Charles Pellegrini

Charles Henri Pellegrini (28 July 1800 – 12 October 1875) was an Italian Argentine engineer, lithographer, painter, and architect. He was father of Argentine president Carlos Pellegrini.

Life and work Charles Henri Pellegrini was born in Chambéry, Savoy in 1800 when the region was occupied by French revolutionary forces. His mother, Marguerite Berthet, was French, and his father, Bernardo Pellegrini, was a Swiss-Italian from Croglio, Canton Ticino, in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. Pellegrini was a talented sketch artist at an early age, and his drawings earned a prize while he was still in primary school. He enrolled at the University of Turin and later at the École Polytechnique, near Paris, where he earned an engineering degree.

Pellegrini was contracted as an engineer by Juan Larrea, a prominent Spanish Argentine merchant with interest in Bordeaux, by request of President Bernardino Rivadavia, and he arrived in Buenos Aires in November 1828. He took a post in the Hydraulic Engineering Department. The bureau, however, was decommissioned in 1829 by order of the Governor of Buenos Aires, General Juan José Viamonte.

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