Juan Bautista Vicini

Bautista, was born on February 25 1847 in Zoagli, a coastal village near Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

. Son of Angelo and Anna Canepa Vicini. Juan Bautista Vicini left Italy and went to the Dominican Republic in 1860, when he was only twelve years old.

He was invited to travel to the Dominican Republic as an apprentice to join his countryman Nicole Genevaro who was an exporter of coffee and sugar. After a few years, he purchased the operations belonging to Mr. Genevaro.

Juan Bautista, better known as "Baciccia", was lucky in business. Thanks in part to his hard work and his savings, he managed to acquire land for the cultivation of sugar cane.

His family residence is located on the Avenida Isabela la Católica No. 158, in the city of Santo Domingo, marked with a placard reading J.B. Vicini. This designation is still preserved on the facades of headquarters of companies belonging to the family. This residence was his place of work. Local people of the parish give it the name Casa Vicini.

Of his marriage to Laura Perdomo Santamaria eleven children were born, seven of them went to live with her to Genoa, Italy. Vicini Canepa, trunk of the Vicini family, returned only once to Italy and died in 1900 at the age of 53.

Felipe and Juan Vicini Perdomo

Upon his death, Juan and Felipe Vicini Perdomo, suspended their professional studies in Italy to take over the family business in the Dominican Republic.

Felipe and Juan Vicini Perdomo increased investment to modernize the factory and field work in the sugar, in real estate both in urban and rural areas of the country.

The political and economic pressure of the Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo by appropriating all the national wealth, forced the family Vicini Cabral to transfer their residence abroad.

José María, Juan Bautista, Felipe and Laura Vicini Cabral

The third generation of family Vicini, under the leadership of Juan Bautista (Gianni), participated actively in the process of overthrowing the dictatorship, the country's economic consolidation and democratic process of the nation.

The beginning of democracy with the death of Dominican dictator Trujillo in 1961, he found a country where almost all economic areas, had been dominated by the dictator and his closest relatives and collaborators.

The active participation as well as the capital of the Vicini family was instrumental in creating private banks, universities, associations, businesses and nonprofit foundations, all promoters of the country's development and new business that channeled the nation towards development. The family Vicini Cabral participated in those efforts, both as advocates, with financial resources and with the participation and personal presence.

The Price of Sugar

The Vicini Family was depicted in The Price of Sugar, a 2007 documentary by Bill Haney about exploitation of Haiti

Haiti

Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

an immigrants in the Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...

 involved with production of sugar. The documentary shows the poor working conditions in the sugar cane plantations, and describes the actions taken by the Vicini

Juan Bautista Vicini Burgos

Juan Bautista Vicini Burgos was a Dominican political figure. He served as the president of the Dominican Republic between 1922 and 1924 under the U.S. military occupation.-Early life:...

 family to stifle efforts to change the situation.

Subjects of the film, Felipe and Juan Vicini Lluberes, filed a defamation suit on August 31, 2007 against Uncommon Productions and producer Bill Haney, alleging 53 factual inaccuracies. According to an NPR

NPR

NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

 interview conducted after the filing of the lawsuit, "'The misrepresentation are very egregious,' says Read McCaffrey, a partner in the law firm Patton Boggs

Patton Boggs

Patton Boggs is a full service law firm and lobbyist headquartered in Washington, D.C. It has more than 600 lawyers and professionals in nine locations in the United States and the Middle East. Patton Boggs specializes in , , , , international and trade law with over 200 international clients from...

[representing the Vicinis], 'and as deceptive as I have seen in a very long time.'"