Susanna Agnelli , Straordinaria Mecenate di Grande Umanita' e Talento. Addio! Yasmin von Hohenstaufen, giornalista La Stampa: "perdita straziante!"

Susanna Agnelli, a member of Italy's powerful Fiat car dynasty and a former foreign minister, has died aged 87.

By Our Foreign Staff and Agencies in Rome
Last Updated: 11:24PM BST 15 May 2009

Susanna Agnelli died on Friday in a Rome hospital Photo: AP
She had been in a Rome hospital since April 3 after she broke her leg in a fall and her condition had declined, said Nicola Cerbino, a spokesman for the Gemelli Polyclinic.

Agnelli served as foreign minister for Lamberto Dini's government in the mid-1990s, and held political positions ranging from mayor of a Tuscan seacoast resort, Monte Argentario, to a senator in the Rome parliament.


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George MoneyItaly's current foreign minister, Franco Frattini, hailed Agnelli as "a great protagonist of Italy".

Agnelli was the younger sister of Giovanni "Gianni" Agnelli, the stylish business baron whose rule over Italy's auto empire made him and his family a symbol of the nation's post-war climb to prosperity.

The former Fiat chieftain, grandson of the company's founder, died in 2003. His eldest grandson, John Elkann, is currently Fiat's vice chairman.

The Agnellis were often likened to the Kennedy family because of their prominence and influence in the nation. The family's business empire includes the Turin football team Juventus.

Susanna Agnelli's memoirs about growing up in Italy's most powerful family became a best-seller, Vestivamo alla marinara (We Wore Sailor Suits) in 1976.

The book also was a portrait of Italian high society in the 1930s and 1940s.

A Red Cross volunteer on a hospital ship during the Second World War, Agnelli devoted much of her life to charitable and humanitarian causes.

A mother of six children, she was divorced from Urbano Rattazzi, her husband of 30 years, in 1975.