Vincenzo Azzolini

Vincenzo Azzolini (5 December 1881 – 2 August 1967) was an Italian economist. He served as Governor of the Bank of Italy between 1931 and 1944 in succession to Bonaldo Stringher. It was a challenging time politically, economically and internationally. Commentators conclude that he confronted the difficulties he encountered as Bank Governor with considerable skill and dexterity. Towards the end of 1944 he was dismissed from office. He was accused of High Treason and was convicted of handing the Italian gold reserves over to the Germans. On 14 October 1944 he was sentenced to a thirty-year jail term. Slightly under two years later, on 28 September 1946, he was released under the terms of the Togliatti amnesty. By 1948, passions had cooled a little and the Supreme Court of Cassation reversed the original conviction, stating that his failure to prevent the German Army from removing the Italian gold to Berlin in 1943 did not amount to a crime ("...il fatto non costituisce reato").

Family provenance and early years Vincenzo Azzolini was born in Naples. Both his parents came from "old" families. Alfonso Azzolini (1848 - 1928), his father, was a banker and at one point the senior director at the Bank of Calabria ("Banca di Calabria"). His mother, Maria Carolina Serrao-Azzolini, was a magistrate's daughter. At university he was able to benefit from the presence of eminent legal (and other) scholars of moral and intellectual depth, such as Giorgio Arcoleo, Napoleone Colajanni, Emanuele Gianturco, , Luigi Miraglia and Enrico Pessina. He also worked with the economist-statistician Giorgio Mortara on preliminary documentation on Italian finances and the economic condition of the country ahead of international negotiations for settlement of inter-allied indebtedness. Stabilizing the currency would remain a preoccupation for many years to come, with added challenges arising - as across much of Europe - from the tension between the determination of political leaders to have a "strong" currency at any cost, while bankers were more inclined to respect the inevitably superior force of market sentiments. The precise trajectory of his illness is unclear, but during the first part of 1930 his health declined rapidly, and it appears that as director of the Bank Azzolini was already undertaking daily tasks which under other circumstances would have remained with the governor. In June 1930 Bonaldo Stringher returned to his home at Martignacco (near Udine, and an hour inland from Trieste). By the end of that year Stringher was back in Rome, where on 24 December 1930 he died. His appointment respected the express wishes of Stringher, and was backed by a broad consensus in banking circles.