(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 27 - Leonardo Del Vecchio, founder of Luxottica and current president of EssilorLuxottica, died this morning at the San Raffaele where he was hospitalized.
The entrepreneur had just turned 87, founder and president of Luxottica which then led to the merger with the French Essilor to create EssiloLuxottica, a group that now has over 180 thousand employees.
Shareholder of Mediobanca, Generali and Covivio, among other things, his wealth through the Delfin family holding this year was valued by the Forbes magazine at around 25 billion euros.
Born in Milan, he was the last of four brothers.
His father Leonardo, of Apulian origins, dies shortly before his birth, and his mother chooses to give him the same name.
Then he was entrusted to the college of the 'Martinitt', where he remained until the end of middle school, and then went to work as a boy in a factory producing medals and cups.
After evening courses at the Brera Academy, at the age of 22 he moved to a town in the Trentino region where he worked as a worker.
In 1958 he then moved to Agordo, in the province of Belluno, to open a shop of eyeglass frames: after three years, in 1961, he transformed it into Luxottica, with fourteen employees.
From there the growth to become one of the largest entrepreneurs in the country and in Europe.
"Leonardo Del Vecchio was a great Italian", wrote the European Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni in a tweet. "His story, from the orphanage to the leadership of an economic empire, seems like a story of other times. But it is an example for today and tomorrow" he adds.
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