Enlightened entrepreneur, collector, art and design enthusiast, Aldo Bassetti died at the age of 96 in his villa on Lake Monate, in the province of Varese.
Born in Crenna di Gallarate (Varese) on 1 November 1926, he was the brother of Piero Bassetti (1928), first president of the Lombardy Region, both heirs of Bassetti, a historic Lombard textile company.
He was married to Giorgina Venosta, who passed away on August 12, 2021.
Friends of Brera
Aldo Bassetti was president of Amici di Brera from 2007 to 2020, when he left office to Milanese gallery owner Carlo Orsi, becoming honorary president of the association.
In addition to promoting important renovation and restoration works at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, in 2018 Bassetti donated 22 works by the painter Mario Mafai (1902-1965) to the museum: expressionist paintings created between 1939 and 1944 depicting massacres, cries and violence perpetrated against Jews and all those considered hostile to the fascist regime; a collection to which Aldo Bassetti was deeply attached as they recalled traumatic experiences he lived in his youth.
Industrial Design Association
Bassetti between 1964 and 1966 was president of Adi – Association for industrial design, succeeding his friend Roberto Olivetti.
Padana company for investments
Civil engineering graduate Politecnico di MilanoAldo Bassetti, after starting out in the family business, set up on his own, founding in 1952 the Padan company for investment (Cpi)a company that set out to make “investments in innovative initiatives, with a high industrial profile, in a highly entrepreneurial and long-term perspective”.
Throughout its history, CPI has held strategic stakes in various publicly traded companies and undertaken venture capital ventures.
He was also president of Marconi Industrial Services Spa (engineering company in the defense and composite materials sectors), president of Marconi Immobiliare and president of Gnosis Spa (biotechnology company).
Since 1955 Aldo Bassetti was among the shareholders of the weekly “L’Espresso”: he was part of a company called Piccolo Naviglio made up at the time of young heirs of industrial dynasties from the North (among others Roberto Olivetti, son of Adriano, and Vittorio Olcese) and politically and culturally close to the ideas of Eugenio Scalfari and Carlo Caracciolo.