English: Blatangeta Lorenzo Taezaz

Blantangeta Lorenzo Taezaz as among the most prominent Eritrean-Ethiopians in the early part of the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie, and a notable member of the pre-occupation intelligencia. He was born 1900 in the then Italian colony of Eritrea, in the district of Akale Guzai. Due to the ban on native education beyond the 6th grade level, after beginning his education at the Swedish mission in Asmara, Lorenzo Taezaz like many other young Eritreans crossed the Mereb river into Ethiopia to further his education. He appealed directly and in person to the Crown Prince and Regent, Ras Taferi Makonnen (the later Emperor Haile Selassie), and received a scholarship to study in France, and spent eight years at the University of Montpellier, where he received his doctorate in Law. On returning to Ethiopia, he served in the Ministry of Justice, and was a member of the Anglo-Ethiopian Boundary Commission which demarcated Ethiopia's borders with former British Somaliland, and that later investigated the causes of the Walwal Incident of 1934 in which fascist Italy crossed the undemarkated border with Italian Somaliland, sparking the second Ethio-Italian war of 1936-41. After war was declared, Lorenzo Taezaz accompanied the Emperor to the northern front, and participated in the Battle of Maychew in 1936. Lorenzo Taezaz went with the Imperial family into exile, and accompanied the Emperor as a member of his staff when he traveled to Geneva to address the Leauge of Nations. Lorenzo was appointed Permanent Delegate to the League. During the occupation, Lorenzo Taezaz re-entered Ethiopia on several occasions on secret missions for the Emperor and also travelled to Kenya where he aided in organizing Ethiopian soldiers who had been interned there for years, to prepare for the liberation.

Following Emperor Haile Selassie's restoration, Lorenzo Taezaz was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs (1941–1943) with the title of Blantangeta, and subsequently Minister for Posts, Telephones and Telegraphs (1943). Blatangeta Lorenzo was first married to Woizero Senedu Gebru, daughter of noted Ethiopian intellectual Kentiba Gebru of Gondar who was educated in Switzerland during the reign of Menelik II. Woizero Senedu would go on to become the first woman to serve in the Imperial Parliament and would rise to the rank of vice president of the Upper House of Parliament. Separated from his first wife during the Italian occupation, he was subsequently married to a daughter of Leul Ras Imiru Haile Selassie, cousin of the Emperor and one of the leading progressive and reformist figures in the Ethiopian aristocracy. He thus married into the highest levels of the Imperial court and into the extended Imperial family.

According to some sources, Blatangeta Lorenzo fell from favor after he came into conflict with the powerful Tsehafi Taezaz ("Minister of the Pen") Wolde Giyorgis Wolde Yohannes, who had him appointed to the largely ceremonial post of President of the Imperial Senate (1943–1944), then ambassador to the Soviet Union (November 1944) -- effectively exiled from the center of power. Blatangeta Lorenzo was sent as a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference in May 1946, and then was appointed ambassador to Sweden. Blatangeta Lorenzo Taezaz died in a hospital in Stockholm only a month after his arrival there.