Armando Gavagnin

Armando Gavagnin (born October 3, 1901 in Venice , † July 14, 1978 in Venice) was the Social Democratic Mayor of Venice from 1958 to 1960, replacing Roberto Tognazzi from the Democrazia Cristiana .

Life

When Mussolini was overthrown in 1943, the resistance fighter and leader of the Partito d'Azione Armando Gavagnin was carried on his shoulders across St. Mark's Square to give a speech on a chair in the Caffè Florian . Then he did the same on the Garibaldi monument in Castello. He managed to convince the fleet commander to release anti-fascist prisoners. Gavagnin was supposed to be the editor of Gazzettino, but Diego Valeri took over the job .

After all parties that had fought against the fascists had worked together in the post-war years, this coalition broke up after a few years. Christian Democrats and Communists in particular fought each other vehemently, with some left-wing parties and the Christian Democratic Party opening up in the course of the 1950s.

Armando Gavagnin was one of the proponents of a memorial to the partisans, which Egidio Meneghetti , president of the Istituto per la storia della resistenza delle Tre Venezia , had been running since 1953. The execution was entrusted to the stonemason Leoncillo, but the monument was blown up in 1961 by an attack by neo-fascists. However, it was not until 1969 that a new monument, this time by Augusto Murer , replaced the destroyed previous work. Even Carlo Scarpa participated in the work which is at the Riva dei Partigiani in front of the gardens of Castello, but that Opus had almost from the beginning technical defects.

The social democrat and director of the city's main newspaper, the Gazzettino , Armando Gavagnin, was elected mayor in 1958 by a bloc made up of Partito Comunista , Partito Socialista and Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano . The Christian Democrats tried to bring about a coalition with socialists, liberals (Partito Liberale Italiano) and social democrats, then a government of “pragmatism” and “administration”. Neither camp nor the other could form a government, so a provisional government was set up. This lasted until November 5, 1960, although according to the law it should have ended on July 26, 1959 at the latest.

After the elections in November 1960, the Christian Democrats had 23 councilors (consiglieri), the Communists 14, the Socialists 13, and the Social Democrats 4. While there were no changes in the formation of blocs and the balance of power in Venice, the country now tended towards a middle- left government. 28 votes went to Giovanni Favaretto Fisca , 27 to Armando Gavagnin, 5 were invalid.

At the beginning of the 1960s, the PSDI played an important mediating role in bringing Christian Democrats and Socialists closer together, also at the state level, and enabled the PSI to join the center-left government of Aldo Moro on December 4, 1963.

Gavagnin's tenure fell into a period in which Venice, whose population had not yet collapsed as much as in the following years, was planning to expand strongly. In addition, it operated huge urban development projects, some of which were planned in the 1930s. Sacca Fisola , an 18 hectare island at the western end of the Giudecca , was to become a test case for the city's expansion efforts into the lagoon . In 1960 there were already 200 apartments, and another 200 were under construction. However, garbage and stench made life difficult for the residents, there was hardly any infrastructure, and the neighborhood threatened to go into neglect. Venice as a whole was largely impoverished and the old town was considered completely overcrowded in 1950 with 184,447 inhabitants. The city had a total of 321,562 inhabitants. But then the population of the old town fell to 158,466 by 1957. Many migrated to the mainland industrial districts, so that the population of the entire city rose to 339,857. Therefore, much larger projects were pushed ahead to enlarge the old town at the expense of the lagoon. In 1958 a competition was announced to build a new district for 50,000 inhabitants on 187 hectares, the seventh sestiere . In addition, construction work began on the new Marco Polo Airport in April 1958, which went into operation on August 1, 1960. This type of project, which filled in significant parts of the lagoon, was only abandoned after a devastating flood in 1966.

Works

• Vent'anni di resistenza al fascismo. Ricordi e testimonianze , Einaudi, Turin 1957 (mainly refers to the 45 days after the fall of Mussolini on July 24, 1943 and the invasion of the Reichswehr on September 8).
• Una lettera al re , Milan 1960.

Remarks

1. ^ Richard JB Bosworth : Italian Venice. A History , Yale University Press, 2014, p. 170.
2. ↑ Roberto Colozza: Partigiani in borghese. Unità Popolare nell'Italia del dopoguerra , FrancoAngeli, Milan 2015, p. 130 f.