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| Licio Gelli | |
|---|---|
| Name | Licio Gelli |
| Birth date | 9 April 1919 |
| Birth place | Pistoia, Kingdom of Italy |
| Death date | 15 December 2015 |
| Death place | Arezzo, Italy |
| Occupation | Banker, businessman, mason |
| Known for | Head of Propaganda Due (P2) |
Licio Gelli Licio Gelli was an Italian financier and Freemason, best known as the enigmatic head of the clandestine Masonic lodge Propaganda Due (P2) implicated in numerous Italian political and financial scandals during the 1970s and 1980s. His activities intersected with prominent figures and institutions across Italy and Europe, drawing investigations from Italian magistrates, attention from international media, and controversy involving intelligence services, political parties, and banking institutions.
Born in Pistoia in Tuscany, he grew up in a period shaped by the aftermath of World War I and the rise of Benito Mussolini, and his early years overlapped with figures such as Vittorio Emanuele III, Benito Mussolini, Kingdom of Italy, and the sociopolitical currents of interwar Italy. Sources describe formative contacts with local elites and military circles in Tuscany and exposure to conservative Catholic institutions like Azione Cattolica. He reportedly pursued limited formal schooling and entered professional life amid networks linked to regional businesses and Grand Orient of Italy-affiliated lodges, which later connected him with national leaders and international operators.
Gelli developed a career blending banking, insurance, and agribusiness, maintaining links with institutions such as Banco Ambrosiano, Credito Italiano, and Banca Nazionale del Lavoro through intermediaries. He cultivated relationships with industrialists and financiers including figures from Giovanni Agnelli’s circles and executives associated with FIAT and Monte dei Paschi di Siena. His enterprises spanned real estate, publishing, and cultural foundations, and involved jurisdictions from Switzerland and Liechtenstein to Panama and Luxembourg, often intersecting with corporate structures used by transnational operators like Roberto Calvi and networks implicated in the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano. Business dealings brought him into contact with international actors including members of the Vatican Bank's wider financial milieu and consulting firms tied to London and Geneva banking centers.
As head of Propaganda Due (P2), he presided over a secretive lodge that linked politicians, military officers, magistrates, and businessmen, implicating actors from the Christian Democracy and Italian Socialist Party to military figures connected with the Carabinieri and Esercito Italiano. P2’s membership lists and internal documents suggested contacts with intelligence services such as SISMI and foreign intelligence entities, and with influential media owners operating in RAI and private broadcasting companies. Investigations connected P2 to destabilizing episodes including the Years of Lead (Italy), alleged schemes related to the Red Brigades, and controversies surrounding the Ustica massacre. The lodge also displayed links to conservative networks across France, United Kingdom, and the United States, and to clandestine initiatives modeled after historical secret societies like Propaganda Massonica.
Gelli’s network reportedly encompassed high-ranking politicians, judicial figures, and business magnates such as members of Democrazia Cristiana, associates of Giulio Andreotti, entrepreneurs tied to Silvio Berlusconi's media expansion, and financial operators connected to the Vatican City and the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. Documents and testimony indicated influence over appointments and policy through contacts in ministries, presidencies, and security apparatuses including Ministero dell'Interno offices. His reach allegedly extended into European capitals and to patrons in Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay, where Italian expatriate networks and Cold War-era alignments linked conservative factions and intelligence contacts.
Beginning in the early 1980s, investigations by magistrates such as those in Milan and Rome focused on P2’s activities, triggering parliamentary inquiries including a commission in the Italian Parliament and prosecutions tied to the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano and alleged subversive plotting. Judicial actions involved trials for illicit association, financial fraud, and embezzlement, with connections drawn between Gelli, bankers like Roberto Calvi, and bankers’ links to the Istituto per le Opere di Religione (Vatican Bank). Trials intersected with inquiries into terrorism, state secrets, and banking regulation, involving prosecutors, defense counsel, and appeals before Italy’s courts and occasional extradition disputes with countries including Switzerland and Argentina. Outcomes ranged from convictions, controversial acquittals, and revoked sentences to prolonged legal battles over immunity, statutes of limitation, and asset seizures.
In his later decades he returned to Tuscany, maintaining a public persona through memoirs, interviews, and contacts with writers, journalists, and cultural figures from Milan to Florence, while continuing to be a touchstone in debates about secrecy and accountability in Italian public life. He remained a controversial figure in discussions involving former heads of state, senior magistrates, and prominent industrialists, attracting commentary in international outlets and scholarly studies of Cold War Italy. He died in 2015 in Arezzo, leaving a complex legacy debated by historians, legal scholars, and journalists, and prompting renewed archival research in institutions such as national archives and university centers studying modern Italian history.
Category:1919 births Category:2015 deaths Category:People from Pistoia Category:Italian bankers Category:Italian Freemasons