Árpád Plesch Explained

Árpád Plesch (1889–1974) was a Hungarian financier,^[1] banker, and lawyer. He owned a celebrated collection of rare botanical books and esoteric pornography. His botanical collection has been included in Douglas Cooper's Great Private Collections.

Plesch was mentor^[2] to the owner of the largest fortune in Italy, Gianni Agnelli, the president of Fiat.

He married three times,^[3] to:

1. Léonie Caro Ulam
2. Marysia Ulam Krauss Harcourt-Smith, daughter of the previous
3. Contessa Maria von Wurmbrand-Stuppach, called Etti Plesch, his last wife and sole heir to his immense fortune.

Léonie Ulam was the aunt of the mathematician Stanislaw Ulam.^[4] In his memoir, Adventures of a mathematician, Ulam wrote:

Publications

• Botanique, 1954
• Essais d'acclimatation de plantes tropicales en France, 1962
• Mille et un livres botaniques de la collection Arpad Plesch, 1973

Notes and References

1. Web site: Can this 'venture philanthropist' save our schools?. 29 May 2005.
2. Web site: Biographie de Arpad Busson EIM.
3. Web site: Uma Thurman No Help to Arpad Busson in Madoff Fraud's Nightmare . Bloomberg . https://web.archive.org/web/20101203030400/https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a2IT6Y4JmC48 . 2010-12-03.
4. Web site: The Plesch Family Saga. https://web.archive.org/web/20150402200824/http://h2oreuse.blogspot.it/2009/01/plesch-saga.html. 2015-04-02.