They were all beautiful rich and well high

THE AGNELLI DYNASTY. RISE AND FALL OF AN ITALIAN FAMILY

by Pierre de Gasquet

Grasset, 330 pages, 19 euros.

In the immense bibliography on Gianni Agnelli, died Fiat boss in 2003, the most regularly used expressions are the "King without a Crown", "crown prince", the "dauphin", the "Lord", and of course the "dynasty". Fascinated by his personality and feelings of admiration and envy it inspired among readers, all his biographers have resorted, extensively, in Royal reference. They periodically explained that Gianni Agnelli was the "King of Italy" and that it gave satisfaction to this need for kingship that often haunts the republics. The book that stone of Gasquet publishes in Grasset ("the dynasty Agnelli.") ("Rise and fall of an Italian family") provides in this respect originality. Although the cover displays a portrait of the King, Agnelli is not the real protagonist. Gianni Agnelli certainly dominates the story that tells the "Echos" correspondent in Milan, he is very present but the stage is first occupied by the family and the Court.

The author understood that the Agnelli are an interesting sociological phenomenon. Created early last century, the Fiat company started during the first world war and quickly became the most important of the country. Soon, the children of the founder made remarkable marriage. They were all beautiful, rich and well high. They established links with European aristocracy and gentry. Reads the Agnelli family tree as it read the Almanach de Gotha: Fürstenberg, Caracciolo di Castagneto, Rattazzi, Campello della Spina, Brandolini d'Adda and, in the following generations, Hohenlohe, Torlonia, Borromeo, of Pahlen. Women and men that bind to the Agnelli are very often foreigners: Americans, Germans, French, Russians and Brazilians. There are among them Catholics, protestants, Orthodox and Jews.

It could, therefore, to expect a rapid breakdown of from the original family clan, especially after the second world war. As in all large families is discussed, it blurs and of baffles. And as in all large families of bad boys, reckless girls of eccentrics and a mutiny there. Someone began successfully a personal career. Susanna, sister of Gianni, becomes Senator, Secretary of State, Minister for Foreign Affairs. IRA Fürstenberg made appearances in a few films of modest quality. Edoardo, son of Gianni and Marella Caracciolo, contains a spiritual universe to suicide, five years ago.

Margherita, sister of Edoardo, painted paintings inspired by the art of the Russian church. Others choose the discretion and reserved lives. But for almost all members of the clan, whatever their names, identity Agnelli trumps everything and provides family cohesion which has little precedent, even in Italy.

A single King

The company's success and wealth, of course, play an important role. If empire distributes prestige functions, places in boards of Directors and a lot of money, the desire for independence is the interest and the wisdom. But the "tribe" has a status which should rather encourage separations and retirements. This unwritten status is a rule that old Agnelli, Fiat founder Senator, borrowed from the annals of the House of Savoy: home power is never shared, here there is only a single King. Gianni Agnelli gave this rule a shareholder form by the creation of a partnership that brings together the clan and ensures the unit. Stay in the clan, therefore, to accept the heir designated by the King.

This is exactly what happened to the three princes heirs selected by Gianni throughout his life. Even the last, a 27 year-old boy (John Jacob, better known as Jaki, son of Margherita), agreed with discipline and loyalty.

The book of stone of Gasquet is a journey through this tribe: men, women, children, houses, villas, castles, art collections, souvenirs and scandals. Style (enriched and ennobled by the good literature journalism) is that, brilliant and ironic for a contemporary Saint-Simon, best be suited to the description of a court. The timing is particularly well chosen. Pierre de Gasquet met his characters in one of the most difficult periods of Fiat: the long crisis that threatened the existence of the company between the end of the 1990s and the upwelling promising but still uncertain in recent months. The author is convinced that this crisis has two causes: Gianni management, attractive personality but manager questionable, and the economic decline of the country which was the basis of the success of the company for a century. His analysis is correct. But the reader does not find in his book the atmosphere of the Buddenbrook, the great Thomas Mann novel Pierre de Gasquet evokes at the end of his book. The clan has aged, but keeps him always those that John Maynard Keynes called the "animal spirits", the animal instincts of capitalism.