Count Volpi developed utilities, which had brought electricity to
Venice, northeastern
Italy and the
Balkans by 1903. This was most notably Società Adriatica di Elettricità (the Adriatic Electricity Company, or SADE)
it. In 1911–1912, he acted as a negotiator in ending the
Italo-Turkish War (Treaty of Lausanne 1912). He was the governor of the colony of
Tripolitania from 1921 until 1925, and was backed by Mussolini in his approach to military pacification in the region. As the
Kingdom of Italy's
Minister of Finance from 1925 until 1928, Volpi successfully negotiated Italy's
World War I debt repayment with the United States and with the United Kingdom, pegged the value of the lira to the value of gold, and implemented free trade policies. He was replaced in July 1928 by
Antonio Mosconi. He was First Procurator of Saint Mark's, an influential position in Venice, from 1927 to 1947, involving the protection and historic preservation of
Piazza San Marco and Saint Mark's Basilica. In 1928, he founded the
Venice Lido golf club, where Hitler and Mussolini famously met in 1934. In 1932, he founded the
Venice Film Festival. Volpi was president of the
Confindustria from 1934 to 1943. He was removed from this position and expelled from the
Grand Council of Fascism after he opposed the continuing of the war and Italy's alliance with
Hitler. He was arrested by the
SS after trying to escape to Switzerland. After the war, as France and Italy had condemned him as a fascist co-conspirator, he fled to Switzerland where many fascists went into hiding after the war. He underwent a series of legal proceedings for his responsibilities during the fascist regime after the war. His illness prevented him from appearing before the judges, but, thanks to the
Togliatti amnesty he was acquitted of all charges, after a life spent at the top of the Fascist Party. == Private life ==