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Carlo Centurione Scotto
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Carlo Centurione Scotto (Genoa , 19 October 1877 - Alassio , 26 March
1958) was an Italian lawyer and politician .
Member of the Kingdom of Italy for eleven years, his life was marked by
the premature death of his son Vittorio in a plane crash: this tragedy
led him to become interested in spiritualism and to organize numerous
spirit sessions in his castle in Millesimo (province of Savona) in an
attempt to get in touch with the child's soul. The reports of those
meetings, and in particular an alleged teleportation case, became widely
known and discussed internationally, even with bitter controversy
leading to the sensational resignation in protest of Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle from the London Society for Psychic Research .
Belonging to a house that had given six Doges to the Republic of Genoa
and who, it seems he also had Christopher Columbus among his employees,
he was a lover of every art form and a great horse enthusiast. He
married the Marquise Maria Luisa Cattaneo of Belforte (1881–1939), from
whom he had the sons Vittorio, airplane pilot, and Giacomo (called Mino,
1906–1997).
At the beginning of the twentieth century it purchased the former
monastery of Santo Stefano in Millesimo (province of Savona), which was
restored by the Florentine architects Gino Coppedè and Adolfo Coppedè
who transformed it into a neo-Gothic-Renaissance eclectic castle.
He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1909 in the Cairo
Montenotte constituency and reconfirmed in 1913. In the same year he was
denounced for defamation in the press against the Hon. Bovetti. On
November 18, 1918, on the occasion of the reopening of parliamentary
works after the victory of the First World War, he publicly accused
Giovanni Giolitti of treason to his country, having personally
witnessed, disguised as a hotel porter, an alleged secret meeting
between the Italian statesman, some MPs and the former French Prime
Minister Joseph Caillaux who took place in Bardonecchia on August 12,
1917 to organize a revolution in Turin . This scandal led to the opening
of an investigation by the Military Tribal of Genoa and a parliamentary
commission specially constituted and chaired by Francesco Pistoja to
ascertain - in Giolitti's words - whether there was "a traitor in the
Chamber or a slanderer", but the examination of the documents produced
did not provide any basis for the accusations of treason, so much so
that in the end several voices asked for the permanent removal of the
honorable Centurione Scotto, now isolated from his own party companions,
from the Chamber of Deputies.
In 1919 he was among the legionaries who occupied Fiume led by Gabriele
D'Annunzio.
Following the tragic death of his son Vittorio Centurione Scotto , who
crashed with a seaplane in Lake Varese on September 21, 1926 during
training for the Schneider Cup , Carlo and his wife never wanted to
resign themselves and tried to contact the son's soul through sessions
spiritiche in their "castle of Millesimo".
In these years of despair, several debts were contracted, which brought
the family to ruin. The castle and land of Ronchi di Osiglia were
foreclosed, auctioned and sold for little money. His wife Luisa instead
died of a broken heart at the age of 53 in 1939 in Rome, after Vittorio
Emanuele II had refused to grant her an additional loan. Now forced to
misery, Carlo Centurione Scotto remarried with a seamstress, who looked
after him until his death in 1958, while his son Giacomo became manager
of Montedison and always lived in the shadow of his brother's memory,
dying in 1997 in Genoa.
Note:
• The above was translated from Italian. Help to improve it
would be welcomed.
• Scotto is descended from the Douglas-Scotti family
See also:
• The Douglas family in Italy portal
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Source
Sources for this article include:
Simona Bellone, A great love with wings - Vittorio Centurione Scotto -capitano
Regia Aeronautica- The forgotten hero
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
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