1933 ORIGINS

Piero Manzoni was born in Soncino, in the province of Cremona, on the 13th of July 1933.

His father, Count Egisto Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo, was from elsewhere. The Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo family descended from noble stock of the Val Brembana, documented from the 1500s, who settled in Lugo in the Romagna region. Count Egisto was born in Lugo in 1901 and after having studied at the University of Bologna he moved to Milan. Here he became a partner in the renowned Rinaldo Rossi foodstuffs company and founded the antiquarian bookshop Antiquitas. He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1948.

The artist’s mother, Valeria Meroni, was born in Soncino in 1907 from the family owning the historic Filanda Meroni, the oldest of the five silk spinning firms active in the town in the early 20th century, an evolution of the area’s essentially agricultural vocation.