Born in Soresina (Cremona) on January 20, 1868.
Died in Milan on October 31, 1942.
Graduated in law in Pavia, he settled in Milan, where he served in the socialist ranks in the reformist fraction. Secretary for a few years of the International Society for Peace, he directed Milan's "The Class Struggle" and was a correspondent for the "Avanti!" From Rome. He also directed the review «Autonomia colunale» from 1903 to 1914, and collaborated with the «Critica sociale», the «Scuola Positivo» and the «Rivista di diritto privati». He sensationally won the administrative elections of 14 June 1914, becoming the first socialist mayor of Milan. He will be elected deputy in the political elections of 1921 and 1924.
When in 1915, the Guanellian institution had to sell the property of the first site of the *Istituto San Gaetano, due to regulatory plan requirements, obtaining an area of equal extension in via Mac Mahon in exchange, the mayor Caldara wanted to include in the compromise the clause that the institute was built in the municipality of Milan, underlining how the city needed such charitable institutions, praising their spirit and execution, an acknowledgment that is far from obvious coming from a socialist. Then having learned "with great pain" the news of Don Guanella's death, he, the socialist mayor of Milan, wanted to offer the most heartfelt condolences on the part of the municipal administration, to the assembled councils of the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence and of the Servants of Charity.
Sources:
ALBERTO MALATESTA, Ministers, deputies, senators from 1848 to 1922, vol. I, Rome, “Italiana” Biographical and Bibliographic Encyclopedia, 1941, p. 180.
RITA CAMBRIA, ad vocem, in Biographical Dictionary of Italians, vol. XVI, Rome, Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia, 1973, pp. 566-570.
Guanellian sources:
The great mourning, in «La Divina Provvidenza», 1915, p. 177.
SACRA RITUUM CONGREGATIONE, Comen. seu Mediolanen. Beatificationis et canonizationis servi Dei Aloysii Guanella [...]. Positio super virtutibus, Summarium, Romae, Typis Guerra et Belli, 1950, p. 627 (witness Don Martino Cugnasca).
Photographs:
«The Italian Illustration», 1914, II, p. 8.