Dante Antolini

Dante Antolini was born in Florence, Italy, on March 20, 1879. At the beginning of 1900, he sailed from Genoa to the United States, settling in Rutherford. He initially worked as an agent for the banking firm of Cesare Conti, who himself an agent for the Banco di Napoli.

In 1904, Antolini became manager of the Italian American Importing Co. In 1906, he founded Antolini & Co., an import-export company. That same year, he joined the Italian Chamber of Commerce in New York, while in 1910 he served as representative of the city of Florence at the convention of the International Chamber of Commerce in Boston.

Over the next sixty years, Antolini acted as agent and U.S. representative for numerous Italian food companies, contributing to Italian oil, wine and dairy products'entrance in the US market. At the same time, Antolini & Co. exported American products to Italy, thereby encouraging the expansion of growing commercial relations between the two countries.

During his lifetime, Antolini served as director of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in New York multiple times: in 1911, in 1920-23, in 1931-35, and then again from 1941 to 1943. In the 1920s he also became first an official member and then president of the Food Products Association of New York.

During the 1930s, his villa on the Riviera Romagnola, "Villa Antolini" or "villa of the Americans," becomes an important meeting point and point of reference for various members of both Italy and the US' economic, political and cultural elites

In 1954 he was awarded the star of solidarity by the Italian republic.

In 1966, his second wife, Julia Coburn Antolini, endowed at Vassar College the "Dante Antolini chair of Italian Letters."

Antolini died on December 19, 1968, at the age of 89, at his residence in Poughkeepsie.

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