpenter and cobbler.
His mother cultivated the family's small plot of land and, like many women of the area, commuted three times a year to the Po Valley to work in its rice fields. Despite the Ponticelli family's hard work, they were impoverished and the children often went to bed on an empty stomach. When Lazare was two years of age, his mother moved to France to earn a better living. After the unexpected deaths of Jean Ponticelli and his eldest son, Pierre, the rest of the family moved to Paris, leaving Lazare in the care of neighbors.
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