Roberto Tremelloni

Roberto Tremelloni (30 October 1900 – 8 September 1987) was an Italian economist, academic, businessman and social democratic politician. He served in various cabinet posts.

Early life Tremelloni was born in Milan on 30 October 1900. Having long held ambitions to become a journalist, after serving with the Italian Army in the First World War he entered the editorial staff of the Milanese newspaper La Sera. In 1937, he carried out a study of the textile industry of Italy. Having escaped confinement for his anti-fascist activities, during the Second World War he maintained a low profile, retreating to the town of Cocquio-Trevisago in Varese to focus on his work with Aracne and to writing a history of contemporary Italian industry. In 1946, he was elected to the city council in Milan as a PSI member and, later that year, became a deputy in the Constituent Assembly. Between 1947 and 1948 he served as the minister of industry and commerce in the fourth cabinet of Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi. He was appointed minister without portfolio, responsible for the implementation of the Marshall Plan, in De Gasperi's fifth cabinet in 1948.

Out of government, Tremelloni then became the president of the Istituto per le Relazioni Pubbliche, founded in Milan in 1952, and the following year he was appointed Professor of Economics and Business Organisation at the Polytechnic of Milan. It was during this period that he and Ezio Vigorelli led the parliament's inquiry committee on the problems of poverty and unemployment. In 1954 he returned to government when he was named as minister of finance in the coalition cabinet led by Mario Scelba, which was formed on 10 February.

In the 1960s, Tremelloni served as treasury minister on three occasions, from 21 February 1962 to 20 June 1963, from 4 December 1963 to 21 July 1964 and from 22 July 1964 to 22 February 1966. He was minister of defense from 23 February 1966 to 23 June 1968. From 1963 to 1968 he was a member of the Italian Senate.

Tremelloni died of heart attack at a hospital in Bruneck, South Tyrol, on 8 September 1987.