Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli

Political Role[edit]

Gian Giacomo and his collection had a big political role. He was a nationalist at a time when there was no Italian nation. His love for the Italian Risorgimento's ideals is shown by his active participation in the rebellion of the Five Days which sparked the First Italian War of Independence. With the other Milanese nobles, he bought an artillery command for the Lombard army and subsidized the Piedmontese army. In 1848, he obtained an official role, although not a prominent one; he was sent to Venice as Special Commissioner of the Provisional Government of Lombardy in the Venetian provinces.^[1]


His opposition to the Austrian rule forced him, after the Italian defeat in August 1848, to go in exile in Lugano. His name appeared in the list of citizens upon whom Marshal Josef Radetzky imposed a heavy fine. His exile in Switzerland was a fundamental experience for his intellectual and political growth. He was able to obtained a passport in 1849 and went on a trip all around Europe. He went first in France and then in other Italian states, residing for a long time in Florence. He was finally forced to return home in Milan and had to pay a fine of 600,000 Austrian liras^[2] to regain possession of his property.


Milan during that time was dominated by Austrian censorship, and Giacomo Poldi was from then on only able to play a smaller political role. He could not blatantly show his patriotism and instead reserved all his efforts to creating an ancient Italian art collection, joining the ranks of the great art patrons. In 1850 he supported the publication of the annual illustrated Album of the Exhibition in Brera. With the creation of the house museum Poldi Pezzoli, he also contributed to the promotion of Italian art as form of rebellion against Austria.