Manuel Trucco Franzani

Manuel Trucco Franzani (Cauquenes, March 18, 1875-Santiago, October 25, 1954) was a Chilean civil engineer, politician, and diplomat. He served as Vice President of the Republic for a brief period, between September 3 and November 15, 1931.

Previously, he served briefly as Interior Minister under Juan Esteban Montero and, between 1926 and 1930, he was a senator for the provinces of Malleco and Cautín.

Family and studies

He was born in 1875, the son of Napoleon Trucco Morando, a Genoese immigrant, and Maria Franzani Moniguetti, born in Switzerland. He had six brothers, among them Humberto Trucco Franzani, who was president of the Supreme Court of Chile.

He studied at the Cauquenes High School and at the National Institute of Santiago. Subsequently, he entered the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Chile, where he graduated as a civil engineer in 1899. Between 1902 and 1904, he studied at the École nationale des ponts et chaussées in Paris, France, thanks to a scholarship.

He married Laura Gaete Fagalde, with whom he had five children Leonor, Marta, Graciela, Rebeca and Manuel, who was undersecretary of Gabriel González Videla and ambassador.

Professional and public career

He dedicated himself to teaching, worked as director of the State Railway Company (EFE) and served as a senator for the provinces of Malleco and Cautín between 1926 and 1930 for the Radical Party (PR).

During the vice presidency of Juan Esteban Montero, after the fall of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, Trucco was called to assume the Ministry of the Interior. When Montero ran for the presidency of Chile in the 1931 elections, he had to leave command, handing it over to his Minister of the Interior on August 20 of that year. During his brief tenure, he had to face the revolt of the Squad, a serious episode that was put down with the air support of the recently created Air Force.

In 1935, while he was the Chilean Ambassador in Washington, he signed in the presence of 20 American leaders and President Franklin Délano Roosevelt, at the request of Mr. Arturo Alessandri Palma, the Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historical Monuments, better known as the Roerich Pact.

With Montero's victory, Trucco handed over the vice presidency on November 15 to the president-elect, who was able to take office on December 4. Manuel Trucco returned to public life in 1946 during the government of Gabriel González Videla, when he headed the Central Bank until 1951.