Antonello Gerbi

Antonello Gerbi was born in Florence in 1904 into a Jewish family that was well known in anti-fascist circles. His interests were multifaceted from a very young age, ranging from journalism to film and photography, and this distinguished him among his peers.

He became a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar and, between 1929 and 1931, engaged in an intense international research experience at a crucial moment in 20^th century history, spending time in various European countries including Germany, Great Britain and Austria. In 1932, he was hired by the Banca Commerciale Italiana as head of its Studies Office.

In 1938, with the advent of the anti-Semitic laws, the managing director of Comit, Raffaele Mattioli, who was aware of the risk that Gerbi might run if he stayed in Italy, entrusted him with a mission to Peru, inviting him to emigrate. In Peru his task was to carry out research for the Banco Italiano-Lima, founded in 1889 by a group of members of the Italian community.

He boarded the transatlantic liner Rex in Genoa on 19 October 1938 and during the journey documented

the surrounding landscape with photographs and a diary. The first stop on his journey was in New York, where he met bank officials, Jews and Italian antifascists who had fled Europe. The trip gave him the chance to meet several members of the Italian-Peruvian upper middle class and executives from foreign companies in preparation for his future assignment in Lima.

When the racial laws became stricter, Gerbi was dismissed by Comit on 28 February 1939, but thanks to his relationship with the Banco Italiano - Lima and his profile as a scholar and economic analyst, he succeeded in gaining scientific-professional recognition in Peru.

He was soon joined by his fiancée Herma Schimmerling, who was to become his wife in 1940. In the capital, she gave birth to their two sons:  Daniele and Alessandro.

Gerbi continued to work, dividing his time between economic analysis and historiographical research: he drafted studies on commission for the bank where he worked and redirected his interests towards the history of Peru and cultural relations between Europe and the New World.

He began to collaborate and maintain contacts with some important exponents of the Latin American intellectual world and, over the years, he organised excursions and trips to document the complexity of Peru in written works and photographs of its natural environments.

He returned to Italy in 1948, never to return to Peru, resumed his engagement in economics and simultaneously continued his research activities.

He travelled to the United States for a series of lectures at prestigious universities until 1975, the year before his death.

Story collected in collaboration with Maria Matilde Benzoni, 'From Milan to Lima: 1900-1950. Antonello Gerbi' in Milano città mondo #04. Stories of life between Peru and Italy, Galaad editions 2019, pp. 37 - 40.