Italy Pays Last Respects To Fiat Patriarch Gianni Agnelli

TURIN, Italy, Jan 25, 2003; Reuters reported that political bosses, soccer stars, captains of industry and factory workers lined up in the thousands on Saturday to pay their last respects to Fiat patriarch Gianni Agnelli, the king of Italian business.

Even as the one-time jewel of his industrial empire looked increasingly tarnished, the man who in life never shrank from the spotlight was in death accorded the kind of attention usually reserved for heads of state and religious figures.

Women in furs and school children with backpacks filed past the billionaire's flower-draped coffin laid at Fiat's founding Lingotto factory in the northern city of Turin. Many touched the casket or crossed themselves as they passed.

Clad in dark suits and smiling occasionally, Agnelli's younger brother Umberto and his grandson John Elkann, tipped as the leading lights of his dynasty, lined up with other family members to greet the mourners.

Agnelli, 81, under whose stewardship the century-old Fiat became an ever more powerful "state within a state", lay at rest in a futuristic gallery housing the family's art collection atop the historic first factory.

"He was an exceptional person," said Roberto Martinengo, a 43-year-old hospital worker who stood in line on crutches on the factory roof. "He gave thousands of people jobs, allowed them to put food on the table."

With night falling and hundreds more still climbing the ramp that Fiat models once circled on their way to a rooftop test track, police said the factory would remain open as long as needed for all who wished to pay their last respects.

Visitors waited an average of two and a half hours before reaching Agnelli's casket. Family members, politicians and others with ties to the Agnellis drove their cars to the roof and entered immediately.

CROSSED OVER INTO STATECRAFT

Lingotto is now a shopping centre and Fiat, an icon of Italy's post-war economic boom, last year unveiled a last-ditch recovery plan calling for thousands of layoffs.

The man whose empire spanned cars and energy, as well Chateaux Margaux wines and insurance, crossed over into statecraft, mixing with Henry Kissinger and Muammar Gaddafi.

But Agnelli, whose coffin was flanked by a banner from his championship-winning soccer team Juventus, was also remembered for his passion for sport, art collecting and beautiful women.

Champion Ferrari Formula One driver Michael Schumacher bowed his head, as did Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo, one of the few onlookers visibly moved. The whole of the Juventus club and European Commission President Romano Prodi followed.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi were to attend Agnelli's funeral on Sunday in Turin's cathedral.

Agnelli's death dominated national media coverage, with newspapers devoting as many pages to it as they did to the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

But the soft-focused nostalgia was mixed with questions about how long Fiat's ailing automaking operations would survive without their great defender.

Umberto Agnelli is seen to be far less enamoured with its cars, which in Fiat's heyday included design icons like the tiny Cinquecento.

Agnelli "was a happy man, charismatic and intelligent," said Elena Pertossa, 70, a nurse on Fiat's factory floor for 20 years. "But he died at an ugly moment."