• Relations Countess Marina Cicogna, the new 'friend' of King Juan Carlos

  • Relationships Florinda Bolkan, the explosive Brazilian that Countess Cicogna loved

Before the advent of sound, the United States and Italy were the main producers of silent films. As this cultural industry developed, in the transalpine country,

Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata

extended the tentacles of his businesses sponsored under the fascist mandate of Mussollini in which he held the positions of first governor of the Italian Tripolitania (Libya) between 1921-1925, Minister of Finance (1925-28)

under Mussolini

or President of the Venice Biennale (1930-43). One of his first achievements was to negotiate the debt of his country with the allied powers after World War I.

Aware of making Italian culture known to the whole world, together with Antonio Maraini (sculptor) and Luciano de Feo (journalist),

he came up with the idea of ​​creating a sample in which the best films in the world would be exhibited

where American stars and other luminaries Europeans could show off their mystery. Benito Mussolini gave him his approval. The Count of Misurata, a title granted by King Vittorio Emanuele III of Savoy, had

accumulated a vast fortune

with his investment and industrial companies.

Although he did not come from a wealthy family, this

highly intelligent Freemason

wove an important network of contacts at the beginning of the 20th century with King Nicholas I of Montenegro, Milovan Milovanovic (Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Serbia) and with the banker Bernardino Nogara. He created the Società Adriatica di Elettricità, which

produced and supplied electricity to Venice

and much of the Emilia Romagna region, powered the Port of Marghera, and founded several railway lines.

Mussolini was fascinated by the idea and, in 1932,

the world's first film festival was created,

the Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia. The film

The Man and the Monster

, by Rouben Mamoulian and interpreted by Frederic March and Miriam Hopkins,

inaugurated a contest in which there were neither awards nor stars

, but at Giuseppe Volpi's convenience, it was held in one of its properties, the Excelsior Palace hotel Hotel, which would later become the nerve center of Fellini's Dolce Vita where

Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Anita Ekberg and Franco Nero were seen

. In what is now the five-star swimming pool, the Italian nobleman put up a screen to watch the movies. In 1937 the Palazzo del Cinema was inaugurated on the Lido, where the festival's core is today.

Giuseppe Volpi benefited from the regime

as Finance Minister by launching different austerity measures to the Italian people who, as of the

crash of 29,

saw that their future was going to fade to black.

He married

Albina Annunziana

, whom his intimates called Nerina Pisani, daughter of the most important collector and art dealer at the end of the 19th century in Florence.

They had two daughters

,

Marina

(she married Prince Carlo Maurizio de Poggio Suasa with whom she had her daughter, the actress Esmeralda Ruspoli) and

Anna Maria

, who said "yes, I want" to Count

Cesare Cicogna

.

Marina Cicogna and actor Joel Schumacher.GTRES

From that union was born Countess Marina Cicogna, a great art lover considered the

most powerful producer in Europe.

Not surprisingly, she

produced

Luis Buñuel's

Belle de Jour

,

which won the Venice Film Festival in 1967. Since her birth, the aristocrat has always captured the interest of the international social press for her

bisexuality

.

Her first boyfriend was Alfonso de Borbón

-future husband of Carmen Martínez-Bordiú-, she had romances with

Alain Delon and Warren Beatty

, but her two great passions were the actress Florinda Bolkan, with whom she was twenty years, and

Benedetta,

whom you have adopted for tax and inheritance reasons. His photographic talent is beyond question. It is one of the most complete views of

the 20th century

star system

with its portraits of Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, the Agnelli, Visconti and Henry Fonda. She was close friends with Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.

His second wife was the Algerian Nathalie El Kanoni,

Lili for friends, who in turn was the daughter of the prestigious French jeweler Jacques Lacloche. In 1938

his son Giovanni Volpi was born

, currently

one of the richest Italian men

, who married three years ago in Madrid with

Dominique Rizzo, a close friend of Carmen Martínez-Bordiú

, who served as godmother. She is the widow of the photographer and furniture designer Willy Rizzo, who so many times photographed Hollywood stars for

Paris Match

,

Vogue

or

Marie Claire

and who together with his ex-wife, actress Elsa Martinelli, formed one of the couples more

cool

of the Dolce Vita.

The

fortune immense Giuseppe Volpi

allowed him to

buy

Villa Barbaro

, one of the most emblematic properties Palladian style in Maser (Treviso) and Venice invested in the Palazzo Vendramin and the Palazzo Volpi in Venice since his daughter Marina distributed meals to most needy.

The

Volpi Cup for

best actor and actress at the Venice Film Festival, which closes on September 11, honors his memory.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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