Giovanni Battista Giorgini
Giovanni Battista Giorgini, nicknamed Bista (Forte dei Marmi, 25 August 1898 - Florence, 2 January 1971), was an Italian entrepreneur and member of the Giorgini family. Early life and family Giovanni Battista Giorgini was a member of the Giorgini family, descending from a noble family from Lucca. His great-grandfather, Carlo, was a Deputy of the Kingdom of Italy; he was the brother-in-law of Vittoria Manzoni, the eighth daughter of the writer Alessandro Manzoni. His father, Vittorio Giorgini (1860-1919), helped his brother Alessandro in the family business in the marble trade. His mother, Florence Rochat (1860-1942) was Waldensian and originally from Francophone Switzerland. The boy grew up in a cultured and cosmopolitan environment, and he undertook classical studies at the University of Pisa with the intention of pursuing a diplomatic career. At the age of 17, he followed in his family's footsteps and enrolled as a volunteer in the infantry to participate in the First World War. Shocked by the horrors of the war, he promoted the Christian Youth Association, equivalent to the evangelical organization YMCA. The untimely death of his father Vittorio in 1919 forced him to take care of the family businesses, ranging from marble to the shipping sector. In 1921, he married Zaira Augusta Nanni, with whom he had three children: Graziella, Vittorio and Matilde. In the same year, he founded a branch of the Fasci di Combattimento in his home town of Forte dei Marmi, becoming its political secretary. In July of the same year, he participated in the Fatti di Sarzana and the following year in the Marcia su Roma. Career In 1922, he moved to Florence, where, in 1923, he decided to start his own business by opening the "GB Giorgini & Co. Import-export" at 9 Calzaioli Street. He actively promoted Tuscan art, antiques and crafts, and in 1924 he made his first business trip to the United States. This trip was particularly difficult because at that time Italian exporters were not regarded well overseas. He decided to develop contacts with the "Italian House of Columbia University", "Italian American Society" and the YMCA, and at the same time, he selected Italian craftsmanship of the highest quality. The crash of 1929 dealt a heavy blow to his work and forced him to close his New York office. Returning to Florence, Giorgini opened a shop on the Lungarno Acciaiuoli, "The Three Rooms", which offered exclusively Italian products. Due to financial difficulties, they had to move again in 1936 to a location down the street on the Lungarno Corsini that had extra rooms they rented to students of Smith College. The years that followed were very unstable until the end of the Second World War, when the Allies entrusted him with the management of the "Allied Forces Gift Shop" of Florence, a shop responsible for selling products to Anglo-American troops. In those years, he quickly got back in touch with all the Italian artisans with whom he had worked before the war, and of course with American buyers.