THE FONDAZIONE GASLINI
Gerolamo Gaslini and the Institute Giannina Gaslini of Genoa
Gerolamo Gaslini was born in Monza in 1877.
He was a great enterpreneur , in fact starting from the small family business he was able to build a wide industrial empire in the agri-food sector.
His success, due to its commercial abilities and the adoption of marketing techniques and technological innovation, led him to be called “the king of oil”.
He got married in 1902 with Lorenza and had two daughters Germana e Giannina.
The death of this last one at the sole age of 12 years old for a belatedly diagnosed peritonitis it was a traumatic event for the young Gaslini that profoundly marked his life and his future choices.
In fact, after the mourning he invested all his energies and possessions in the establishment of a pediatric institute that could deal with the assistance and care of children, as well as scientific research in collaboration with the University of Genoa.
The activity of the institute began in 1938 with a structure of 22 buildings and a large area dedicated to greenery; all the hospital rooms faced south-east, hence the motto “Pueris floribusque lumen solis” (“sunlight for children and flowers”).
In 1949 Gerolamo stripped himself of all his possessions by merging them into the Fondazione Gaslini which he himself presided over and arranging that all resources be used to strengthen scientific research.
Those who knew Gerolamo remember him as a hard, shy man, an indefatigable worker capable of great acts of generosity.
He bought and donated the Pietà Prenestina to the Italian State, contributed among other things to the restoration of the abbey of San Girolamo in Quarto and donated an important collection of manuscripts and incunabula to the Brera Academy and the University of Genoa.
Gerolamo died in 1964 in Genoa.
Currently at the Giannina Gaslini Institute there are all the pediatric specialties, 15 scientific laboratories, affiliated university chairs, 500 beds with about 24,000 ordinary hospitalizations per year of which 50% related to patients from other regions and from abroad.
The history and continuity of the Institute and of the Fondazione remain as a living monument of the passion, tenacity and foresight of their Founder.
