Count Francesco Matarazzo

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The Right Honourable The Count Matarazzo
Francesco Matarazzo
Personal details
Born	Francesco Antonio Maria Matarazzo (1854-03-09)9 March 1854 Castellabate, Province of Salerno, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
Died	10 December 1937(1937-12-10) (aged 83) São Paulo, State of São Paulo, Brazil
Nationality	Italian-Brazilian
Spouse(s)	Filomena Sansivieri
Children	Giuseppe Matarazzo Andrea Matarazzo Ermelino Matarazzo Teresa Comenale Mariangela Comide Attilio Matarazzo Carmela Campostano Lydia Pignatari Olga, Princess Giovanni Alliata of Montereale Ida Matarazzo Claudia Ruspoli, Princess of Cerveteri Francesco Matarazzo Jr. Luigi Matarazzo
Parents	Costabile Matarazzo Mariangela Jovane
Occupation	businessman

Don Francesco Antonio Maria Matarazzo, Count Matarazzo (March 9, 1854 in Castellabate – December 10, 1937 in São Paulo, Brazil), was an Italian-Brazilian businessman and noble who created a large business in South America, particularly in Brazil.^[1]

Biography[]

He was born in Castellabate, Salerno, Italy, the eldest of Doctor Costabile Matarazzo's nine sons, and Mariangela Jovane. At the age of 26, when Italian emigration to Brazil was widespread, he moved to the city of Sorocaba, São Paulo with his brothers, wife and children.^[2] Initially he sold oranges and lottery tickets and shined shoes, reinvesting the proceeds in new businesses, eventually including plantations of tea, coffee, corn, rice, rubber and cotton.^[3]

In 1890, he moved to São Paulo and with his brothers, Giuseppe and Luigi, founded Matarazzo and Irmãos. He diversified its business and imported wheat flour from the United States of America. Giuseppe took part in the company with a lard factory in Porto Alegre and Luigi with a deposit-warehouse in São Paulo.

The following year the company was dissolved and replaced by Companhia Matarazzo SA with 43 minority shareholders. This corporation also controlled the factories in Sorocaba and Porto Alegre.

War between Spain and Central American countries made it difficult buy wheat flour and he obtained credit from the to build a mill in São Paulo. From there, his business expanded rapidly to a total of 365 factories^{[citation needed]} throughout Brazil. The conglomerate became the fourth largest in the country and 6% of the population depended on its factories in São Paulo. The business was renamed Indústrias Reunidas Francisco Matarazzo (IRFM) in 1911.

The Gestapo spy Hans Wesemann reported that:

An entire fleet sails under his flag. Tens of thousands of workers toil in his factories. He makes cement, cuts down trees and turns the pulp into paper, on which he prints his newspapers. The public drinks his beer and watches films in his cinemas. He contrives to be both wealthy and popular and when the president of Brazil visits Sao Paolo, he calls upon Matarazzo first.^[3]

In recognition of his financial and material assistance to Italy during the First World War King Victor Emmanuel III conferred the title of Count.^{[citation needed]}

Matarazzo died in 1937 after an attack of uremia. At that time he was Brazil's's richest man, with an estimated fortune of 20 billion U.S. dollars.^[4]

See also[]

Matarazzo Building

São Paulo Museum of Modern Art

show This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Italian. (July 2012) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Italian article. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 2,228 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary Content in this edit is translated from the existing Italian Wikipedia article at [[:it:Francesco Matarazzo]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|it|Francesco Matarazzo}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

show This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Portuguese. (July 2012) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Portuguese article. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,249 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary Content in this edit is translated from the existing Portuguese Wikipedia article at [[:pt:Francesco Matarazzo]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|pt|Francesco Matarazzo}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

References[]