Ignazio Florio Jr.

Ignazio Florio Jr. (Palermo, 1 September 1869 – Palermo, 19 September 1957) was an Italian entrepreneur, heir of the rich Florio economic dynasty, one of the wealthiest Italian families during the late 19th century. He was the son of the Senator of the Kingdom of Italy, Ignazio Florio Sr. and Baroness Giovanna D'Ondes Trigona. When his father died in 1891, Ignazio Jr., at the age of 22, inherited one of the greatest fortunes in Italy. The Florio business empire had far-reaching interests in sulphur, tuna fishing, Marsala wine, insurance and banking, and metallurgy (the Oretea foundry) and engineering. The Florio family was a major share holder in the Navigazione Generale Italiana (NGI), Italy's main shipping company at the time and one of the major one's in Europe. In 1893, like his father before him, he married a woman from the old Sicilian aristocracy, Francesca Paola Jacona della Motta dei baroni di San Giuliano, who would become known as the "Queen of Palermo", as she became a prominent protagonist of the Belle Époque in Palermo. He was the principal impresario of the Teatro Massimo, when the building was finished in 1897. He was also the main shareholder and financier of the Sicilian daily newspaper L'Ora, founded in 1900 and published in Palermo. In the heyday of its existence reportedly some 16,000 people depended on the Florio business empire, and the press sometimes referred to Palermo as 'Floriopolis'. However, as international competition increased and the economic importance was moving to the north of Italy, to the cities of Milan, Turin and Genoa, the family had to face an increasingly deteriorated economic reality resulting in bankruptcies and closures of activity. In 1897 he had founded the Cantiere navale di Palermo (Palermo Shipyard) to service the commercial fleet. Construction was protracted, however, and Florio was forced to sell his stake in the shipyard to Attilio Odero in 1905. He was also forced to sell the family's interests in NGI in 1908.