Susanna Agnelli

Susanna Agnelli, Contessa Rattazzi, (24 April 1922 – 15 May 2009), was an Italian politician, businesswoman, and writer. Involved in Italian politics for over twenty years, she was the first woman to be appointed Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs. She was also the first Italian minister to be Minister of Foreign Affairs and undersecretary of the same ministry. Early life Born in Turin, she was the daughter of Edoardo Agnelli and Donna Virginia Bourbon del Monte, a daughter of the Prince of San Faustino and his Kentucky-born wife Jane Allen Campbell. Her grandfather, Giovanni Agnelli, founded Fiat S.p.A. She is the sister of Gianni Agnelli, who was the head of Fiat until 1996; members of the Agnelli family are still the controlling shareholders of the company. Affectionally called Suni, her British governess used to tell her: "Never forget you are an Agnelli." During World War II, Agnelli worked at times as a nurse for the Red Cross, and when transport became unobtainable in the postwar chaos she used her connections with Fiat and the Allied military to establish for the Red Cross a fleet of five ambulances with ten drivers to transport injured and sick civilians. Having graduated in literature, she received a honorary degree in law from the Mount Holyoke University in 1984. Politics Politically, the Agnelli family sought to create a non-ideological, centrist political formation of Atlanticist and pro-European persuasion that sought a modernizing, internationalist capitalism in contrast to the left and opposed to the populist, nationalist, or fascist right. In 1974, Agnelli gained her first public appointment, when she became mayor of Monte Argentario. Both her great-grandfather and grandfather, Giovanni Agnelli, had been mayors in their time. Agnelli served as mayor for a decade from 1974 to 1984. The experience inspired her to enter national politics. Agnelli was elected to the Italian Parliament in 1976 for the Italian Republican Party (PRI), of which her brother Gianni Agnelli was also close. In 1979, still for the PRI, she became an MEP in the European Parliament from 1979 to 1981, and sat in the European Liberals and Democrats group. In 1983, she returned to the Italian Parliament, becoming a member of the Senate of the Republic. The culmination of her political career was her appointment as the first female Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1995; it was not until 2013 that Emma Bonino became the next female incumbent of the post.