Vincenzo Azzolini

By 1948 passions had cooled a little and the Supreme Court of Cassation reversed the original conviction, stating that his failure to prevent the German Army from removing the Italian gold to Berlin in 1943 did not amount to a crime ("...il fatto non costituisce reato").

[4] At university he was able to benefit from the presence of eminent legal (and other) scholars of moral and intellectual depth, such as Giorgio Arcoleo, Napoleone Colajanni, Emanuele Gianturco, Augusto Graziani [it], Luigi Miraglia and Enrico Pessina.

Most of the securitized government debt to be converted was held abroad, two thirds of it by the Rothschild Bank[clarification needed] in Paris.

The English had come up with a particularly enticing offer with the Treaty of London (1915) (which remained secret until after the war was over) whereby Italy would gain territory at the expense of Austria in the event of an Anglo-French victory.

In 1916 Azzolini suffered a serious leg injury at the Battles of the Isonzo in an action which earned him a Silver Medal for Military Valour.

[4] It was determined that he was no longer fit for frontline service, however, and in 1916 he returned to work at the Treasury, where his activities involved primarily the country's relationships with foreign government agencies and financial institutions.

[1] After the war Azzolini served as secretary to a committee of government ministers setup to address shortages by negotiating supplies on foreign markets.

In 1925, Rocco having moved on to a new job as Minister for Justice, Azzolini competed successfully for appointment as Senior Inspector at the Treasury and became head of "direzione generale" in the department.

This brought him into more frequent contact with Bonaldo Stringher who was still in charge at the Bank of Italy with whom he worked on regulations for currency conversion.

[5] He also worked with the economist-statistician Giorgio Mortara on preliminary documentation on Italian finances and the economic condition of the country ahead of international negotiations for settlement of inter-allied indebtedness.

In 1927 the Finance Minister, Giuseppe Volpi proposed that Azzolini should be appointed Director General of the Treasury in succession to Federico Brofferio.

Italian finances had remained precarious during the decade of economic instability that had followed the war, and he found himself again working closely with Bonaldo Stringher, by now with an increasing focus on trying to stabilise the lira.

[1][6] Bonaldo Stringher was by this time seriously ill.[7] The precise trajectory of his illness is unclear, but during the first part of 1930 his health declined rapidly, and it appears that as director of the Bank Azzolini was already undertaking daily tasks which under other circumstances would have remained with the governor.