Alessandro Casati

Provenance and early years

Count Alessandro Casati was born in Milan, the younger son of Gian Alfonso Casati (1854–1890) by his marriage to Luisa Negroni Prati Morosini (1857–1927). The Casatis came from the Milanese nobility: they could trace their ancestry back more than eight hundred years. Family was important. In the judgment of one commentator, family ancestry influenced Count Alessandro more deeply than mere dynastic awareness. The recollections of friends along with his own letters and writings attest to a constant habit of invoking people and practices from the past to correct present disjunctures, usually without any very obvious awareness of solutions that might emerge through a process of continuity. Public service ran in the blood: Gabrio Casati and Camillo Casati were uncles.