| Guido Monzino | |
| Birth Date: | 2 March 1928 |
| Birth Place: | Milan, Italy |
| Occupation: | Explorer and mountaineer |
Count Guido Monzino (2 March 1928 – 11 October 1988) was a twentieth-century Italian mountain climber and explorer. In 1973, he led the first Italian expedition to climb Mount Everest.
Monzino was born on 2 March 1928 in Milan. His father was Franco Monzino (1891–1953), who founded the Italian supermarket chain Standa. His younger brother was the art collector Carlo Monzino (1931–1996).[1] [2] In his early twenties, he climbed the Matterhorn. Subsequently, he made a total of 21 expeditions to places including Patagonia, Equatorial Africa, Greenland, the North Pole and the Himalaya, and sometimes following in the footsteps of the famous explorer and mountaineer Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi (1873–1933).
Monzino died on 11 October 1988 due to lung cancer. He was interred at the Villa del Balbianello on the banks of Lake Como, which he bought in 1974 from the heirs of Butler Ames. Monzino willed Villa del Balbianello to the Fondo per l'Ambiente Italiano.[3]
The villa today contains a museum devoted to Monzino, which includes artifacts acquired on his expeditions including Inuit sculpture, as well as memorabilia including one of the dog sleds from his 1971 expedition to the North Pole, and Monzino's extensive collections of maps and books.