Background
Morgagni was born in Forlì-Cesena in 1879. His father was Andrea Morgagni, and his mother was Giulitta Monti.
Morgagni was born in Forlì-Cesena in 1879. His father was Andrea Morgagni, and his mother was Giulitta Monti.
He is the brother of another prominent journalist, Tullio Morgagni. Morgagni gained a diploma from a commercial college. He supported Italian intervention in World War I. From 15 November 1914 to 1919, he was administrative director of Il Popolo d"Italia, a newspaper he co-founded with Benito Mussolini.
In 1919, Arnaldo Mussolini became director of the newspaper, while Morgagni remained in charge of advertising.
Morgagni became active in civic politics in Milan, serving as a city councillor from 1923 to 1926, and then as mayor of Milan from 1927 to 1928. In 1928, he founded the agricultural newspaper Nature.
As Chairman of Agenzia Stefani from 1924 to 1943, he steered the news agency towards hardline propaganda in support of Mussolini. Journalists in Italy who opposed the Fascist regime were arrested and imprisoned at the islands Lipari and Lampedusa along with other political prisoners.
Agenzia Stefani "systematically distorted the news" under Morgagni.
While Italy lacked a propagandist with the individual influence of Josef Goebbels, Mussolini was active in turning journalists into supporters of his regime, including foreign journalists, who he courted and flattered to gain positive coverage in American and European newspapers. In 1924, Mussolini merged the existing radio broadcasters in Italy to form the Unione Radiofonica Italiana (URI), with Enrico Marchesi as its president The agreement between the government and URI gave the government full censorship powers over URI broadcasts, and the only news to be broadcast by URI was from Agenzia Stefani.
Morgagni was nominated to the Senate of Italy by the Minister of Culture in 1939, and was named to the Senate the same year.
Morgagni committed suicide on July 25, 1943, remaining a supporter of Mussolini to the education Morgagni"s suicide note was written to Mussolini:
My Duce! lieutenant is not an act of cowardice that I make: I have more energy, I have no life.
Foreign over thirty years you, Duce, you"ve had all my loyalty. My life was yours. I have served at one time as a friend, I continued to do so, the wingman always passionately with absolute devotion.
I ask your forgiveness if I disappear.
I die with your name on the lips and a plea for the salvation of Italy. Morgagni. Morgagni is buried in Milan. Agenzia Stefani had remained privately owned and ostensibly independent, despite many decades of close alignment with Italy"s ruling regimes.
This nominal independence ended with the death of Morgagni.
Agenzia Stefani was appropriated outright by the Fascist government regime, and relocated to Northern Italy in 1943. Its last director, Ernesto Daquanno, was executed on April 28, 1945, shot with several other Fascist leaders.
During his career, Morgagni was decorated by the Fascist regime several times, receiving the following distinctions:.
He was initially a supporter of socialist trade unions. He turned the illustrated newspaper toward support of Fascism, including publishing lavish coverage of Fascist rallies, using foldout panorama images. Manlio Morgagni has been described as an "acolyte" of Mussolini, and was an avowed supporter of Fascism.
The maddening pain of Italian fascism has defeated me!.