MARZOTTO

It was a pleasantly hot Milanese summer evening in 2019. Along the Navigli — the flatboat canals designed by Leonardo da Vinci during the Renaissance to bring goods to the city from the Po River — a grey, concrete building had a crowd gathering at its small entrance.

This was not the glamorous part of Navigli featured in Lonely Planet guides, full of bars and restaurants where locals and tourists flock. This was on the outskirts of Milan, an area usually ignored by visitors for obvious reasons: it is ugly, dull, and uninviting. But gentrification was underway.

A once run-down wood factory had been transformed into a casual dining spot by superstar chef Carlo Cracco. “La Segheria,” literally “The Sawmill,” had been chosen by fashion brand Dondup to host a sophisticated dinner party with an 80s DJ set and head-spinning models. The Milanese upper class mingled in the courtyard, served by a fleet of strolling waiters.

Matteo Marzotto — impeccably dressed in a double-breasted blue suit with a crisp white shirt, no tie, and tanned loafers worn without socks — smiled and shook hands with everyone. That night, the heir of one of Italy’s most prominent industrial families was celebrating the 20th anniversary of Dondup.

It was no ordinary Milanese soirée: Matteo's family had been in the textile and fashion business since the late 19th century, back in the Veneto region, near Venice.

At the time, he was raising awareness about a global issue that would soon explode: the environmental impact of the fashion industry. Denim — the most worn fabric in the world — relies heavily on water-intensive washing and dyeing processes. Italy has a tradition of distressing denim, and Dondup had developed a new eco-friendly method.

The fashion industry was under fire for its environmental footprint. Cotton, for example, is notoriously thirsty: it takes 1,000 liters of water to produce just one kilo. Dyeing it, indigo blue requires multiple rounds. Matteo’s involvement with Dondup, which began in autumn 2016, marked his most ambitious venture in years. Over time, his family controlled iconic luxury brands like Missoni, Gianfranco Ferré, Hugo Boss, and Marlboro Classics.

The present may be intriguing, but it is in the past that the Marzotto legacy was born. They are arguably Italy’s first true industrial dynasty—the embodiment of capitalism’s "animal spirits." Although the Marzottos never reached the status of the Agnellis, nor is Matteo as iconic as the late Gianni Agnelli, the family shares a similarly global network and a touch of glamour that recalls the more famous dynasty from Turin. Matteo’s great-grandfather, Gaetano, was Italy’s first tycoon. Remarkably, he wasn’t even the founder—he was already the fourth generation of a textile lineage established back in 1836.

This family from the Veneto region is deeply intertwined with the history of Italy: numerous, quarrelsome, brilliant, and at times spendthrift—the Marzotto family could be the subject of a novel.

The dynasty officially begins with Gaetano Marzotto Senior, born in the 19th century. However, its roots go even deeper: Gaetano’s grandfather, Francesco Marzotto, had married Maria Soster, heiress to a Venetian family of wool and textile entrepreneurs. Their son Luigi expanded the business and, in 1836, founded the “Marzotto Wool Mill” in Valdagno, a town in the hinterland of Venice. The city had lost its centuries-old maritime empire just a few decades earlier. In 1797, Napoleon had defeated the lagoon city, which had dominated the Mediterranean for five centuries as the Serenissima Republic, even trading with Kublai Khan’s China. The French forced the Venetians to sign a humiliating peace treaty, ceding the city and its territories (from Croatia to Greece) to the Austrian Empire. Venice lost its freedom, but the new rulers brought innovation and steam-powered industry.

Luigi’s wool mill began as a modest, family-run workshop employing about ten people. For years, it was little more than a local gristmill. The breakthrough came with the next generation. His son Gaetano, born in 1820 and who lived nearly a century, became the true patriarch of what would later become the Marzotto Group. His grandson, Gaetano Junior, who shared his name, was granted the noble title of Count by Benito Mussolini in the 1930s. He had eight children and 25 grandchildren.

Count Gaetano Junior, the son of Vittorio Emanuele (assassinated in 1921), was a brilliant and extraordinary man who left a lasting mark on Italy’s economic history. Gifted with vision and foresight, he founded the Santa Margherita estate and the Zignago glassworks, originally intended to supply milk bottles for the farmers near his factories. He was the first to bring trains to Veneto, transporting raw materials to his production sites, and he established a company in London. He even created Italy’s first hotel chain—Jolly Hotels—foreseeing the rise of commercial tourism.

An industrialist with a humanist spirit, he also introduced forward-thinking social initiatives like Villaggio Margherita, a pioneering example of social housing decades ahead of its time.

Half a century later, starting in the early 1980s, the Marzotto galaxy began revolving around Count Pietro, one of Gaetano’s eight children. A charismatic leader, he helmed the company for decades, embodying the old-school patriarch with a sharp and sometimes abrasive personality. It is said he would become furious if the office corridor lights were left on at night.

He had seven siblings. The eldest, Vittorio Emanuele Jr., named after their assassinated grandfather, had two wives and four children (Niccolò, Luca, Gaetano, and Stefano), who would go on to form a separate branch of the family focused on wine and glassmaking. Then came Umberto, who married Marta—a woman who became a prominent hostess in high society circles. Their son was Matteo, now the owner of the Dondup fashion brand.

Two of Pietro’s other brothers were Giannino, who reportedly only ever drove a Ferrari, and Paolo. Pietro himself was flamboyant: he had three wives, marrying the last without even telling Paolo, with whom he had dinner the night before the wedding, completely unaware. Pietro also had four children, adding further complexity to the family tree.

The family has long been divided—both in business and, perhaps even more so, in politics. For instance, Count Pietro supported the left-wing mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, while his brother Giannino funded Silvio Berlusconi (and later regretted it), donating a million euros. The real turning point for the dynasty came through Pietro’s sister Italia, who married into the Donà Dalle Rose family, a noble Venetian lineage with three Doges of the ancient Republic of Venice among their ancestors. From Italia and her son Andrea, another branch of the Marzotto family emerged.

In 2002, as the family reached its sixth generation, the dynasty split: the Marzotto and Donà Dalle Rose branches went their separate ways. At the time, they were in the midst of a complex operation: a share swap on the Milan Stock Exchange between the listed Marzotto Group and the privately held Zignago Vetro company. During a heated shareholders’ meeting, Count Pietro personally announced his opposition to the deal, openly challenging his brother Paolo and the rest of the family. He won, and the market applauded—but that moment left permanent scars within the dynasty.

That same year, the family pulled off a stunning move: Marzotto acquired Valentino, the luxury fashion house founded by Valentino Garavani in Rome, a global icon of haute couture. They paid 190 million euros and sold it just four years later, making a 200-million-euro profit. The deal was lucrative but also triggered renewed infighting that had been simmering since the Zignago meeting.

Pietro, who had long kept the unruly family branches in cheque, began losing control. With dividends dwindling as the family grew ever larger and more demanding, “The Count” chose to step down as chairman. He brought in Antonio Favrin, a longtime internal executive with 25 years of service. Though trusted, Favrin was closely aligned with Pietro’s brother Paolo. Upon becoming CEO, he promptly ousted Pietro—who was even asked to vacate his office.

As always, the one thing that brought everyone together was money: the family sold Valentino to the Permira fund. It was 2006, the height of the finance boom, and private equity was king on Wall Street. The European investor offered 800 million euros to acquire—and delist—a company the Marzottos had bought just a few years earlier for under 200 million. Andrea became the de facto owner of the Marzotto brand, ending decades of internal conflict. But when it comes to the Marzotto dynasty, peace is always temporary.

A new scandal erupted: the Marzottos were accused of failing to pay taxes on the Valentino deal. Allegedly, the money had been funneled through the Cayman Islands. Italian prosecutors launched a major investigation, seizing assets worth 65 million euros from six family members, including Matteo Marzotto and Andrea Donà Dalle Rose. Police sealed off the family’s luxury properties: a 28-room mansion in Cortina d’Ampezzo and the fairytale-like Trissino Castle with its 50 rooms. Their lawyer? Nicolò Ghedini, a Member of Parliament and longtime legal counsel to Berlusconi.

Facing yet another storm, the family — now in its sixth generation with 70 grandchildren—fractured again. The elderly Count Pietro, now truly sidelined, turned to gourmet food, purchasing Peck, the Milanese equivalent of Fortnum & Mason in London, for tens of millions. He died in 2018, aged 81.

The days when Valdagno was Italy’s textile capital are long gone. Today, the Marzotto heirs who still bear the family name are focused on wine and glass. In 1935, during the Fascist era, the patriarch Gaetano Senior acquired over a thousand hectares of agricultural land. The sellers were the aristocratic Stucky family from Switzerland—the same family behind the famous Stucky Mill in Venice, now a 5-star Hilton hotel. That land today produces Ca’ del Bosco prosecco, sold around the world.

And wine, of course, needs glass. The glass business was started by Gaetano Junior in the 1950s. After World War II, as prosperity spread across the Veneto countryside, families began buying fresh milk — a former luxury. Bottles were needed to distribute it, and so Zignago Vetro was born.

More recently, Matteo, the most prominent heir of the dynasty, created a holding company of Italian companies that supply the big luxury brands and then made an agreement with another big Italian entrepreneurial family: the Garrone family from Genoa, former owners of the Sampdoria football club. The idea is to create an Italian LVMH in the supply chain, the “upstream” of the world’s fashion houses.