Carla Fossati Bellani Venosta (1924 – 2019), was my grandfather Guido Venosta ‘s second wife once the divorce law was passed in 1970 (p. 101). Aunt Carla’ graduated in architecture from the Milan Polytechnic, and was an internationally renowned designer, winner of, among others, two ADI Compasso d’Oro awards (the oldest but above all the world’s most authoritative design prize) and three Honourable Mentions at the same.
Two years after her grandfather’s death, in 2000, to honour his memory and continue his work, Carla Venosta promoted the establishment of a foundation bearing his name, the ‘Guido Venosta European Foundation, the man against cancer’, and had among its founding members, in addition to herself, names such as Fabrizio Du Chene, Stefano Alberti De Mazzeri, Gabriele Fuga, Alberto Falck, Renato Dulbecco, Umberto Veronesi, Giorgio Rumi, Ugo Amaldi, Francesco Garbagnati and Diana Bracco de Silva. He was an honorary founder of Pirelli S.p.A., which had his grandfather among its managers throughout his working life.
The Foundation’s objective was and is, ‘by honouring Guido Venosta’s memory and borrowing his experience, to promote and contribute to the education of the public towards the highest cultural ideals and solidarity’. To this end, it has financed many initiatives over the years, and two important prizes: Il Ponte (The Bridge), promoted directly by Carla Venosta, to be awarded to ‘those who have been able to unite those two apparently antithetical shores to give strength, each in their own sphere of activity’ to the idea that ‘bridges unite territories, peoples, experiences, different cultures, becoming the very condition of encounter and exchange’, and above all the ‘Guido Venosta’ Biennial Prize for research aimed at developing new therapeutic approaches to neoplasms, to be awarded to the original contribution of a researcher together with a cheque for 50.000 delivered by the President of the Republic.
My mother Giorgina and her second husband, Aldo Bassetti, served on the Foundation’s Board of Directors; it was my mother who, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, passed the baton on to me. Now I am the President of the Foundation, which since 2021 has changed its name to become simply ‘Guido Venosta Foundation’, and I carry on the commitment of the founders.
Uncle Giuseppe Venosta, my mother’s younger brother (pictured left), with Carla Fossati Bellani Venosta and a guest at my parents’ wedding in November 1958.
