John Bernard Philip Humbert, 9th Count de Salis-Soglio

The Count de Salis

Count de Salis, photographed in southern England, July 2011.[1]
Preceded by John Eugène, 8th Count de Salis
Succeeded by John-Maximilian Henry, 10th Count de Salis-Soglio
Personal details
Born (1947-11-16)16 November 1947
London
Died 14 March 2014(2014-03-14) (aged 66)
Mezzane di Sotto, Veneto, Italy
Nationality UK/SOM/Swiss/Italian
Alma mater Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Close up on a bottle of Conti de Salis-Soglio Amarone della Valpolicella, 2007. The label features the Count's full heraldic achievement and one of the ogee arched topped windows of the facade of Verona's Palazzo Salis-Soglio.

John Bernard Philip Humbert de Salis, 9th Count de Salis-Soglio,[2] TD, John da Buri, Graf v. Salis-Soglio, (London, 16 November 1947-Cà Buri, Mezzane di Sotto, Veneto, Italy 14 March 2014[3]); SRI Comes, Illustris et Magnificus; former ICRC delegate and envoy; Knight Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion (2000) of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (knight, 1974), and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Order of Malta with Swords, first ambassador of the Order to Thailand 1986-98, Cambodia 1993-98, president of its Swiss Association (1995-2000) and of CIOMAL (Comité International de l'Ordre de Malte), 2000–08; British soldier and lawyer; Valpolicella vigneron and hereditary Knight of the Golden Spur.[4]

Imperial (Holy Roman Empire) arms of the Counts de Salis, as seen on the base of a now dismembered statue put up in Chiavenna in honour of Peter, 3rd Count de Salis, a popular 1770s Governor of the Valtelline. (Photo: Chiavenna, 2009).

A Count of the Holy Roman Empire (Reichsgraf), (created by letters patent dated Vienna, 12 March 1748 for Envoy Peter de Salis-Soglio (1675-1749), of Chur and Chiavenna, and his son Jerome (Naturalized British in 1731), by Emperor Francis I), John de Salis was the only child of Lt. Colonel John Eugène, 8th Count de Salis (1891-1949),[5] Irish Guards, by his Roman wife Maria Camilla (1926-1953) daughter of General Umberto Presti di Camarda by Teresa (d.1993), daughter of Filippo Nereo Vignola,[6] of Mezzane and Verona.

The grandson of the British Diplomat, Irish landowner and Catholic re-convert Sir John Francis Charles, 7th Count de Salis-Soglio, his earliest years were spent at 10 Priory Walk, Kensington, and 26 Roedean Crescent, Roehampton Gate, SW15. His father died when he was under two and his mother when he was five, his step-father when he was 10 and one of his two paternal uncles when he was four. His paternal grandparents had also died, in 1902 and 1939, so he was subsequently brought-up, inter-alia, by Franco-Belgian cousins in France (the widow and family of the 3rd Duc de Magenta at Sully in particular), his remaining paternal uncle in Wiltshire, and his Veronese maternal grandmother, Teresa Vignola Presti.

He was educated at Downside, read law at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (LLB (1972) and LLM), and was called to the Bar, Grays Inn (1970). Later he was a tenant and then door-tenant, at 1 Brick Court, Middle Temple, EC4, and from 1972 lived at 12 First Street, SW3 and then from 1975 in two houses knocked together at 28 Upper Cheyne Row, Chelsea, SW3. Whilst in London he was also a member of the board of management of the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth.

Alongside learning and practicing the law he served in the Cambridge University Officer Training Corps (CUOTC), the HAC (within the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve), then in 1972, after meeting its then Colonel, Viscount Monckton, one of whose sisters-in-law happened to be married to one of John's first cousins, transferred to the 9th/12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales's).[7] He was with them in Northern Ireland[8] and retired a (Brevet) Major[9] in 1988, having circa 1984 been awarded the Territorial Decoration.[10]

The combination of law of war, humanitarian instincts, soldiering and some family precedent (his father had been the Knight of Justice of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem delegate for the revision of the Geneva Convention in July 1929) lead De Salis to become the delegate of International Committee of the Red Cross Missions in Middle East (Beirut, 1982[11]), Africa (Rhodesia), and head of delegation Iraq 1980-81, Thailand 1981-84 (Cambodian refugees), and their special envoy in Lebanon 1982. In July 1983 de Salis wrote: 'It is a heartbreaking fact that ICRC being essentially concerned with the victims of armed conflicts, is more directly concerned operationally with the relief of suffering rather than its abolition.[12]

On leaving England and moving to Switzerland he became a special officer in the Swiss Army's Panzergrenadiers, and set about a new career as a financier: as partner of Gautier Salis et Cie Geneva 1989-96, vice-chairman Bank Lips Zurich 1996-98, managing director European Capital Partners (Switzerland) SA 1999-, and as director Amadeus SA Geneva 2000-.[13]

De Salis listed melancholia as his sole recreation.

In the meantime he had taken over his grandmother's 160 acre farm in the Valle di Buri, Mezzane di Sotto, and developed it from dairy to vineyard.[14] By 2010 Conti de Salis-Soglio Wines Verona had taken shape, partly inspired by his courageous and visionary Valtelline cousin Conte Cesare Sertoli Salis of Tirano and Milan (1952-2005) and his Canua Sforzato, akin to Valpolicella's Amarone. John's eighteenth century ancestors, 3rd Count Peter in particular, had also been growers of hemp and vines in eighteenth century Valtelline.[15][16]

In addition to the above Count de Salis was a member of the British Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta; had the Gold Medal with Swords (Beirut) 1982; was a Knight of Justice of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George; a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the White Elephant (Thailand); and an hereditary Knight of the Golden Spur (Eques Auratus) (1571).[17]

Poesie Brevi di C.V.Catullo, a book of translations of Catullus by John de Salis' great-grandfather, Filippo Nereo Vignola, done at Cà da Buri, Mezzane.

He was next male representative of Charles, second and last Viscount Fane and Baron of Loughuyre (aka Lough Gur), and of Vice-Admiral Francis William Drake, of Hillingdon, sometime governor of Newfoundland 1752-4, younger brother of the last Drake baronet of Buckland Abbey, and thus heir-general of Admiral Sir Francis Drake himself. His only listed recreation was melancholia.[18]

Clubs

He was a member of the Cavalry and Guards', Beefsteak, Cercle de la Terasse (Geneva), Royal Bangkok Sports, and Chelsea Arts.[19]

Family

He was firstly married to Samaritana Contessina di Serego della Scala (born 1950 in Verona, Italy), daughter of Dr. Cortesia Conte di Serego, on 20 January 1973. Months later their marriage was annulled and then dissolved in 1985. They had no children.

He then married at (Vers l’Eglise, Vaud 1986), Marie-Claude, (born 1956 in Geneva, Switzerland), third daughter of Swiss Army Colonel René-Henri Wüst and Marie-Thérèse Bussard. The couple had three children:

References

  1. ↑ He is wearing the De Salis summer tie he designed and had had Dege manufacture).
  2. ↑ Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Gräfliche Häuser, Band XIX, 2009
  3. ↑ "John Bernard Philip Humbert, 9th Count de Salis - Deaths Announcements". Announcements.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-06-03.
  4. ↑ Debrett's, People of Today, 2014
  5. ↑ Burke's Irish Family Records, ed. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, Burke's Peerage Ltd, London, 1976.
  6. ↑ Filippo Nereo Vignola was an amateur painter and dialect poet, as well as Podesta of Verona and Superintendent of the Museum of Castelvecchio in Verona and Vicenza
  7. ↑ London Gazette: Count John Bernard Philip Humbert DE SALIS (494322), 9/12 L. to be 2nd Lt. (on probation), 8 June 1972. [published 2 January 1973]
  8. ↑ London Gazette: Short Serv. Voluntary Commn. Lt. The Count John Bernard Philip Humbert DE SALIS (494322) 9/12L. from T.A.V.R., Group A to be Lt., 17 October 1977.
  9. ↑ London Gazette: Capt. (Bt. Maj.) The Count J. B. P. H. DE SALIS, T.D. (494322), 9/12 L. retires 22 December 1988.
  10. ↑ "People of Today Index, People of Today, People of Influence". Debretts.com. Retrieved 2016-06-03.
  11. ↑ 'The War of Numbers' by Judith Tucker, MERIP Reports, No. 108/109, The Lebanon War (September - October, 1982), pp. 47-50. Quoting John de Salis in the Washington Post of 4 August 1982.
  12. ↑ Extract from a letter to the editor of The Times, published 20 July 1983, in reply to an article by William Shawcross
  13. ↑ Debrett's, People of Today, 2014
  14. ↑ In 1995 he inherited the fourteenth century Nichesola house (Palazzo Somaglia-Stoppazzola/Palazzo Salis-Soglio) in Verona's Via Santa Felicita from his godfather Scipio, Conti Somaglia di Stoppazzola.
  15. ↑ Fane de Salis MSS
  16. ↑ By 2014 his precarious and rather over ambitious operation comprised 8 acres of olives, 12 acres of vines for his own production of Amarone (Corvina, Corvinino, Rondinella and Molinara, Croatina, Oseleta, Raboso, Veronese and Dindarella grapes) and Pinot Nero for his neo-Burgundian Monte Rugoli, with 80 acres for a while with the local agence Tenuta S. Antonio.
  17. ↑ for Grisons envoy Giovanni Battista de Salis, the elder (1521-1597), of the Casa Alta, Soglio, invested by Pope Pius V, 11 April 1571, perpetuating an earlier investiture of 1568.
  18. ↑ Debrett's, People of Today, 2014
  19. ↑ Debrett's, People of Today, 2014

Other sources

Regnal titles
Preceded by
John Eugène, 8th Count de Salis-Soglio		 Count de Salis-Soglio
1949–2014 		Succeeded by
John-Maximilian, 10th Count de Salis
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