Pompeo D'Ambrosio


Pompeo D'Ambrosio was an Italian-Venezuelan businessman.
He was very renowned in the Italian community in Caracas and was very active - with his financial activity in one of the main Venezuelan banks - for the promotion of many successful Italian entrepreneurs in Venezuela.
He was even a financial manager for Deportivo Italia, the soccer club of the Italian community in Venezuela, during its "golden" years, when was named by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics as "the best football team of Venezuela in the XX century". Those years, when he ruled the team with his brother Mino, are remembered as the D'Ambrosio Era.

Life

Pompeo D'Ambrosio was born on 1 January 1917 in Campagna. He lived his first years in Campagna, where his uncle was the Municipal Major who distinguished himself helping the Jews during the Nazi persecution of Jews.
In the mid-1930s, Pompeo D'Ambrosio studied "Administration of Italian Colonies" at the University of Naples.
In the late 1930s he was a pilot of the Italian Air Force, but an accident forced him to be discharged from aerial service and so he became a lieutenant of the Italian Army in 1940:
During World War II, he was a Lieutenant in the Italian Army in North Africa. After nearly 3 years of fighting he was wounded and taken as a POW during the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942, receiving a military Medal of Honor signed by the same Mussolini.
When he returned to Italy from an Allied Prisoner of War Camp in Egypt, in 1946 co-founded in Salerno the local section of the Movimento Sociale Italiano, a national-conservative Italian Party later named Alleanza Nazionale and in 2022 governing Italy with the name "Fratelli d'Italia".
In 1947 married and had two children: Antonella and Bruno.

Influence in the Italian community of Venezuela

In 1951 Pompeo D'Ambrosio moved to Venezuela, where started to work as Director of the "Banco Francés e Italiano", financing the Italian community of Caracas, Maracaibo and Puerto La Cruz.
Many companies of Italian-Venezuelans, like "Vinccler" and "Constructora Delpre", received his experienced advice and financial help in order to grow at the first levels of the Venezuelan economy.
He was even co-founder of the "Casa de Italia" and the "Centro Italo-Venezolano" of Caracas, and participated in many other associations for the health and social assistance of the Italians with a low-level income. He even promoted the diffusion of the Italian language in Venezuela.
Santander Laya-Garrido cites him, in his book "Los Italianos forjadores de la nacionalidad y del desarrollo económico en Venezuela", as an example of honesty and dedication to the community.
His honesty made him to fight the growing but corrupted power of Pedro Tinoco when he became President of the Banco Central de Venezuela. But in the eighties, D'Ambrosio was forced to resign by Tinoco from the Banco Latino, a bank that was - soon after his resignation - involved in the biggest financial crisis of Venezuela.
When the Banco Latino went bankrupt in 1994, Pompeo D'Ambrosio received an outstanding applause from the "Association of Employees of the Latino Bank", during a conference denouncing the corruption of Tinoco and his group.
Furthermore, Pompeo D'Ambrosio is mainly remembered by the Italian community of Venezuela because of his D'Ambrosio Era, when ruled with his brother Mino the Deportivo Italia.
Pompeo D'Ambrosio died on 15 April 1998 in Caracas.

''D'Ambrosio Era'' of the Deportivo Italia

In 1958 Mino D'Ambrosio took control of the Deportivo Italia and with his brother Pompeo D'Ambrosio made the soccer team of the Italian community reach the top level in Venezuelan football.
The D'Ambrosio Era of the team lasted twenty years until 1978 and was characterized by four championships of the Primera División Venezolana and the famous "Little Maracanazo" of 1971. The team obtained even three times the Copa de Venezuela: in 1961, 1962, and 1970. Furthermore, the team participated six times to the South American Copa Libertadores: in 1964, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, and 1972.
The sixties were the "golden" years of the Deportivo Italia, because they were Venezuelan Champions in 1961, 1963, and 1966. The fourth title for the team was earned in 1972.
Indeed, between 1961 and 1972, every year, the Deportivo Italia of Pompeo and Mino D'Ambrosio obtained first or second place in the Venezuelan Championships.
Additionally - in those golden years of the D'Ambrosio Era - the Deportivo Italia won in international tournaments some renowned European teams and was the first Venezuelan team - in all the history of the Venezuelan soccer - to reach the second round of the Copa Libertadores.