Aldo Bassetti was born on 1 November 1926 in Crenna di Gallarate (VA), the second male child of Felice (known as Nino) Bassetti and Ottavia Mazzucchelli, after Giansandro (1923) and before Piero (1928).
The Bassetti family built its fortunes with textiles, in particular cloths (metric cloths, tablecloths, towels, blankets, tenderie, etc.). The prime mover was Gianni (Giannino), Felice’s brother, who between the 19th and 20th centuries focused on publicising the brand by also opening his own shops and expanding rapidly throughout Italy and beyond thanks to the high quality of his products. Gianni’s far-sightedness (and with him that of the entire family) led him to diversify his investments outside the textile sector, acquiring, among others, control of the Spluga Brewery in Chiavenna and the Angelo Poretti Brewery in Induno Olona.
The young Bassetti grew up where they were born, in the beautiful villa the family owned in Crenna di Gallarate. We are in the midst of the fascist era and, according to the testimony of Aldo himself,
“When I was a child, my grandfather, Alessandro Ottolini [his grandmother Rosa Bassetti’s second husband, editor’s note], was madly in love with the Duce. He would shout at the table against anyone who dared speak ill of him. In our family, every time it was a heated discussion. My mother’s two brothers themselves were a great anti-fascist and a convinced fascist, who had even marched on Rome. Fascist ideas always prevailed over anti-fascist ones, but I tried to form my own opinion and read up on it. In doing so, I became strongly anti-fascist‘. (BRERAPLUS , Hotel Meina).
This anti-fascism, which drove Aldo to precise political and personal choices throughout his life, became even more profound following a tragic and traumatic experience, the massacre of Jewish guests at the Hotel Meina on the Piedmont shore of Lake Maggiore on 23 and 24 September 1943, in which one of his aunts, Lotte Fröhlich Mazzucchelli, also lost her life.
After the war, as Gianni had no direct heirs, Bassetti passed to Felice’s sons; his eldest son Gianni succeeded him as president.
Aldo, who in the meantime had graduated in civil engineering from the Milan Polytechnic, took his first steps in the family business, but soon left it to start a career of his own that would lead him to become a multifaceted and careful entrepreneur.
Bibliography:
R. ROMANO, Bassetti, Giovanni, entry in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani – Volume 34 (1988)(https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovanni-bassetti_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ ).
BRERAPLUS , Hotel Meina. The story of an event, a necessity, a museum and three lives. The Hotel Meina massacre, a bitter memory linked to three key figures in the history of Brera and the need not to forget.(https://breraplus.org/story/hotel-meina/ ).
In memory of Aldo Bassetti, Honorary President Friends of Brera, filmed on the occasion of his death, 13 December 2022, Pinacoteca di Brera on Facebook(https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1Agfm5yyE4/ ).
