Florence: Capital of the Kingdom of Italy, 1865–71 9781350013988, 9781350014053, 9781350013995

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Florence

Frontispiece  ‘La sala delle agitate al San Bonifazio’ by Telemaco Signorini (1865). Galleria d’arte moderna di Ca’ Pesaro, Venezia

Florence Capital of the Kingdom of Italy, 1865–71 Edited by Monika Poettinger and Piero Roggi

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2018 Paperback edition first published 2019 Copyright © Monika Poettinger, Piero Roggi and Contributors, 2018 Monika Poettinger and Piero Roggi have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xiii constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover image: The Old Market in Florence, 1882–1883, by Telemaco Signorini (1835–1901), oil on canvas, 39x65 cm. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Poettinger, Monika, editor. | Roggi, Piero, editor. Title: Florence: capital of the kingdom of Italy, 1865–71 / edited by Monika Poettinger and Piero Roggi. Other titles: Capitale per l’Italia. English Description: London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. | Originally published in Italian. Identifiers: LCCN 2017019651 | ISBN 9781350013988 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350014022 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Florence (Italy—Civilization—19th century. | BISAC: HISTORY / Europe / Italy. | HISTORY / Modern / 19th Century. Classification: LCC DG738.7. C36513 2017 | DDC 945/.511084--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017019651 ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-1398-8 PB: 978-1-3501-1902-4 ePDF: 978-1-3500-1399-5 eBook: 978-1-3500-1402-2 Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents List of Figures List of Maps List of Tables List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: Florence, Capital of the Kingdom of Italy  Monika Poettinger

vii viii ix x xiii

1

Part I Culture and Politics 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

A New Capital for Italy: Politics and Culture    Cosimo Ceccuti

23

A Capital of Culture    Sergio Caruso

39

Bettino Ricasoli: Economic Policy or House Management?    Piero Roggi

59

Bettino Ricasoli and the Sunset of Moderate Hegemony    Daniele Bronzuoli

67

Activist Literary Culture in Florence (1865–71)    Gino Tellini

75

Science and Florence’s Ruling Class    Fabio Bertini

83

The Istituto Tecnico di Firenze and Universal Exhibitions    Paolo Brenni, Laura Faustini and Elena Mechi

95

Part II A Stroll around Florence, Capital of Italy 8

Popular Life in the Streets of Florence    Zeffiro Ciuffoletti and Maria Grazia Proli

109

Contents

vi 9

A Stroll around Florence: Places of Power, Places of Leisure    Maria Carla Monaco

121

Part III Economy and Society 10 An Economy Stuck at the Crossroads to Modernity    Andrea Giuntini

161

11 Florentine, Italian and Foreign Entrepreneurs in the Urban   Renewal of Florence    Daniela Manetti

173

12 Entrepreneurs and Enterprises in and around Florence    Monika Poettinger

191

13 Food Availability and Consumption Patterns in Florence and Tuscany   after Italy’s Unification    Francesco Ammannati

209

14 Banks and Capitalists in Florence in the Decades after Unification    Marco Cini and Simone Fagioli

237

15 Straw Hats: The Invisible Work of Women behind the International   Image of Florence    Monica Pacini

263

Notes Bibliography Index

275 329 355

Figures Frontispiece:  ‘La sala delle agitate al San Bonifazio’ by Telemaco Signorini (1865). Galleria d’arte moderna di Ca’ Pesaro, Venezia ii 0.1 Piazza Santa Croce during the solemn festivities for the sixth centenary   of Dante’s birth 4 P1 The Italian Chamber of Representatives in the Salone de’ Cinquecento   in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence 22 1.1 Arrival of King Vittorio Emanuele II at the Palazzo Pitti 27 1.2 La Petraia. Royal villa located in Castello near Florence 28 1.3 ‘Increase of rents’. Satirical vignette of the journal Il Frustino 29 2.1 The school teacher 46 2.2 Florence. Panorama from the Viale dei Colli (1870s) 51 3.1 King Vittorio Emanuele II leaves Florence to join the military on the front 64 3.2 Opening of the Parliament in Florence in January 1867 65 5.1 Statue of Dante in front of the church of Santa Croce. Photograph by   Giacomo Brogi 76 6.1 Public lecture on the solar system 89 7.1 The opening of the Italian pavillon at the Parisian Universal Exhibition   of 1867 100 7.2 Solemn distribution of prizes at the Parisian Universal Exhibition of 1867 102 P2 The Uffizi Gallery. Photograph by Giorgio Sommer 108 P3 A street market 160 10.1 Lungarno delle Grazie and the Ponte alla Carraia, built in iron   by the Belgian company Schessing. Photograph by Giacomo Brogi 167 10.2 The olive harvest 172 11.1 The clearing out of Turin 174 11.2 The municipality of Florence (mayor Cambray-Digny on the left)   satirically represented sleeping while all renewal projects – potable   water, Poggi plan, iron houses – lie around abandoned 178 12.1 The passeggiata delle Cascine and the Pignone foundry (on the right) 192 12.2 Maiolica of the Ginori factory at the Parisian Universal   Exhibition of 1867 205 13.1 The pleasures of winter: the kitchen 210 13.2 Trend of food expenditure expressed as a percentage (1872–84) 219 13.3 A family of labourers 228 14.1 Front door of the Palazzo Fenzi with coat of arms representing a locomotive 240 15.1 The Florentine woman 264 15.2 Production of straw hats in the province of Florence 268

Maps 0.1 Plan of Florence with the new datiary perimeter and the new urban   developments 9.1 Plan of Florence with the new datiary perimeter and the new urban   developments: Northern detail 9.2 Plan of Florence with the new datiary perimeter and the new   urban developments: Southern detail

15 136 138

Tables 0.1

7.1 8.1 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 13.7 13.8 13.9 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 14.6 14.7

Sums donated to charity (food, clothes, linen, beds, money and dowries)   by the Regio Uffizio della Congregazione di Carità di S. Giovanni   Battista to Florence’s poor together with crimes reported to the district attorney’s office in Florence Summary of subsidy scheme List of artisanal professions exercised in Florence in 1865 Limited companies and limited-­liability companies in Tuscany   between 1845 and 1864 Limited companies in Tuscany at 31 December 1866 Limited companies in Tuscany at 31 December 1876 Horsepower utilized in the province of Florence (data from 1882   for grain mills and from 1890 for all other manufacturers) Per capita paid-­up capital in limited companies in Italian regions   at 31 December 1876 National and foreign companies with seat in Tuscany at   31 December 1876 Well-­being and national accounting: Italy 1861–1913 Well-­being and nutrition: Italy 1861–1913 Annual per capita consumption of some categories of foodstuffs,   expressed in kilograms and litres Budgets of certain Tuscan families (1857–91) Composition of the annual expenditure of the Martini-Edlmann   family (1872–84) Nutrition of poor and wealthy people, 1879 Meat slaughtered annually in Lucca’s countryside, 1877 Per capita annual consumption of various foodstuffs in Tuscany, 1879 Daily per capita consumption of various foodstuffs administered   to staff and patients at the San Giovanni di Dio Hospital (1874–81) Capital-­circulation-exchange ratio of BNT notes from 1 May 1866 to 31 December 1876 Circulation of BNT notes (in millions of lire) BNT credit for discounts and advances (in millions of lire) Number of times BNT changed its own circulation annually and average period of note circulation (in days) Securities portfolio at 31 December 1876 The assets of Schmitz & Turri’s financial statements at 31 December 1877 Liabilities in the financial statements

9 104 117 193 194 194 197 198 200 211 212 214 217 218 220 221 223 233 243 245 246 246 253 254 255

Contributors Francesco Ammannati holds a PhD in Economic History. His main research field is the pre-­industrial European economic history; his scientific interests include the history of manufacture and trade, with a focus on guilds, labour market and international merchant networks. He has taught at the University of Florence and has been a Research Fellow at the Dondena Centre (L. Bocconi University, Milan). At present, he is Research Fellow at the University of Udine, and collaborates with the Fondazione ‘F. Datini’ in Prato, Italy. Fabio Bertini holds a PhD in History from the European Society and has been a researcher in the Istituto Storico per l’Età moderna e contemporanea in Rome. He is former Professor of Contemporary History at Florence University, author of several works on the Italian Risorgimento and on European economic, political and social history. Paolo Brenni specialized in the history of scientific instruments and of precision industry in the period from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the mid-­ twentieth century. He is a researcher for the Italian National Research Council. He works in Florence for the Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica and collaborates with the Museo Galileo. He catalogued, reorganized and restored several collections of instruments both in Italy and abroad, and he wrote several articles dealing with instrument history. He is the president of the Scientific Instrument Society. Daniele Bronzuoli holds a PhD in Historical Sciences in the Contemporary Age. He published papers on Raymond Aron (‘Il Pensiero politico’, 2010), Bertrand de Jouvenel (‘Rivista di Politica’, 2010) and Bettino Ricasoli (‘Clio’, 2010). He also wrote the introduction to Collodi’s volume entitled Quattro uomini del Risorgimento (Rome, 2012). He is the author of volumes on Bettino and Vincenzo Ricasoli. He has won the Prize Fiorino d’Oro. Sergio Caruso is former Full Professor of Political Philosophy at ‘Cesare Alfieri’ School of Political Sciences, University of Florence. He has written about John Selden and the Homo oeconomicus. Cosimo Ceccuti is former Full Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Florence. He is the president of the Fondazione Spadolini Nuova Antologia and director of the journal Nuova Antologia. He directs many volume collections and is part of many national and international cultural institutions. His research and publications focus on cultural history and the history of publishing, the history of Tuscany and the history of Florence.

Contributors

xi

Marco Cini is Professor of Economic History at the Department of Political Science, University of Pisa. His research areas are: the history of money and international finance, the history of the ruling classes and French and Italian regional development. He is a member of Società Italiana degli Storici Economici (SISE), Association des Chercheurs en Sciences Humaines (Domaine Corse) and Società Toscana di Storia Patria of Florence. Zeffiro Ciuffoletti is full Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Florence. His research interests include the history of the socialist movement in Italy, Bettino Ricasoli, the history of Tuscany and the history of the Maremma. He is a member of the Accademia dei Georgofili and associate to numerous cultural institutions. Simone Fagioli is an independent scholar. His research interests include anthropology, the history of science, Vilfredo Pareto and banking history. He is a member of ANAI Toscana and associate of many cultural institutions. His latest volumes focus on Chernobyl and Vilfredo Pareto. Laura Faustini graduated in Art History and worked for several years in the field of artwork conservation. She holds a librarian degree from the Vatican Library and has been in charge of the catalogue and conservation of the library and archive of the Museo della Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica in Florence since 2000. Andrea Giuntini holds a PhD in Economic History from the University of Naples. Professor of Economic History and Labour History at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Daniela Manetti is Associate Professor in Economic History at the Department of Economics and Management of the University of Pisa. Her main research fields are business history, industrial history, economic history of technological innovations and history of public finance, with a special focus on military expenditure (nineteenth  and twentieth centuries). She has published volumes on the economy of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and on visual arts and cinema in the interwar period. Elena Mechi graduated in Art History and has written several works on the subject of the universal expositions of the late nineteenth century. Being also qualified in the field of pedagogy, she is currently leading a number of art projects for children. Maria Carla Monaco is an independent scholar, researching mainly the history of Florence. She has also taught courses on communication and cultural heritage at the University of Florence. Monica Pacini is Associate Professor in Contemporary History at the University of Florence, Italy. Her research interests include gender studies, the history of female work and the economic history of Tuscany. Her publications have won many prizes.

xii

Contributors

Monika Poettinger is Associate Professor in Economic History. She has taught courses at the Università Luigi Bocconi and Università Statale-Bicocca in Milan and at the University of Florence. Her research interests include foreign entrepreneurship in Milan and its role in the industrialization of Lombardy, the thought of Otto Neurath  in Vienna and the historical philosophy of Amintore Fanfani before the Second  World War. Maria Grazia Proli holds a Degree in Philosophy and Literature. Her research focuses on the history of Florence, and particularly the biography of Seymour Stocker Kirkup. Piero Roggi is former full Professor of the History of Economic Thought at the University of Florence, Italy. His research interests include the thought of Amintore Fanfani, the Italian post-­war experience and the economic thought of Federico Caffè. Gino Tellini is full Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Florence. He has founded the International PhD Program in Italian Studies and the ‘Aldo Palazzeschi Study Center’ at the University of Florence. He has studied the main authors of Italian literature, from Boccaccio to contemporary times (in particular Alfieri, Foscolo, Manzoni, Leopardi, Tommaseo, Verga, Svevo, Tozzi and Palazzeschi).

Acknowledgements The volume collects the results of a complex research project including manifold university departments. Thanks are due to Regione Toscana and to the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze for having financed the project. My particular gratitude to Massimo Cervelli and Ugo Bargagli. Thanks also to Eugenio Giani, President of the Committee for the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Florence Capital, for his unrelenting support. The project was coordinated by the Opificio Toscano di Economia, Politica e Storia. My heartfelt appreciation goes to the work of all staff, particularly Cristina Polverosi and Omar Ottonelli, and to the President, Carlo Lancia. My gratitude goes to all who supervised the research projects, coordinating efforts and granting the high scientific level of the results: Franco Amatori, Valentino Baldacci, Fabio Bertini, Paolo Brenni, Pierluigi Ciocca, Giovanni Cipriani, Gianni Garamanti, Andrea Giuntini, Giampiero Nigro, Alessandra Pescarolo, Piero Roggi and Luciano Segreto. Nothing would have been possible, though, without the dedication of all researchers who sought new evidence in public and private archives, revised existing historiography and produced innovative studies. Their names are among the authors of this volume. Many institutions participated in the project and sustained research, making their premises and archives available for studies and events. Authors wish to thank: Accademia dei Georgofili, Archivio della Camera di Commercio di Firenze, Archivio della Provincia di Firenze, Archivio e Biblioteca del Senato, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Archivio Storico del Comune di Firenze, Banca d’Italia sede di Firenze, Biblioteca dell’identità toscana, Biblioteca Marucelliana di Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Biblioteca Ragionieri Sesto Fiorentino, Comitato Fiorentino per il Risorgimento, Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica, Fondazione Spadolini Nuova Antologia, Fondo Martini-Edlmann, Gabinetto Scientifico Letterario GP Vieusseux, Museo First – Firenze Scienza e Tecnica, Polimoda: Istituto Internazionale di Fashion Design e Marketing, Teatro d’Almaviva and the municipality of Florence. For whatever relates to the history of architecture, we express our gratitude to Professor Giuseppina Carla Romby. Lastly, a thank you to all who helped translate, revise and edit this volume. Giovanni Agnoloni, Chiara and Alessia Antognozzi, Jade Farley and Catherine Frost translated and revised texts. Anonymous referees have given precious advice. Omar Ottonelli made a uniform manuscript out of scattered and patchy essays. Rhodri Mogford, Beatriz Lopez and all the staff of Bloomsbury were not only professionally invaluable but also supportive and helpful in a thousand ways.

Introduction: Florence, Capital of the   Kingdom of Italy Monika Poettinger

A capital for Italy Just like many Italians, most foreigners visiting Florence ignore the fact that for six years, from 1865 to 1871, the Tuscan city was the political and administrative centre of the Kingdom of Italy. Historiography, even if spurred by the recent 150th anniversary of the event, has mainly produced journalistical and educational material or innovative studies limited to political science.1 This volume is an attempt to revive the historical analysis of this period by using an interdisciplinary approach. To this end, researchers from various fields – economic and political history, history of literature, of science and of economic thought, philosophy and history of culture and ideas – analysed academic literature and archival sources of the years when Florence was the capital of Italy. The resulting essays include many new findings and innovative historiographic insights. The volume also follows the recent trend in historical analysis of reconstructing through images and maps the physical space in which events occurred. In the present case, this has been done by researching in detail all available material on the location of politically relevant loci, such as ministries, bureaucratic offices and the like, and of spaces dedicated to the pursuit of leisure, be they theatres, hotels, cafés or brothels. A detailed map can be found in the middle of the volume, and the reader can use this to stroll through Florence, following aristocratic promenades or more popular paths: in the steps of King Vittorio Emanuele, pursuing his long-­standing lover Rosa Vercellana, retracing the routes of Dostoevskij or Bakunin, or joining servants, day-workers, weavers and shopkeepers in their everyday life. All places quoted in the volume that are not otherwise described in detail are listed at the end of this introduction with their location on the aforementioned map. The volume offers to readers a detailed image of Florence in the years from 1865 to 1871 under three main headings. The section on politics and culture groups together all contributions linked to the political events and cultural ambiente of the time. Topics include the parliamentary activity, relevant characters as Bettino Ricasoli, the reception of Darwinism, the evolution of literary interests from the language question to realism, the presence of colonies of artists and foreigners, and many more. The central section is dedicated to popular life in the streets of Florence and to the detailed reconstruction of the places of power and leisure. Lastly, the section on economy and society analyses in depth the productive structure of the local economy and the turmoil of speculation

2

Florence

caused by the urban reconstruction plans implemented in the short time span when Florence was the capital of Italy. Specific contributions are dedicated to the banking sector, entrepreneuriality, homeworking productions and the availability of food. Despite being assigned to one of the main sections of the volume, all chapters maintain the interdisciplinary approach, offering links to other essays and a wide variety of related topics. They all refer also to precise locations around the city, allowing one to follow the narrative on the map and inviting one to look around for more information on places and goings-­on. In the following, a summary is offered of the main topics relating to the thematic sections, with the purpose of linking all contributions together and offering some historiographic interpretative tools. The great economic losses incurred by Florence in becoming a short-term capital were the price paid for the role that the city had in the institutional and cultural construction of the young nation-state, and at the same time the trigger of the change in mentality of Florentine investors and entrepreneurs after the disastrous speculations connected to the city’s renewal plan.

Politics and culture When the young Italian nation was born in 1861, the French Emperor accorded his substantial help and essential assent only upon the promise to move the capital away from Turin. At the time, Rome was still part of the Papal States and under French protection. The complex and secret diplomatic efforts concluding with the September Agreement (1864),2 were led by French and Italian diplomats with opposing aims. Napoleon III sought Italian assurance that Rome and the Pope would be left untouched by the unification process.3 On the contrary, Italians wanted French troops to leave the Papal States, paving the way for a future annexation. A compromise was struck when the Italian government agreed to elect an alternative capital city to Rome, while the French would – in due time – hand over the protection of the Pope to Italian troops. Napoleon III believed that the conquest of Rome would at least be delayed by the September Agreement, while Italians welcomed the treaty as opening the future possibility of uniting Rome with the Kingdom of Italy. European diplomatic circles reacted with doubts and mixed feelings. The temporal power of the Pope had evidently reached its end and the new capital of Italy would only be transitory.4 In the meantime, the Italian parliament had to choose between Florence and Naples to succede Turin. Not without struggle and political fractures, senators and members of the chamber of deputies favoured the former option.5 Florence was easy to protect against foreign attacks, and its undisputed and widely recognized cultural heritage could be used to foster the national spirit. There were ideological reasons, indeed, behind the choice of the new capital. In its peculiarity, the Italian unification process had created much resentment among local populations. Many Italian citizens considered the Piedmont rulers to be foreign oppressors as Austrians and Spaniards had been. Moving the capital from Turin to Florence could, in this sense, reconcile local communities with the new national government. Philosopher and member of Parliament Giuseppe Ferrari6 called the

Introduction

3

transfer ‘a revolution on par with the battles of 1859 and the liberation of the South’.7 Florence represented a ‘symbol’, a ‘programme’ and a ‘material situation’ that would oblige the present Italian administration to change from an apparatus of Piedmont to a true Italian government. ‘In the absence of rulers’, concluded Ferrari, ‘a city was chosen, in the void of ideas a territory was indicated and a capital proclaimed only to assess that a system had been abated and a new one must follow in its wake’.8 Notwithstanding the widespread belief that Florence would be a temporary capital, its choice had a precise rationale: to Italianize the national government and extend the popular support for the Italian state. This cultural and ideological programme would be pursued with unrelenting enthusiasm by many intellectuals and politicians. Italy needed Italians who would share a common language and a national culture,9 and Florence, more so than any other Italian city, could be their source of inspiration. In this sense, the years when Florence acted as capital of the Kingdom of Italy would be marked by the celebrations for the sixth centenary of Dante’s birth on 14 May 1865 and the solemn inhumation of Ugo Foscolo’s remains in Santa Croce on 4 June 1871. Both events became earnest liturgies of a state religion, the diffusion of which most educational and propagandistic efforts of the Italian political and intellectual elite were devoted to. Dante was the acknowledged father of the Italian language and the main pillar of the new national identity of Italy. In the 1850s, the jurist Pasquale Stanislao Mancini had defined the commonality of language as the most important bond of nationality, the source of all other usages and institutions.10 In 1869, Gino Capponi would rephrase this as: ‘If the style is the man, the language is the nation.’11 The success of Italy’s unification thus had to be measured on the spread of a common tongue, an expression of shared moral values. The Gonfaloniere (mayor) of Florence,12 Luigi Guglielmo de Cambray-Digny,13 transformed the inauguration of the statue of Dante in Piazza Santa Croce, on the occasion of the sixth centenary of the poet’s birth in 1865, into an affair of national relevance. All major Italian cities were represented with their banners and flags, including municipalities that were still under foreign rule. Bearing their symbols and pennants, many literary and scientific academies, universities, colleges, cultural institutions and representatives of many associations of mutual workers, artisans and professionals participated in the procession from Piazza Santo Spirito to Piazza Santa Croce. Accompanied by the loud bells of the Palazzo Vecchio and many bands of musicians, the parade made its way first to the front of the Palazzo Feroni, the seat of the municipality, where members of the city’s government took the lead. The parade then proceeded to Piazza del Duomo before heading to Piazza Santa Croce. The city was adorned throughout with the national flag, the Tricolore. Festooned with flowers and wreaths, memorial plates were affixed to all buildings where famous citizens had been born, had lived or worked. Statues, columns and trophies were pinpointed along the parade’s route to remember the most important men of arms and of letters, scientists and artists of the nation. The portico of the Uffizi, displaying a series of statues of meritorious Tuscans, was particularly embellished with elegant compositions. The King himself lifted the veil on the imposing statue of Dante, positioned in the middle of the Piazza Santa Croce, as a conclusion to the ceremony.14

4

Florence

Many other events followed: public lectures, exhibitions, special museum openings. On the evening of 14 May, mutual societies distributed subsidies in the Piazza Santa Croce, while on the following day in the Cascine park, a series of horse races took place. As Gino Capponi feared, moral suasion – it seemed – still went through panem et circenses more so than a common language. Much still had to be done. In 1869, Gino Capponi would write: ‘The destiny of the Italian language will depend on what Italians will come to be.’15 The Italian religion of secularity had its God in Dante and many other beatified figures.16 The church of Santa Croce was celebrated by Ugo Foscolo as the temple of memory for all these modern immortals. Foscolo himself, a materialist in philosophy, had written the perfect hymn for the new religion, the Sepolcri.17 Florence, he chanted, was blessed above all other cities for its nature and its art, but even more for having heard the poem of Dante recited first, and for preserving the memory of the great spirits of the Italian nation.18 These sacred memories would incite younger generations to great acts of value, courage and intellect. Memory of the past could thus be sublimated in virtue for the present. Ugo Foscolo had died in England as an exile in 1827. However, in 1871, on the request of the mayor of Florence and on the order of the Italian government, his

Figure 0.1  Piazza Santa Croce during the solemn festivities for the sixth centenary of Dante’s birth. Source: ‘Piazza Santa Croce a Firenze’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 2, no. 22, 3–9 June 1865. Private Collection.

Introduction

5

remains were transferred to the church of Santa Croce. The inhumation ceremony would become the last secular ‘mass’ held in Florence as the capital of Italy.19 On this occasion, the parade started from the central station and concluded in Piazza Santa Croce. The attendees were the same as those for Dante’s ceremony: people of municipalities from all over Italy and cultural and social associations of all kinds were there to represent, under their colourful banners, the moral virtues of the Italian society. ‘The crowd cramming into the streets was enormous,’20 recalled Pellegrino Artusi, literary critic and gastronome. The cart with the urn, covered in sky-­blue velvet, was pulled by six horses in black trappings. The urn itself, decorated with gold ornaments, was surmounted by a laurel crown and the eight golden cords surrounding it were held by ministers, dignitaries and foreign diplomats. In Piazza Santa Croce, the mayor Ubaldino Peruzzi welcomed the remains of Ugo Foscolo with a sober discourse. The celebration of the Italian nation’s fathers and forefathers, from Dante to the present, was not limited to their tombs. The cultural sanctification of the nation went well beyond a few statues, busts and bas-­reliefs, and was more profound than public celebrations. Publishers flooded the book market with collections of Italian writers, poets and scientists, historicizing Italy’s past in light of the Risorgimento. Florence was at the forefront of this effort, thanks to its exuberant publishing industries. The question of language,21 raised by Alessandro Manzoni and brought to governmental level through the institution of a parliamentary commission, stimulated manifold debates on journals and the publication of a wide variety of dictionaries and vocabularies. Making Italy a nation ‘united in arms, language and faith, united in memories, blood and heart’,22 as per Manzoni’s wish, would not mean doing away with all local traditions and dialects, however. On the contrary, studies on vernaculars and the liveliness of common languages were actively practised by many Italian literates and linguists. Verismo, a literary genre born out the empiricist desire to represent the life of common people with complete detachment, also had its early conception in Florence, where Giovanni Verga wrote his Storia di una capinera in 1869.23 Empiricism, secularism and materialism were, as seen, common undercurrents of the cultural life of the new capital of Italy. They were undoubtedly a heritage of enlightenment, but they were also fostered and nurtured by the rift that the process of unification had created between the Catholic Church and the national government. The Italian state not only denied any temporal power to the Pope, but also, after civil marriage was introduced by law in 1865, it enacted a schooling system that wiped out the Church’s monopoly on education and prohibited the teaching of religion in schools.24 Freemasonry, particularly powerful and diffused in Florence,25 played no small role in supporting the spread of enlightened philosophy.26 The sudden burst of freedom, from both foreign oppression and metaphysical Church dictates, flourished in multifarious scientific advancements27 as in anarchical activities. Darwinism spread in Florence, where the brothers Hugo and Moritz Schiff could simultaneously experiment at leisure in chemistry and physiology while cultivating their socialist ideals. Michail Bakunin visited Florence in 1865, founding there the journal Il Proletario, overseen by Niccolò Lo Savio.28 Freedom of expression also meant a liberal attitude towards non-Catholic faiths. Confessional communities flourished and grew, creating a demand for new churches

6

Florence

and temples. The new synagogue was financed in 1868, at the testamentary bequest  of David Levi. The first step was the purchase of a stretch of land in the middle of the new city sector, La Mattonaia, near Piazza d’Azeglio. The Tempio Maggiore Israelitico was then built between 1874 and 1882. Two other churches, one Russian orthodox  and the other Anglican, were built at the end of the century in districts created by Florence’s urban renovation. Their extraordinary appearance bears testimony to the cosmopolitanism of the local ruling class and of the presence of numerous foreign communities. Florence, in fact, attracted an increasing number of tourists, while artists from all over Europe chose it as their elected residence to enjoy the unique historical heritage and the artistic masterpieces. Becoming capital of Italy, then, brought to Florence not only thousands of new citizens, but also diplomats from all over the world. Just as the antique walls designed in the sixteenth century were torn down, many a cultural provincialism fell under the blows of the culture shock from the sudden opening of the Toscanina to Italy and to the larger world. Florence was so celebrated as the cultural capital of Italy: an example for the entire nation. Yet was this myth or reality? Even if a parliamentary act and a few million lire were sufficient to move the capital city from Turin to Florence, creating a new national culture on which to base the  social order and political consensus (as per the intentions of the governing liberals) would prove much more difficult. The first election held in Florence as capital of Italy proved humiliating for the Tuscan moderates, led by Bettino Ricasoli, Ubaldino Peruzzi and Luigi Cambray-Digny.29 People in Florence blamed on their ruling elite all the hardship connected with the transfer of the capital. Rents and prices had skyrocketed, while the offerings of housing and primary goods could not keep pace. The poorest were driven out of the city, to nearby villages or into slums of prefabricated steel and wooden houses. There were also other reasons for general discontent. Pedlars and street sellers were expelled from the centre while the covered markets were under construction and thus still unavailable. Public slaughterhouses, inaugurated in 1870, and the cattle market were also moved to a peripheral area between the Mugnone  river and the railway line.30 All the vitality of everyday life vanished from the narrow streets of the city centre, constrained by the newly built broad boulevards as much as by the bourgeois decorum and dignity. The climax of this cleansing action was the abatement of the old ghetto and the old market, a maze of medieval passageways  near the cathedral, where life had not changed much since centuries past. Under the motto of sanitation, the last remnants of vibrant lower-­class life were wiped out in the 1880s. Another 6,000 people were then ejected from the centre, while crowded lodgings and workshops were substituted by neoclassical buildings, chic cafés and a spacious square. Not all changes were welcomed by the local population. The expansion of the city was the result not of a widespread enrichment but of political planning. Wealthy aristocrats and the enriched bourgeoisie increased rents and profits in the years under study, while the rest of the population continued to live at subsistence levels or were dependent upon charity.31 The capital had just been transferred when many a scandal unveiled how politics mingled with business, creating monopoly positions and inciting

Introduction

7

speculations, insider trading and widespread corruption. Journalist Carlo Lorenzini described well the unchallenged bipolarity of Florentine society, writing: ‘The population has been divided since ancient times into just two classes: Florentines driving carriages and Florentines travelling on foot. Those in the carriages were called “gentlemen” and those on foot “pedestrians”. “Pedestrian” is an inelegant name but full of significance: it immediately calls to mind the vivid image of those poor web-­footed men, condemned to walk all their life.’32 In fact, at the end of the century, 72,000 of the 180,000 inhabitants of Florence were still considered poor.33 Clearly educational efforts, a common language or propagandistic ceremonies could hardly convince the destitute members of society to embrace enlightened ideals or bourgeois virtues.34 Many patriots, too, lost their faith in the ideals of Risorgimento by witnessing the corrupt workings of Parliament and the continuous betrayal of all they had fought for. Florentine satirical journals were full of this disillusionment, while Verismo and the first official enquiries denounced the living conditions of Italy’s impoverished people. Liberals were losing their battle for public support. The spectre of socialism thus had to be kept at bay with more practical policies than cultural ideology. Italian citizens, on the other hand, were ready to exchange their newly acquired freedom for a minimum of subsistence. Baron Guglielmo de Toth, writing in Fanfulla, described the processions of famished people and muddlers continuously crowding the streets in front of town halls, asking not for panem et circenses but for bread and work. These processions represented a complete consensus in favour of a state that obliterated any private initiative to become an entrepreneur, banker or employer. De Toth sarcastically defined the new form of state idolatry: statolatria.35 In effect, during the years in which the Parliament held its sessions in the illustrious Salone de’ Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio and the Senate convened in the theatre of the Uffizi, many laws were discussed and approved that construed a centralized institutional apparatus for the new Italian state.36 Federalism, as advocated by many patriots who had participated in the independence wars, was discarded,37 while economic liberalism was embraced only temporarily. Hand in hand with the loss of power of Tuscan moderates, the new state increasingly came to control economic activities and the legal circulation of money. The administrative apparatus grew incessantly in order to grant occupation to former soldiers and insurgents. A growing bureaucracy acquired power through regulations and norms, while the excessive costs of wars and central administration multiplied taxes and levies.38 The new statolatria was surely effective. The debacle of 1865 would not be repeated in further elections. Freedom nonetheless drowned in the sea of regulations, laws, taxes and compulsory impositions. The lives of citizens were controlled, registered and managed from birth to death. Everything had its cost and its bureaucratic office. Carlo Lorenzini could not fail to comment ironically: Did you wish for Italy? Did you wish for freedom? Did you wish for a constitutional government? If you wished for them, pay for them!39

8

Florence

Florence in particular paid a high cost for its brief experience as capital of Italy. After the transfer of the government to Rome in 1871, the situation distinctly worsened. Poor relief doubled in a matter of years, and crime substantially increased even as the population diminished (Table 0.1). Even suicide experienced a boom. Parliament refused to cover the costs incurred by the municipality for transforming the city so as to be able to host governmental seats and all their personnel.40 Adriano Mari quantified the lacking sum as being more than 96 million lire – an enormous amount, with the interest for this totalling 4,815,000 lire a year.41 The ‘question of Florence’, along with the problem of the nationalization of railways, soon inflamed political debates. Many Tuscan parliamentary representatives revolted against their own right-­wing government, finally bringing it down in 1876. Ubaldino Peruzzi, shocked by treatment inflicted upon his beloved city, had been the mastermind behind the fall of the Destra Storica. The event was remarkable in that, for the first time, the Parliament itself (and not the King) refuted its vote of confidence for the government. From then on, Italy was governed by left-­wing alliances, while Tuscan liberals were in the opposition. On 17 March 1878, Florence had to declare bankruptcy. The local elite, paying for the losses of the municipality with their own patrimony, was devastated by the event. The suspension of payments involved all creditors: the Cassa di Risparmio for more than 8 million lire, the Banca Nazionale Toscana for more than 6 million, private citizens for more than 60 million. A financial tsunami of unseen proportions left Florence’s economy substantially weakened. At the same time, the central state reached its much-­desired balance by leaving municipalities with more expenses than revenues. Other cities, like Naples and Rome, would suffer the same fate as Florence. There were no easy exit strategies for the extremely difficult economic situation of Florence. In 1872, the literary critic Carlo Azzi called upon the pride of Florentines, asking them to abandon all political plans and to devise a more practical arrangement. Florence should ‘become the centre of the agricultural, industrial and artistic activity of all surrounding cities, extending the relations with the outside’.42 Other onlookers, though, doubted the capability of Florence to become an industrial and manufacturing centre. Tourism, too, seemed incapable of generating revenues adequate to counter the losses incurred after the capital city was transferred to Rome.43 Surely there was always one available solution: public works. Carlo Azzi himself suggested completing the plan of the architect Poggi and the renovation of the city centre as if nothing had happened. His advice was followed. After the effects of the bankruptcy dwindled, the centre of the city, as mentioned, was sanitized through extensive demolitions. The operation was accompanied, as usual, by speculation and fraud. Even the aesthetic effect was dubious. The Macchiaioli painters affectionately recorded in their works the likeness of the ghetto and Mercato Vecchio44 before their demolition. They then protested against the repeated architectural nightmares by leaving the city for the more authentic countryside. The new urban aspect of Florence, though, bears testimony to this day that a profound change had come to completion in the city. A new national political order had substituted the old Grand-­ducal one. The Italian governing elite, for all its faults and merits, was comprised of Tuscans for the first time in centuries. The unhappy

Introduction

9

voyage of the capital city from Turin to Florence and then Rome helped to de-­ provincialize and to nationalize the local elites, on the way to becoming Italian in language and culture. A century-­long pedagogical effort had matured into a ruling class capable of gaining national independence, reforming the national constitution and creating a complex cultural machine. The new liberal ideology and bourgeois moral values spread further through a new compulsory secular schooling system, while scientific empiricism took a respite from ecclesiastic censure, inciting innovation in chemistry, physics and mechanics and a new way of applying accurate inquiries to analyse the true state of industry, agriculture, working conditions and poor relief. Italians, perhaps, would never match the ideals of intellectuals and politicians of the Risorgimento, but Florence would forever represent, in its new neoclassical appearance, the mythos of a nation built from culture, language and moral values more than of race and military force.

Economy and society The turmoil of politics pushed abrupt changes onto Florence. In just one decade, the city lost its status as capital of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, became the administrative centre of a mere province and was then elected capital of the Italian Kingdom for just six years. Institutions changed at an alarming speed. Architecture was the most visible expression of the new political order. The hastily devised plan of the architect Giuseppe Poggi followed the suggestions in the designs of Georges Eugène Haussmann for Paris.45 In the attempt to transform Florence into a little Paris located on the river Arno, 300-year-­old walls were torn down and many new districts planned and built. Streets

Table 0.1  Sums donated to charity (food, clothes, linen, beds, money and dowries) by the Regio Uffizio della Congregazione di Carità di S. Giovanni Battista to Florence’s poor together with crimes reported to the district attorney’s office in Florence. Year

Donated sums (Lire)

1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874  1875 1876 1877

  21,060.87   31,576.00   72,574.62   31,731.33   28,038.85   25,885.84   33,282.72   46,562.15   43,239.86   50,328.54   72,240.39   94,066.68 116,968.52

Reported Crimes – – 3358 – 2134 3544 – – 4120 – 4080 4370 4587

Source: A. Mari, La questione di Firenze, 135 and 131. Data on reported crimes covered only particular years between 1865 and 1877.

10

Florence

were enlarged and medieval houses that crowded around churches were demolished to create spacious squares, while luxurious boulevards came to surround the centre, stretching up to the beautiful hills south of Florence.46 Innovations such as street illumination, water management and sewers were finally introduced – already quite usual abroad. While these novelties took just a few years or mere decades to accomplish, social and economic changes proceeded at a slower pace. An entire century would be  needed to complete the industrialization and modernization of Tuscany. Certainly, accommodating an enormous number of new citizens brought about a general exaltation of the socio-­economic order of the newly elected capital city and a rampaging real-­estate speculation. However, aside from the catastrophic financial consequences of political misjudgement and speculative excesses, the years when Florence was capital of Italy deserve to be studied in depth also in terms of other less obvious but equally important changes that interacted with long-­term dynamics, both as an accelerator and a stress factor, highlighting the resources and limitations of the local social and economic architecture. In 1861, only a few months after unification, Florence hosted the first national exhibition of the Italian Kingdom.47 The exhibition, programmed by the Lorenese government of Tuscany as a regional display of economic advancement, was transformed by Quintino Sella, counsellor of prime minister Cavour, into an occasion to show Italians and foreigners alike the significance of the new national state.48 This was the rationale behind the ministerial order to include in the exhibition works of art along with industrial and agricultural products. Modern steam engines were not the only items displayed in the rear of the railway station for the Livorno line, transfigured by hastily erected pavilions, fountains and gardens. A great part of the exhibition space was dedicated to statues, paintings and handicraft works.49 Historiography justly remarks the oddity of the Florentine exhibition.50 Scattered statues, representing the King and figures from the past such as Francesco Burlamacchi, Vittorio Fossombroni and Sallustio Bandini, already hinted at the cultural programme pursued by the Italian government. The journalist Pietro Coccoluto Ferrigni – known as ‘Yorick son of Yorick’ – in his report on the exposition lampooned this recent ‘urge to erect monuments to all great dead men and busts and statues even to living ones, who had no greatness at all’.51 In effect, the whole event was construed as a mythical representation of a united Italy. The glass covering of the main building, for example, was subdivided into 198 frames, each containing the insignia of an Italian city. All Italian regions were among the exhibitors, even those still in foreign hands and under the control of the Pope. ‘The political meaning of the exposition – candidly stated the organization – is a second plebiscite with which Italy confirmed its unity.’52 Notwithstanding the effective propaganda and organizational success granted by the work of more than a thousand volunteers and the direction of the marquis Cosimo Ridolfi (senator of the kingdom and president of the prestigious Accademia dei Georgofili), only 360,000 visitors attended the Florentine exhibition, in contrast to the 6 million who visited the London universal exhibition of 1851; this demonstrated how great the gulf was between local industry/agriculture and the developed forms in Europe.53 Unique achievements such as the presentation of the internal combustion

Introduction

11

engine of Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci,54 ‘destined to change the face of the universe, substituting its unknown energy to that of steam’,55 and of the famous pantelegraph of the Senese physicist Giovanni Caselli,56 could not conceal the reality of general backwardness. This was particularly true for Tuscany. While other regions could at least present adequate products in the textile industry, and in some cases in the mechanical sector, Tuscany stood out for straw hats and for highly specialized handiworks; these required mastery of various skills, but were ill-­suited to be mechanized or produced in series. This humbling outcome was not a consequence of lack of resources or averse comparative advantages, but the result of an informed political choice. Tuscany’s  long-­lasting aversion to a chaotic industrial development had been born in the eighteenth century, when the Lorenese government favoured the theories of Sallustio Bandini over the mercantilism of the Ginori family. Bandini, whose statue had been displayed at the Florentine exhibition in accordance with the personal wishes of Cosimo Ridolfi, had championed for agricultural development based on free trade and sharecropping. Manufacture had no place in the resulting idyllic and ordered society. This ideal prevailed among Tuscany’s elite up to Italy’s unification and in some cases even longer.57 ‘Florence cannot aspire to become again an industrial city,’58 Mayor Ubaldino Peruzzi asserted forcefully in 1870, discussing the future of the city in an address to the municipal assembly after the decision of Parliament to move the capital to Rome. The past of diffused manufacturing growth, lost in the decadence of the seventeenth century, was not to be replayed. For its development, Florence should have counted more on its cultural heritage and its artistic upbringing than on modern manufacturing – so the seasoned politician said. Peruzzi had travelled all over Europe on diplomatic missions and to visit all important exhibitions, from London to Paris. With the eyes of an engineer, he could appreciate the fascination of technological advancement. His faith in a liberalist and agrarian way of growth did not follow from a prejudice against mechanization. He believed, though, that hastened development forced through protectionist measures would have jeopardized the social equilibrium of Tuscany, exposing the region to the spread of socialism. Industries, rather, should slowly spring from a natural development nurtured by free trade and respectful of existing equilibria. Beliefs like those of Peruzzi were shared by most of Tuscany’s moderates and expressed by the Accademia dei Georgofili and, from 1874, also within the liberalist association Società Adamo Smith. The path chosen by its ruling class constrained Tuscany’s economy to an alarmingly low productivity and its peasantry to time-­ consuming homework to earn a subsistence not granted by farming alone. The virtuous sharecropping advertised by Tuscans as the remedy to all social maladies was less diffused than in the idealized reckonings of moderates. The countryside was home to a huge number of day-­workers living in an unending nightmare of hunger. Carlo Lorenzini, among others, perfectly represented this constant state of deprivation that resolved in veritable feasts when fortuitous work bore its fruit of lustrous coins. He described in detail all possible strategies to lessen the unnerving stimulus to eat: Geppetto had painted a steaming cooking pot on the wall of his house, expecting to smell the soothing odour of a much-­desired meal;59 Pinocchio, rather, yawned and

12

Florence

yawned and spat before giving in to hunger, going out in search of a handout on the streets of his village.60 The street boys in the capital city Florence did the same. They spat, appeasing their hunger by merely gazing into the windows of a modern restaurant, parading delicacies such as roasted beef, chicken, capon and even fruit.61 On the rare occasion when the possibility to eat one’s fill arose, starved adults and children alike would feast without restraint, gorging on gigantic meals.62 In such a Tuscany, technological advancements were rare and considered more a curiosity than a useful tool for meliorating existing production. In fact, the two revolutionary innovations presented at the national exhibition were never exploited industrially in Tuscany or even Italy. The pantelegraph was installed in France and in Russia, but never in Italy. The internal combustion engine also found its first commercial success in France, then later in Germany. Visitors to the Florentine exhibition appreciated the art entailed in many hand-­crafted products more so than technological wonders. Cameos, gems and pieces of furniture were highly praised, and an inlaid wooden table representing the father of the nation, Dante, was particularly successful. The public equally admired the many rooms dedicated to sculpture and painting. The king himself presented a sampling of his most beloved horses at the exhibition. What attention was left for Italian and Tuscan cloths in cotton, silk and linen or straw products was used to fuel the patriotic intent of substituting the import of French or English goods with such wares of lesser quality. The necessity to change the present inefficient production methods with mechanized manufacturing activated by steam-­ power was not thought worthy of discussion. Producing and consuming inefficiently meant maintaining a social order that was reputed as being of greater value – at least by the ruling class – than economic advancement. Could the few years as capital of Italy change this century-­long attitude towards industrialization? Surely not. Nonetheless, some cracks were widening in the old development model. After centuries of demographic stability, the arrival of the capital meant an increase of 56,000 people on a local population of 143,000.63 The subsequent restoration plans did fuel debates on urban spaces distribution on the base of civil and economic functions. By forcefully driving every vestige of production outside the city, enclaves were created – some planned, yet others arising by chance – that amassed both manufacturing facilities and workers’ homes. The Pignone foundry, with the gas production nearby, had already generated a manufacturing district outside Porta San Frediano. Another manufacturing district grew along the Mugnone river.64 The first industrial premises were those of the Officine Galileo, manufacturer of optical and precision instruments, and of the foundry Le Cure. Also on the Mugnone, more to the south in Via del Romito, the laboratory of the English apothecary Roberts was opened, an initiation destined for a flourishing existence under the management of Alfred Houlston Morgan and the later Italian associate Lorenzo Manetti. In the same street, a glass manufacturer would begin its works. Other main manufacturers, flourishing thanks to substantial state subsidies, were the Regia Manifattura Tabacchi scattered between the convent of Sant’Orsola and the former church of San Pancrazio, and the Ferrovie Meridionali, whose great premises for the reparation of trains were located in Porta al Prato.

Introduction

13

Slowly, but inexorably, Florence’s regenerated centre, purged during the years as capital of Italy of most of its productive activities, was besieged by a multitude of workshops, laboratories, mills and manufactories, growing in number, extension and importance from one year to the next. In 1870, the chagrined Peruzzi had already noticed that, although Florence had no industrial vocation, ‘here industries flourished and flourish and would flourish even more if arts and design would become the object of study not only of artists but also of artisans’.65 Not all onlookers were as resigned as Peruzzi, nor so averse to the protection of infant industries as Tuscan liberals. The call for the protecting intervention of the  state was first expressed by the entrepreneurs themselves. Surely some of Florence’s businesspersons had embraced the opening of the internal market with enthusiasm and even some measure of success. The extraordinary increase of state orders  connected to the transformation of Florence into a modern capital helped many  local manufactories. The relevant number of newly constructed residences in the  new districts, then, needed to be furnished and decorated: a boost for artisans and workshops. Some economic sectors however, particularly metallurgy and mechanics, suffered the effects of the free-­trade policies pursued by the right-­wing governments after unity. Foreign entrepreneurs confronted the problem with technological innovation, but in many cases the scarcity of resources, particularly fossil fuel, and of technological competencies was insurmountable. Only state protection could help – so the opinion of some entrepreneurs was reported in the industrial enquiry completed in 1874.66 This was the case of Louis Langer, director of the ironworks located in the Valdarno, property of the Società per l’industria del ferro.67 Among his employees was Vilfredo Pareto, a passionate liberal, with whom Langer would be in constant disagreement over the management of the manufactory and regarding political questions. The continuous debate with Pareto sharpened Langer’s knowledge of economics, so that in his interview for the industrial enquiry, he even quoted Jean Baptiste Say and Adam Smith on the necessity of a certain measure of protection to diminish Italy’s public debt and to protect new industries from external competition.68 In the end, the disagreement with Pareto forced Langer to resign. His ideas, however, became increasingly popular among Tuscan entrepreneurs, particularly when Rome became the capital of Italy, plunging Florence into a severe recession. Lorenzo and his son Carlo Ginori, proprietors of the famous porcelain factory located in Doccia,  Sesto Fiorentino, are a foremost example of this change of heart from liberalism to protectionism. Tuscan entrepreneurs in favour of state intervention lobbied for the revision of the Italian tariffs and welcomed the change in policy towards protectionism effectuated by the left-­wing government in 1878.69 In the 1880s, they convened in the Associazione Commerciale, later Associazione Industriale e Commerciale di Firenze.70 A mere six years, though, could not change the productive structure of Florence and Tuscany. When Carlo Azzi wrote his treatise Florence and its Future, in 1872, to motivate his fellow citizens to react positively to the economic depression and political crisis, he described the local economic activity as if walking in the salons of the national exhibition of 1861. ‘The straw!’ was his first exclamation. ‘This thin strip,’ he wrote, ‘that

14

Florence

bends to every puff of wind has a significant importance for Tuscan industry.’71 Other agricultural products, vital for the region’s economy, were olive oil and wine. Wine, though, should have been produced from a narrower variety of vines, as advocated by Bettino Ricasoli, so as to be commercialized in greater quantities and sold abroad. Silkworms and bees should likewise have been bred in greater quantities.72 Azzi also registered the liveliness of Florentine foundries, flourishing thanks to the renovation of the city, while ironworks were still lacking in technology and product quality. Great achievements concerned the majolica of Montelupo and the porcelain of Doccia. Other excellences were handiwork laboratories of goldsmithing, silverware, mosaics and marquetry. Modernity appeared in Florence in the form of omnibuses and coaches and stores such as the Bazar Europeo, selling playthings for children. Many everyday consumer items were also produced in Florence in acceptable quality: umbrellas, rubber wares, illumination devices, saddles and suitcases.73 What more could be done? Azzi had no doubt: homeworking in the production of cotton, silk and wool pieces. ‘Let us operate the spindles, the looms and the winders. Let us multiply them, let us erect thousands of them; let us draw new designs; let us prepare dyes to colour our items. Let us copy the light blue of our sky, the green of our hills, the frescoes of our porticos, the paintings of our galleries!’74 Clearly, Azzi still believed in the development model of the past. Despite the title of his pamphlet, he could not envision a Florence of the future. He still saw a city living on agricultural rents, earned by exporting agricultural products and primary resources; a city specialized in handicraft productions; a city at the centre of complex networks  of trade and homeworking in traditional sectors like textiles, including straw; a city where production was still dedicated to satisfying local demand, with no ambition to introduce technological advancements or reap economies of scale. More and more people, though, wished for major change – particularly after the end of the extraordinary experience of being at the centre of the new Italian state. Entrepreneurs were obviously interested in state protection. Many of them had participated in the speculations of the financial bubble ignited by the huge real-estate developments and by the suspension of convertibility. They accepted the increased intervention of the state in the economy in exchange for monopoly positions, protection and subsidies. Their aim was to extend production to cover internal demand under the umbrella of substantial state help. Workers increasingly became conscious of their role. Notwithstanding Azzi’s wishes, a growing number of people became employed in factories, while traditional homeworking activities inexorably dwindled out. The number of looms, for example, rapidly diminished not only inside the city walls, but also in Tuscany in general. Homeworking had rapidly changed from textiles to straw, because of the lesser fixed costs entailed for the worker. To weave straw, no instruments were needed beyond hands. Nonetheless, the trecciaiole – female straw workers – were aware of their value, to the point of organizing mass strikes at the end of the century. Union claims and disorder also plagued Tuscany’s mines and the manufacturies with the longest traditions, such as the porcelain factory of Doccia. The idyllic picture of an agricultural Tuscany, defined by social peace and redistribution of the generated surplus, came increasingly into question. The

Introduction

15

globalization wave that had washed over sleepy Florence throughout the national unification movement and its becoming capital of the Kingdom served to highlight the provinciality and the limits of the development model chosen in the eighteenth century. A comparison with more developed countries such as France and England during the universal exhibitions left no doubts as to the backwardness of local production. Entrepreneurs and politicians adapted to this new consciousness by developing a protectionist attitude. Changes would take time, however. It would take decades for the industrialization of Florence to kick off. Nonetheless, as early as 1919, the first Italian industrial district was planned and realized in the same Florence dreamed by Tuscan liberals as a cultural and trading centre in the middle of an Arcadian Tuscany. In early acknowledgement of its modern industrial identity, the city launched a renewed city plan, dedicating a vast development area in the suburb of Novoli-Rifredi to its major industries.75 The mentality of entrepreneurs, politicians and workers had been irrevocably changed by coming brusquely into contact with more developed realities in the years when Florence was capital of the Kingdom of Italy. A new Florence76 originated from experiencing novel institutions, mingling of cultures and enhanced

Map 0.1  Plan of Florence with the new datiary perimeter and the new urban developments. Source: Pianta di Firenze con la cinta daziaria ed i nuovi quartieri secondo il piano regolatore d’ampliamento (Firenze: Bettini, 1872). Property of Max Planck Gesellschaft and Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Fotothek.

16

Florence

communications, a Florence that Carlo Azzi, Ubaldino Peruzzi, Bettino Ricasoli and many others would and could never have dreamed of.

Places of interest Buildings Galleria degli Uffizi (H, 8–9); Istituto Tecnico di Firenze (I, 3); Macelli Pubblici (Public slaughterhouses) (D, 1); Museum of Ethnology (I, 7); Museum La Specola (F, 10); Palazzo Feroni (G, 8); Palazzo Gianfigliazzi Bonaparte (G, 8); Palazzo Ginori (H, 5); Palazzo Pitti (G, 10); Palazzo Spini-Feroni (G, 8); Palazzo Vecchio (H–I, 8); Villa Hildebrand (Villa di San Francesco di Paola) (C, 10); Zecca Vecchia (N, 9).

Churches, monasteries and temples Duomo (Cathedral) (H–I, 7); Madonna della Tosse (M, 1); San Bonifazio (Hospital) (I, 4); San Lorenzo (H, 6); San Marco (I, 4–5); San Miniato al Monte (M, 12); San Pancrazio (G, 7); Santa Croce (L, 8); Santa Maria Novella (F–G, 6); Santa Maria Nuova (Hospital) (I, 6–7; L,6); Sant’Orsola (H, 5); Tempio Israelitico (M, 6).

City doors Porta alla Croce (O, 7); Porta al Prato (D, 5); Porta Romana (E, 12); Porta San Frediano (D, 8); Porta San Miniato (I, 10); Porta San Niccolò (M, 10).

Introduction

Manufactories Ferrovie Meridionali (B, 4); Fonderia del Pignone (Pignone foundry) (D, 7); Gazometro (Gas Works) (C, 7); Officine Galileo (N, 1).

Markets, shops and bazaars Bazar Europeo (H, 8); Bellom (H, 8); Madame Sarazin (G, 7); Mercato Centrale (G–H, 5); Mercato Nuovo (H, 8); Mercato San Frediano (E, 8); Mercato Sant’Ambrogio (Santa Croce) (M, 7–8); Mercato Vecchio (H, 7).

Parks Parco delle Cascine (A, 4–5); Parterre Park (L, 1–2).

Sectors Barbano (G, 4); Camaldoli (C, 6); Campo di Marte (Q–R–S, 3–4–5); Cascine (A, 5); Maglio (L, 3); La Mattonaia (N, 6); Piagentina (P–Q, 7–8–9); San Frediano (D–E, 8–9); Savonarola (M, 3).

Squares Piazza Antinori (G, 7); Piazza D’Azeglio (M–N, 6); Piazza Brunelleschi (L, 6); Piazza Cavour (Libertà) (L, 2); Piazza del Duomo (H–I, 7); Piazza Donatello (N, 5); Piazzale Michelangiolo (M, 10–11); Piazza San Firenze (I, 8);

17

18

Florence

Piazza San Marco (I, 5); Piazza Santa Croce (L, 8); Piazza Santa Trinita (G, 8); Piazza Santo Spirito (F, 9); Piazza Savonarola (M, 3); Piazza della Signoria (H, 8); Piazza Strozzi (G, 7).

Stations Leopolda (customs offices) (C, 5); Maria Antonia (S. Maria Novella) (F, 6).

Streets Borgo SS Apostoli (H, 8); Corso dei Tintori (L–M, 9); Costa San Giorgio (H, 10); Lungarno Corsini (F–G, 8); Lungarno delle Grazie (I–L, 9); Lungarno Serristori (L, 10); Lungarno Torrigiani (H–I, 9); Por Santa Maria (H, 8); Via Alamanni (F, 5–6); Via Aretina (O–P–Q, 7; R–S–T, 6); Via Calzaioli (H, 7–8); Via dei Cardinali (L, 6); Via Cavour (H,6; I, 4–5; L, 3); Via Cerretani (H, 6); Via della Colonna (L, 5; L–M, 6); Via Condotta (I, 8); Via del Corso (I, 7); Via Diacceto (E, 5); Via Faenza (G, 5); Via Garibaldi (D, 6); Via Guelfa (G, 4–5; H, 5); Via Madonna della Pace (G, 12); Via Maggio (G, 9; F, 10); Via del Maglio (La Marmora) (L, 3–4); Via Montebello (D, 6); Via dell’Oriolo (I–L, 7); Via Panicale (H, 5); Via Panzani (G, 6); Via Porta Rossa (G–H, 8); Via del Proconsolo (I, 7–8);

Introduction Via de’ Pucci (I, 6); Via Romana (G, 11); Via del Romito (D, 1; E, 2); Via San Gallo (H, 5; I, 3–4); Via San Leonardo (11–12); Via San Sebastiano (Gino Capponi) (L, 4–5); Via Sant’Antonino (G, 6); Via della Scala (E–F, 6; D–E, 5); Via degli Speziali (H, 7); Via Tornabuoni (G, 7–8); Via Valfonda (F, 5); Viale dei Colli (Galileo) (M, 10–11); Viale in Curva (D, 4; E, 3); Viale Militare (N–O, 2; P, 3); Viale del Poggio Imperiale (G, 12–13–14); Volta dei Tintori (L, 8).

19

Part I

Culture and Politics

Figure P1  The Italian Chamber of Representatives in the Salone de’ Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Source: ‘La sala de’ cinquecento’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 2, no. 51, 24–30 December 1865. Private Collection.

1

A New Capital for Italy: Politics and Culture Cosimo Ceccuti

1.  From political intrigue, a new capital for Italy On 17 March 1861, Vittorio Emanuele II became king of Italy ‘by the grace of God and the will of the nation’.1 The Italian united state was born. It would take a while to aggregate Venice and its territories, Rome and the entire Lazio region as well. They would be conquered in 1866 and 1870, respectively. Trento and Trieste would have to wait after the First World War to become Italian. In a brief time, spanning from 1859 to 1861, eight former Italian states were united into just one. They were at least politically united, although the different territories would maintain for a long time profound differences in society, economy, culture and civil values. Massimo d’Azeglio justly argued that the greatest and primary task of the Italian government would have to be to shape Italians. It would have been futile to create an administrative unit, a new institutional setting, if the people wouldn’t change, if Italians remained as they were before unification.2 This task regarded the definition of a common Italian language, a schooling system, the organization of military services and the administrative set-­ups. The brief stationing of Italy’s capital city in Florence would have a great role primarily in regard to this crucial cultural aspect of Italy’s unification. Piedmont had guided the unification movement with its King Vittorio Emanuele and the Prime Minister Cavour, even with substantial support from the democratic movement of Mazzini and Garibaldi. Its laws and administrative machine had been extended to the rest of the new united state, generating great discontent particularly  in the south. Some measures were considered vexatious, such as the compulsory conscription, depriving the countryside of its most productive workforce of youths aged eighteen to twenty-­two years old. The same held for the suppression of the cloisters and monasteries that left families to carry the burden of female daughters with no dowry and no hope for marriage, and for the taxes levied on essentials like ground wheat. The main consequence was a general insurrection of the south, the infamous ‘brigandage war’. Between 1861 and 1864, the insurrection demanded the employment of more than 100,000 soldiers and the proclamation of special laws, suspending civil rights.

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Florence

This was the climate in which Florence became capital of Italy, apparently a marginal event, considering the most important contemporary political question: the surviving temporal power of the Pope granted by French troops allocated to Rome. The question of the transfer of the capital city3 had its remote origin in the politics of Camillo Benso di Cavour, architect of the Italo-French consultations on the removal of the French troops from Rome. Negotiations were terminated prematurely when the statesman died on 6 June 1861. His successors, Prime Ministers Bettino Ricasoli and Urbano Rattazzi, were not capable of reviving these negotations. Still, the question was not forgotten. On 9 July 1863, the Foreign Minister Emilio Visconti Venosta – on behalf of Prime Minister Marco Minghetti – solicited the French ambassador, Costantino Nigra, to restart the dialogue with Paris, based on the inviolability of the papal territories. The positive response of the French government arrived after one year, and on 21 June 1864, secret meetings began in Fontainebleau. The basis necessary for an agreement was laid by the Italian delegates Costantino Nigra and Gioacchino Napoleone Pepoli, the latter a plenipotentiary ambassador particularly appreciated by Napoleon III due to his kinship ties, and the French Foreign Minister Drouyn de Lhuys. The prefigured agreement foresaw the retreat of the French troops from Rome in exchange for the Italian obligation to respect the integrity of the Papal State and to protect it from external revolutionary attacks (on the part of Mazzini and Garibaldi). To win the confidence of Napoleon III, a secret clause of the treaty envisaged the transfer of the Italian capital from Turin to another less decentralized city before six months had passed. Florence was already an option. Only on 13 August were the concrete terms of the agreement unveiled to the king of Italy. His reaction was one of irritation. ‘What will Turin say? Is it not cruel to reward it of all its sacrifices with yet another heavy sacrifice? . . . I cannot accept this idea.’4 Take it or leave it, Minghetti did not hesitate and accelerated the conclusion of the treaty. He had already determined not to formalize the renouncement of Italy to Rome. Among the lines of the treaty, the option remained open for direct dialogue with the Vatican. On 15 September, the agreement was signed together with the supplementary protocol. In a timely manner, Minghetti informed Bettino Ricasoli, the ‘Iron Baron’. Living in retirement in the castle of Brolio, Ricasoli had abandoned political involvement after the bitter conclusion of his first instance as prime minister in 1862.5 On 13 September, two days before the signing, Silvio Spaventa, the Secretary General of the presidency of the Council of Ministers, visited Ricasoli in Brolio to explain the terms of the agreement between Paris and Turin. Ricasoli approved the treaty, since with it France openly recognized Italy’s unification for the first time. Until that point, Napoleon III had always opposed it. Ricasoli had only one concern: the choice of the new provisional capital city. His choice was obliged: Florence. Naples, the only available alternative, was considered inadequate due to ‘the character of the city and its geographical position’.6 Ricasoli referred to the presence of the Camorra, a mafia-­like criminal organization born out of the brigandage war that had just ended, and to Naples’ exposure to the sea, which made it difficult to defend. ‘I cannot but express a prayer,’ wrote Ricasoli to Minghetti, also on 13 September ‘that as greater reasons elicited to abandon Turin and discard Naples, Providence will

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find reasonable that with the death of Pope the designation of Florence will become redundant or, at least, that my native city shall suffer the disgrace of being a provisional capital only for a short time.’7 ‘I consider it a great calamity that Florence was chosen as provisory capital,’ wrote Ricasoli the next day to his brother Vincenzo, ‘but in exchange for the treaty, we must also endure this.’8 The greatest misfortune, in the eyes of the baron, would have been to go to Rome via an agreement with the Pope himself. It would have been much better to obtain Rome through the death of the Pope (considered an upcoming occurrence, although in reality, despite his health issues, Pio IX would only die in 1878) and the ascent of a more liberal and modern successor or, in any case, ‘through the actions of Romans and Italians’. ‘I approve the treaty,’ Ricasoli replied forcefully to close friends who read the agreement as the loss of Rome and a victory for local interests. ‘I deplore the moving of the government seat and I deplore that the venom of a provisory capital should be aspersed on Florence. I consider it a misfortune for Florence, nothing more. But I approve the treaty.’9 In the eyes of the baron, Florence becoming the capital city was a ‘cup of venom’ that the Florentines had to drink, and they had to do so because it was required in the superior interest of the nation. Turin, still capital of Italy, did not accept the agreement. It would cede the sceptre of capital to Rome and to Rome only, not to Florence or any other Italian city. Protests were widespread. They culminated in the riots of 21–22 September, when Piazza Castello was stained by the blood of people wounded and dying, trapped amidst the firing of the cadets of the Carabinieri military police on one side and of military troops on the other. Similar occurrences happened in many places all over the city. The government held full responsibility for the events, having secreted the clause of the treaty regarding the removal of the capital from Turin. The news had appeared in the papers only on 18 September. Particularly at fault was the Minister of Interiors, Ubaldino Peruzzi. He had ordered the inexperienced novices of the Carabinieri to maintain order in Turin, rather than using the civil guard. The King immediately intervened. On 23 September, he asked for the resignation of Minghetti and his government, leaving the General Alfonso La Marmora from Piedmont (who was against the treaty) to guide the country. Ricasoli immediately rushed to Turin and obtained from La Marmora every reassurance that the agreement would be sanctioned in Parliament. The baron would then work hard, through all his political connections, to form a large majority vote for the ratification and the approval of the transfer of the capital. He succeeded. The treaty was ratified on 19 November in the Deputy Chamber (296 votes in favour, 63 contrary, 2 abstentions) and on 9 December in the Senate (134 votes in favour, 47 contrary,  2 abstentions). Two days later, on 11 December, Vittorio Emanuele II promulgated the law regarding the transfer of the capital from Turin to Florence. To this end, the government allocated 7 million lire, of which 2 million were to be spent in 1864 and 5 million the following year. Bettino Ricasoli was allotted the most difficult task. He had to chair the parliamentary commission that would investigate the events of 21–22 September in Turin – in the

26

Florence

eyes of many, the first ‘state killings’ in the history of the Italian nation. Responsibilities had to be ascertained, particularly those of the government represented by Minghetti and Peruzzi. The task was delicate in that opponents of the treaty considered the working of the commission a last chance to stir up public opinion against the transfer of the capital to Florence. Ricasoli was well aware that depriving the former government of its authority would be synonymous with de-­legitimizing the signed treaty. He therefore made the parliament vote for a return to its order of the day without dealing with the issue. In his opinion, national issues such as those to be discussed in the order of the day held more importance than ascertaining the responsibilities in the bloodshed of Turin. The response from Turin’s population again involved mass protests, culminating once more in Piazza Castello. The crowd took out its rage against the coaches of guests attending a court ball organized by the King. The resentment of Vittorio Emanuele II was immediate and profound. He also took offence at the municipal government not condemning the riots immediately. As retaliation, the King immediately left Turin to take seat in the new capital-­to-be.10 Vittorio Emanuele began his journey at eight o’ clock in the morning of 3 February 1865. At ten thirty that evening, he stepped out of the train to be received in Florence by an applauding crowd and all local authorities. The embrace with Senator Gino Capponi, old and blind, there to represent the whole city, proved a moving moment, reported by all newspapers and later chronicles. Just outside the station [recalled Ugo Pesci] a huge crowd greeted the king with enthusiasm. Streets were illuminated, adorned with flags and full of people and notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the legions of the National Guard were all lined up and numerous. In Via Tornabuoni, as the coach of the king proceeded slowest amid such a crowded gathering, it was surrounded at once by all members of the Union Club and the Casino Borghese, representatives of Florence’s nobility and highest bourgeoisie, all holding wax torches, who would escort the king to his residence. There the king would be obliged, by the repeated acclamations of the crowd, to come out onto the balcony many times. Midnight had long passed when the festive sounds of that spontaneous and heartfelt reception died out.11

It was thus that the friendship between Vittorio Emanuele and the Florentines began, a friendship that would last throughout all the years when the king would be in residence in Florence. He was loved for the simplicity of his habits, his human failings and passions – women and horses, strolling with his dogs in the narrow streets of San Frediano, alone amidst the people, answering all greetings with kindness, a man like everyone else.12 The Palazzo Pitti was elected as the royal palace.13 There, the king would choose the Meridiana apartment as his residence, being private and secluded, the most suitable given his desire for freedom, not wanting to suffocate in the sumptuous halls replete with servants and military guards everywhere.14 The king’s other heartfelt wish for appropriate stables for his many horses was immediately satisfied by the architect Giuseppe Poggi, who built them near the city doors of Porta Romana, where today the

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Figure 1.1  Arrival of King Vittorio Emanuele II at the Palazzo Pitti. Source: ‘Il re d’Italia a Firenze’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 2, no. 11, 18–23 March 1865. Private Collection.

Istituto d’Arte is located. The king also appreciated the accommodation for his lover, the beautiful Rosa Vercellana, in the Medici villa in Petraia, not too far from the Palazzo Pitti, but also not too near. For hunting – another of his passions – the king inhabited the estate of San Rossore, a place he came to love. He would thus feel less nostalgic for his prior Venaria realm and hunting palace of Stupinigi. Deducing from his letters, the greatest failing of Florence was its climate, being too cold in winter and too hot in summer. ‘Here we are well and it is cold,’ the king wrote from San Giacomo on 24 July 1867 to the Prime Minister Urbano Rattazzi. ‘If I had remained in Florence, I would have died.’15 Later, in Naples, on 6 February 1869, he confided to the Finance Minister Cambray-Digny: ‘The climate is magnificent, it is warm, Napoli is really a great place. Citizens are kind and good. Nonetheless, I do not forget Florence.’16 What about the other Piedmont bureaucrats though, the so-­called buzzurri (‘a name that in Tuscany is given to those Swiss who arrive there in winter to attend to their industry of making and selling chestnuts, roasted chestnuts, boiled chestnuts, chestnut cakes and bread, etc., or that manage pastry shops and cafés’, as per the definition of the Accademia della Crusca dictionary of 1866), who arrived in Florence,

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Florence

Figure 1.2  La Petraia. Royal villa located in Castello near Florence. Source: ‘La Petraia, Regia villa a Castello’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 2, no. 30, 29 July–4 August 1865. Private Collection.

numbering 30,000 with their families? Integration with the local population of 118,000 inhabitants could not be easy. Those from Piedmont were sceptical of the change, at least in the first months after the transfer, given the differences in habits, traditions and living standards between Florence and Turin. A glimpse of the unbridgeable divide is provided by the guides hastily written for the newcomers.17 Certainly, comparisons with Turin highlighted the wonderful beauty of Florence’s monuments and art. However, streets were narrow and swept by carriages driven with a speed dangerous to the lives of coachmen. The climate was not becoming, with freezing winters and suffocating summers. Shops would open late and close too early, including the cafés and taverns. Everyone could smoke freely, everywhere, with no foresight or prohibitions. Houses had no janitors and no courtyards, so that in order to breathe in some fresh air, women had to look out of the front windows facing the streets, which in Turin was only done by prostitutes. Rents were expensive and, consequently, shops were expensive. Those from Piedmont ironized the Tuscan noblemen showing off their service personnel for whom they had to eradicate all other

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expenses to maintain, even food. For Florentines, appearance was evidently more important than essence. The Florence locals had more reason to complain than the recently immigrated buzzurri. Aside from the urbanistic revolution, with the city immediately transformed in a gigantic construction site with the tearing down of the ancient city walls, the

Figure 1.3  ‘Increase of rents’. Satirical vignette of the journal Il Frustino. Source: ‘Rincaro pigioni’, Il Frustino, 14 March 1865. Private Collection.

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Florence

realization of the boulevards and the new quarters, the planning of new markets, the upgrading and renovation of existing buildings and much more, there were many inconveniences and discomforts for Florentines to suffer. Taxes increased consistently, as did the prices even of necessities. Rents steadily grew, inspiring many a vignette of the cartoonist Adolfo Matarelli (the popular ‘Mata’) for the satirical journal Il Lampione. Proof of the indifference of Florentines, even of their irritation for the political class, would show in the elections for the deputy chamber held on 22 October 1865. These were the second elections held in Tuscany after those of 27 January 1861, only days before the proclamation of Italy’s unity. These elections designated the members of parliament that would convene in the new seat of the Palazzo Vecchio in the legislature inaugurated in the Salone dei Cinquecento on 18 November. In Tuscany, there were just 48,884 men holding the right to vote. For the first ballot, however, there were only 23,281 voters, and 20,946 for the second. For the four electoral constituencies of Florence, 10,879 men held the right to vote. Here, 3,559 voted the first time, and 3,819 for the second ballot. The surprise was in the results. Two seats went to the opposition, with a complete defeat of the liberals, the heirs of Cavour. Ermolao Rubieri overcame Carlo Boncompagni in the third electoral constituency of Florence. Emilio Cipriani won easily over the Catholic Eugenio Albèri in the fourth college. In the first and second electoral constituencies, the results were even more clamorous: Ubaldino Peruzzi and Bettino Ricasoli were compelled into a humiliating vote. Peruzzi obtained only 430 votes out of 2,924 holding the right to vote, and Ricasoli 571 out of 2,519 – a clear vote against the political establishment. ‘Peruzzi had held as minister of the interior, for almost two years, the fundamental administration of the Italian state, with its prefects, police commissioners and all the old centralised Napoleonic organisation,’ comments Giovanni Spadolini in his Firenze Capitale. ‘Ricasoli occupied the seat of prime minister as the first after Cavour and in October 1865, is still the strongest candidate to succeed the weak and very Piedmontese La Marmora, who was as opposed to holding the position of prime minister as he was to the treaty with the French.’18 Discomfort and the problems related to becoming a capital city in no time at all had caused the delusion of Florence’s people, who delivered punishment with their adverse vote even against the greatest heroes of Tuscany’s liberalism that had dominated the Italian political scene from 1859 and 1861. Among the city’s political currents (it would not be correct to speak yet of parties), the moderates – defined from their adversaries as consorti, a denomination clearly implying ample connivances – appeared fragmented and distant from other regional groupings of moderates and from the king himself, hostile to the ‘de-Piedmontization’ of the government. Even the two representative leaders, Ricasoli and Peruzzi, were very different from one another. Ricasoli was more detached, high in the instep, foreign to parliamentary dalliances. Peruzzi, instead, was deeply immersed in plotting and scheming, inclined to secret diplomacy and ready for any compromise. Both were unwelcome by the king, since they barely tolerated his continuous interferences in internal and foreign politics, limiting the sovereignty of Parliament. Florentine democrats also were internally divided, mirroring the differences at a national level between Mazzini and Garibaldi. Local leaders were Andrea Giannelli

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and Giuseppe Dolfi. Giannelli was an intransigent republican, abstentionist and obstinately faithful to the orthodox and inflexible left-­wing political line of Mazzini. Dolfi, on the other hand, was a baker from Borgo San Lorenzo, a temperate republican more inclined to the activism of Garibaldi than to the doctrinarianism of Mazzini. He proved not insensitive to the political approaches of Ricasoli, but remained a long-­time ally of the political battles of the marquis Bartollommei. The climate of discontent spreading in the city favoured the two radical oppositions, the nostalgics of the Grand Duke and the followers of the Church. Both had a role in the debacle of the moderates in the elections of 1865. The main aim of the so-­called party of the ‘red and black’, as often reported by Florence’s prefect to the minister of the interior, was to demolish the founding bases of the liberal united state. The movement of the sympathizers for the historic Grand Duchy profited from the dissatisfaction following the transfer of the capital city, but never became a structured political party, and it lost many adherents in the following years. Nonetheless, it  collated the nostalgia for the civil tolerance, religious emancipation, social stability and administrative autonomy characterizing the government of the Lorena family. It also ignited the antipathy for the dominance of Piedmont in the new state, typical of much of the liberals, and the cult for a localized and smaller homeland. The Clerical Movement was more structured, determined to fight against the  ideas of the modern world and defend the temporal power of the Pope-­king. Those were the years of the Sillabo – the compendium attached to the encyclical letter Quanta cura – of the condemnation of liberalism, communism, socialism and similar ‘pestilences’. Catholic opposition was born then, with its typical characteristics: the rigid electoral abstaining and the proliferation of Catholic associations actively operating in the country amidst the civil society. In Florence at the end of 1869, in the location of San Vincenzo de’ Paoli, the future Opera dei Congressi Cattolici was founded, an aggregation that in years to come would coordinate rigid opposition to the liberal state, in absolute loyalty to the teachings of Rome. In the period when the Italian Parliament held its sessions in Florence, two other elections were held: in March 1867, after the turbulent regaining of the territories of Venice, and in November 1870 after the taking of Rome. Both times the moderates were able to avoid further debacles. By then, the negative consequences of the treaty with the French had been digested by the population, while a lot of enthusiasm spread for the annexation of new territories. The non-­expedit also favoured a positive result for the moderates by prohibiting all Catholics from participating in the vote. Nonetheless, the good results of the elections in 1867 would not avert the end of the second Ricasoli government. These six years in Florence were busy for the Italian Parliament.19 Presided by Adriano Mari, the Chamber elected in October 1865 was composed – according to statistics published by the Gazzetta di Firenze on 2 February 1866 – of 162 lawyers, nineteen doctors, twenty-­two engineers, twenty-­five professors, three prelates, thirty-­ three soldiers (of which fourteen were generals), sixteen industrials and merchants, eighty-­four proprietors and nine journalists. This wide array of representatives of the Italian nation adopted, in the following years, many significant measures regarding the

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Florence

new institutional setting of the state. Laws were approved in the Palazzo Vecchio and confirmed by the Senate in the Uffizi. On 17 May 1866, the parliament conceded extraordinary powers to the  government in order to grant defence and public security in view of the war  against Austria. The powers were prorogued on 28 June. In the same session,  Parliament granted the government the capacity to reorganize the ministries by royal decrees. Thanks to its extraordinary powers, the government promulgated the law on 7 July that suppressed the religious corporations and other ecclesiastic moral bodies, a law already approved by the Chamber of Deputies on 19 June. Saturday 13 April 1867 saw the Chamber ratify the peace treaty with Austria, followed by the Senate three days later. Given that parliament did not respect days of rest, it was on Sunday 28 July that the Chamber approved the law regarding the liquidation of the ecclesiastic patrimony, an act becoming official on 15 August, after the approval of the Senate. The year 1868 witnessed a widespread discussion and the approval of a tax on wheat grinding. The tax heavily damaged the poorer classes. After the tax’s promulgation in July, riots and protest exploded throughout the entire country. On 24 August, Parliament approved the concession of the tobacco monopoly to  a private interest group with the participation of the state. The law clearly favoured interest groups that were involved with the Florentine consorteria. The ensuing scandal involving deputies, businessmen and magistrates would be the first of many in united Italy. In November 1869, libraries and state archives were reorganized by law. The Senate conclusively approved the law on 30 December that converted the royal decree accepting the plebiscite for the annexation of Rome to the Kingdom of Italy. It also voted for Rome to become the new capital of the kingdom. Physically and administratively, the capital city would be moved in July of the following summer.20 The Parliament for all this time would still operate in Florence between the Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi. A true masterpiece of parliamentary debate was the so-­called ‘law of the Guarentigie’ of 13 May 1871. The approval was preceded by an intense debate, involving both government and opposition, on the sovereignty and spiritual freedom of the Pope and on the laïcité of the state, establishing once and for all the lines of separation between the state and the church. Even from this synthetic sketch, it is undeniable that in the brief years when it resided in Florence, the Italian Parliament confronted many vital issues for the new-­ born state and set up an administrative machine that would determine the functioning of Italy for many decades to come. Vittorio Emanuele II, however, had no excessive respect for parliamentary prerogatives, real or presumed. At the same time, he didn’t like ministers who professed a certain grade of autonomy. The most insufferable of all was Bettino Ricasoli, not only for his unperturbed character, but also for his aristocratic pride. Ricasoli never allowed the king to forget that his own nobility was much older than that of the Savoia family. Ricasoli was a man of absolute honesty, great ideals and, above all, concrete action.

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During his first prime ministry, in Turin between 1861 and 1862, Ricasoli had distinguished himself for his refusal of the mundanity, including court life. He participated in court events only when compulsory for the head of the government. When the king let him know that he should wear the prime minister’s uniform during official ceremonies, Ricasoli arrogantly answered that a Ricasoli would never wear a livery. Also widely known is the anecdote which Niccolò Tommaseo recalled in his Cronichetta del 1865–66.21 There were three prime ministers parading in rapid succession before the king: Cavour, Ricasoli and Rattazzi. On those occasions, it happened that they met with the long-­time lover of the king, Rosa Vercellana, and their resulting children. Whenever this occurred, Cavour bowed slightly and moved away, Ricasoli completely ignored them by ‘escaping awkwardly’, while Rattazzi stopped and entertained the children. It goes without saying who was the preferred prime minister of Vittorio Emanuele II. In any case, after the dismissal of Minghetti and Peruzzi, who were guilty of having schemed in favour of the transfer of the capital city and of having mismanaged the riots of Turin, there was a long series of Piedmont prime ministers covering the entire period when Florence was capital. The only exception was the second government of Ricasoli, which was obliged in June 1866 to substitute the general La Marmora, as he was called to the front line in the war against Austria. There were only prime ministers from Piedmont then, with two generals among them: Menabrea and La Marmora. Let us proceed in order. After the dismissal of Marco Minghetti in September 1864, the La Marmora government included five Piedmont ministers and only one Tuscan, the technician and marine minister Diego Angioletti. The south of Italy also had only one minister, in the form of Antonio Scialoja from Naples as finance minister. The second Ricasoli government (20 June 1866) had no other Tuscans among the ministers. Nonetheless, it represented a real government of national unity, with four ministers from Piedmont, three from Lombardy and one each from Liguria, Sardinia, Romagna, Naples, Abruzzo and Sicily. In the government of Rattazzi (10 April 1867), five ministers were from Piedmont, while no Tuscans held a position. The first Menabrea government (27 October 1867) had the Tuscan Luigi Guglielmo Cambray-Digny as finance minister.22 Piedmont held three ministries. For the second Menabrea government (5 January 1868), Cambray-Digny maintained his position, while five other ministries came from Piedmont. In the third Menabrea government (13 May 1869), Antonio Mordini, a Tuscan, was minister for public works. Piedmont held six ministries. The Lanza government, under which the capital would be transferred to Rome, had no Tuscan minister, while five came from Piedmont. In summary, in all the seven governments of the Italian Kingdom when the parliamentary seat was in Florence, only four Tuscans obtained a ministry: Diego Angioletti, Bettino Ricasoli (who held the ministries of internal affairs, of justice and cults, along with the prime ministry), Luigi Guglielmo Cambray-Digny and Antonio Mordini.

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Florence

As stated, Rattazzi was the preferred prime minister of the king, the most genuine representative of that ‘party of the crown’ who moved around the sovereign and faithfully implemented his directives. After the debacle of Minghetti, Vittorio Emanuele II had in fact asked Rattazzi to lead the new government, but had to substitute him because Rattazzi was adverse to the treaty and to switching the capital city from Turin to Florence. The king therefore appointed the general La Marmora. From Piedmont, the general’s sense of duty ensured that he accepted every decision of the sovereign. In April 1866, La Marmora himself asked to be released from his governmental appointment to resume his military position. The king first considered assuming full powers, but in the end called upon Bettino Ricasoli to lead a government of national unity, to last through the war against Austria. The Tuscan baron accepted his presidency in the Palazzo Vecchio on 20 June 1866, at the last possible moment, only three days before the beginning of hostilities and four days before the defeat of Custoza. La Marmora, as Chief of Staff, could thus leave for the front only on 17 June. Responsibilities for the war disaster could be attributed to Vittorio Emanuele, to Cialdini, to La Marmora or to the admiral Persano for losing the naval battle of  Lissa. Yet ultimately what counted was that at the end of hostilities, on 8 November 1866, the king and Bettino Ricasoli could enter into Venice as part of the kingdom of Italy. In Florence, though, the relationship between the sovereign and Ricasoli was strained. The baron did not accept personal politics in internal and foreign affairs, as conducted by the king ignoring both government and Parliament. At the same time, Ricasoli did not like the excessive presence of Piedmont bureaucrats and politicians at court, which formed an almost unbreakable barrier erected around the king. In a note written on 17 November 1866, the British ambassador Sir Henry Elliot observed that the Italian king was indifferent to everything except Piedmont’s interests and his court was full ‘of his protégés, all Piedmontese, whose manners most of the time were far from respectful’.23 It comes as no surprise that immediately after the elections of 1866, the king dispensed with Ricasoli. The occasion to do arose with the proposed tax on wheat grinding to be levied in order to balance the state budget ravaged by war. Ironically, the same tax was introduced one year later by a prime minister from Piedmont. The choice for the new prime minster was resolved by nominating Rattazzi. He did not last long, being forced to resign as a consequence of the failed expedition by Garibaldi, stopped at Mentana on the way to Rome, by the innovative and deadly French rifles: the chassepots. The following prime ministry of Luigi Federico Menabrea lasted a little longer. A real change in politics, though, was only achieved by his successor, Giovanni Lanza, who imposed on the king a limitation in military expenditure, thanks to the decisive support of Quintino Sella. Crown expenditures were also curtailed and the party of the crown was downsized. The incursions of the king in foreign politics were then contained, leaving the government and Parliament with a stronger political role than before. As a consequence, Vittorio Emanuele II was impeded from forming an alliance with Napoleon III in the war against Prussia – a neutrality that would allow for the taking of Rome after the French defeat in Sedan.

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2.  Culture in the capital of Italy In the years when Florence was capital of Italy,24 many new residents arrived from Turin and from the rest of Italy. Among them were bureaucrats absorbed by the administration of the new united state. Along with politicians, public servants and journalists, Florence was also flooded by merchants and shopkeepers who transformed the small shops of the city centre into luxury stores. They sold musical instruments, porcelain, hats and many more wares of the highest quality. Madame Sarazin opened a shop for gloves and handkerchiefs. Bellom sold dresses for ladies. The Bottegone prolonged its trading hours until night-­time. Cafés like Giacosa, Elvetia and Elvetichino became popular meeting points for artists, while noblemen and rich bourgeoisie preferred Doney. The Caffè Michelangiolo experienced its last season of glory (it closed down in 1867) by becoming the centre of attraction of the Macchiaioli, revolutionary painters opposing classicism and mannerism alike. The lively cultural scene comprised eleven theatres, with four more opening between 1865 and 1871. Among them were the Politeama Vittorio Emanuele, the Arena Nazionale, the Teatro delle Logge and the Principe Umberto in Piazza D’Azeglio. All plays found their public, while journals and gazettes published popular columns on theatre life. Shows varied from tragedies to comedies, from farces to acrobatics. The highest society went to the Pergola theatre, while common folk preferred the Querconia in Via dei Cimatori. Contemporary witnesses documented how elderly people went to shows with feet- and hand-­warmers, while housewives brought all sorts of foodstuffs with them. Social events were not only public but also private. Throughout these years, Florence was famous for its salons where politics and culture were lived out with more intensity in the evenings than in daylight at the Palazzo Vecchio. On Sundays, literates and musicians met in the refined salon of the Polish Carlo Poniatowski and later in that of his daughter Isabella de Piccolellis, in Via dei Pucci. On Mondays, Florence and Piedmont’s nobility frequented the Palazzo Corsini al Prato, particularly during the Carnival for famous dances. There, in January 1866, the wonderful and uninhibited Madame Maria Letizia Rattazzi presented herself dressed as a bacchante – practically in the nude – causing an uproar and an infinite number of comments in journals, satirical folios and private correspondence. In competition with the sophistication of the Palazzo Corsini was the cultural salon, also held on Mondays, by Emilia Peruzzi in Borgo de’ Greci. Owing to the colour of the tapestries, the salon was nicknamed ‘red’. In summertime, the wife of Ubaldino Peruzzi also received her and her husband’s circle of friends in the castle of Antella on the southern hills of Florence. Among the most assiduous presences were Ruggero Bonghi and Silvio Spaventa, Pasquale Villari and Edmondo De Amicis, Giambattista Giorgini and Renato Fucini.25 In January 1868, L’eco dell’Arno, one of the numerous newspapers printed in Florence, published a piece on the Salon Peruzzi titled ‘The conversations of the Lady Erminia’ (read: Emilia). ‘What would Florentine cultural life be without the conversations of the lady Erminia?’ asked the journal. What characterises the salon, the most frequented here in Florence as in Turin, attracting all sorts of celebrities, from the literary and the political scene, and not

36

Florence just once, but again and again for months and years, as under the influence of a magical circle? A simple quality that, in our judgement, is completely independent from mere accidents and from the external advantages of birth and rank, and so all the more honours to her who possesses it and is and is more willingly acknowledged by those influenced by it. . . . A love for truth, primarily, an honest, unappeased and unbiased love for truth, exercised without fear, benefiting also those who are opposed by current social and political anthipaties: this is the principal quality of Lady Erminia.26

Emilia Peruzzi, born Toscanelli, life companion to Ubaldino (they had married in 1850) was not a great beauty. Of average height, portly, with little and perfect hands and feet (sculpted once by Lorenzo Bartolini), she had blue eyes, raven black hair and a pale and alabaster complexion. Her irregular features, though, were so mobile as to transform her appearance in accordance to her sentiments. She was no beauty, but according to the testimonies of contemporaries, she was agreeable and had a serene demeanour that lit up with joy when she welcomed friends and acquaintances. The famous art critic, senator Giovanni Morelli of Bergamo, said about her: ‘The face of Lady Emilia is not a face but the immaterial mirror of a soul, a glare of joy, affection, piety and enthusiasm.’27 ‘Angel woman’ was what many regulars of her salon called her. De Amicis had lost his mind for her and he was not the only one. ‘She was really good,’ is how he would remember her in 1902, ‘honest, logical, always herself. She irradiated with force around her the benevolence, gentleness, wonderful harmony and beneficial force that were in her soul.’28 This declaration was an echo of what he had written to her in October 1869 to announce to her the publication of his Vita Militare and to thank her for her advice and sincere friendship.29 Other literary salons were that of Carlo Placci, dear to the writer Antonio Fogazzaro, and that of Cesare Alfieri, open to the scholars of political economy and social sciences. A regular salon was held on Thursdays by the infamous Lady Rattazzi on the first floor of the Palazzo Guadagni in a ballroom with adjoining private theatre. There, the lady staged living pictures in which she herself would participate to the great appreciation of the public. Spectacles with lights, elegance of attire and vertiginous necklines were the origins of her success as hostess.30 As capital of Italy, Florence attracted many foreigners, collectively considered as being English by the local population. ‘Englishmen have arrived,’ a porter is narrated to have said in one of Florence’s fashionable hotels, ‘but I couldn’t understand if they were Russian or German.’31 Then again, the so-­called English cemetery located in the middle of the Piazza Donatello was the cemetery for all the non-Catholics. Among the most famous foreigners residing in Florence during the years that it served as capital of Italy was Fedor Dostoewskij. In 1868, the Russian author, on the run from creditors, consumed by misery and gambling and tormented by epilepsy, lived in a modest house in the Oltrarno. There he wrote The Idiot, but no one in Florence took notice of him and his masterpiece. Jules Michelet also resided in Florence during the terrible years of Napoleon III’s defeat. In 1871, he wrote there La France devant l’Europe. At the same time, political journalism flourished around the Parliament in the Palazzo Vecchio, with its plots and scandals. The newspaper La Nazione, an expression

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of liberals and moderates, set up by Bettino Ricasoli in 1859 as a symbol of national unity, further developed and increased its circulation. Other important papers transferred their headquarters to Florence, including L’Opinione directed by Giacomo Dina, Il Diritto of Depretis and Correnti, L’Italia and L’Armonia, the newspaper of the clerical opposition. Satirical journals also flourished, such as the aforementioned Il Lampione. In 1866, the Nuova Antologia, a prestigious journal edited by Francesco Protonotari, was brought to life to revive the old tradition of the Antologia, directed by Capponi and Vieusseux between 1821 and 1832. The journal was devised to confront all major problems and themes of the united Italian state from a laic point of view, in open confrontation with the Civiltà Cattolica. The involvement of Bettino Ricasoli was decisive in its establishment. In 1865, the baron had already understood that the presence in Florence of politicians, journalists and intellectuals from all regions of  Italy – Italy’s cultural elite – was a unique opportunity to create a periodical of  political culture for the open confrontation of ideas above the petty polemics  of political factions in Parliament and above the superficiality of daily newspapers.  The baron thus formed an association with the publisher Felice Le Monnier and with the future director Francesco Protonotari, Professor of Political Economy in the University of Pisa. As noted, the journal aspired to become the place for debating Italy’s concrete problems. The first issue of the Nuova Antologia presented, for example, an essay by Cristina di Belgiojoso on The Present Condition of Women and their Future.32 In 1868, the journal published the famous essay of Alessandro Manzoni on the Italian language.33 Six years before, Florence had obtained its own university, another initiative of Bettino Ricasoli that would flourish when Florence became capital of Italy.34

3.  Conclusions Six years passed from 1865 to the summer of 1871. In that time, aside from the manoeuvres and errors of politics and from the conflicts behind the setting up of the new institutions, Florence complied excellently with its duties and responsibilities as capital of Italy. Without violence and excesses, the unification process of the former Italian states proceeded. Dialects mingled, habits circulated and resentment against Piedmont diminished almost everywhere. A new climate of tolerance and reciprocal respect spread among the people through literary salons and universities, in Parliament and newspapers. Material and moral bonds were tied between those from Piedmont and Florence, bonds that would last well after Rome had become capital of Italy. An easy example is that of the Alfieri di Sostegno family of ancient Piedmont nobility. They ended up buying a villa in Florence in Via La Marmora. In 1875, Carlo Alfieri named the newly established Florentine School of Political and Social Science, the oldest in Europe after Paris, after his father, Cesare Alfieri, a former minister of the pre-­unity government in Piedmont who died in Florence in 1869.

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Many similar cases could be made. Residence in Florence did not pass without consequences for the thousands of Piedmont families that arrived from Turin in 1865. Among them was a relatively unknown young man, residing in Via Gino Capponi and working in the finance ministry, under the supervision of Quintino Sella: Giovanni Giolitti. He had resided in Florence since 1868 with his young spouse Rosa Sobrero. There he baptized three children between 1869 and 1871. Edmondo de Amicis, of Piedmont origins, as onlooker of the red salon of Emilia Peruzzi and rampant journalist of La Nazione, was the first to understand and document this profound transformation in his work Le tre capitali.35 In those pages, young Piedmont-­born mothers met around Florence and exchanged pleasantries about their children in the ‘most pure and musical Tuscan accent that has ever been heard’. The elegant women had all but forgotten the coldness and the rancour of the first days along the banks of the Arno river, with the local nannies who could not understand their language and the pranks of local news dealers and shopkeepers. All had been put behind them. If asked, these ladies would answer: Here were our children born, here our little brothers were born, with this language and this accent they called to us for the first time and spoke to us their first words; here we have friends, beaus and relatives; in Santa Croce our beloved Alfieri has been buried. This is Italy, Sir! The city where we have been born is sacred to us, but Florence is dear to our hearts and we love it.36

Florence, capital of Italy, tightly united around the symbolic person of the king, had shown what Italy really was, teaching to all citizens how to love it, thus shaping the nation’s united social identity. D’Azeglio’s wish for a strong commitment towards the construction of a responsible citizenship and of patriotic sentiments among Italy’s population had been met. Rightfully, before leaving the Palazzo Vecchio and the Uffizi, Parliament proclaimed Dante’s city as ‘meritorious to the nation’.

2

A Capital of Culture Sergio Caruso

1.  Florence, moral capital of the Italian national culture The decision to move the capital from Turin to Florence had several different motivations. The first and most compelling was for strategic reasons: with the prospect of war against Austria, Florence was considered sufficiently distant from national borders and from the coast to be secure from an enemy attack. The second was a symbolic reason that, paradoxically, rendered this choice, ratified in the September Agreement of 1864, both a sacrifice and an auspice. Indeed, as Giovanni Spadolini said, with Florence as a ‘fall-­back capital’, the Italian government was giving a clear signal to Paris that the question of Rome would be postponed, hinting at the same time that the Agreement would not be a permanent solution, just a deferment. Being located halfway between Turin and Rome, Florence was considered not only a sound strategic choice but a clear stop-­over before the ‘Eternal City’ could become capital, once freed from the Pope’s temporal control.1 Yet there was a third reason, also symbolic, that ensured everybody was in agreement with having Florence as the new capital of Italy. Florence was generally considered to be the ‘moral capital’ of Italy and, therefore, the best choice between all the other cities. This was a shared opinion beyond any possible resentment: a reason grounded in culture. In fact, Florence gave to Italy its language, the volgare fiorentino, and its national poem, the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Florence was also the city where the Accademia della Crusca was updating and revising the most reliable and famed of Italian dictionaries. Throughout the nineteenth century, Florence had also been identified as a symbol of national unity by many exponents of Italian literature. In this regard, five names are of particular relevance: Piedmont’s Alfieri and d’Azeglio, Venice’s Foscolo, Lombardia’s Manzoni and the Marches region’s Leopardi. Vittorio Alfieri died in Florence in 1803. The great tragedian, born in the city of Asti, had wanted to move to Tuscany since 1776, to lose the French hues of his native Italian dialect and learn to ‘speak and think in Italian’. Ugo Foscolo’s time in Florence from 1812 to 1813 was also an important period in his life, even if evidence of his love for the city unquestionably pre-­dated his residence there. ‘Forever in poems will you live,’ began his sonnet To Florence, already written in 1802. There are then his verses, dedicated to Florence and to the church of Santa Croce, in his poem Of the sepulchres (1807): ‘All the more blessed you that, in a temple reunited,

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/ treasure Italy’s glories.’ In that very same church, his remains would be preserved among ‘Italy’s glories’, after having been reclaimed from London by administrative order of the government. The burial ceremony was held in the Santa Croce Basilica on 4 June 1871, during the festivity of the Statute – probably the last official ceremony in Florence when it was still capital of Italy. During the Risorgimento years, Manzoni and Leopardi – in total conflict over philosophy, religion, politics and literature – shared the same love for Florence, the city in which they spent long sojourns. Just as Dante Alighieri had given Italians his grandiose poem, Alessandro Manzoni wanted to write a historical novel for Italy, assuming as linguistic canon the dialect spoken by the cultured and educated people from Florence. The first edition of his work was published in 1827 but the author still felt that something was missing. Eventually he decided to move to Florence to ‘wash his clothes in the water of the Arno river’, meaning to rewrite his novel in the local parlance. He resided in the Palace of Gianfigliazzi Bonaparte in Lungarno Corsini from August to September 1827. After much meticulous work, the final editions of The Betrothed were published in 1840 and in 1842. Around the same time, Giacomo Leopardi, who was already close to Giovan Pietro Vieusseux and his circle of friends, decided to return to Florence for a longer stay, lasting from 1830 to 1833. Even though he had a high esteem and respect for the city’s language, he was not as intransigent and inflexible as Manzoni in adopting it. Nonetheless, the Accademia della Crusca elected him as a member on 27 December 1831. Having studied at the Scuole Pie Fiorentine, a secondary school located in Via Larga (then Via Cavour), Massimo Taparelli d’Azeglio had always been attached to the city, its history and its memories. Following the example of Guerrazzi, he would eventually dedicate his second historic novel, Niccolò de’ Lapi, to the city’s siege of 1530. The novel recounted a dramatic story. Its climax consisted in the scene in which Niccolò sees his sons departing. ‘O Florence!’ the old man exclaimed, ‘O birthplace of mine! Nothing more I have left if not those lives I now donate to you.’2 With this novel, the author, in the midst of the national Risorgimento, presented the martyrdom of Florence’s antique Republic as a symbol of the present tribulations of Italy, with a cautious hope for rebirth.

2.  The question of language and the making of new vocabularies After moving to Florence on 3 February 1865, the government and the king were aware that having achieved political unity, the unification of Italy’s many dialects into one language was one of the main issues still to be resolved. In 1868, under the second Menabrea government, the Ministry of Education (then located in Piazza San Firenze) was governed by Emilio Broglio, of Milanese origins. The Florentines, renowned for being readily mean and spiteful, sincerely disliked him. Eventually they invented an irreverent and disrespectful litany in which Broglio was equalled to a braying donkey. The poor man, though, was not an asinine fool and merits credit for raising the question

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of language at a governmental level. He even instituted a parliamentary commission on the issue and entrusted its presidency to Alessandro Manzoni, who had been senator of the Kingdom of Sardinia and then of the Kingdom of Italy. Manzoni, who had voted in favour of Florence as capital in the Senate of Turin, wrote a report to the minister in which he supported the idea of adopting the Florentine dialect as a national language. He also recommended the widespread use of teachers from Tuscany in elementary schools, compulsory trips to Tuscany for schools from all over the country and the eventual compiling of a new lexicon, adjusted to the Florentine dialect of the time.3 To this latter end, Manzoni sought out the collaboration of Tuscan intellectuals such as Giovan Battista Giorgini, a jurist from Lucca and son-­in-law of Manzoni himself, plus Carlo Lorenzini, today universally known as Collodi (at the time a renowned journalist, but not nearly as famous as he would become after the publication of his The Adventures of Pinocchio in 1883). Obviously, the drafting of the new language required a number of qualified philologists. One of them, Pietro Fanfani, lexicographer and palaeographer, was himself the author of a Florentine dictionary (in reality a collection of words and terms explained in order to satirically flog many contemporary writers).4 Obviously, while Fanfani was considered a qualified philologist, Lorenzini and Giorgini were not. The language task, under the intentions of Minister Broglio, was to construct a dictionary suitable for everybody, a resource for the masses and not just for educated people. This dictionary was not about the research of a term and its meaning through the history of literature (as the Accademia della Crusca had always done); it was more about clarifying the meaning that normal people attached to the word itself. It took more than ten years to complete the first volume. To be fair, however, the ninth edition of the Florentine dictionary5 did not become as famous as the minister and authors expected. Perhaps the dictionary was too modern for the times. Surely the transfer of the capital to Rome did not help. In any case, this attempt shows how in Florence, especially in the years under study, the interest in languages had grown in relation to the definition of a national lexicon. Meanwhile, in complete autonomy, the Accademia della Crusca (the most ancient linguistic academy in the world that, since 1538, has been used as a model for all others) proceeded with its work. During the time when Florence was capital of Italy, the Accademia was busy editing the fifth edition of its historical dictionary of the Italian language. In 1863, the first volume, dedicated to the Italian king Vittorio Emanuele II, had just been published. Brunone Bianchi directed the work in its initial phases, to be overseen by the newly elected and erudite secretary of the academy, Cesare Guasti. The central figure of the whole endeavour, though, was the Dalmatian writer Niccolò Tommaseo, a great patriot and friend of Gino Capponi. Tommaseo was already well known for having published a still-­unequalled Italian Dictionary of Synonyms6 in 1830 when he was just twenty-­eight years old.7 As underlined by Luti8 at a public assembly of the Accademia della Crusca, Tommaseo himself gave the famous speech On the Unity of the Italian Language, which explained the reasons for the new edition of the dictionary. Niccolò Tommaseo was, at the same time, also busy with the creation of yet another dictionary, the today-­mythical Tommaseo/Bellini edition comprised of eight volumes

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published by the editor Pomba in Turin between 1861 and 1874.9 The dictionary had a different rationale in respect to that of the Accademia della Crusca. Rather than researching the philological history of a meaning in ancient literature, the dictionary contained examples and wordings of modern and contemporary authors such as Manzoni, Foscolo and Leopardi. All great Italian writers, for generations to come, would refer to the Tommaseo/Bellini, one of the foremost exponents being the demanding Gabriele D’Annunzio. The Tommaseo/Bellini would remain the most important and accurate Italian dictionary for decades.

3.  The publishing industry At the time when Florence was capital of Italy, many of the publishing houses that would characterize twentieth-­century Italian literary history weren’t yet established. Among them were names that would honour the Florentine tradition of publishing like Giunti, Olschki, La Nuova Italia, Marzocco, Sansoni, Vallecchi and many others. Some of them did already exist, however, and they gained more and more importance over time.10 In 1833, Felice Le Monnier, a young French typographer with great ambition, opened a typography company in Grand Ducal Florence that would become, at national level, one of the most important publishing houses thanks to its ‘Biblioteca Nazionale Italiana’ series of books. Le Monnier, adopting a reckless and unscrupulous strategy (he memorably ‘stole’ and published The Betrothed of Manzoni, who had to win back his copyrights in court), proposed to a wide public curated editions of Italian literature classics at affordable prices. Today, all bibliophiles will immediately recognize the rose book covers of this first series of Le Monnier’s ‘Biblioteca Nazionale Italiana’ in antiquarian bookshops. In 1859, the typography became one of the first limited companies in Florence, the Società Successori Le Monnier. Its first president was Baron Bettino Ricasoli. In 1862, its premises were in Via San Gallo (in the same location that would later be occupied by the great Florentine bibliophile, Giovanni Spadolini). In the years 1864–71, one person stood out among the publisher’s advisers: the historian Pasquale Villari. Thanks to him, the publishing house could affirm itself in educational literature for schools and universities. Le Monnier proved itself to be also a great school for future publishers. Many young people, after learning their trade in Via San Gallo, left to open their own publishing houses and become independent, the most famous being Adriano Salani and Gaspero Barbèra. Adriano Salani, a born-­and-bred Florentine and typographer in the Oltrarno area, had set up his own publishing business in 1862. At the beginning, Salani published popular literature that was mainly comprised of almanacs, romances and gory dramas, but then grew to specialize in educational and children’s literature, areas in which this publisher still enjoys great success. Gaspero Barbèra also began his career as a typographer. He worked for Le Monnier for fourteen years before opening his own typography in 1845 in Via Guelfa, in association with the brothers Beniamino and Celestino Bianchi (who moved to the new location from their premises in Piazza Santa Croce). In the 1850s, thanks to the collaboration with Niccolò Tommaseo and Giosuè Carducci, two important book

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series were born: the ‘Collezione Gialla’ (Yellow Collection) and the ‘Collezione Diamante’ (Diamond Collection, so called because of the minuscule font used in the books, chosen to minimize the volumes’ size). Only in 1860, though, after the peaceful annexation of Tuscany to the Kingdom of Sardinia, the publisher Barbèra, Bianchi & Comp. became, officially and formally, the Barbèra Company. In contrast with the publisher Salani, Barbèra preferred the company of refined intellectuals. It was thanks to their advice that he never erred in the literary scene, preferring to choose attentively the books to be published. He thus became acknowledged as a high-­quality publisher. His mission was confirmed by the logo he imprinted in all his books: a bee on a rose above the motto, ‘I shan’t seek any other lure.’ Apparently, his friend, Cesare Guasti, had suggested this Francesco Petrarca11 quote to him. In the years under study, Barbèra was particularly occupied with the publishing of the works of Galileo Galilei, edited by the philosopher and pedagogue Augusto Conti. Given his history and unrelenting efforts in quality publishing, the memoirs of Barbèra are an important part of Florentine cultural history.12 Along with typographer-­publishers, Florence also had examples of bookshop-­ publishers, the most important being Felice Paggi. The enterprise, located in Via del Proconsolo in the area where all book stores and stationery shops were concentrated, had been founded by Alessandro Paggi in 1840 and then directed by his son, Felice. A Jewish family from Siena, the Paggis dedicated their efforts to high-­quality publications, particularly in the field of medicine. In the 1840s and 1850s, though, they also published certain literature works with a strong patriotic colouring. This interest caused many a problem with the police and the authorities of the Grand Duchy, but also granted to Paggi the long-­lasting esteem and regard among the people of Florence. Thanks to this popular affection, the publisher would grow and flourish in the years after Italy’s unification and particularly when the capital was located in Florence. The Paggi publishing house would, in the end, represent one of the most important Florentine companies in the publishing branch. In 1889, indeed, Felice Paggi sold his enterprise to his nephews Roberto and Enrico Bemporad, who transformed it into R. Bemporad & Figlio (later Bemporad Marzocco). Another important book store that went into the publishing business was that of Eugenio and Filippo Cammelli. The bookshop, located in Piazza della Signoria, was replete with all kind of volumes regarding medicine and law, constituting a reference point for all university students. As a publisher, Cammelli printed for example the Neurofisiology Notes by Moritz Schiff.13 Schiff, was, at the time, a professor at the University of Florence and a highly controversial figure, dedicated to the spread of materialistic ideas in Italy.

4.  Newspapers and journals La Nazione – still the most popular daily newspaper in the city today – was founded on 13 July 1859, thanks to the involvement of Bettino Ricasoli. It thus already existed when Florence became the new capital of the kingdom. In 1865, the chief editor was lawyer Piero Puccioni (brother-­in-law of the architect Giuseppe Poggi, who was behind

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the much-­debated redevelopment of Florence that completely changed the appearance of the city). Puccioni’s successors would be Raimondo Brenna in 1869, who was implicated in the scandal of the Regìa dei Tabacchi, and Giuseppe Civinini from Pistoia from 1869 to 1871. Civinini would be the most significant director for the development and the history of the newspaper and, therefore, for Florentine culture in general.14 Civinini was a follower of Garibaldi, politically close to left-wing Francesco Crispi. He too became involved in the scandal involving the Manifattura Tabacchi, but came out clean from the ensuing trial. He deepened the cultural content of La Nazione by adding columns dedicated to literature and music and welcoming short stories from Italian and foreign authors. Some of the Italians were very promising young writers such as Ferdinando Martini, Giuseppe Bandi and Mario Pratesi. La Nazione also published talented American and British authors, among whom was Charles Dickens. Under the pseudonym of Forsitan, Civinini himself wrote the column named ‘Conversazioni del Giovedì’ (Thursday’s Conversations), articles with an elevated political and literary content, posthumously published in a volume by his sister.15 La Nazione might have been the most important newspaper of Florence but it was not the only one. Its main competitor was Il Pensiero Italiano, a paper born in the old capital of Turin that moved to Florence in 1865. The chief editor was Giuseppe Augusto Cesana, a journalist and entrepreneur from Piedmont who also founded a satirical journal in 1870 that was named after an Italian captain of Arms, the Fanfulla. The title hinted at the combative stance of the journal, on the barricades against political and economic malpractices of the governing elite. In this venture, Cesana was flanked by Francesco de Renzis and Giovanni Piacentini. The editor and owner of Fanfulla should also be remembered: Emanuele Oblieght, another main character in Florence’s cultural scene in the years under study. Oblieght was the first to understand the importance of advertising in general and for periodicals in particular. He was born Obladt Ernő in Budapest, the first-­born of the rabbi Obladt Samuel. An entrepreneur, Oblieght moved to Florence and opened an advertising agency that managed most of the fourth pages of local newspapers and journals (the fourth page being, at the time, that which contained advertisements and commercials). In 1871, as the capital moved to Rome, Oblieght followed with all his enterprises, Fanfulla included. In Rome, he further set up the Società Generale Italiana per la Pubblicità (Italian General Advertisement Agency), and the Fanfulla della Domenica, one of the first political and literary supplementary issues of the Italian press. Among the many journals published in Florence in the 1860s, the Archivio Storico Italiano and the Nuova Antologia (incredibly and meritoriously still in print) deserve at least a mention. The first one was founded by Giovan Pietro Vieusseux and Gino Capponi in 1842. Many famous intellectuals had contributed to it throughout the years. Among them were Michele Amari, Niccolò Tommaseo, Raffaello Lambruschini and Marco Tabarrini. In 1864, after the death of Vieusseux, the Archivio Storico Italiano had become the publishing organ of the historical association Deputazione di storia patria della Toscana, Umbria, Marche, a stronghold of the cultural scene referring to the political faction of the moderates.16 The Nuova Antologia, rather, was set up by Francesco Protonotari in 1866 to revive the lines of study and research followed by Vieusseux in the first half of the nineteenth

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century. After two years, the same entourage would bring to life the Società Italiana di Economia Politica (Italian Society of Political Economy), dedicated to spreading liberal economic theory.17 In the new capital of the kingdom, many purely political journals were also printed. Lo Zenzero (The Ginger) was a popular political newspaper of radical, democratic and anticlerical inspiration founded in 1862. As Lo Zenzero Primo it would survive until 1869. As its title suggests, the newspaper wanted to spice up the political scene. Much space was dedicated to political satire, but many articles of serious analysis were also published. Among the collaborators of Lo Zenzero were Pietro Cironi and Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi. Under the influence of Francesco Crispi, La Riforma was founded in 1867 to represent the views of the parliamentary left-­wing. The newspaper was directed by Antonio Oliva, a follower of Garibaldi. Among its political battles was male universal suffrage, the abolition of the death penalty and compulsory public education. La Riforma, like Fanfulla, followed the capital to Rome in 1871.18 Close to the views of the governing right-­wing was the newspaper L’Italia Nuova (1870–71), born at the end of the period when Florence was capital and published by Gaspero Barbèra. The newspaper was directed by Angelo Bargoni, who had been minister of education in the third Menabrea government (13 May 1869–14 December 1869).

5.  The pedagogues, schools and university To its political vocation grounded in history, as capital of the kingdom Florence added a pedagogical vocation of catholic and liberal inspiration that well matched the political programme of the moderates. The initial interest of Gino Capponi, in effect, had concerned the philosophy of education, a fact underlined by the later studies of Giovanni Gentile.19 Adverse to the ideas of Rousseau, Capponi distrusted the free expression of the individual. Education, rather, was necessary – an education not limited to family and school, but complexly interwoven in the moral and institutional context. Raffaello Lambruschini, president of the Accademia dei Georgofili (1867) and also Professor of Pedagogy (and later superintendent) at the Istituto di Studi Superiori Pratici e di Perfezionamento (Institute of Practical Higher Studies and Improvement) referred to these same ideas. Another representative of this pedagogical streak of Florentine culture was Augusto Conti, a mediocre philosopher yet excellent pedagogue and popularizer. His edition of the works by Galileo Galilei that was published by Barbèra has already been cited. In regard to Florence’s schools, one of excellence was the lyceum ‘Dante’ (still open today), defined by Augusto Conti in a letter as the first and best high school in Italy. The ‘Dante’ was founded in 1853 as the first laïcité high school in Florence, immediately achieving outstanding quality. After unification, the ‘Dante’ had come under the direct control of the Ministry of Education, without impacting on its schooling excellence. Among its professors of letters, for example, were the renowned linguists and literates Isidoro Del Lungo and Giuseppe Rigutini. Notwithstanding its humanistic lean, the

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Figure 2.1  The school teacher. Source: ‘Il maestro di scuola’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 1, no. 25, 18–24 November 1864. Private Collection.

‘Dante’ also featured a physics laboratory. With all of Italy looking to Florence, as its capital, the ‘Dante’ became an example for all Italian schools to follow. Many of them referred directly to the Florentine lyceum for programming and teaching solutions.20 Some courses of a university level were also taught there. The ‘Dante’ was, in fact, the seat of the chair of moral and speculative philosophy, held between 1862 and 1867 by a unique physician-­philosopher figure in Apulia’s Pietro Siciliani (pupil of another physician-­philosopher and also historian in medicine living in Florence, Francesco Puccinotti from Urbino). With concern to university, it has to be mentioned that even if the University  of Florence was institutionalized only in 1924, sections of the Istituto di Studi  Superiori Pratici e di Perfezionamento assumed in the 1860s the substantial dignity of autonomous faculties. Until then, it had been conceived as having an ancillary position in respect to the universities of Pisa and Siena. Yet in 1866, its Philosophy and Philology departments would become the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy.21 The Piedmontese Cesare Alfieri di Sostegno, Conte della Cassa, died in Florence in April 1869. Cousin of the famous Vittorio Alfieri, during his lifetime Cesare Alfieri had been a chief diplomat and grand comis of the Kingdom of Sardinia, a young ambassador in St Petersburg, co-­author of the constitutional chart of Piedmont then ultimately President of pre-­unity Piedmont (1855–60) and a senator of the Kingdom of Italy.

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Cesare Alfieri had followed the capital, moving his family from Turin to Florence to continue being present in the Senate’s sessions. On 15 June 1871, two years after his death, in a hall in the ground floor of the Uffizi, in ‘what would still be for two weeks the Florentine seat of the Senate’, his son, Carlo Alfieri, would promote ‘a preliminary and informative meeting to study the possibility of setting up in Florence an institute for the teaching of moral and political sciences’.22 The idea obviously was to develop in Florence a centre of diplomatic, political-­ administrative and socio-­political studies to educate the new governing elite of the Italian state. The future Faculty of Political Science would so be born as the Cesare Alfieri School of Social Studies in 1875, the first one in Italy.

6.  Florentine culture between localisms and international presences As they have been depicted up to this point with their excellences and international aspirations, Florence and Tuscany represented only part of the general picture. The life-­ work of Giovanni Spadolini continuously reminds one of the existence and persistence of a Firenzina and Toscanina whose greatest ambition was to maintain the present or past state of things. Not many remember that Florentines, together with the inhabitants of Turin, outraged by the Treaty of 1864, were the greatest opponents to becoming the seat of the Italian government. Outside of the circle of patriots reigned a ‘paralysing and narrow sentiment of Toscanina’, according to which everything had to remain as it was because nothing could be better than the past. This generalized mood found expression between 1863 and 1867 in ‘the federalist paper Firenze, directed by Eugenio Alberi, a mixture of nostalgia for the Government of the Lorena family and vague apprehensions as in Giuseppe Montanelli’.23 The paper was also tempted by clerical reminiscences and, in fact, had very little to do with real federalist aspirations. Among the political theorists of the opposing faction – and with a higher profile – was Atto Vannucci, protagonist of the Tuscan Risorgimento and, at the time of Florence as capital of Italy, senator of the kingdom with a political position that had evolved from a complete supporter of Mazzini to liberalism in the wake of Cavour. As a young teacher in the Cicognini college in Prato, Vannucci had taught Cesare Guasti. Guasti, after a brilliant career as a philologist in the Accademia della Crusca, and as an archivist (he set up the central archive of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1852), was called upon in 1870 to participate in the ministerial Commission for reorganizing and equalizing in terms of efficiency the archives that the Italian state had inherited from all pre-­unity states.24 At least some words must be spent on the contribution made by foreign residents to Florence’s cultural life. Ernesto Emanuele Oblieght has already been mentioned, but there were many others of manifold nationalities. A number would integrate in the local elite by adhering to the Concordia freemasonry lodge that, founded in 1861 just after the unification of Italy, would be the most important in Florence for sixty years, up until the advent of Fascism.25 The French Chambion, the Russians Herzen and Bakunin and the English Stibbert all participated in this lodge.

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Claude Henry Amédée Chambion was a long-­time resident in Tuscany. Naturalized with the Italian name Enrico Chambion, he became a conciliar member of the municipality of Sesto Fiorentino. In respect to bigger cities such as Florence, medical assistance was scarce in small centres such as Sesto, yet Chambion was involved in many initiatives as a physicist aiding the local population. Chambion had radical and democratic political ideals and so signed an appeal to the electorate of the Santa Maria Novella area during the elections of 1867, in support of the democratic candidate Ermolao Rubieri. He also willed the lodge he himself set up in Florence to be named ‘Progresso Sociale’ (Social Progress). When, later on, he returned to govern the Concordia lodge, he spent his efforts eradicating all associates who did not correspond to the Ideal. Aleksandr Aleksandrovič Herzen – son of Aleksandr Ivanovič Herzen, a theoretician of populism and among the most important Russian intellectuals of the first half of the nineteenth century – moved to Florence in 1863 to become assistant of the chair of comparative physiology and anatomy, held by Moritz Schiff. In 1876, he succeeded Schiff for the same chair. In Florence, Herzen married the daughter of a Florentine scrap merchant, Teresa Felici, with whom he had ten children. In the years spent in Florence, from 1863 to 1881 when he was appointed to the University of Losanna, Herzen was not only a clinician and professor, but a full-­fledged intellectual. His commitment was not uniquely political and humanitarian, as per Chambion, but also philosophical and cultural. Together with Schiff and others, he contributed to the diffusion of materialistic ideas (those of Büchner and Moleschott, but not yet of Marx) and of evolutionism (Darwin). The ‘materialistic’ circle, animated by Herzen and Schiff, greatly attracted many Florentine intellectuals. It is plausible that the diffusion of such ideas was also the result of the two extensive stays in Florence of the leader of anarchism, Michail Aleksandrovič Bakunin. Herzen convinced Bakunin to become affiliated with freemasonry in the hope of making new proselytes through the lodge. In effect, with the help of two other affiliates – Niccolò Lo Savio and Giuseppe Dolfi, exponents of the Fratellanza Artigiana (Artisans Fraternity) and as such of the new­born workers movement – Bakunin set up a journal expressing ideas that could be tolerated by authorities in Il Proletario (The Proletarian). The journal was published from 1865 to 1866 and had a peak of 1,500 subscribers.26 In the same years when Florence was capital of Italy, the United States were plagued by the Secession War. The diplomatic representative of the Union (as the United States was still called) was George Perkins Marsh, who, along with his second wife Caroline Crane Marsh, had to move with Italy’s capital from Turin to Florence and then to Rome. Both Mr and Mrs Marsh were highly cultured people. Caroline was a notable art collector. Her husband, a fine politician, is considered to be the forefather of ecologist thought. He wrote a book entitled Man and Nature, or: Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action; this, in the spirit of American transcendentalism, preached care for the environment as a responsibility of almost religious nature, part of a vaster environmental ethics. The first edition of the book was published in Turin, but the second Florentine edition was much augmented by the author thanks to fruitful contacts with the Accademia dei Georgofili. Marsh, in effect, came to attribute to Italy

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certain merits in regard to the patrimony of caretaking of its woods. The influence was reciprocal, since the ideas of G. P. Marsh (again broadened in the third Roman edition of his work) were taken in consideration in the parliamentary debate on the law on forests in 1877.27

7.  The English: Frederick Stibbert Naturally, there were also the English, a cultural and human presence that was constantly part of the picture in Florence. During the Grand Duchy a cemetery for  the non-Catholics was even built that, not by chance, was and is until today known as the English cemetery. The Architect Poggi designed Piazza Donatello as an oval square to embrace the cemetery with the new boulevards. In the nineteenth century, the countryside and the villas between Florence and Siena were not yet known as Chiantishire (as they are today, ironically hinting at the extensive colony of British citizens enamoured with Tuscany’s rural area), but many English intellectuals had already chosen Florence as their city. The most illustrious example is that of the poetess Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her husband Robert Browning, living in Casa Guidi in Via Maggio from 1847 until 1861. In regard to art critics and historians, the tradition of Anglo-Florentines would continue into the twentieth century with Harry Brewster (born in the United States but of British citizenship) and Sir Harold Acton (pure-­bred English). In the years when Florence was capital of Italy, however, the Anglo-Florentine par excellence was Frederick Stibbert, a young and wealthy art collector, known as ‘Federigo’ Stibbert. He was born in Florence to a Tuscan mother, Giulia Cafaggi from the Casentino area, and an English father, but was educated in England until the age of eleven. In 1849, upon the death of his father, Colonel Thomas Stibbert, his mother decided to move back to Italy to a villa formerly of the Davanzati family on the hill of Montughi. That same house, extensively renovated, today hosts the Museum Stibbert and its magnificent collections of antique weapons and books, antiquarian furniture and paintings, porcelains and historic costumes from all around the world. Most of the acquisitions were effectuated during the 1860s and 1870s, when the young Federigo became the sole heir of a substantial fortune acquired by his English grandfather in India. The inheritance allowed him to transform the villa, as already planned by his mother, with a unique blend of English and Italian styles. The villa so became a small neo-­gothic castle, flanked by a stable (both mother and son possessed prized horses) and a limonaia (lemon tree conservatory), realized in neoclassical style by the architect Poggi himself. Poggi also redesigned the garden to become a romantic English park, with caves, water plays and exotic architecture (such as a small Hellenistic temple with a cupola of majolica and a small Egyptian temple with a lily pond). The renovations were completed between 1858 and 1864. The life of Federigo Stibbert, though, was not only that of a rich collector and an aesthete dedicated to his pleasures.28 He was initiated to freemasonry at the beginning of the 1860s in the Concordia lodge with all the aforementioned personages and had also absorbed from infancy the tradition of military service from his father and

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grandfather. As such, in 1866, he volunteered in Garibaldi’s infantry in the Italian Voluntary Corp and fought in the Battle of Condino (16 July 1866), one of the worst of the Third Independence War. There, he earned a silver honour medal ‘showing British value and Italian conscience’ (so it would be remembered in La Nazione of 27 April 1909, three years after his death, on the occasion of the opening to the public of the Museum in which he wanted to host his collections).

8.  Architects and sculptors As to artists, given the grand transformations that preceded, accompanied and followed the years when Florence was capital of Italy, the first and foremost characters were architects. In order of birth, there was Gaetano Baccani (1792), Niccolò Matas (1798), Mariano Falcini (1804), Emilio De Fabris (1807) and Giuseppe Poggi (1811). They were all born in the province of Florence, except for Matas, who was born in Ancona. Gaetano Baccani oversaw the construction of the bell tower of the Basilica of Santa Croce. The tower was designed in 1842 but finished only in 1865. Niccolò Matas was the designer of the façade of Santa Croce that was completed in 1863. Teacher at the Accademia Fiorentina di Belle Arti and associate of Giuseppe Poggi, Mariano Falcini was, together with Marco Treves and Vincenzo Micheli, among the architects who designed the Major Israelite Temple – the new synagogue, built between 1874 and 1882 but already projected in 1868 thanks to a bequest by David Levi. In collaboration with Matas and Falcini, Baccani also worked on the enlargement of the monumental cemetery of the Porte Sante on the rear of the church of San Miniato al Monte, finished in 1864. The enlargement had its rationale in the easier access that the whole area would have in the new urbanistic systematization planned by Poggi. San Miniato al Monte would be on the route planned for the new avenue through the hills in Florence’s south, a long passeggiata from Porta Romana to the bridge of San Niccolò with a panoramic stop at the terrace of Piazzale Michelangelo. Giuseppe Poggi – engineer, architect and urbanist – is too well known to be discussed further. Referring to existing and exhaustive studies,29 I wish only to mention that he was assigned to plan the urbanistic redevelopment of Florence, the so-­called Risanamento of 1864. In 1865, the old city walls were demolished to make space for the new Parisian-­style avenues. The Piazzale Michelangelo was inaugurated in 1869, when Florence still was capital of Italy. The whole overhaul, though, would not be completed before 1895. Another relevant public work during these years would be the façade of the Cathedral, planned for when that of Santa Croce had been completed. Emilio De Fabris won the contest for realizing the façade of Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral in 1867, but work was concluded only in 1887, four years after the death of the architect. Close to architects and often associated with them in altering the appearance of the city were the sculptors. Most important among them was Giovanni Duprè, whose creations are nowadays displayed also in the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg. Duprè was born in Siena but learned his art in the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, going on to open his atelier there in Via degli Artisti. Many of his works are scattered

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Figure 2.2  Florence. Panorama from the Viale dei Colli (1870s). Source: Firenze. Panorama dal viale dei Colli, photograph. Private Collection.

throughout Italy, but the core of the gypsum models made in his Florentine atelier, the so-­called Gipsoteca Duprè, is now displayed in the limonaia of the villa Duprè in Fiesole. Among the sculptures that can be seen walking around Florence, the most famous is the so-­called Ferrari monument (1864) located in a chapel of the Basilica  of San Lorenzo. The funerary monument is dedicated to the Danish countess Berta Moltke-Huitfeldt af Bregentved, wife of the Cavalier Luigi Ferrari-Corbelli who commissioned it. The urn is upheld by two allegorical figures representing the virtues of modesty and charity, surmounted by the Angel of Resurrection on the verge of  flying away, while a female figure is sculpted so as to seem somewhat reluctant to follow him, clearly representing the dead countess’s soul embraced by the Angel. The fascination of the monument lies in the tension between the serenity of the neoclassical form of the composition and the symbolic significance of the embrace, being decisively romantic. Funerary art was often practised by Giovanni Duprè, who also collaborated with the architect Matas in the extension of the Porte Sante cemetery. In effect, Duprè was never an isolated and introverted artist, closed up in his atelier. His autobiographical reminiscences, Pensieri sull’arte e ricordi autobiografici, published in 1879,30 three years before his death, provides clear testimony on how the artist ‘was tied to the cultural and political Catholic circles of Florence, under the influence of Niccolò Tommaseo and of his friend Cesare Guasti’.31 The affinity of Duprè with Catholicism caused a major skirmish with another great contemporary sculptor, the laic Enrico Pazzi from Ravenna. It was a painful argument for Duprè, who had been the teacher of Pazzi since his arrival in Florence in 1853.

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Pazzi is the creator of the Dante statue now positioned to the left of the Santa Croce Basilica, which originally stood in the middle of the homonymous square. The statue had been inaugurated by Vittorio Emanuele II in 1865 in a solemn ceremony marking the 600th anniversary of Dante’s birth. The celebration was the first since Florence had become capital of Italy and was thus also an occasion to honour this occurrence. The origin of great argument between Duprè and Pazzi was the commission for a statue of Girolamo Savonarola to be positioned in the convent of San Marco. To truly understand the importance of the quarrel – as underlined by Claudio Paolini in the wake of Régine Bonnefoit32 – it must be borne in mind that in those years, the figure of the friar acquired a huge political significance as a symbol of opposition to the Pope and to the Church. The problem of Rome had, in fact, called into question all relations between the Catholic Church and the Kingdom of Italy, already damaged by the attitude of Pio IX towards the Risorgimento. Two committees formed, one of which proposed to assign the statue to Duprè. His model maintained the features of the intense portrait of Savonarola painted by fellow friar, Bartolomeo. At this point, though, Enrico Pazzi divulged the existence of a model for a statue of Savonarola, dating back to 1861, that he himself had autonomously prepared outside any commission or contest. The design presented the friar as a sort of genius loci or tutelary deity of the city, with his right arm propelled forward and a cross in his hand, as to indicate the way of true faith, beyond any human consideration, with his left hand protectively resting on the head of the Marzocco (a lion symbolizing Florence). In 1870, a third committee, presided by the Prince Ferdinando Strozzi, championed the proposal of Enrico Pazzi, favouring a more decisively anti-­papal interpretation of Savonarola in respect to the more conciliatory proposal of the Duprè committee. Initially the municipality granted this latter committee with permission to erect the statue in the cloister of the convent, but in the end both statues were completed. With the support of many Catholic intellectuals, the statue of Duprè, even if downsized to a relief and a bust, was the first to be inaugurated, in 1873, positioned in the cell of the friar in San Marco. ‘The monument of Pazzi, rather, given its high costs (the crisis of the transfer of the capital city to Rome had hit Florence in the meantime) was finished only in 1875.’33 Pazzi would have wanted his statue to be displayed on the Arengario of the Palazzo Vecchio, replacing the David of Michelangelo that had been transferred to the Galleria dell’Accademia. The statue of Savonarola would so have been positioned in the same square where the friar had been hanged and burned for heresy, a provocation that was considered excessive from both an artistic and political point of view. The statue, after a short sojourn in the Salone de’ Cinquecento, was therefore positioned in 1921 in an elegant square, designed by Poggi, that, on the occasion, was entitled after Girolamo Savonarola.

9.  Painting: Florentines and foreigners The years when Florence was capital of Italy were particularly eventful for painting. A new group of painters was completely changing the traditional aesthetics: the Macchiaioli. These were so named by a journalist in reference to their technique of

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painting with large blotches of pure colour. In opposition with neoclassical gravitas, romantic emphasis and symbolic complexity, the Macchiaioli painted in an apparently simple manner and in a ‘natural’ way. They so uniquely blended realism and lyricism, the objectivity of an almost scientific analysis united with the affection for known places (usually Tuscan landscapes) and the people depicted in them. The movement was born in Florence from a spontaneous aggregation of artists who met between the 1850s and 1860s at the Caffè Michelangelo in Via Larga (then Via Cavour) 21, in polemic with the academic painters of the nearby Piazza San Marco (where the Accademia di Belle Arti was located). The movement then organized itself as the Scuola di Piagentina, deriving its name from what is today a section of the city (located near the Affrico river and characterized by many beautiful art nouveau buildings constructed around the end of the nineteenth century) that at the time represented the boundary between the city and the surrounding countryside. In 1861, in fact, the painter Silvestro Lega moved there to the Villa Batelli di Piagentina, soon  sto be followed by other friends and artists Telemaco Signorini, Odoardo Borrani, Giuseppe Abbati and Raffaello Sernesi, all fascinated by the rural sceneries and the resemblance to a rural borough still offered by the area. Nonetheless, not all paintings of the Macchiaioli resemble bucolic intimism. Telemaco Signorini applied the same pictorial style and realism to canvasses that today would be defined as socially engaged. For example, La sala delle agitate al san Bonifazio (see frontispiece), painted in 1865, crudely and dramatically represented the psychiatric ward of the Florentine hospital located in Via San Gallo in the building that presently hosts the police headquarters. Along with the change in style of painting, art critique developed a new maturity. Journalist Diego Martelli was central in this regard, contributing to many Florentine newspapers (among them La Nazione and Lo Zenzero). Returning from the front, after volunteering in the Third Independence War in 1866, Martelli, who befriended many of the Macchiaioli, founded, financed and directed Il Gazzettino delle Arti del Disegno (The Gazette of Drawing Arts) in collaboration with Telemaco Signorini and Maurizio Angeli. It should be noted that Angeli stood as a model for the painting Uomo che Legge nel Bosco (Man Reading in the Woods), painted between 1867 and 1871. Published in Florence, Martelli’s Gazette survived only one year, its first issue dated 26 January 1867, its last 7 December 1867. Nonetheless, it had a certain influence on art critique and represented ‘the first concrete expression of Martelli’s endorsement of the Macchiaioli movement’.34 There were also numerous and relevant foreign artists and critics – and, more precisely, German critics – in the capital Florence. Why Germans? For at least two reasons. The first: a rich collector from Munich, Count Adolf Friederich von Schack, could not obtain the original masterpieces he so loved from Italy. He began to finance Italian sojourns in Venice, Florence and Rome for many young German painters, asking in exchange for exact copies of the paintings preserved in local churches and museums. The second: the existence in Florence of a circle of German-­speaking art lovers that became a point of attraction to German artists. The circle included artists, art critics and art historians who met in the house of the Estonian Baron Carl Eduard von Liphart. Since 1862, Liphart had resided in Via Romana,

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where he collected an impressive series of paintings and a notable library of art volumes. His knowledge of art was impressive. In 1867, it was Liphart himself who recognized the hand of Leonardo da Vinci in the Annunciazione that had just been delivered to the Uffizi. The Kunsthistorisches Institut von Florenz (Institute for Art History in Florence), officially founded in 1897, was directly derived from his circle of friends. Among the painters who were financed by Count von Schack to travel in Italy, as of 1863–64, were many illustrious names of nineteenth-­century German painting: Arnold Böcklin, Anselm Feuerbach, Franz Seraph von Lenbach and Hans von Marées. All of them mainly resided in Rome, but were nonetheless in love with Florence. Franz von Lenbach moved to Florence in 1865 and painted numerous portraits there, such as the Ludwig I, King of Bavaria (1866), now in Munich. Hans von Marées was much too vivacious to limit his production to the copies requested by Schack. During his first trip in Italy, staying in Rome between 1866 and 1867, he was acquainted with the younger sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand (their relationship become a friendship and, probably, love), and with the brilliant philosopher of art and aesthetics Konrad Fiedler (author of the theory ‘of pure visibility’, as named by Croce).35 Fiedler, in the years to come, would be the patron and the critical counterpart of the Marées–Hildebrand couple. After many more voyages around Italy and beyond, the three friends met again in Florence in the 1870s. The city was no longer the capital but had become – not so surprisingly – the most important meeting point for German artists and art critics wandering around Europe. The sculptor von Hildebrand and the painter von Marées, after having worked together in Naples for some years, returned to Florence in 1873 and took residence there. Hildebrand left many traces of his time in Florence – bas-­reliefs, statues and funerary monuments – and even married. His intellectual friendship with Marées, though, remained intact and expanded to a wider circle of artists. In 1874, Hildebrand bought and renovated a villa on the hillside of Bellosguardo, a former convent with a vast garden sloping towards the city, annexed to the church of San Francesco di Paola; it is still known as Villa Hildebrand. In this magnificent residence, art was vivaciously discussed by Hildebrand and Marées, by the critic and philosopher Hans Fiedler (who acquired a villa in the immediate proximity) and by the painters Feuerbach and Böcklin. With his art, Anselm Feuerbach honoured an already famous name – the mathematician Karl and the philosopher Ludwig were his uncles, while his great-­uncle Anselm Feuerbach was a liberal jurist. Arnold Böcklin (a Swiss-German from Basel) took residence in Florence in 1874 and completed there the first version of his most famous painting, Isle of the Dead (1879), a dreamlike transposition of the so-­called English cemetery, where the oval of Piazza Donatello and the surrounding boulevards are depicted as a placid sea barely lit by the sunset.

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10.  Science In the 1864–71 period in Florence, science also received a determinative contribution from foreigners. Along with the aforementioned Russian Herzen, the two German brothers Hugo and Moritz Schiff were central figures. Born into a wealthy Jewish family from Frankfurt, the Schiff brothers had some difficulties gaining recognition at home due to their Jewish origin, together with their liberal and democratic ideals and their revolutionary engagement in 1848. Both were said to have been in correspondence with Marx and both found in Italy a second home. Hugo Joseph Schiff – Italianized as Ugo Schiff – began his work in Italy as helper to the Chair of Chemistry at the University of Pisa in 1862–63. As early as 1863, at the behest of Carlo Matteucci, physicist and Minister of Education, Schiff moved to Florence where the formally existing Chair of Chemistry had never been occupied. He was assigned to the department of Natural Sciences of the Istituto di Studi Superiori Pratici e di Perfezionamento, a faculty of university level that had its seat in the Museum of Natural History, nowadays known as La Specola. The Museum and its laboratories corresponded to the older Museum of Physics and Natural History devised by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo di Asburgo Lorena and realized in a palace in the Via Romana, at the time Via della Buca. Schiff worked there until 1876, when he was called to occupy the Chair of General Chemistry at the University of Turin. He returned to Florence three years later, when he was assigned the same position in the Istituto di Studi Superiori. His research concerned all aspects of chemistry, but two discoveries in particular brought him international fame: Schiff bases, products of the reaction of aromatic amines and aromatic aldehydes, still used today to determine transaminase levels; and the Schiff test, still in use in histology. Ugo Schiff has been described as ‘Excellent chemist, terrible character,’36 but there is no doubt that he knew how to mobilize people. The great Florentine tradition in chemistry has its starting point in him. In the Specola of 20 September 1870, ‘while the church bells were ringing for the taking of Rome’, he signed, along with Stanislao Cannizzari and others, the founding act of the Gazzetta Chimica Italiana. Schiff also possessed a great humanistic culture37 and was one of the leading figures in the battle to transform the Florentine Istituto di Studi Superiori into today’s university. Moritz, Hugo’s brother whose name was also Italianized into Maurizio Schiff, was a physicist with broad interests in natural sciences and particularly in comparative pathological anatomy. Already assistant to the Chair of Comparative Anatomy and Zoology at the University of Bern, Moritz arrived in Florence in 1862 as a professor of Physiology at the Istituto di Studi Superiori, where he remained for fifteen years. He left only in 1876 to occupy the Chair of Physiology at the University of Geneva. Already well known in his field for his studies on the thyroid conducted in Bern, his research in Florence was dedicated to the nervous system.38 With his brother Ugo, the friend and assistant Herzen and many other characters from Florence’s cultural circles (such as the physician-­philosopher Siciliani, a professor at the Lyceum Dante and associate to the Concordia lodge with Herzen, and obviously Paolo Mantegazza), Maurizio

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contributed decisively to the diffusion of evolutionism and of materialistic theses. As a result, he also made many enemies.39 Physicians were a lively and effervescent professional category in Florence, with many important names among them.40 Ferdinando Zannetti – physician, university professor, patriot and senator of the Kingdom of Italy – is more widely known for having cured Garibaldi than for his discoveries or innovations. Francesco Puccinotti and Pietro Siciliani are also remembered as literates, historians of medicine and philosophers of education more than as medics. Even hygienist and sexologist Paolo Mantegazza, born in Monza, yet in Florence since 1865, where he held a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, is often recalled as a literate and graphomaniac (he wrote fiction and even science fiction novels) more than as a clinician. In effect, his contribution to science was not in the field of medicine but in having founded, in 1869, the first chair of Anthropology and the National Museum of Ethnology in the Palazzo Nonfinito in Via del Proconsolo. There were others, though, who really were giants of medical research and veritable clinicians. Two in particular come to mind: Filippo Pacini and Maurizio Bufalini (who as good colleagues shared no love for one another and were often involved in fervent debate). Pacini was an anatomist and an histopathologist from Pistoia. He had arrived in Florence to teach at the Istituto di Studi Superiori from the University of Pisa in 1847 and remained until his death in 1883. Still a student, with a microscope developed by G. B. Amici, Pacini described the sensorial receptors of the dermis that are particularly sensitive to vibrations, known today as Pacinian corpuscles. In Florence, he achieved the second discovery that would make him a glory of medicine: he identified, thirty years before Robert Koch, the vibrio cholera as a possible pathogen agent of the Asian cholera, a pathology he worked on for years, as evidenced by his many manuscripts that are preserved in the Central National Library of Florence. Maurizio Bufalini from Cesena was a senator of the Kingdom, designated by the King himself for patriotic merits in his youth. In the years 1864–71, he was already old and wary. But the reforms he introduced in the Florentine hospital of Santa Maria Nuova (such as the duty of all physicians to study pathological anatomy and histology) constitute a milestone in the history of medical education. Justly, from the square in front of the hospital, a street extends that today bears his name. The glories of Florentine science in the years when Florence was capital of Italy ultimately include the construction of the new astronomical observatory of Arcetri. The project had been presented in 1864 by the new director of the Specola, Giovan Battista Donati (who had replaced Amici), but the observatory was completed only between 1869 and 1872. Donati, with the help of Amici, a great optician, conducted pioneering astronomic spectrographic research. The Specola proved insufficient for such modern analyses. Hence the idea of a new observatory in Arcetri arose, an ideal location due to its being elevated and away from the lights and dust of the city, as well as being sacred in terms of being in memory of Galileo Galilei. One last name to add to this collection is that of the physicist Carlo Matteucci, a complex figure of scientist, politician and cultural organizer, excelling in all these fields. His international fame came from his enunciation, independently from Faraday, of the

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laws of electrolysis. He was particularly appreciated by Alexander von Humboldt and by the same Faraday. His origins were in Forlì, but he was already in Florence working for the Grand Ducal government and particularly in Pisa where he founded Il Cimento (from 1855 Nuovo Cimento, journal of the Italian Society of Physics). Appointed as Minister for Education under the first Rattazzi government in 1862, he proposed a reform of the Italian school promoting a subdivision in three levels: state, provincial and municipal. Between 1865 and 1867, Matteucci also directed the Museum of Physics and Natural History of Florence with great acumen. His reorganization facilitated its hosting of university courses, affirming a new idea of museum, directed towards research and teaching alongside conservation. In 1866, Matteucci became a member  of the National Academy of Science which, since the year of his death in 1868, has assigned a medal in his honour annually.

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Bettino Ricasoli: Economic Policy or   House Management? Piero Roggi

1.  Introduction Far from the rooms of the Georgofili, Florentine academia that had witnessed the growth of his economic genius, Vilfredo Pareto,1 holding the Genevan chair that once belonged to the famous Walras, wrote: ‘The foundation of political economy and, in general, of every social science, is evidently psychology.’2 With this statement, Pareto left historians of economic thought with an embarrassing dilemma that is yet to be solved. In brief, the issue is whether the economy should  be governed by a competent economist or a politician, incompetent in economic matters. Nowadays, this dilemma recurs persistently. In Italy, some competent ministers in the nineteenth century were Ferrara, Scialoja and Sonnino; and Einaudi, Del Vecchio, Fanfani, Spaventa, Barucci, Barca, Vanoni and Carli in the twentieth century. Competent economists who had also been heads of government were Nitti in the nineteenth century and Fanfani, Prodi and Monti in the twentieth century. Only one – Adone Zoli – was consciously incompetent – and proud of it.3 The Ricasoli situation was an exception as it was a case of ‘relative incompetence’, since we cannot say that he was fully inept. Jean Jacques Rousseau, in the famous Diderot’s Economie and D’Alambert’s Encyclopédie4 entry, distinguished between domestic or particular economy and general or political economy. The former was  left in the hands of the good father, the latter was under the exclusive care of the sovereign. Rousseau would have put Ricasoli in the category of domestic and  business economists rather than in the political economist one. In other words, an incompetent person was about to govern the economy of a vast region or even a national state. This chapter aims to understand the personality of Bettino Ricasoli, the ‘Iron Baron’, as a player in political economy. I shall not dwell too much on his autobiography, recounting only some pivotal moments. Instead, I shall analyse Ricasoli as the head  of government under the newly established Kingdom of Italy (1861–62). Further on,  I shall deal with his second government (1866–67), shortly after Florence became the capital.

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2.  Bettino Ricasoli and economics Regarding the Baron’s biography, it will suffice to mention as follows. Bettino Ricasoli was born in Florence in 1809. Between 1861 and 1862, when he was in his early fifties, he presided over his first government for nine months in Turin. He did the same from 1866 to 1867 for another nine months with his second government in Florence, which had just become capital of the Kingdom. In 1880, thirteen years later, he died at Brolio Castle when he was seventy-­two years old. What was the state of the theoretical and economic culture at the time of  Ricasoli? Two important publications stood out that did not impose on, but rather complemented each other. The Custodi collection (‘Economisti classici italiani’, or ‘Italian Classical Economists’)5 documented the Italian supremacy in the field of political economy. This was not the case of the Economist’s Library (Biblioteca dell’Economista), started by Francesco Ferrara, which aimed at highlighting French economists.6 Whoever consulted it had the good fortune of coming into contact with the great foreign economists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We know for sure that the Baron held A Treatise on Political Economy by J. B. Say in his library. He did not read it in its entirety, but he knew its main topic: entrepreneurs do not need to oversee the entirety of their production. Indeed, while production is taking place, if the various production factors are given equal remuneration and if in society there is always a purchasing power that meets the value of what has been produced, then the demand for products will always be able to absorb the entire production. There might be some temporary imbalances among specific sectors, but thanks to small further adjustments, the entire production will always find its own outlets. As can be seen, we are dealing with a plan replete with optimism that contains a clear invitation directed towards the producers: produce and produce liberally – the increase in wealth could be unlimited, in accordance with an increasing direct and uniform motion of growth. The Baron was also familiar with Adam Smith’s line of thought. Indeed, during the 1870s, he took part along with other friends in the activities of the Adam Smith Society in Florence,7 with the aim of defending the entrepreneurial freedom derived from Smith’s theory of the ‘invisible hand’.8 With regards to the greatest foreign economists of the time, he disliked Malthus and Ricardo.9 He could not accept Malthus’ fatalistic pessimism, which believed that there was no remedy for permanent misery. Indeed, if an increase in food caused an increase in population and if the latter permanently exceeded the level of equilibrium, then misery could have never been reduced and any remedy to improve agriculture would have failed. In brief, misery and only misery was the virulent fate of humanity. As a consequence, even the scrupulous experiments carried out by the Baron on his Brolio estate would have been completely pointless. Ricasoli utterly disagreed with David Ricardo’s theory. He was annoyed by the juxtaposition that the British economist envisaged between manufacturers and landowners, between profits and incomes. This was based not on reality, but on his 

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own prejudice. Believing that landowners were a group of privileged people  who hindered the economic development of England was a mistake, just as it  was not entirely true that manufacturers alone made up the progressive class of  society. Ricasoli disliked quoting. However, if we want to look into his references, though they are merely implied, we shall easily identify in his writings the traces of two Italian economists: Gian Domenico Romagnosi (1761–1835) and Francesco Ferrara (1810– 1900). Romagnosi advances the theory of a society that becomes gradually civilized. His basic syllogism roughly states that technical progress alone does not guarantee spiritual well-­being. It can increase the quantity of manufactured goods, but if it degrades the economic condition and the morale of the lower classes at the same time, then the ultimate aim will not be achieved. However, there is more to Romagnosi’s plan: Divine Providence intervenes to put everything in order. If a man reacts with compassion to the anguish suffered by his brothers and the latter are relieved from their state of misery, then the shrewdness of the Divine Providence will be clear to the economist. It achieves its ends by turning the deafened hedonism of few people into social Christianization. The community could hence go beyond economic civilization to achieve spiritual civilization. Francesco Ferrara, rather, was a theorist in economic liberty. His focus fell to  the economic oppression created by the state. State intervention is always negative. Indeed, if a man’s fate is trapped in a position of need and with a chronic deprivation of goods, he is nonetheless able to free himself from it at least in his mind, by  taking strength from nature. Then if it is ultimately state paternalism that weakens  the liberating mind of mankind, the reason why the good economist needs to  distance himself as much as possible from state intervention in economy will be clear. To summarize, in economy the ipse dixit authority is an obstruction that must be avoided. The experience of Ricasoli in Brolio is marked by the ideas of the aforementioned economists. Following Ferrara’s teachings, he did not employ public aids, nor did  he treat his collaborators with the harshness that Romagnosi so deplored. The truth  is that Ricasoli did not like abstract economic theory, and he loathed how it originated historically. Along with Giuseppe Pecchio,10 he believed that economics were a low-­ level replacement for economy. After all, in the Renaissance age practical men  produced wealth in full liberty without being theoretically aware of what they were doing. It was the loss of this freedom during the dark period between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that generated a nostalgic and melancholic recollection  of that lack in the nineteenth century. What was its name? Economic theory. What  J. B. Say considered to be the bright point of economic knowledge – that is, the transition from chitchat to theory – was from Ricasoli’s point of view the birth of a debased replacement for the know-­how economy. This is the reason why he preferred economic knowledge that was far from heroic generalization, being an empirical and exasperatingly inductive knowledge. This was simultaneously Ricasoli’s virtue and his limitation. This was especially so when he was called upon, while managing Brolio,  to run more complex systems such as the Grand Duchy of Tuscany or the Kingdom  of Italy.

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3.  Bettino Ricasoli and politics: the first government On 29 June 1861, Cavour died prematurely. The king appointed a mere Tuscan senator as the Prime Minister of a government that was to last eight months, until 3 March 1862. Ricasoli was not an ordinary minister, since he was almost a minister plenipotentiary. Indeed, he served as acting Foreign Minister, acting Home Minister and acting Minister of War, while his friend Bastogi was Finance Minister and his cousin Peruzzi served as Minister of Public Works. He therefore carried a tremendous burden of responsibility. The composition of the government tells us something about Ricasoli’s friends, while his agenda lists the enormous issues with which he had to contend. First of all, there was the ‘Roman question’, then brigandage, which concentrated on the borders between the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies that Garibaldi had already freed. Solutions seemed difficult but not impossible to enact and, in any case, they fell under and were articulated in two subsequent moments, the first one being the achievement of territorial unity: ‘I am concerned with and worry about going to Rome all day long.’11 This was a preliminary goal, so that ‘Italy becomes united within its borders to dedicate itself to the development of its resources’.12 But in what way? Ricasoli did not want to resort to acts of force as Mazzini and Garibaldi had done. He wanted to leave the Pope with the freedom of repentance and the voluntary abandonment of temporal power so as to limit his power only to the spiritual (Renovatio Ecclesiae). The second part of his political agenda included economic development achievable through a budget policy based on the austerity that had been already employed at Brolio. Italy needed a sound budget policy. If a powerful and well-­equipped army was needed in the fight for territorial unity and Ricasoli ruled out that resources should be drawn from a tax increase, they should rather come from the public administration funds that were slowly undergoing a process of reformation. Among the several feasible choices, the most suitable would be the collection of money from citizens, being public debt. Those who wish to decorate their own dwelling, do so by picking flowers from someone else’s garden. Following this path, once the spending review comprised army expenses, an input of development would arise from an active balance of trade. With that, it seems that  the Baron had conceived an export-­led economic model. The process, as we know, was successful. However, it was not enough to raise the fortunes of the economy. Why? Because of the macroeconomic incompetence of  the ‘Iron Baron’. The export-­led plan worked perfectly for Brolio. By building some parts of the Chiantigiana road to obtain better exportation results for Chianti wine (his invention), the Baron tidied up the accounts of his firm. He deceived himself into thinking that the same plan could work for Italy as well, which was decidedly bigger than Brolio but – like his farm – lacked foreign outlets. The plan did not work. Building railways, streets and harbours at a national level entailed an excessive increase of public spending, which made the policy impossible to effectuate at that time. The Baron regretfully realized that micro- and macroeconomy did not abide by the same rules.

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On 6 December 1861, Ricasoli stood before the Chamber of Deputies to speak about the Roman Question: ‘During the last two years we had to make policy more than do business.’13 He had already expressed his thoughts in different terms in a letter sent six months earlier to his brother, Vincenzo: ‘I am in a cave like a lion kept on a short leash.’14 He already sensed his economic helplessness before the impatience demonstrated by public opinion.

The obstacles of international and domestic policy were no less serious than the economic ones. First of all, there was the self-­interested reluctance of Napoleon III to leave the Pope to his fate: France occupies Italy . . . and weakens the reorganisation of the new nation, for whom holding back its development sees the growth of germs, the rodents of its life against which it uses forces that would otherwise be employed to increase its [economic] vitality.15

And still, assuming that the French fuelled brigandage at the borders between the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: ‘While fighting assassins of any nature, we destroy huge capitals that are needed to build Italy.’16 As we know, the first Ricasoli government fell on 3 March 1862. The affectionate words that your Majesty addressed to me yesterday . . . clarified the opinion that your Majesty has on the government of the Country, an opinion which can be summarised as follows: discontent for the state of public affairs and a serious concern for the future of Italy. . . . I lay before the August Hands of your Majesty my own as well as my colleagues’ resignations from the offices we have had the honour to hold thus far.17

Italy’s territorial unity failed while its economic development did not take off. On 15 September 1864, Ricasoli resumed his position as senator. Cavour and Napoleon III signed an agreement, the official text demanding the withdrawal of the French troops from Rome in the short term. In a secret clause, the emperor insisted upon the final transfer of the capital to Florence.18 With regards to the occurrence, historiography underlined Ricasoli’s comment (who defined that choice as ‘a cup of venom’) as if it were a prediction of that which would have occurred from 1870 onwards. In a letter sent to Ubaldino Peruzzi on 16 September 1864, Bettino’s now famous opinion was delivered in his own words: ‘If any faith of occupying Rome were to be lost or if the day should arise in 20 or 30 years’ time, I would have spoken otherwise.’19 Making Florence the capital was neither a good nor a bad thing per se. The main problem lay in its duration. If it were final or the transfer to Rome were to have happened in twenty or thirty years’ time, then the assets invested to change the city would have had returns. Instead, if the duration were to be shorter, the investments

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would be lost, which is to say that cup of rosolio would have turned to poison. Thus it came down to the question of to have or not to have a return? It is the same logic that Ricasoli applied as a wine exporter at Brolio, investing in building roads to guarantee his firm an outlet to the sea and, in doing so, employing an entrepreneurial logic rather than a macroeconomic one.

4.  Bettino Ricasoli and politics: the second government In Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio on 20 June 1866, the second Ricasoli government was enacted and declared war with Austria. It was the beginning of the third war of independence. The Italian army, led by General La Marmora, attacked on two fronts, following the king’s orders to cross the river Mincio and to fight in Custoza. The Italian army was defeated on both fronts. It was not the best of starts. The ‘Iron Baron’ sat in his office in the Palazzo Vecchio, presiding over the government of his home town. His experience from 1861 to 1862 was not in vain, since it eradicated his obsession with territorial unity from his mind. Transferring to Rome was now entrusted to the Agreement signed on 15 September 1864: ‘I believe we should face Rome as if it was not there.’20 He proceeds with: ‘By all means, I am not talking about the capital. . . . Italy can flourish even if the seat of the government is in Florence. . . . Let us leave Rome to itself and wait for events to unfold.’21

Figure 3.1  King Vittorio Emanuele II leaves Florence to join the military on the front. Source: ‘Partenza del re pel Campo’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 3, no. 26, 30 June–7 July. Private Collection.

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Figure 3.2  Opening of the Parliament in Florence in January 1867. Source: ‘Apertura del Parlamento a Firenze’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 4, no. 4, 26 January– 2 February 1867. Private Collection.

Among others, the objectives of that government can be determined by a message sent by Costantino Nigra, the Italian Ambassador in Paris, to Napoleon III: ‘We will now enjoy the peace to determine the finances and administration that leave much to be desired. We will restore the economy and the deplorable state of our poor industry.’22 A few months later, Ricasoli went so far as to divide government action, creating a distinction between an old and a new mandate: ‘Once the Parliament has completed the work, I will take my leave, or at least I shall declare that the first term is concluded and I await a new task, which I am going to assume, is yet to be determined.’23 At this point, his goal recalls that of his fellow citizen, the great Niccolò Machiavelli. The ultimate goal of the Prince is not to solve problems. If anything, it is to retain power. Without excluding anybody from the favours of the Prince, the technique referred to as ‘justice in turn’ benefited one and subsequently another. In other words, Ricasoli’s idea was to favour first the Pope, and then Italy in turn. Thus, the Pope would gain several benefits, the first concerning the appointment of bishops who were to be

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named initially by the Pope before being granted approval by the state. This is the thorny action known as exequatur, and Ricasoli subjected right to it. The second benefit for the Pope pertained to the liquidation of ecclesiastical properties. Under the previous government, Antonio Scialoja examined the issue carefully, but failed to provide a solution. Ricasoli had two different options before him. The first would entail the state selling the assets of the Church to later repay it with public debt securities. The second solution envisaged that the Holy See would have sold its assets (within ten years) in exchange for a flat-­rate refund of sixty million Italian Lira. However, while the former did not favour the Church, the latter did. Ricasoli chose the second solution. Now that the demands of the Papal States had been fulfilled, the Baron was able to meet those advanced by Italy. He did not however have the chance to do so. The left, irritated, vetoed the measures. The Prime Minister offered his resignation, but the king declined it, dissolving the Parliament instead and calling for new elections. Facing a new Parliament, Ricasoli looked for a majority willing to support him, but did not succeed. This was the end of the second Ricasoli government, with Rattazzi as successor.

5.  Conclusions In summary:

1. A theoretical economic culture prevailed throughout Ricasoli’s time. 2. In his thinking, there are traces of Giandomenico Romagnosi’s and Francesco Ferrara’s theories.

3. Ricasoli preferred an entrepreneurial culture, as he practised in Brolio, over a macroeconomic one.

Let us return to the general problem presented at the beginning: was the culture that Bettino Ricasoli experienced with Brolio and that he claimed to extend to the Italian macrocosm the most suitable or not for solving the country’s problems? It seems not. At least, this is the final hypothesis. Ricasoli would not agree with our interpretation. Indeed, he proposed a completely different one – that of the ‘jinx’: ‘Dear Cencio, . . . I have wondered a thousand times whether I have not created the misfortune of poor Italy, given how its stars were so unfavourable!’24 The Baron’s interpretation is superstitious and unworthy of his own religious feelings, given that it is based on esoteric hermeneutics. Moreover, it distances him from any historical responsibility and stands in the way of a rational reconstruction of his political history. It is said that there is no worse historiographical genre than autobiography. In short, aside from being an incompetent macroeconomist, Ricasoli was not brilliant in recording his own history either.

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Bettino Ricasoli and the Sunset of   Moderate Hegemony Daniele Bronzuoli

On 15 September 1864, the September Agreement was signed in Fontainebleu,1 its text having been inspired by the teachings of Cavour.2 Yet Minghetti and Visconti Venosta were left to face the stiffening of French diplomacy resulting from some impetuous attempts by Bettino Ricasoli3 – Cavour’s successor, who went to lead Italy from June 1861 to March 1862 – to deal with the Roman Question, and by Garibaldi’s venture, favoured by King Vittorio Emanuele II and Prime Minister Urbano Rattazzi,4 that concluded in Aspromonte with the imprisonment of the injured Garibaldi. In addition to assurances on the inviolability of the Papal States, the September Agreement also imposed the observance of a secret clause regarding the transfer of the capital of the Kingdom as proof of Italy’s willingness to renounce to Rome. Despite the opposing opinion expressed by Minister of the Interior Ubaldino Peruzzi, who proposed Naples as a ‘stepping stone’ on the way to Rome, both the King and the generals of the Savoy army wanted Florence to become the provisory capital of the newly united Italy for geographical and strategic reasons. On 13 September, Silvio Spaventa, General Secretary of the Minister of the Interior, was sent to Brolio to announce the terms of the agreement between Italy and France to the ‘Iron Baron’ (as Bettino Ricasoli was nicknamed). In March 1862, Ricasoli had retired to his castle that dominated the Chianti region, ‘rugged with mountains and covered by woods’,5 to forget about the ‘vile conspiracies at Court’6 that he had been subjected to as Prime Minister. There, Ricasoli attended to his extensive land holdings with extraordinary management capacities and innovative efforts.7 ‘Spaventa came here to Brolio,’ Bettino Ricasoli later recalled in a letter to his brother Vincenzo, ‘to tell me that the treaty to evacuate the French from Rome had already been approved and would be signed before the end of the week. Two years later, the French would evacuate the Papal State. Italy’s government would commit itself to respecting the Papal States. The Pope would be allowed to assemble an army of Catholics, also comprised of foreigners, in order to defend himself, so long as it were not to become a threat to Italy herself. The Emperor, though, settled on signing this Agreement only if the Capital were to be relocated. He was convinced that solely thus would the Church believe that Italy had given up on Rome whilst

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Florence it reordered its institutional framework, and he himself could argue he had done all that was possible right until the point of securing the territories of the Pope. Initially, the provisory Capital was to have been Naples, but all the generals were opposed. Given that a war with Austria was inevitable, Turin could not remain capital for military reasons. The same held for Naples: due to its territorial extension and position, along with the nature of its inhabitants, it would have placed the government in severe danger in case of conflict. Having discarded Turin and Naples from among the Italian cities of some importance, the only possible choice remained Florence. . . . The treaty, by removing the French troops from Rome, would preserve the principle of non-­intervention and facilitate the solution of the Roman Question in the future. Furthermore, it shows the importance of Italy for the Emperor, and his conviction that Italians could be his best allies. The agreement was the result of considering all these elements. I believe Rome will be eternally ours upon the Pope’s death. When that day comes, the Italians shall occupy Rome. I only hope this does not occur in any other way, because I believe that it would be baleful should it eventuate due to some agreement with the Holy Church. This Agreement has positive and negative aspects; yet we cannot hesitate in addressing the willingness of foreigners to leave our national soil. I uphold that Florence being chosen as temporary capital is a great adversity and chaos within the administration will increase. Damage could be avoided were the subsequent moving of the capital to Rome to be perhaps in twenty years’ time, but because of the nature of the agreement and the present historical conditions, it will occur earlier. We will endure it, though, to obtain the French signature on the treaty.’8

Subsequent letters from Ricasoli to his brother and friends were more heartfelt. He would even, famously, define the transfer of the capital as ‘a cup of venom’9 for Florence and for Tuscany. ‘We cannot deny,’ he wrote, ‘that the Emperor played another dirty trick on us just as with Villafranca, and it is on us to turn it to our favour. He heaps chaos upon our country, yet we should prove that we are united and in strong agreement in order to face this. The appointment as capital city is a misfortune for Florence, and I hope it will be of short duration.’10 Ricasoli’s reaction is no different to that of other Tuscan moderates such as Leopoldo Galeotti, Raffaello Lambruschini and Gino Capponi. The latter, in a letter written on  29 December to his friend Agostino Sagredo, compared ‘Florence becoming capital [to] a girl set to be deflowered without passion’.11 Ricasoli’s harsh judgement reflected the profound tension and great dispute between ‘the Renaissance patriot, ready to give his life for his homeland, and the citizen of Florence’, worried about the ‘severe atteinte’12 on the custom and practices of his hometown set to result from its transformation into Italy’s capital. As Giovanni Spadolini13 has already noted, however, the foresighted Ricasoli also heralded the end of the unity and homogeneity of the right-­wing party – Destra Storica – in the inevitable conflict with Austria and even the patched solution of the Roman Question that, through the separatist law of 13 May 1873, would disappoint his own plans of religious and social reform of the Italian society.14 Initial confirmation of Ricasoli’s fears came as early as 18 September 1864 when the Gazzetta del Popolo, Turin’s most popular and widespread newspaper, published the

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contents of the treaty between Italy and France and, precisely, the secret clause regarding moving the capital to Florence. As Ricasoli predicted, the people of Turin revolted. Bloody fights between protesters and law enforcement resulted in 52 deaths, 139 injuries and the resignation of the Prime Minister.15 Ricasoli’s diplomatic efforts assuaged the political turmoil within the parliament and the ‘anti-Tuscan’ movement against the Florentine Ubaldino Peruzzi, Minister of the Interior with regards to the matters of Turin. In a famous speech, he appealed to ‘renounce all resentment in the name of harmony’. He continued, With the heart of an Italian citizen, I sincerely beg you to forsake this inquiry and to only be led by your hearts and your minds, and above all by your charity for Italy, which cannot inspire you otherwise. . . . We should, today, make this courtroom a temple of harmony, and here in the name of Italy, we thank God for making us free citizens of a Nation which will be made great thanks to the common spirit and the patriotism of its children.16

Ricasoli ended his discourse with the proposal to abandon any action against the Cabinet in power during the bloodbath in Turin. His proposal was approved with  140 favourable votes, 67 opposing votes and 13 abstentions. Despite the targeted calls for peace and national unity made by the ‘ascetic of the right-­wing party’,17 as Ricasoli was later defined by Giovanni Spadolini, opinions of those in and outside Parliament were not favourable towards Tuscan moderates. In November 1864, discussions regarding laws on the transfer of the capital would become an opportunity to clarify and redefine the relationships between the political parties and within each of them. In the left wing, the question of the capital bought about the birth of an independent group, the so-­called ‘Third Party’ of Tuscan Antonio Mordini, who – unlike Francesco Crispi – voted in favour of the transfer to Florence. In the right-­wing party, rather, the September Agreement accentuated regional distinctions, highlighting the contrast between the Piedmont deputies – gathered in a ‘permanent liberal association’ headed by Gustavo Ponza of San Martino – and the so-­called consorteria of Tuscany, being deputies from the Emilia and Lombardy regions.18 In this light, the September Agreement can be considered not only the apex of ‘a policy to dePiedmontise Italy’,19 but also as a serious breach between Tuscany’s liberals and the monarchy, and between Tuscan moderates and the other groups of the right-­wing party, as Ricasoli had predicted. September 1864 also saw the formation of the historical and political conditions that would bring about, some twelve years later, the fall of the right-­wing government coalition through the ‘treason of the Tuscans’.20

1.  Relocation of the capital city Additional turmoil on the streets of Turin convinced the King to hasten the transfer of the capital. The absence of Turin’s nobles from the royal ball of 30 January 1865, and the brutality of commoners and bourgeois alike within the piazza before the royal residence, proved to the King that the old capital had not accepted and would never

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accept the idea of losing its status as the political and administrative centre of the Kingdom of Italy.21 Vittorio Emanuele II, vexed and enraged by the behaviour of his people, hastily left for Florence in the evening of 3 February 1865.22 Despite showing initial enthusiasm, Florentines also expressed their disagreement with the relocation of the capital, even if with a more democratic spirit than their Turin counterparts, on the occasion of a vote held on 22 October 1865, with the first ballot after the general political election of  27 January 1861. Of the 10,531 people on the electoral roll, only 1,413 voted for the moderates, while 2,088 voted for the opposition. In all of Tuscany, moderates from Bettino Ricasoli and Ubaldino Peruzzi to Leopoldo Galeotti, Giovan Battista Giorgini and Carlo Fenzi suffered humiliating results. Ricasoli himself, in a letter dated  25 October 1865 addressed to Giovan Battista Giorgini (who had lost his seat in Parliament), attributed the electoral debacle to the ‘dissatisfaction’ of his compatriots and the insufficient unity of the moderate front. He wrote, The existence of parties is the necessary or, should I say, inevitable consequence of the influence of the human spirit on political life. . . . We could compare today’s Italian parties with the English parties of eighty or ninety years ago, given that we clearly have no political education. . . . Amongst the parties is a sense of dissatisfaction that has no hope or consolation other than to vindicate its disappointment in its last spokesmen by sending another in his place. The old Parliament is treated like a Minister incapable of satisfying the greedy desires and unfulfillable expectations connected to his position. . . . I see Galeotti losing the electorate of Pescia, and Fabrizi losing that of Livorno. What bad judgement guides those poor voters!23

Between 1864 and 1865, the first signs of popular disappointment had already manifested. In January 1865, the prefect of Florence, Gerolamo Cantelli, defined the Florentine population as moved by ‘little energy, or rather inertia’.24 The causes are widely known: the remarkable worsening of living conditions, increasing economic competition, speculative currents and extreme upsurges in rents, the recourse to eviction and the inflation on necessities.25 In 1866, as a consequence of the severe English economic crisis and of the Italian war with Austria, Finance Minister Antonio Scialoja suspended the convertibility of the lira. The ensuing inflation combined with a new tax on mobile wealth and increases in the price of salt and tobacco to fuel popular discontent. In the midst of this creeping social instability, Florence had to allocate all governmental seats, find places for the diplomatic delegations and host at a moment’s notice the thousands of clerks coming from Piedmont.26 In this well-­known context, Ricasoli had a role in the subversive law of the ecclesiastical axis, approved on 7 July 1866 during his second government. Some cloisters and religious spaces were followingly transformed into public offices (including the Church of Santa Maria Novella and the San Firenze cloister).27 While Florence was overcome by a speculative euphoria that saw a 51,380-unit increase in the number of lodgings between 1865 and 1870,28 political equilibrium in

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Europe was changing dramatically due to the rise of Prussia and the politics of Otto von Bismarck. Following the victories over Austria – a success that had brought the Veneto region to Italy – and a dozen other military triumphs, Bismarck’s Prussia triggered the collapse of the Second French Empire in September 1870, allowing Italy to conquer Rome. Cadorna’s troops would enter Rome less than twenty days after the French defeat in Sedan, while a referendum in October sanctioned the end of the Pope’s temporal power. So, even as the construction of a suitable capital city was still in progress in Florence, the law of 3 February 1871 formalized the re-­relocation of the capital to Rome. The administrative and economic consequences of this sudden and unexpected change – as predicted by Ricasoli in 1864 – are well known.29 The heated controversy between the Florentine municipality and the national government regarding the relocation costs would soon be the cause of the fall of the right-­wing coalition, defined by Benedetto Croce as the ‘catastrophe of 18th March 1876’.30

2.  The fall of the Destra Storica and the sunset of moderate hegemony With the special law of 9 June 1871, the national Parliament granted a measure of financial benefit to Florence in response to the ‘crisis’ it underwent as the provisory capital of the Kingdom of Italy, ‘sacrificing itself for the entire Country’.31 The reimbursement dispensed by the Italian Kingdom to Florence was similar to that approved for Turin by the La Marmora government on 18 November 1864. However, the benefits covered only one-­fifth of the deficit incurred by the municipality of Florence to provide ‘a service to the entire nation’,32 while Turin had received the full amount required. There was no immediate remonstration regarding this disparity in treatment. The general economic crisis, triggered by bankruptcies and repeated banking failures in Vienna in 1873, though, soon engulfed the Italian financial system. In Florence, the speculative bubble in the construction sector burst with particular malignancy. Becoming mayor of Florence in January 1871, Ubaldino Peruzzi was motivated by his preoccupation concerning the demographic decrease, the fall in consumption and the threatening deficit of the municipal treasury, when he swiftly asked the Italian government, headed by Marco Minghetti, to reform the excise duty so as to assign to the municipality element the revenues generated by the new taxes.33 The government, however, decided to continue its policy of financial austerity launched by the Lanza-Sella ministry, with the explicit aim of balancing the state budget. As a consequence, Peruzzi’s request was rejected and the reimbursement to the Florentine municipality, as seen, was restricted to a bare minimum. Ricasoli openly denounced this political decision, taken to abide to ministerial programmes based on ‘economy to the bone, made with avaricious viewpoint’.34 The cruel austerity of the right-­wing coalition had its own valid motivations: excessive military expenses in the repeated wars of independence, the absorption of the public debt of the Papal States (Guarentigie’s Law) and the costs of the transfer of the capital. The financial issue was thus ‘felt as a matter of life and death for the new

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Country’.35 The policy, though, was not commonly appreciated and obviously strengthened the ‘dissatisfaction of Tuscan people’. In the general elections held in November, Minghetti obtained only a ‘minimal and rather unstable’ majority.36 His final downfall would then be triggered by the plan for the nationalization of railways. Headed by Giovanni Lanza from December 1869 to July 1873, the ministry had left unsolved the problem of reorganizing the national railway network, at that time managed by four private companies: Società Vittorio Emanuele, Alta Italia, Strade Ferrate Romane and Strade Ferrate Meridionali. The high construction costs, unforeseeable delays and the scarce profit of the railway business had already forced the government to intervene, as was the case for the Società Vittorio Emanuele in 1871. Between 1873 and 1874, principally through Silvio Spaventa in his role as Minister for Public Works, Minghetti’s own government held both Strade Ferrate Romane and Strade Ferrate Meridionali to ransom. While resolutions made the most of the national railway network public property, they were yet to be approved by Parliament. Minghetti planned to obtain parliamentary consent upon announcing the balancing of budget in the XII legislature. However, in November 1875, Ubaldino Peruzzi – who had voted in favour of the nationalization of the Strade Ferrate Romane, a joint stock company over which he presided37 – privately announced to the prime minister that he intended to ‘incite harsh opposition against the Government’s intention to buy out the railway companies’, a measure he considered ‘the worst disaster that could happen . . . economically and politically to Italy’.38 On 9 March 1876, Peruzzi, at this time spokesman for the Tuscan group in parliament (Bettino Ricasoli was then sixty-­six years old and had permanently retired to his Brolio castle), was so elected to the vice-­ presidency of the Chamber of Deputies with the votes of the opposition. This appointment was a determining sign of the unity of interests that had formed in the preceding months between the right-­wing Tuscan party and the southern left-­wing party, headed by Nicotera, on economic liberalism and against state intervention in the economy. Three days later, Ricasoli – hostile to Minghetti’s policy, yet not a supporter of ‘Peruzzi’s dissent’, which he described as the result of personal ‘spite’ and ‘vanities’ – wrote a long letter to his ‘devoted secretary’ Celestino Bianchi, deploring the behaviour of his colleagues and warning against the possibility of a ‘pure left’ government headed by Depretis and Nicotera: The more I think upon the circumstances that foreordain the election of our Peruzzi, the more I thank my good fortune for not having been forced to go to Rome. . . . I do not find any reason that would legitimise our friends when, during the elections, they allowed the enemies and the weak friends from the right-­centre to seduce them. . . . Were it to have been an election for a seat in Parliament, I would have understood the necessity of giving power to men that best represented our greatest values; but this case being entirely the opposite, we should have been more loyal to our party if we wanted to proceed correctly without having to take responsibility for any dangerous and unknown consequences for our Country. We should have elected a man more suited to the task, being able to fight every proposal opposed to our belief in freedom and our values on public order. This is what should have been done and what I would have inevitably done. . . . We strengthened the party of

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systematic opposition; we encouraged it in its resolution to attack the government even before the presentation of the great questions. We allowed chaos to fall into the hands of those who have always manipulated it. Now, we risk losing a great battle over questions of such administrative importance and of internal order, the only field in which a true and durable intermingling of parties should and could be achieved with intelligence and to the advantage of the country. This lets every single government coalition go to the hounds . . . without forgetting to authorise the country nor to give appropriate tutelage to institutions. . . . We now need to correct our past mistakes by reverting to who we were before, uniting within our own party, and supporting the government against all eventual attacks on arguments we have always upheld, and preventing its fall on every other question flanking the railways’ nationalisation, this being a question that forms a real agenda of the party and of the government. . . . If the fall of the government were to happen over an inadvertent argument, the consequences would be the worst anyone could imagine, and a great responsibility could befall our friends. If this fall were to happen on the grinding tax, this would signify that tax revenue cannot be as it is today and a government led by Depretis-Nicotera would be the logic consequence. I do not doubt that the rectitude that has always guided you and our friends has already evidenced the path we must follow to avoid a tremendous fate for our country in this terrible situation; and it is the duty of all to ensure the situation remains unchanged until the day in which we may take aim on the railway conventions.39

Also in this circumstance, the Baron of Brolio demonstrated a rare talent in political foresight, even if secluded within his castle. Indeed, the Minghetti government fell due to a ‘parliamentary quarrel’,40 as Benedetto Croce defined it, being a motion proposed by the deputy Morana on the methods of collecting the much-­disputed grinding tax. Faced with such deleterious results, Bettino Ricasoli’s judgement on the consequences of the political line pursued by Ubaldino Peruzzi and the other Tuscan moderates proved even more condemning: ‘I tried to take hold of myself,’ Ricasoli wrote to Celestino Bianchi on 19th March, ‘despite the despair caused by seeing such men in their best years, gifted with knowledge and intelligence, being completely lost, and so far from the path of true wisdom. They do not even ask themselves with whom they form allies or what curricula they possess. . . . It is so sad to witness he who holds the destiny of his country in his hands never lays his vanity nor his personal grudges fall by the wayside. . . . I am frightened by the idea of a government composed only of left-­wing deputies, even if this possibility is looked upon by many without concern. . . . I would oppose this option with every concern. . . . I heard you are part of the dissent and have also been one of its most infuriate inspiring forces . . . and now, because you already had the option to destroy and you destroyed both the government and our party, you think about rebuilding, or anathema, anathema! The past government was not without blemish, but will the next one be of greater morals and capabilities, will it offer the same guarantees inside and outside the country? I can say with 99% certainty that the next government will be of the pure left.’41

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As can also be seen by the content of the letter sent by Ricasoli on 12 March to the director of La Nazione – a newspaper founded by the ‘Iron Baron’ himself in July 1859 – Ricasoli hoped that the imminent parliamentary crisis would at least favour a ‘reorganization’ of parliamentary political forces, a ‘crystallization’ regarding the culturally pre-eminent political questions at the end of Risorgimento: the relationship between the individual and the state, and the role of the national government in the process of economic development and in the regulation of civil society. Ricasoli believed that a new division of the members of Parliament into two political parties, characterized by their different ideas on the great themes of economic development and modelled on the English bipartite system, could have allowed for the survival of the moderate hegemony through a ‘mixed’ but cohesive government,42 excluding the ‘terribly tragic’43 eventuality of a government composed only of men from the left-­wing party. He hoped, in fact, that such a rearrangement of political groupings could result in the inclusion of the democratic forces that had supported Peruzzi’s election into a new government still led by right-­wing representatives. Despite Ricasoli’s wishes, Minghetti’s fall ultimately facilitated the ascent of the ‘historic republicans’ and the ‘recently converted democrats’ who let go of ‘the old  ideas of popular sovereignty and general suffrage’ in favour of embracing monarchic loyalty.44 Following Minghetti’s resignation, Vittorio Emanuele II entrusted opposition spokesman Agostino Depretis with the creation of a new government. Subsequently, the cabinet, comprised exclusively of men from the left-­wing coalition (Nicotera would become Minister of the Interior), began its mandate on 25 March 1876. In Florence, the late-­onset effects of the September Agreement would also determine the end of the long political cycle of moderate oligarchy. On 17 March 1878, when the insolvency of the Florence municipality was declared, Mayor Peruzzi retired and Felice Reichlin was put in charge of the local administration. The committee responsible for the liquidation of the debts of Florence’s municipality, appointed on 26 April 1879 and placed under the guidance of Senator Francesco Brioschi, presented a 55-year amortization plan for municipal debts to a much-­changed municipal council following the elections of July 1879. The most famous members of the moderate consorteria – Luigi Guglielmo Cambray-Digny and Ubaldino Peruzzi among them – were not re-­ elected, while voting rewarded a core group of Catholics, headed by Augusto Conti, Augusto Alfani and Carlo Alfieri di Sostegno, that would become the decisive force of the local political equilibrium in the years to come. In order to maintain their local power, Florentine moderates joined forces with the Catholic and conservative forces, while at national level they were forced to support the system of transformism inaugurated by the Depretis government. It was in 1879 that Bettino Ricasoli’s prophecy, regarding the September Agreement as a major source of confusion and disagreement in Italy’s public life, became a reality. In less than fifteen years, the unity of the Destra Storica had been shattered and the political hegemony of the moderates had waned. The ‘pure liberalism’ that the Risorgimento preached as the foundation of the young Italian nation had ultimately given way to the increasing presence of the state in social and economic life.

5

Activist Literary Culture in Florence (1865–71) Gino Tellini

1.  Introduction In Florentine history, the decades of the second half of the nineteenth century do not particularly stand out. Currently, historical judgement denounces a phase of cultural depression, with the exception of the Istituto di Studi Superiori (Institute of Higher Studies).1 These decades thus represent a period of regress, commensurate with the unstable conditions of a tired and discouraged country, characterized by a climate of narrow provincialism. In my opinion, though, this view does not represent a complete and truthful picture of the period. While acknowledging the indisputable academic significance of the Institute of Higher Studies, we should also put on record other important aspects of Florentine culture that serve to make activist Florentine literature stand out even internationally in the post-Unitarian period. This is particularly true for the years when Florence was capital of the Kingdom of Italy. These years were marked by two crucial events: Dante’s centenary in 1865 and the publishing in 1870–71 of the two volumes of De Sanctis’ Storia. The two events are related, since de Sanctis’ Storia is no less than the ideal history of Italy written in accordance with Dante’s dictates and not in line with the traditional ones of Petrarca.

2.  Dante, poetry and a new historiography In the post-Unitarian years, a mix of eminent personalities emerged in the dynamics of Florence’s culture, from De Sanctis to Tommaseo, from Capuana to Imbriani and De Amicis, from the Macchiaioli painters to Verga and Collodi. Florence therefore became a veritable crossroads of fruitful interactions between literature, visual arts and psychological science. The most crucial year is 1865, Dante’s year. ‘It would seem that at his very moment when Italy at last has formed herself, the intellectual and political world that made  her formation possible lost sense and direction,’2 wrote De Sanctis in explaining how the long-­awaited conclusion of the revolution of Risorgimento was to identify with the widespread awareness of a profound crisis. The invocation to Dante’s name that spread out from Florence to the rest of Italy called for an identifying communion, an

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Figure 5.1  Statue of Dante in front of the church of Santa Croce. Photograph by Giacomo Brogi. Source: Santa Croce, photograph by Giacomo Brogi. Private Collection.

overcoming of ideological rifts and scholastic alliances, factions and localisms, which only Dante himself could guarantee. The crucial point was the cultural unity of the newly born state, but also its international respect and acknowledgement in the eyes of Europe. For De Sanctis, unity was not enough. More important were the people and all that forged the moral and cultural nourishment of unity. In this chapter, De Sanctis is portrayed at the time in which he resided in Florence and entrusted his research to the Nuova Antologia, the periodical which from January 1866 immediately established itself as the most authoritative voice of the nation. Indeed, in 1868 Nuova Antologia not only published the well-­known debate by Manzoni on the Italian language, but also many essays by De Sanctis on Dante, Guicciardini, Parini, Foscolo, Manzoni and Leopardi. These articles deeply altered Italian literary studies and Italian literary historiography, while at the same time they heavily criticized

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contemporary works such as the Armando, which had just been published by Barbéra in July 1868. The novel, written by the multifaceted Prati, who had been residing in Florence since 1865, was immediately criticized in turn by Capuana in La Nazione of 20–21 July 1868. This occurrence marks a critical point in the development of Italian historiography and deserves a more specific analysis. De Sanctis’ grit was typically Florentine and descended directly from Dante. In fact, throughout the entire centenary celebrations, the fundamental effort by De Sanctis was aimed at releasing Dante and all national literature from ‘the ancient cancer of rhetoric’ (as Ascoli would say),3 being namely to distance the poet and judge of eternal salvation or damnation from the prospect of never-­ending formal and vacuous chatter, in order to restore him instead to the ‘responsibility of historical prose’4 and incisive literary judgement. It was decisive, both then and now, that the foundations of a new historiographical and theoretical literary canon laid down by De Sanctis were moulded on Dante’s theories, questioning the ‘validity of a literature that, for almost four centuries, from Petrarca to Parini, followed a totally different path compared to that recommended by its father, Dante’.5 The new historiographical systematization of De Sanctis had its origin in Dante’s works in that it discussed the unpopularity and elitism of Italian literature, its sophisticated lyricizing of reality, its distance from the lively concreteness of history and its everlasting individualistic and autobiographical calling, typical of writers ever focused on listening to their own voices rather than to the multifaceted, varying and contrasting voices of the external world.6 In 1865, Le Monnier published in Florence the Storia della letteratura italiana written by Cersare Cantù. By ferociously criticizing it, De Sanctis taught to the newly born Italy the modern idea of literature and literary history. He couldn’t have known, but in this same period in Florence lived a young man who shortly after would bring about his and Dante’s plans for a new realism as an expression of civil integrity and ethic responsibility.7 The young man was Giovanni Verga, who had arrived in Florence in April 1869. After just one year, in 1870, De Sanctis’ own Storia was published, but the Italian republic of letters did not take notice and generally ignored it. No one talked about it because the new academic generation was totally specialized, comprised of young literary scientists in lab coats, eager to assert themselves. Their interests were set, with undeniable gain for their contemporary fame, in philological pursuits without interpretative passion and devoid of any ethical involvement and irony (De Sanctis had already condemned these features in March 1869 in Nuova Antologia, with the essay ‘Settembrini e i suoi critici’).8 Yet it is remarkable that the conspiracy of oblivion about De Sanctis’ Storia, written from a Dantean perspective, found exception exactly in Dante’s Florence, where in December 1870 the book was favourably reviewed in Angelo de Gubernatis’ Rivista Europea by the attentive magistrate and writer Carlo Lozzi, who saw in De Sanctis’ Storia ‘an irresistible invective against intellectual inactivity’.9 In 1865, an elder Florentine-­by-adoption also lived in Florence, an old-­fashioned expert, hostile towards modernity yet a master able to deduce a surprisingly proactive energy from his loyalty to historic figures (Dante included). The gentleman (who in

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1865 was aged only a little over sixty) was Niccolò Tommaseo, residing on Lungarno delle Grazie since the end of 1860, in a building bordering Volta dei Tintori.10 The harsh and cantankerous reporter who wrote Cronichetta dei sessantasei11 earned the honour of being a leading component in the field of Risorgimento. The twenty-­twoyear-­old Carducci held him in great esteem and included him in the meagre selection of literates to whom he would send his Rime from San Miniato in 1857. In Florence, Tommaseo dedicated time and energy to writing the Dizionario della lingua italiana. His work is both a majestic monument to the Unity of Italy and a masterful ‘novel’ of Italian language, which connects synchronic to diachronic narrative and tradition to dynamism in current use, all the while maintaining a polycentric attitude to the history of literature rather than a Florentine-­centric one. This latter feature of his historiographical work explains his resignation from the Ministerial Committee that was working on the problem of language. It is worth remembering that the Committee had been nominated by the Minister for Education, Emilio Broglio, and was chaired by Alessandro Manzoni. The fame of Tommaseo as lexicographer – as with his renown as correspondent (particularly celebrated was his exchange of letters with Gino Capponi) – should not obscure his poetry. In 1872, he delivered the final draft of his anthology Poesie to Florentine publisher Le Monnier. This collection comprised almost forty years of poetry and combined unpublished poems together with youthful verses, proposed in alternative versions. On the post-Unitarian Italian poetry scene, the work of Tommaseo distinguished itself as the leading source which the new generation of poets – from Carducci to Pascoli and D’Annunzio – revered. Along with Manzoni, Tommaseo offered rhymes of strong ethic resonance, unprejudiced self-­investigation, suggestive visionary dimension and troubled cognitive and formal experimentalism. He thus deviated from the canonical line of the Italian lyric tradition shaped by Petrarca’s teachings, only to assume Dante’s and Savonarola’s guidelines in the footsteps of Michelangelo. As for De Sanctis, the guiding light here again was Dante. His was the lesson, which Tommaseo had learned off by heart, of a never victorious Italy, an Italy ever opposing something or someone.

3.  Narrative prose: realism and visionary fiction However, in the period under examination, poetry never dominated in Florence  and in Tuscany, while prose proliferated in its stead. As a literary genre, it was critical-­ historic, as with De Sanctis and in the best tradition of the Istituto di Studi Superiori, as well as narrative. In the post-Unitarian period, narrative prose in particular became the crucial terrain for the renewal of the Italian literary tradition with the development of the modern novel. In this interest area, Florence is still given much consideration, along with the academic specialization of its publishing industry being decentralized and peripheral. However, this conclusion can be alternated by taking a different perspective. Narrative prose strengthened itself in Florence by going in two basic directions that would become crucial in the next century. The first line of development consisted in

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the realistic short story, characterized by a modest prose literally adopted to reveal to the public the life of the wretched in Italy. This is the case of Capuana, Verga and Vittorio Imbriani (living in Florence since 1867), particularly in the latter’s Novellaja Fiorentina (1871) that comprised direct testimonies, Mario Pratesi representing with painful accuracy the primitivism still present in Italian cities in his short story In Provincia (1883) and his novel L’eredità (1889), and lastly, De Amicis (living in Florence since 1867) and his military sketches as the surprising short story/investigative report L’esercito italiano durante il colèra of 1867 (published in Nuova Antologia in March 1869).12 The second line of development for narrative prose regarded, instead, visionary fiction that was perfectly embodied by the inimitable Collodi (Carlo Lorenzini), the author who created Pinocchio, a character that is unbound by any geographical limit.13 In the twentieth century, the two lines would intersect and evolve, obtaining results of unquestionable quality: the realistic narrative, on the one hand, with the works of Tozzi, Pea and the younger Bilenchi and Pratolini (in 1942 Pratesi’s editor);14 the visionary narrative, on the other hand, with Palazzeschi. Palazzeschi himself would later clarify the origin of this double-­sided narrative prose typical of the Florentine tradition. In the inception of his novel Sorelle Materassi, written in 1934 under the influence of Dante and Manzoni,15 Palazzeschi made direct reference to a Florentine master to whom Dante was devoted. He so quoted the ‘finest cheerfulness’ of ‘messer Giovanni’,16 referring to Giovanni Boccaccio, a superlative author both in the realistic and in the fictional register. Concerning visual arts, the weekly publication Gazzettino delle Arti del disegno – promoted by Diego Martelli and Telemaco Signorini in 1867 – in the opening editorial of 26 January (‘Ai nostri lettori’, by Martelli) encouraged ‘practice’, ‘experimentalism’, ‘experience’ and ‘observation’. These would remain the most important keywords in the lexicon of the Gazzettino throughout its life. This environment would undeniably encourage the disposition of the twenty-­nine-year-­old Giovanni Verga, who arrived in Florence on 29 April 1869, already on his way to becoming one of the greatest novelists of recently formed Italy. To his provincial eyes, the capital revealed itself as astonishing. He saw Florence as the virtuous and propulsive centre of a new national life. A week after his arrival in town, on 7 May 1869, he wrote to his brother: Florence is really the centre of Italy’s political and intellectual life: here, people live in another atmosphere, which would prove unintelligible to those who had never experienced it. Here, to become someone it is necessary . . . to live amongst this incessant activity, to be acquainted with other people, to breath this air. . . . I know perfectly well all the sacrifices my staying here has cost you, but I hope to compensate for them soon.17

During his stay in Florence, Verga worked on the novel Eva and on the comedies Rose caduche and L’onore. He also set in his mind the future Florentine and Tuscan settings of Tigre reale (1875) and Eros (1875): from Piazza D’Azeglio to the Viali dei Colli, from the Pergola theatre to the Cascine park. In the scorching summer days of 1869, between June and August, he then wrote Storia di una capinera, which would be published by Lampugnani in Milan in December 1871, with a preface consisting of a letter written

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by Francesco Dell’Ognaro to Caterina Percoto. This is the same Caterina Percoto for whom in 1858 Tommaseo would edit I racconti for Le Monnier,18 the publisher that would offer Dell’Ongaro’s Novelle vecchie e nuove in 1861 and the Racconti in 1869, together with the second edition of Novelle vecchie e nuove. At the same time, Le Monnier (which in 1867 published posthumously Nievo’s Confessioni) boasted eminent credentials exactly in the area of interest of rural literature, having printed in 1853 (before Percoto’s Racconti) the Dodici novelle of Giulio Carcano, follower of Manzoni. As preface of this book, the publisher included the renowned essay Della letteratura rusticale, written by Cesare Correnti in 1846, a veritable manifesto of nineteenth-­ century rural narrative. The event is historically symptomatic. Florence, the editorial capital in Italy for rural short stories, also hosted Giovanni Verga, the author who certified the death of this rural narrative genre with the tragic denunciation of the wretched living conditions in the countryside contained in his rustic short stories. As suggested by Tommaseo in his introductory pages to Percoto’s Racconti, written in 1858, it is worth pondering upon the national resonance bestowed in Florence upon rural short stories. In his introduction, Tommaseo justly gives value to female authorship that was greatly underestimated at the time as it is today. Percoto had been able, thanks to an acute literary resentment, to avoid the trap of an idyllic Arcadia, condemning also the philanthropic reformism of those who go – in Tommaseo’s words – to the countryside ‘for entertainment’ on Sundays ‘to gather daisies in the fields’. Tommaseo is not De Sanctis and the two of them, despite their devotion to Dante and Manzoni, are distanced from each other both in terms of sensitivity and culture. In the name of Dante, they nonetheless both agreed to rejecting the word with only aesthetic value, safeguarding its ethic function as Percoto always did. This can explain why the narrative-­style novel by Tommaseo, Fede e Bellezza, nearly vanished from official literature after a hostile review written by Carlo Cattaneo on the Politecnico in 1840, only to be re-­evaluated by Capuana, a shrewd exponent of contemporary literature, writing in Florence from 1867 for the Rivista Italica and La Nazione.19 After the events that led the Italian capital to be moved to Rome, Giovanni Verga left Florence for Milan, where finance and industry (and publishers in particular) were flourishing. His Florentine novel, Storia di una capinera, was written in Florence yet published in Milan just after his move. The novel concerned the highly debated theme of women being forced by their families to take the veil. Verga obviously took inspiration from Manzoni and Diderot, but also from some clamorous instances of monastery violence reported between March and August by the Florentine press, particularly in the pages of La Nazione and Gazzetta del Popolo.20 Verga also took inspiration from contemporary works such as Idelgonda (1820) by Tommaso Grossi, La monaca di Monza (1829) by Giovanni Rosini, the ballad La Suora (1834) by Luigi Carrer and the Calabrian novella, Il monastero di Sambucina (1842) by Vincenzo Padula. Another work, strictly connected to the novel by Verga, is the memoirs of the ex-Benedictine Enrichetta Caracciolo, published in Florence by Barbèra in 1864. The book had a startling success and was reprinted eight times between 1864 and 1869, for a total of 16,000 copies sold up to 1881 (without considering clandestine editorial counterfeiting). The memoirs became an authentic instance of European resonance,

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being translated into French, English, German and Polish between 1864 and 1869. In the very same year of the first Italian edition (1864), the memoirs found their way into the private notepads of Dostoevskij, a register where he annotated a book’s title and author’s personal details. Dostoevskij himself stayed in Florence from November 1868 to July 1869, testifying, as if it were still necessary, to the extraordinary melting pot represented by Florence when it was capital of Italy: a place for the fruitful interaction of many international intellectuals.21 The first original narrative attempt by Giovanni Verga, the cited Storia di una capinera, was not a customary survey nor a social novel, as is usually believed, but more a character study particularly of the feminine persona. The analysis of Maria, the novel’s protagonist, is done through analytically dismantling her interior apprehension, in other words by a ‘physiological and pathological study of a heart breaking’, as Dall’Ongaro22 wrote in a letter to Emilio Treves dated 18 August 1869. Dell’Ongaro added that such an analysis was ‘a theme of vibrant modernity’.23 In fact, in the years under study, physiology and medical science in Florence had developed a new experimental application of psychological investigation, to which Dell’Ongaro refers by speaking of ‘physiological and pathological study’ with reference to Verga’s novel. While Verga worked on his Storia di una capinera, the painter Telemaco Signorini revealed his painting La sala delle agitate al San Bonifazio (see frontispiece) for the first time in the Florentine exhibition Promotrice fiorentina of 1869 (located in Via della Colonna). It caused a general scandal.24 The canvas represented the psychiatric ward of the San Bonifacio hospital in accordance with the dictates of naturalism. The scene is set to stage a crude contrast between the agitated female psychiatric patients, painted in dark colours, and the nude walls bathed in light. Signorini had kept the painting hidden in his study for four long years before showing it to the public in 1869. This painting would immediately spring into the mind of a reader of Capinera, particularly in reference to the pages describing the conclusive mental illness of Maria. The ‘imbeciles’ prison cell’25 (as related by De Roberto’s testimony),26 into which the protagonist is dragged by force at the end of the novel, perfectly corresponds to the painting by Signorini. Maria would so be led beyond the ‘gate’, and left passed out ‘on the floor’, among fellow patients, the likes of which included ‘poor Sister Agata’, who had been confined in that ‘prison cell’ for fifteen years. In Florence, though, apart from the realistic short story here represented by the works of Verga, narrative also took the form of fictional prose. Collodi (Carlo Lorenzini) started to write his masterpiece, Pinocchio, in 1881, but already in the decades following Unification, he improved the tones of his humoristic, wandering and witty writing, which he practised for a long time in the Florentine periodical press with many articles later collated in the volumes Macchiette (1880) and Occhi e nasi (1881). At the same time, Collodi was experimenting with prose in which the fairy-­tale imaginary and the realistic detail coexisted. The mysterious Pinocchio is thus the son of a still agrarian and localistic Tuscany, marked by the hardships of everyday life in the fields and by a satirical and thoughtful humour distilled by the participation in the battles of independence and disoriented by the political choices of the new reign. The literary denunciation of living conditions is here resolved in fairytale magic, more than in  the naturalism chosen by Giovanni Verga, but it remains a denunciation nonetheless. 

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So, almost for fun and with little resources, a surreal prodigy grew up in the domestic and patriarchal home of the frugal countryside of Collodi.

4.  Conclusions The map of literary life in Florence when the city was capital of Italy, here sketched out in terms of its essential and immediate features, reveals crossroads of dynamic energies from ancient and modern times, intersections between the cult of tradition and contemporary realism in the wake of the lessons taught by Dante and Boccaccio, encounters between different generations such as those of Tommaseo and Verga, between prose and poetry, critical-­historical prose and narrative prose, naturalistic and realistic novels and fictional fairy-­tale novels, literature and psychological science or figurative arts. This remarkably unique melting pot would have shattering outcomes for the beginning of a new century.

6

Science and Florence’s Ruling Class Fabio Bertini

1.  In the service of the nation: science in Florence The topic of science in Florence when the city was capital of Italy should be analysed in the wider historical perspective of the nation-­building process, hinting also at the underlying complex philosophical issues. Some insight is offered by fundamental historiographic contributions1 and many archival documents.2 Thanks to these sources, the topic of science in Florence can be reconstructed in detail, particularly the continuous dialogue between the Istituto di Studi Superiori and European science. Such dialogue was actively promoted by the Florentine enlightened ruling class even if the same showed a definite resistance towards the diffusion of empiricism. The question became particularly interesting in the years when Florence was capital of Italy. The briefness of the period considered – a mere instant in respect to the history of other capitals – may give rise to questioning the usefulness of such research. In the specific case of science, though, the period 1865–71 can be defined as a veritable ‘Kirchhoff ’s junction’ where certain undercurrents enter: the Galilean and experimental tradition, the explosive European scientific confrontation and the solid culture of a ruling class that did not want to be marginalized; while a complex tide of political motivations and social implications exists. A fluctuation of forces and energies certainly worthy of study. In 1859, Florence had no university so the local ruling class decided to erect in its stead a Istituto Superiore di Studi Pratici e di Perfezionamento. The Museum of Physics and Natural History became the basis of its science department, resuming the impetus for research lost in the preceding decades. With the medical school located in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, the museum constituted the Istituto Superiore’s scientific department on par with the Department of Letters and that of Law.3 In fact, the Istituto Superiore perfectly embodied the then diffused principle of interdisciplinarity, combining diverse fields of humanistic, philosophical and scientific knowledge. At the same time, though, contemporary scientific research in Florence  had begun to revise the concept of nature in a historical and materialistic sense, differentiating its methodology and object of study from other branches of knowledge. This held particularly true for astronomy, biology and botany. Physics also began to approach the needs of a society in great transformation by modernizing research and methods.4

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Another aspect of the question was the pioneering role played by the science faculty of the Istituto Superiore in preparing a new generation of school and university professors. The Florentine institution was not alone in this modernizing effort. In a short time, other scientific institutions would begin pursuing the same goal of practical and concrete teaching in united Italy. Among them was the Scuola per il Corpo del Genio Civile (civil engineering school), founded in Ferrara in 1860, which would later become the Scuola di Ingegneria Idraulica (hydraulic engineering school), and the Scuola per Ingegneri (school for engineers) founded in Palermo immediately after the Expedition of the Thousand. Other teaching institutions and technological museums upheld the same rationale.5 Nonetheless, the Florentine Istituto Superiore always occupied a special position, due to its closeness with field research and scientific laboratories. The enthusiasm for restoring its scientific faculty followed from the general scientific excitement encompassing all of Europe, with the Professors of the Istituto being actively involved in research networks around the continent. In physics and astronomy, the main characters of Florentine scientific studies were Giovan Battista Amici, Professor of Astronomy and Director of the La Specola observatory, and Giovan Battista Donati. On the occasion of the total eclipse of August 1860, the journal Civiltà Cattolica, reporting the astronomical event, positioned Donati (perhaps with some irony) among the most important contemporary scientists: Carrington, De La Rue, Leverrier, Chacornac, Airy, Aguilar, Secchi and Lamont.6 This group of scientists studied the spectral characteristics of stars, a new research field constituted by the German Joseph von Fraunhofer some decades prior. Vital to the research was technical surveying equipment. Both von Fraunhofer and the Italian Angelo Secchi had devised similar specific instruments to this end. In 1860, Filippo Parlatore, Professor of Botany and Director of the Giardino dei Semplici, participated in a great systematic work directed by Alphonse Louis Pierre Pyrame De Candolle, Prodromus Systematis Naturalis, with a series of organigraphic studies. His research was discussed at length by the Académie des Sciences de Paris.7 The classificatory work of Candolle, however, followed a systematic criterion that was at times excessively detailed, as Parlatore himself complained. Another renowned Florentine scientist was Professor Igino Cocchi, who undertook a varied and vast correspondence with other European researchers. His profligacy did not negatively influence the depths of his knowledge or the validity of his affirmations. Cocchi discussed copiously about the dating of human remains with Edouard Lartet. At the same time, around 1864, he was involved in palaeontological research on marine fossils, while simultaneously discoursing about his findings on fish fossils with Professor Owen of the British Museum and other English scientists. Many of his Italian and French correspondents offered him materials and experimental results on this same topic.8 Cocchi’s research assistant, the ornithologist Enrico Benvenuti, published an article on five new species of birds, achieving international recognition. The influential Guerin-Melville reviewed his work in his Revue et Magazin de Zoologie.9 The elderly electrical and acoustics engineer Luigi Magrini represented Florence’s link connecting the present scientific revival and the experimental research efforts of

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the beginning of the nineteenth century, practised by scientists like Antonio Pacinotti on telegraphy. Magrini had very strong personal ideas about the philosophy of science, clearly explained in his noteworthy prolusion to his university course in 1863. In this speech, which was later published, he expressed his certainty that the experimental method was the only way to develop science further.10 Lastly, Carlo Matteucci acted in Florence as a patron of a scientific research based on Galileo’s method, a method in which all young scientists and all young teachers of the new national school had to be knowledgeable.11

2.  From Florence to Europe: an unavoidable challenge Florence, as seen, had no lack of knowledgeable professors or of scientific institutions or research. The unification of Italy, though, brought changes in the organization of superior and university studies. The new national government wished for the standardization of teaching and for a more rational distribution of funds for research. In the report on public education in Italy, presented in 1865 at the Consiglio Superiore in Turin, some considerations were put forward that primarily concerned the Istituto Superiore di Studi Pratici e di Perfezionamento of Florence: In Italy, in regard to higher education, some institutions should be connected to each other by a general plan, so that they would be equally distributed on the territory. It is not right that one province should have all types of university courses and others none, nor that all provinces have them all. Among the institutions administered by the state, the ones that should prevail are those that include laboratories, observatories and natural history collections, and consequently require a lot of funds to permit observations and experiments by qualified professors whose teachings will profit young researchers. This is the reason why, even if opposing the intervention of the state in education, many approve it in the case of institutions of higher studies of medicine, physics, natural sciences and mathematics. The teaching of these disciplines, though, must be concentrated in few centres, distributed around the country and conveniently financed. In the absence of such focused intervention of the state, many sections of the Florentine institution survive with difficulty, amid much opposition. Many people thus believe that, except for the medical school of S. Maria Nuova, investments funnelled into the other sectors of the institution do not produce the desired results.12

Questionnaires that the Superior Council handed out to the directors of universities and schools of higher education, in fact, garnered responses that highlighted a general failure in respect of the aim of preparing young professors for secondary education. Courses were followed by a generalist publicum with little profit for future generations of teachers.13 The main issue, underlined by Carlo Matteucci in the Revue des Deux Mondes, was enhancing the international visibility of the teaching staff and simultaneously increasing resources significantly.14 The future of the Florentine Istituto depended on the capacity

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of professors to gain an international reputation and on their capacity to engage young researchers in the tradition of experimentalism. In this sense, the arrival of Maurizio Schiff in 1863 to the Chair of Physiology was an event of relevance. His experimental method included the revolutionary practice of vivisection, through which Schiff proved his theory of idio-­contraction, confirming the hypothesis of irritability expressed in the eighteenth century by Albrecht von Haller. The theory simply stated that reactivity was a property of muscular fibre. Its implications, though, were momentous. By stating that matter and spirit were separated, the theory affirmed that the Catholic idea of the unity of body and soul was of no consequence. Therefore, the novel theorization stirred many doubts, with physiologist Otto Funke being a main critic. Nonetheless, the international scientific community could only applaud the decided modernization of Italian science following the unification process of the nation. The Medical Times and Gazette wrote on 11 April 1863: The Italian universities are indebted to the late minister of public instruction, Professor Matteucci, for two valuable acquisitions from Germany – being Professor Moleschott in Turin, and Professor Schiff in Florence. The exchange may be advantageous to both countries; not only could Germany spare some of her physiologists while Italy stood sorely in need of them, but the undue and unduly fostered predilection with which physiology is cultivated by the German student is far from being favourable to his clinical training, while the comparative indifference with which this gigantic (though only nascent) science has hitherto been treated on this side of the Alps, was of course still more objectionable than the German excess of zeal. Florence has no University, nor, strictly speaking, a Medical faculty, but it has much of the auxiliary apparatus for the student of Medicine. It has three cliniques, a botanical garden, and the celebrated museum for natural history, and it is in this latter establishment that Professor Schiff delivers his lectures on Physiology. Should they continue to be as numerously attended as hitherto, it may be hoped that the Italian taste for physiological research will soon rise to a healthy level, and propagate itself over the rest of the Peninsula. Independently of these lectures, Professor Schiff continues his interesting researches on the ‘Function and Distribution, of the Vascular and Calorific Nerves’, and he has quite recently published a paper on the ‘Influence of Reflex Action on the Vaso-­motor Nerves’, which adds new and somewhat unexpected results to those of his former experiments published last autumn.15

The Florentine medical establishment, however, refused to be overrun by the German tradition. Patriot and follower of Garibaldi, Corrado Tommasi-Crudeli, in the opening lecture of his course in histopathology at Santa Maria Nuova held on 2 July 1864, reaffirmed that the use of the experimental method in medicine in Florence dated back to the work of Maurizio Bufalini, so that Professor Schiff on his arrival had already found a fertile ground for his experiments. The future of medicine in Florence lay in the convergence of this Florentine tradition and the new physiological school.16 Florentine physicians, despite some caveats, were not averse to Schiff. Much more criticism came from other intellectuals who believed that Schiff ’s method did not

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correspond to that of Galileo. The same intellectuals still believed that underneath Galileo’s experimentalism lay a form of spiritualism.17 The diffidence of a section of Florentine intellectuals towards Schiff ’s materialism took the form of a vivacious dispute on vivisection, a question that found wide appeal in public opinion. Schiff countered the attack by publishing a series of articles in La Nazione in January 1864.18 On his side stood the entire Istituto and its reputation. Carlo Matteucci, as director of the Istituto, openly defended Schiff on the occasion of the visit of Vittorio Emanuele II to the Museum of Physics and Natural History in 1865. Carlo Matteucci directly linked the past of the Istituto – so well represented by the late Cosimo Ridolfi and his practical use of science – with the future, embodied in Maurizio Schiff. The Museum was just one side of the activities of the Istituto and should not be limited to a showcase of past glories such as the relics of Galileo, the instruments of his disciples and the testimonies of the Accademia del Cimento, but should become a veritable laboratory of modernity thanks to its continuous research activities. The third series of the journal of the Museum, the Annali del Reale Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale di Firenze, clearly showed the positive effects of Matteucci’s strategy. The first series of the journal had been published in 1808, under the patronage of the Grand Duchess Elisa, along with the institution of the first Tuscan chairs of natural and physical sciences.19 The following years were of decadence for Tuscan scientific research due to political changes. The only interesting event had been the conference of Italian scientists in 1833 and the relaunch of the Natural History Museum by Vincenzo Antinori. The main personalities of the relaunch had been the physicist Leopoldo Nobili and the mathematician and astronomer Giovan Battista Amici. The Annali, though, had not been reissued. In 1864, after the death of Amici, Giovan Battista Donati20 became director of the observatory of the Museum. Donati upheld an international reputation thanks to his observations of comets and stellar spectra and particularly his discovery, on 2 June 1858, of a comet in transit in the constellation of Leo. He used his fame to obtain funds for new equipment for the observatory. At the time, the professors teaching in the Museum held an interesting mix of competencies, open to international research networks. An example is the dialogue commenced in 1860 between Giovan Battista Donati and Johann von Lamont upon their shared observations in Spain of the total eclipse of the sun on 18 August. Both scientists discussed at length about survey methods of stellar spectroscopy and methodology of experimental observations, with the intention of going beyond the reasons of Joseph von Fraunhofer. Giovan Battista Donati himself devised innovative instruments for stellar spectroscopy that would flourish in the creation of the manufactory Officine Galileo.21 He reported on the issue in an article for the Annali in 1865.22 The burning lens was not the only thing that Donati took from Galileo. Both scientists, although separated by centuries, shared a deep faith in experimental verification and in the meticulous observation of concrete facts in order to find the truth.23 The new series of the Annali also comprised the palaeontological research of Iginio Cocchi, previously destined to be published in England but ultimately hosted in the Florentine journal.

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Filippo Parlatore wrote in the Annali about the female organs of conifers, reaching different conclusions to those of his German colleague Wilhelm Eichler.24 His associate Teodoro Caruel published a simplified version of the German and French classification system and a study on the fruits.25 Other scientists confirming the potential of the Florentine Istituto with their publications were Enrico Benvenuti26 and Luigi Magrini, writing on experimental electromagnetism.27

3.  The task of science and the role of astronomy In 1867, the Italian state decided to intervene in order to control university education in Florence. A Ministerial Decree dated 6 September 1867 instituted an Academic Council composed by professors who would advise the director and president on the natural and physical sciences. The Council would help them to reach collective decisions.28 The government aimed at reinforcing an important resource, not limiting it. The contribution of the Florentine Istituto to cultural life was considered strategic in the new century of science. The intent to strengthen the population’s interest in science also inspired an innovative editorial operation of the publisher Treves, launched at the conference of Carlo Matteucci on the battery of Volta, held at the Museum of Physics and Natural History. The content of the conference was published as the first volume of a series called La Scienza del Popolo (The Science of the People) in 1867.29 Science was rapidly changing. The role of science gained more and more political attention in consequence of its increasing importance in the economic sphere. In Italy, a principal example of this evolution was the law of the so-­called ‘correctors’ developed by Carlo Cassola, chemistry professor at the University of Naples. On 28 June 1868, Cassola and three colleagues – Montagna, Palmieri and Zinno – held a lesson at the Florentine Istituto on the issue of fuel in Italy. They analysed  the Italian state of affairs to understand if there were coalfields similar to the English ones, if finding Italian coal would offer advantages to production and if Italian coal (where existing) would be sufficient for internal use.30 The law of ‘correctors’ was the central theme of the lesson, aiming to demonstrate that Italian fuels were superior to foreign ones. The lesson had noteworthy political effects – even more so, given that Cassola was a passionate liberal, exiled during the Risorgimento, and later a symbol of the south of Italy sacrificed to Piedmontese ambition.31 Cassola, though, with his law of correctors, became an expression of nationalist scientific research, influenced by political interests. His studies had been financed and supported by many municipalities and provinces of Campania. Even the politician Luigi Federico Menabrea approved of his research.32 The lesson held by Cassola induced the Istituto to intervene more regularly in economic matters. There was resistance, though, particularly from the scientists dedicated to theoretical speculations. At the time, for example, Iginio Cocchi decided to publish the results of a relevant discovery in the region of Arezzo, which contributed to a long-­standing debate with Lartet. The article was even published some months later by the Bulletins de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris.33 The two researchers debated

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on the discovery of a human cranium in the Val D’Arno, mainly based on theoretical speculation.34 In 1868, two heroic figures of nineteenth-­century Tuscan science died: Luigi Magrini and Carlo Matteucci, depriving physics of celebrated researchers and leaving vacant the chair of physics, temporarily held by Dr Eccher as substitute.35 As a consequence, not long after its nomination, the Academic Council approved a general reshuffling of chairs in the department of natural sciences, later ratified by a Ministerial Decree dated 19 October 1868.36 The chair for the science of mining, inactive for years, and the chair of zoology of vertebrates (never refilled after the pensioning of Gaspero Mazzi), were substituted by a chair in physiology and comparative anatomy entrusted to Professor Maurizio Schiff and by a chair in zoology and anatomy of superior animals temporarily covered by Adolfo Targioni, who already held the chair of zoology and anatomy of inferior animals. Pietro Marchi, instead, continued to teach zoology, researching worms active within humans and animals alike. Great developments arose in astronomy, a science strictly connected to the new technologies society requested for military and civil use. The Istituto Superiore di Studi Pratici e di Perfezionamento was concerned by these changes, given that it controlled the Florentine astronomical observatory. As seen, the observatory held a long tradition in the construction and improvement of optical devices, hosting microscopes, telescopes and a refracting telescope. The latter, due to its dimension, found no easy collocation within the observatory. The long-­standing plan of Perelli to find another location for the observatory was proposed again by Giovan Battista Donati and

Figure 6.1  Public lecture on the solar system. Source: ‘Sistema Solare’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 2, no. 25, 24–30 June 1865. Private Collection.

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approved by both Ridolfi and Matteucci. The construction of the new observatory near the hill of Poggio Imperiale was entrusted to Paoletti. Such transfers were, at the time, common in many European countries. England had already rebuilt its observatories and Paris was planning to do the same. Indeed, countries that did not upgrade their observatories quickly lost primacy in this line of research.

4.  Science as awareness of body and soul: Darwinism and free will The move to assign the chair of physiology and comparative anatomy to Maurizio Schiff had profound political significance, and this was underlined in April 1868, when Alessandro Herzen, assistant to Schiff in the laboratory of human physiology, published an article in the Annali di Medicina on the physiology of human intent, attacking the concept of free will. Herzen’s hypothesis was backed up by another author, Giuseppe Ferrari, who wrote an essay on free will in Libero Pensiero.37 The physiologist and the philosopher both underwrote the same stance. Herzen opened his article with a sentence by Quetelet on the inconsistency of the charges of materialism thrown against science every time it progressed. He stated: After the latest progress in chemistry, no-­one could surely still believe that a living being contains or produces elements that do not come from the outside. It is generally acknowledged that all substances that enter the composition of a living being are just modifications of those it receives through aliments, beverages and air. . . . The dynamic manifestations of living beings are only particular alterations to exterior impulses.38

Herzen then concluded his long analysis of instances and influences on the human will from external elements with doctrinaire words: Unfortunately, the resulting truth conflicts with our oldest prejudice, the more difficult to eradicate, the more it supports the illusion of our free will: that morality was born from the will of people living in society to give themselves an order without referring to a superior order, but only to the union of men. In the same way, animals would formulate laws of conduct and would teach them to their offspring, they would call good the actions beneficial to the social body and bad those that are not. . . . This hypothesis is not so absurd given that it is an expression of a fact: the image of an entire species that Alfieri called, as you know, the plant of man. Is this not, per chance, the picture of the development of the human race, a race that for centuries has erected a majestic edifice, columns, capitals, cupolas, so imposing that contemplating it you might forget that it is built with simple clay? Without our fortuitous combination of organs, our civilisation wouldn’t exist, we would all be condemned to an individual existence and all that we call education, instruction, teaching would not have existed, our activities would be limited to the instinctive actions of mammals. . . . Man, in sum, would be a gorilla, an orangutan, a chimpanzee, a monkey like any other that would have soon yielded to the

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deprivations of a harsh existence. Who knows, in fact, how many intermediate forms, incapable of supporting and reproducing themselves, that have perished before the one that enclosed all conditions to succeed and to immensely develop itself, could spring out of the great furnace of nature?39

A reply to Herzen’s provocative essay was published in September 1868 in the Nuova Antologia. The article, however, did not confront the scientific thesis of Herzen, but instead asked all scientists and intellectuals to evaluate the risks of the new methodology. The author, who signed off as G. C. (probably Gino Capponi), wrote: For him [Herzen] free will is a term devoid of sense, and all acts attributed to willpower in which, he writes, we are instead passive, follow reflexive actions that originate in the grey substance of the spinal cord and of the brain. The consequences of such a theory are apparent to everybody and so we ask: should we leave them be and allow them to spread among people who won’t artificially create a moral law instead of natural and social law? We don’t want to deny the experiments on which the daring ideas of Dr. Herzen are based. We only want that all people who care for freedom, morality and social order shake themselves out of their indifference and decide to examine this essay to tell us where its errors lie. For sure, either the experiments were biased by some illusion of the senses, or the logic that draws the conclusions is faulty. In any case, it is necessary that psychologists study the issue so that nobody may believe that this essay has defeated them and reduced them to silence.40

At the same time when many critics were attacking him – among them the so-­called spiritualist physicists – Alessandro Herzen introduced Darwinism in Florence by holding a conference on ‘The kinship between man and monkey’ on 21 March 1869.41 Ten years had passed since the publication of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, eight years since the prolusion held by Jakob Moleschott in Turin on the materialist method to be used in university courses and five years since the conference through which the same Moleschott introduced Darwinism in Italy, embracing it totally. Up until the conference of Alessandro Herzen, the debate in Florence between science and theological faith had regarded the experimental method and vivisection. With Darwinism, the disputation moved on to a more ontological plane. From then on, scientific materialism directly confronted Christian idealism. Herzen’s conference was immediately followed by an article by the abbé Raffaello Lambruschini, superintendent of the Istituto Superiore, published in La Nazione. Lambruschini accused the German of nothing less than a pernicious cultural operation at the expense of the entire population. Other Florentine personalities as Gino Capponi and Niccolò Tommaseo joined the dispute on the side of Lambruschini. Tommaseo wrote a series of letters on ‘Man and the monkey’42 in answer to the theses expressed by Herzen in his conference on Darwinism. The debate between Herzen and Schiff on one side and Lambruschini and Capponi on the other has been well researched recently in a series of studies on the pedagogical role of the Tuscan political moderates and on the social role of culture in liberal

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ideology.43 In effect, the emergence and spread of materialism and Darwinism coincided with the loss of relevance of the liberal political elite of Tuscany at a national level. The irritation of the old ruling class towards the new scientific advancement even went to court, to hamper the spread of what were considered perilous and antagonistic political ideas. In this sense, the ideological war of Lambruschini against Darwinism comes to represent the epitome of a century-­long cultural battle for hegemony fought by Tuscan moderates. The decadence of the liberal ideology after Unification has been represented in depth by Ernesto Ragionieri and Arnaldo Salvestrini.44 It is interesting how the evolution over time of the thought and actions of the Tuscan ruling class interacted with science. The abundance of historiography regarding Tuscan moderates45 allows a closer analysis of the question.46 A first point of conflict emerged in the years of the Antologia (1821–33), the famous journal published by Giovan Pietro Vieusseux. The pages of this renowned cultural paper gave space to the debate between Umberto Carpi and Sebastiano Timpanaro  on the necessity of economic and social development, perceived by many as a  pestilent social experiment with deleterious results.47 Other debated questions were sharecropping and the confrontation of agricultural development and capitalism.48 Of some relevance also was the slow financialization process of the Tuscan economy  in relation to the idea, widespread among the elite, of the importance of social conservatism.49 In nineteenth-­century Tuscany, discussing science was a battle for maintaining a political and cultural hegemony. In studying this long period, the ruling class of Tuscan moderates emerges as liberal, but not too much so. The analysis of the scientific debate, in this sense, unveils the continuity between the preoccupations for maintaining the existing social order at the beginning of the century and the refutation of Darwinism at the end of the century: all being battles to control the soul of the Tuscan population. In these battles the weapons differed, but not the target.

5.  Darwinism and science as a socio-­political factor In respect to the long-­run process concerning the Florentine ruling class, studying the role of science in the years when Florence was capital of Italy assumes great relevance. Alessandro Herzen acted as a catalyst of longer-­term phenomena with the force of a wrecking ball. At the same time, he exposed to the public the principles of evolutionism and dedicated a book to free will, applying the analytical schemes of physiology to moral philosophy. The principle, in the words of Vogt, was that ‘the more science explains, the less we still have to attribute to God’, and the ultimate consequence of such reasoning was to negate free will, according to a new faith in social evolutionism. Civilisation progresses slowly on an uphill slope towards an ideal summit: will civilisation ever reach it? Or will some volcanic eruption or ice age or comet damage the earth, proving the endless vanity of all? Who knows? It is sufficient to know that all branches of civilisation tend to this summit. We can die content if we

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never impair the improvement of human progress, we can die content if, through a minimal push, we can help it.50

As mentioned, Lambruschini immediately responded to these statements with a letter in which he warned that science was free, but not to the point of destroying the truths of ‘another order’. The unfathomable conscience, in the eyes of Lambruschini, was a laboratory better equipped than those of physics, chemistry and physiology to find those higher truths. Lambruschini, in his stance, well represented the conservative Florentine elite and the clerical milieu to which politicians had to respond for political convenience. Maurizio Schiff embraced the battle against this clericalism with zeal, a battle he considered to be one of civilization. On 18 April 1869, during one of his lessons open to the population of Florence held at the Natural History Museum, he affirmed: The greatest philosopher, the immortal Baruch Spinoza, said that truth is simultaneously an indicator of itself and of falsehood. By asserting the truth, all opposite affirmations are necessarily denied. If I can prove that the spirit is complex and extensive, I concurrently prove that it is not simple. The simplicity of the spirit could be an innocent error indeed if it were not the basis on which all enemies of the nation and of civilisation count to spread prejudices and maintain their tragic influence on our people. I would not have done my duty as a citizen and as a scientist, if I had not held my lesson in public and for all people to be heard, if I had not succeeded in preserving the majority of you from the illusory logic of those black bands that lately have tried to extend their influence on our Istituto. Shouldn’t our institution be devoted to the cult of the truth and of progress? We live in times of war: truth is our armour, why not use it?51

The words of Schiff hit the heart of the dispute raging within the Istituto Superiore between the German professor and the superintendent Lambruschini. Schiff published his lecture in a booklet dedicated, not by chance, to Carlo Matteucci. In the publication, Schiff countered the attack of Lambruschini52 and sought choral approval of his theses from the scientific community.53 Many reacted to Shiff ’s provocation. The most solid criticism came from Saverio  de Dominicis, a young graduate of the school of higher studies, Normale in Pisa.54 Further criticism came with more authority from the University of Turin’s Professor  of Philosophy, Giovanni Maria Bertini. He could not be defined as a Catholic fundamentalist, but he nonetheless did not accept materialism and remained faithful to the compromise of faith and reason. Therefore, Bertini attempted a confutation of Schiff ’s theses, even if recognizing their scientific relevance.55 On 26 September 1869, Florence hosted the second international medical congress. The very same day, the new astronomical observatory was inaugurated with a sizeable presence of physicians from the international congress.56 The Italian Prime Minister was also in attendance, as were many authorities and scientists: the Minister of Foreign Affairs Federico Luigi Menabrea, the Minister of Education Antonio Bargoni, the Minister of the Royal House Filippo Antonio Gualterio, General August von Fligely as

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head of the Austrian Geographic Military Institute, the German General Baeyer, Professor Ernst Christian Julius Schering of Göttingen, the Director of the observatory of Neuchâtel Adolphe Hirsch, the Spanish Colonel Carlo Ibanez and the French physiatrist Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud. There were also many Italian scientists: the physicist Gilberto Govi of the University of Turin, Professor Giovanni Schiapparelli as Director of the observatory of Rome, Lorenzo Respighi and, obviously, from the Florentine Istituto, the Professors Donati, Targioni Tozzetti and Schiff.57 A long line of carriages set off towards Poggio Imperiale to reach Arcetri, where the great telescope of Amici was on display, waiting for the newly ordered photographing machines to fix the magnetic movements of earth. In Arcetri, Professor Donati held his speech, remembering all obstacles and difficulties he had had to overcome for the new observatory to be built. He thanked the king, the Minister Bargoni, the municipality and the province. The Minister Menabrea gave a speech in French, followed by August von Fligely and then Santini. A commemorative parchment was walled in the foundations of the observatory. Later, visitors could tour the villa once inhabited by Galileo. The ceremony was concluded with a buffet prepared by renowned pâtissier Doney, a buffet that sanctioned a truce in the scientific war that had escalated in Florence. The truce regarded science in general, but not physiology. Alessandro Herzen published another pamphlet in 1870 on the relationship of physiological analysis and free will,58 reaffirming the inseparable unity of matter and will power. The pamphlet caused the author to receive many renewed accusations of materialism, for example, from Professor Luigi Ferri, who taught philosophy in the Istituto Superiore. Ferri was a champion of Platonism and was necessarily against the ideas of Herzen.59 In April 1871, Herzen responded in the Rivista Europea, a journal published by Angelo De Gubernatis. De Gubernatis agreed substantially with Herzen, but also hosted opposing viewpoints in his journal.60 The debate between supporters of anti-clericalism, materialism and rationalism and those of clericalism and spiritualism was, at this point, as political as it was academic and could not be resolved easily. Politically, the Florentine ruling class of moderate liberals would not accept losing the political and cultural hegemony that they had held for so long and feared the new forms of politics that exalted popular initiatives. Socialism had entered the scene with Michail Bakunin, the brothers Schiff, the same Herzen and de Gubernatis. In their hands, science had become a political tool to nurture public opinion. The conservative society, though, had antique origins in Florence and a much too solid base to be revolutionized easily. In the end, both Maurizio Schiff and Alessandro Herzen left the city that, no longer capital of Italy, reacquired a measure of petty provincialism.

7

The Istituto Tecnico di Firenze and   Universal Exhibitions Paolo Brenni, Laura Faustini and Elena Mechi1

This chapter is divided into two distinct parts. The first outlines a short history of the Istituto Tecnico di Firenze and examines its participation in the universal exhibitions between 1851 and 1900, paying particular attention to that held in Paris in 1867. The second part presents the results of recent archival research, casting a new light on the resolution of the Consiglio Provinciale in supporting the costs for sending a few students from the Istituto Tecnico to Paris in 1867, where they were able to visit the exhibition along with various factories and technical institutions.

1.  The Istituto Tecnico di Firenze Given that the history of the Istituto Tecnico di Firenze has been investigated by various authors in recent years, here we provide only a very short overview of it.2 In 1850, Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, established the separation of the Technical Schools of the Arts and Manufacture from the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence, and appointed mathematician Filippo Corridi (1806–77) as director. The new institute had been conceived to provide a solid and practical technical-­scientific preparation to the new professional figures who were indispensable in the constant development of agriculture, handicrafts and emergent industry. A new decree, enacted in 1853, regulated the teaching in the new technical schools. Six chairs were established, being in descriptive geometry and design, technological physics, experimental mechanics, applied chemistry, natural history, and metallurgy. For the first time, the Scuole Tecniche, with their new endowments taken as a whole, assumed the name of the Istituto Tecnico Toscano. Classes began in February 1857 in the presence of Leopoldo II, with an inaugural speech by Professor Corridi and a lecture demonstration by Physics Professor Gilberto Govi. The Istituto was definitively organized into technical schools, having the sections of physics-­chemistry and physics-­mechanics, chemistry and mechanics laboratories, an academy of arts and craftsmanship, a technological museum, a mechanics and carpentry workshop and a library. At the time, the Istituto was located in the historic convent of the Cavalieresse di Malta, in Via San Gallo.

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Corridi, who was to remain as the institute’s director until 1859, was decisive in the importance of his role. In addition to having founded the institute, he was responsible for the inception of the fundamental operation of acquisition, plus the recovery and exchange of materials that constitute the basis of the current collections of scientific and library materials. When Corridi left the Istituto, the Museo Tecnologico boasted more than 16,000 examples of organic and inorganic, raw and worked materials, machines and instruments.3 The chemistry and physics laboratories were equipped with numerous pieces of modern instruments, and the mechanics workshop was working at full capacity with machines imported from France, England, Holland and the German state of Baden. The library’s inventory amounted to more than 2,000 works. Even after the end of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Istituto – thanks to the constant interest of the Province and the Municipality of Florence – long maintained its own autonomy and its own priority role in the field of scientific and technical instruction. From 1870 to 1888, the Istituto was totally dependent on the Province, which it specifically requested from the national government in order to render it a modern polytechnic school as the basis of a complex reorganization of all teaching in Florence. It then took measures towards important and systematic acquisitions of instruments, naturalistic collections, industrial products and books until it came to constitute an almost unique patrimony in Italy. The success of this strict and efficient polytechnic school, which was named for Galileo Galilei in 1883, was also due to the high quality of its teaching. Prestigious teachers including the likes of Adolfo and Antonio Targioni Tozzetti, Gilberto Govi, Damiano Casanti, Niccola Collignon, Emilio Bechi, Dino Carina, Ignazio Porro, Silvestro Gherardi, Giuseppe Erede, Guido Falorsi, Emilio Villari, Antonio Roiti, Giacomo Bellacchi, Giulio Bellotti, Pietro Marchi, Decio Bocci, Giacomo Trabucco, Adolfo Bartoli, Diego Garoglio, Giovanni Sansone, Lino Vaccari, Enrico D’Inca Levis and Luigi Fallacara alternated in its classrooms. Thanks to the success of the teaching, the number of students continued to increase. Thus in 1891, the Municipality of Florence inaugurated a new location for the Istituto in Via del Mandorlo, today Via Giusti, where it remains. Over the years, more and more schools were added to the Istituto – from 1857 onwards, the surveyors-­land surveyors section; in 1859, the elementary schools Cascine dell’Isola agricultural holding; and in 1910, the artistic-­physics section. The paramount role performed by the Istituto, due also to the lack of a solid university tradition in Florence, represented the city’s main site for technical-­scientific study and teaching, thanks to its illustrious teaching staff. In 1923, following the so-­called Gentile Reform, part of the patrimony – together with the old Mechanics-Physics section – went into comprising the new Liceo Scientifico secondary school of Florence. The junior courses were appended to the Istituto and, in fact, it took on the characteristics of a commercial Technical Institute for Surveyors, a title it assumed in 1933. Universally known as the ‘Galilei’, the Istituto was a determining presence in the life of the city for over a century, as testified to above all by the generations of students who later became involved in important activities through their professions and civilian life, thus leaving a positive mark on the city’s economic and social fabric. It progressively modified its functions and activity, with the laboratories, science cabinets and the library abandoning their original role as

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fundamental instruments for teaching in order to take on a new and prestigious historic and documentary value. *  *  * If the foundation of technical and polytechnics schools and institutions was one of the consequences of the Industrial Revolution and of the increasing importance played by science and technology in shaping Western society in the second half of the nineteenth century, the universal exhibitions certainly were their most spectacular representations. The universal and international exhibitions were among the most popular and emblematic events to mark that period.4 The first one, officially named the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, was held in London in 1851. For the first time, the products of industrial manufacturing of about twenty-­five nations and their colonies were displayed side-­by-side. The success was illustrated by the presence of about 6 million visitors who crowded the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park over a six-­ month period. Several other exhibitions followed throughout the next decades in Paris (1855, 1867, 1878, 1889, 1900), London (1862), Philadelphia (1867), Vienna (1873) and Chicago (1893), to mention only the most important. During these events, millions of artefacts, machines, instruments, tools, furniture, vehicles, weapons, textiles, industrial products of every kind, samples of raw and processed materials plus works of arts were displayed, examined, judged and awarded. The universal exhibitions were the showcases of industrial society, of technological and scientific progress as well as the representations of the triumph of a mercantile bourgeoisie. In spite of a proclaimed internationalism, the most important nations (and especially the ones hosting the events) struggled to demonstrate their cultural, political, industrial and economic superiority and to be primus inter pares. Universal exhibitions deeply pronounced the cities where they were held, while representing an opportunity for modernization and for developing new means of transportation, as well as being an architectural and urbanistic laboratory. If, from an artistic point of view, they nevertheless embraced a flamboyant eclecticism, they also represented an important opportunity for presenting exotic culture and art, as well as to introduce new architectural styles and artistic currents to a wider public. At the same time, especially towards the end of the century, universal exhibitions were very popular attractions (presenting, for example, idealized reconstruction of old cities) and – being precursors to today’s theme and amusement parks – contributed to the commodification of leisure. Ultimately, all throughout the nineteenth century, with very few exceptions Italian industries and manufacturers could hardly compete with the British, French or German. Thus, both prior to and after unification in 1861, the various Italian states tended to compensate the relatively poor condition of the local industry and the limited number of manufactured products by presenting at the exhibitions works of art (especially statues) or artefacts made by skilled artisans, such as highly decorated furniture and ironwork, jewels, ceramics and textiles. The Istituto Tecnico di Firenze was involved in various universal exhibitions. Here, we examine how and why the Istituto participated in these events, and analyse what kind of feedback it received in turn. We can certainly affirm that participation in the

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universal exhibitions had a dual function for the Istituto. The first pertained to the fact that, in the early years of the Istituto’s existence, Corridi had to provide the equipment necessary for the scientific and didactic collections. Instruments and models for the scientific cabinets, samples of materials for the technological museum, as well as specimens for the natural history collections had to be acquired. Certainly some of these artefacts and specimens could be found in Italy but others, including the best scientific instruments, chemicals or exotic minerals, had to be obtained abroad. Corridi was responsible for the participation of Tuscany at the universal exhibitions of London in 1851 and Paris in 1855, and had an extensive international network of relations and friends upon whom he could call. Among them were the famous scientist Charles Babbage, Michael Faraday, Augustin-Pyram De Candolle and Arthur Morin. While it was not possible to acquire the displayed items directly at the exhibitions, they did offer irreplaceable occasions to examine and compare the best industrial products, to meet the manufacturers (or their representatives), to select the artefacts to be bought and with whom to conduct business. In 1851 and 1855, Corridi certainly profited from the London and Paris exhibition in enriching the collections of the young institute. Not only could he see the instruments that could later be acquired for Florence but, thanks to his work and relationships, he managed to convince various people and institutions to offer a range of artefacts and samples to the Istituto. Unfortunately today, its historical archive is largely incomplete and most of the documents related to the early years of the institute are missing. It is therefore difficult to know precisely when and where the artefacts and the sample constituting the collections were acquired. Nevertheless, the surviving inventories of the nineteenth century and the first annals of the Institute, together with Corridi’s memoirs,5 plus reports from the exhibitions and other random documents provide some information about the items acquired for or donated to the Istituto following the exhibitions. The universal exhibitions were powerful magnets for industrialists who could examine the latest novelties in technology and establish fruitful relations in order to conduct business. Simultaneously, many scientists also profited from these opportunities by visiting the stands of the best instrument makers and by selecting the apparatus and equipment to be used in their laboratories. At the same time, it was possible to see an incredible amount of natural products in the section dedicated to mining or agriculture. Ultimately, shopping in Paris or London on the occasion of the universal exhibitions was undoubtedly a common practice. Probably the most important gift came in the form of a collection of 708 samples of inorganic and organic chemicals, together with resins, essences, colourants and the like, given to the institute by the Royal Commission of the Great Exhibition of 1851. The samples were originally contained in marked square glass bottles. The leather caps protecting their corks reported the image of the British crown as well as the legend ‘Exhibition 1851’. This collection survives almost in its entirety, albeit in different glass containers, with only two of the original bottles still surviving. Various other organic samples were acquired in London together with a few models for the mechanics cabinet. One is a wooden model of the disk engine. Other machines, which do not survive in the collections (such as Brahma’s hydraulic press and a printing press), were probably purchased on the same occasion.

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Following the 1855 Paris exhibition, Corridi bought several instruments and models from some of the best French instrument makers, such as Deleuil, Salleron or Perreaux. Furthermore, he also obtained in Paris various machines and tools for the institute’s workshop. Again in Paris, on the occasion of the 1878 exhibition, the institute was able to increase its collection of seeds (a first set had been acquired in London in 1851). Yet, if the exhibitions gave the institute’s management an opportunity to acquire part of the necessary equipment, its participation at these events was also a matter of prestige and pride. On the one hand, the exhibitions gave the institute the possibility of presenting its activities and its achievements to a very wide audience. On the other hand, the medals and awards received throughout increased its renown. In 1851, in spite of the fact that it was still in a phase of organization, the institute participated in the Great Exhibition by displaying various natural products from its collections. Among them there were four tables and two columns in various decorative stones (marble, alabaster and broccatello), as well as various specimens of straw (and Tuscan brooms made from straw), of madder root from Maremma, of Indian corn and different woods ‘for domestic and naval purposes’. For this indeed modest display, the institute was awarded a prize medal. Four years after, at the Paris exhibition of 1855, the Istituto’s participation was more significant. In the section dedicated to mines and metallurgy, it displayed a collection of stones and minerals from Tuscany. In the Forestry section, it re-­presented the collection of wood that had also been displayed in London. A rich collection of marble from the Apuan Alps was presented in the section dedicated to construction. Finally, in the ‘precision arts’, one could view three scientific instruments made in the Istituto Tecnico workshop. These were an Atwood machine, an induction coil and a large compression pump. Finally, among the artefacts presented was also a helmet of hammered iron made by a certain Ignasti of Florence. The institute was awarded a class 2 honour medal. The second international exhibition in London took place in 1862. Yet despite the Italian participation being quite significant (Italy was present for the first time as unified state), we cannot find any trace of the institute being among the participants. In 1867, France organized its second universal exhibition, which was intended to celebrate the glory and achievements of the Second Empire. Florence was at the time the capital of the young Kingdom of Italy, rendering the participation of the Istituto Tecnico at the Paris exhibition more important than previously.6 As with the prior exhibitions, the Istituto presented a display of Tuscan sandstones, serpentines and alabasters in the section dedicated to construction and an assemblage of ninety-­eight different samples of Toscana woods in the forestry section. This collection was composed of small trunks cut longitudinally. One side was polished while the other was presented in its natural state. More original was the series of approximately twenty-­ one large and coloured stratigraphic drawings illustrating the compositions of different soils perforated in various locations around Tuscany in order to find artesian wells. From its workshop, the institute presented two fine mechanical linkage models used, for example, in steam engines for converting an alternative motion into a rotary one. The institute also sent to Paris part of a large collection of knots, bindings and nooses made in its workshop and used in building construction and carpentry. These

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Figure 7.1  The opening of the Italian pavillon at the Parisian Universal Exhibition of 1867. Source: Lancelot, ‘Inaugurazione della Galleria Italiana’, in L’esposizione Universale del 1867 Illustrata (Milano-Firenze-Venezia: Sonzogno, 1867), vol. 1, 260–1. Private Collection.

were made of ropes mounted on twelve different vertical wooden boards. In Section V Class LXV (dedicated to materials and processes for civil engineering, public works and architecture), twenty-­seven wooden models were displayed. They were part of the cabinet of construction unit and represented various bridges, locks, sluices, hydraulic works and architectural elements such as arches, centrings and piers. In the same section one could find a series of approximately twenty-­one large and coloured stratigraphic drawings illustrating the compositions of different soils perforated in various locations around Tuscany in order to find artesian wells. Finally, the institute also displayed four photographs illustrating a gallery within the technological museum, the physics and the chemistry cabinets and the workshop. The Technical Institute also participated at the Paris exhibition of 1878, designed to present the rebirth of France under the Third Republic several years following the collapse of Napoleon III’s empire after the debacle of Sedan. This time, only some surveying instruments and a hydraulic pump were displayed, probably having been manufactured in the institute’s workshop. For the latter, the institute was awarded a bronze medal.7 No records have been found concerning its presence at the 1889 exhibition celebrating the centenary of the French Revolution.8 In 1900, the largest and most spectacular universal exhibition was held in Paris. This event, which was attended by more than 50 million visitors, appraised the conquests and achievements of the nineteenth century (le bilan d’un siècle) and optimistically presented the prospectives for the new one. The Technical Institute of Florence, which

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was by now half a century old, was represented this time by a lavish celebratory volume in folio. Following a short history of the institute, the volume presented a complete description of its main premises (monumental entrance hall, lecture halls, library, etc.), as well as those of the laboratories and the collections. The volume was enriched by eighteen cardboard-­mounted original photographs taken by the famous Florentine photographers Fratelli Alinari and three folding tables. Several other copies of the book were produced with a simpler binding and with printed reproductions of the photographs in place of the originals. The volume was intended to show the successful story of half a century of the institute and to illustrate the magnificence of its impressive scientific cabinets and collections.9 Most of the instruments, models, artefacts and samples that were presented at the universal exhibitions are still preserved in the collection of the Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica. The same can be said of the many physics instruments10 and natural specimens acquired following the exhibitions. Unfortunately, while the paper certificates which prove the participation of the institute in these events are preserved in the archive, not all the awarded medals survive. In fact, in 1935 the gold medals were given to the state in occasion of the event named oro alla patria (gold for the homeland). This had been organized by the fascist regime in order to collect precious metals for counteracting the economic sanctions enacted by the Society of Nations following the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Certainly the exhibits presented by the Istituto Tecnico Toscano at the universal exhibitions in London and in Paris represented a drop in the almost endless ocean of items that were displayed throughout the events. Nevertheless, this participation certainly proved useful. Not only could the Istituto be successfully presented to a  wide international audience but, at the same time, Corridi and his successors could profit from the exhibitions, largely to increase the collections and to keep them up to date. Today, these collections are the material witnesses of to the activities of an ambitious technical school which, at the time, was one of the most important institutions of its kind in Italy, deeply marking the history of scientific culture and education in Tuscany.

2.  Students from the Istituto Tecnico in Paris in 1867 Recent investigation of archive sources has shed new light on the intense activity of the Istituto Tecnico di Firenze on the occasion of its participation in the Universal Exposition of 1867 in Paris, during the time in which Florence was the capital city of Italy. The archives of the institute now being lost, our research has been oriented towards document collections hosted by other organizations in Florence.11 Two different types of written materials concerning this international event were found, one in the Historical Archive of the Camera di Commercio of Florence12 and the other in the Historical Archive of the Provincia of Florence.13 The papers found at the Camera di Commercio concern the shipment to Paris of certain objects belonging to the well-­stocked educational collections of the institute.

Figure 7.2  Solemn distribution of prizes at the Parisian Universal Exhibition of 1867. Source: ‘Solenne distribuzione di premi nel palazzo dell’industria’, in L’esposizione Universale del 1867 Illustrata (Milano-Firenze-Venezia: Sonzogno, 1867), vol. 1, 292–3. Private Collection.

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The same information also appears in printed official reports of the Exposition.14 No significant differences emerge from the comparison of these sources, except for some discrepancies regarding how the objects were grouped into classes.15 The documents within the Archives of the Provincia of Florence, on the other hand, are unpublished and concern contributions that were granted to a number of students in order to allow them to travel to Paris. The grants would have allowed them not only to visit the Exhibition, but also to attend a study course at a technical school or to undertake a job training experience in an industrial plant within that city. At an early stage, the Provincia directed its efforts towards sending to Paris specialized personnel, capifabbrica or master craftsmen in various fields,16 as had happened for the London Exhibition of 1862. Universal exhibitions, indeed, had always represented a good opportunity for high-­level job training, and were also seen as a means to bring the workers closer to the new ideology of industrial capitalism and progress.17 Unlike what had happened at the time of the London event – when the sum of 25,000 lire had been allocated for the subsidy of twenty workers – for the Exposition of 1867, budget cuts forced the number of persons sent to France to be reduced to twelve. Following the example of London, it was also decided that, upon their return, the workers should present a written report on ‘Ciò che avevano veduto ed appreso intorno la propria Arte’.18 Two awards of 500 lire were established for the pair deemed best. In addition, each of the capifabbrica (master craftsmen) would visit, under the supervision of a knowledgeable person, certain industries or plants related to his field of activity. This was a proposal made by Antonio Marchetti Salvagnoli, member of the Consiglio Provinciale, and approved by the Italian Royal Commission. In choosing the workers to be sent to Paris, the preparation and intelligence of each one needed to be taken into account seeing that they should not be ‘semplici manuali, e non capaci di poter ritrarre alcun vantaggio dalle cose che vedevano’ – so suggested the President of the same Commission, Amedeo Chiavarina di Rubiana.19 The final resolution, presented by the Deputazione Provinciale and voted by the Consiglio Provinciale on 1 December 1866, however, marked a substantial change with respect to the initial project. Subsidies would not be granted to qualified workers, but directed towards ‘giovani già avanzati negli studi tecnologici, o nell’Istituto Tecnico di Firenze, o in altri pubblici stabilimenti della Provincia’.20 Underlying this change of plan was the idea that the development of national industry relied upon education and training. In the resolution of the Consiglio Provinciale, the sum of 12,000 lire was allocated to cover all costs, which included a visit to the Universal Exposition and living expenses for a minimum of one year in Paris where students were to be accommodated in French institutions or factories. The selection of candidates from all applicants was to be made according to regulations that were compiled for the occasion.21 This decision of the Provincia was supported enthusiastically by Angelo Vegni,22 who offered to pay the costs of three consecutive years of technical education for one

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candidate at the Central School of Arts and Manufactures of Paris (about 800 francs per year).23 Such a contribution was undersigned by the Deputazione Provinciale on 24 December 1866 and Vegni was charged, along with the members of the Consiglio Tommaso Corsi and Bartolommeo Cini, with the task of drawing up the regulations for accessing the selection process. The commission so formed settled ‘il numero dei giovani da sussidiare, il modo del sussidio, e le regole del concorso’.24 The rules established two different subsidy classes and the candidates were obliged to choose the one in which to compete upon submission of their application, as shown in Table 7.1. Winners of the first class were offered different opportunities to those of the second class. The former would be allowed to follow a specialization course at the Imperial Central School of Arts and Manufactures of Paris in order to obtain the diploma of Technical or Mining Engineer; the latter would visit foreign factories and remain for some time there. Each class could accommodate a maximum of three people, who would be subsidized according to their test score.25 The examinations took place on 1–6 August 1867, and were held by a commission that had been specially appointed by the Deputazione Provinciale.26 It was composed, among others, of professors from the Istituto Tecnico, including Emilio Bechi, Niccolò Berretti, Eugenio Le Monnier and Giuseppe Peri.27 The young men who applied for the first class underwent a number of written and oral tests in various subjects, classified into primary and secondary subjects.28 The winners were Guido Dainelli, Luigi Del Bene and Paolo Ghinozzi, who obtained 364, 352 and 285 points, respectively.29 The three students had previously submitted good conduct certificates issued by the Chairman of the Istituto Tecnico. They appear in lists of pupils still preserved at the Library of the Museo FirST-Firenze Scienza e Tecnica, where the names of the first two are found under the year 1866–67 with annotations regarding their taking part in the competition, while the name of Ghinozzi appears under the year 1864–65, with no comment.30 The young men who applied for the second class had a reduced syllabus compared to their colleagues.31 The only one who took the examination, after the withdrawal of the candidate Luigi Cocchi,32 was Torello Torelli, who obtained 151 points.33 Table 7.1  Summary of subsidy scheme First class

Annual grant

First candidate

Vegni grant, plus 2,000 lire First candidate from the Provincia Tuition fees, plus 1,200 lire Second candidate from the Provincia Tuition fees, plus 200 lire Third candidate from the Provincia for   travel expenses

Second candidate Third candidate

Second class

Annual grant 2,000 lire including visit to Paris Exposition, plus special allowances for trips out of Paris

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The winning students set off to Paris on 4 September 1867, with the exception of Dainelli, who was ill and therefore joined them later. By that time, they had already been informed that the subsidy granted to the winners of the first class for one year had been extended by two more years.34 Angelo Vegni, who had been part of the board of examiners, had preceded the students in Paris to establish contact with the school and factories and to organize the training experiences for the test of admission to the Central Imperial School of Arts and Manufactures.35 He soon realized, however, that the test for the admission to this institute did not consist of a simple qualifying examination, but was a true competition with about 500 applicants each year. As foreigners, the students from Florence had a smaller chance of success, because of language difficulties – and also because of differences that emerged between the ‘metodi dimostrativi’ adopted in Paris at the training specialized schools, such as the school of Duvignau de Lanneau, and those in Italian schools.36 In Tuscany, the lack of an appropriate education programme in line with the industrial progress of other countries also emerges from the Acts of the Consiglio Provinciale of Florence. In the Council’s sessions, members pointed out the need for a strong support of the Istituto Tecnico and of a ‘sostanziale e costosa riforma’ in order to ensure the compliance of the Institute with the ‘progressi della scienza e ai bisogni dell’insegnamento’.37 Vegni, having noted the insufficient background of his students, through his connections with Duvignau was able to accommodate them in the institute that he directed, in order to provide one month’s time for the admission examination to the Central Imperial School of Arts and Manufactures.38 At the end of this time, however, Vegni received from the professors of the Institute Duvignau de Lanneau the confirmation that Dainelli, Del Bene and Ghinozzi would be able to pass the examination only in the event that the examiners did not touch upon scientific subjects that were too complex. Having considered this, he concurred with the three young men to postpone the examination by one year, given the psychological stress they were under. Then he advocated, in the Consiglio Provinciale, the request to extend the grant  for another twelve months, which would allow the three students to follow a one-­year training course at a relaxed pace before facing the dreaded exam.39 Indeed the grant, which had started as an annual subsidy, was extended to four years, as agreed to in the extraordinary meeting of the Florence Consiglio Provinciale of 7 December 1867.40 As can be seen in the letter of 29 October 1868, the examinations of the three young men were successful. On that day, Guido Dainelli, Luigi Del Bene and Paolo Ghinozzi won the admission to the Imperial Central School of Arts and Manufactures.41 They were the first students to benefit from this subsidy to complete their studies in Paris. We know the names of other students from the Istituto Tecnico who were later admitted to the same school,42 having tracked down some of them in the lists of pupils of the Istituto Tecnico.43

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Our investigation has shown that the educational policy undertaken by the Provincia of Florence in 1867, on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition in Paris, continued for nearly a decade.44 Started in the years in which Florence was capital of Italy, after 1870 it was affected by restrictions regarding the access to the subsidies: these became available only to those who either were born in the Province of Florence and were still living there, or were born in another province of the Kingdom, but had been residing in the Province of Florence for at least ten years.45 In conclusion, we can say that the initial choice made by the Public Administration with the decisive commitment of Angelo Vegni, that is, to send students rather than workers, in contrast to that which had occurred at the time of the 1862 London Universal Exhibition, turned out to be a winning decision. The opportunity these three young Italians were given to confront the industrial knowledge of other countries resulted in their personal enrichment and in the acquiring of an international scope that proved decisive for their future. The Engineer Guido Dainelli was among those who contributed to the industrial development of our country, especially in the steel industry. Thanks to his initiative, while he was Director of the steelworks in Piombino, an open hearth furnace was implanted there, based on the principle of heat recovery by Pierre Martin with Karl-Wilhelm-Siemens. It was the first in Italy.46 Furthermore, in the years when Dainelli served as adjunct professor, he was also able to pass on his experience and training to new generations of students of the Istituto Tecnico di Firenze, the same school from which he himself had come.47

Part II

A Stroll around Florence,   Capital of Italy

Figure P2  The Uffizi Gallery. Photograph by Giorgio Sommer. Source: Private Collection.

8

Popular Life in the Streets of Florence Zeffiro Ciuffoletti and Maria Grazia Proli

1.  From Florentine peasants to citizens of the capital The municipality of Florence never commissioned an enquiry into the social conditions in the city when it was capital of the Kingdom of Italy. Hence, no official data exist on the life and working conditions of the lower classes, unlike the case of London during the Victorian Age, thanks to the reports of Henry Mayhew (1812–87).1 However, the huge amount of literature regarding Florence in the years from 1865 to 1871, plus  the lively press that flourished in the city at that time, allow for an accurate outline  of the local social environment. Literature itself furnishes many insights in the popular life in Florence. John Ruskin, for example, the famous English art historian who arrived in Florence in 1845 at the age of twenty-­seven, impressed by the beauties of the city, decided to describe them in his Mornings in Florence (1875). Ruskin, who inspired the Arts and Crafts Movements of William Morris, considered Florence a great location for his studies on ‘applied  arts’. Twenty years before the city was elected capital, Ruskin already described its handcrafting as an art of long tradition, founded on the idea of ‘knowing how to do something’, an ancient ideal deeply rooted in society. Florentine artisans often practised their job in the streets. The small traders displayed their wares outside the small and dark shops. The markets, not yet properly covered, usually took place on Tuesdays and Fridays. On those days, the city became crowded with sellers who arrived from all over the countryside. Such peasants, suffice to recall the celebration of Rificolona,2 were considered unrefined and rustic people even though they had been living in osmosis with the city for centuries. Ruskin didn’t appreciate the confusion of this all-­ encompassing trading activity either. He thought that the past lived in all the work of arts, widespread in every corner of Florence, but in the centre of the city the social environment was chaotic and unpleasant, with small shops of every kind and street sellers everywhere. He nonetheless described with affection Florentine artisans, proud and democratic, who found gratification in their job and owned their own destiny, contrary to the less fortunate industrial workers of more developed economies. An interpretative tool to be considered in a research on popular life in Florence, today as in the time of the capital, is the idea of fiorentinità, summing up the social identity and the feelings of people. Fiorentinità was a strong and rooted identity

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perception that matured over centuries, defining the inhabitants of Florence in opposition to those of the countryside and Tuscany in general. Florence had always been a politically and culturally ‘dominant’ city to which all people from outside the city walls had to pay tribute on the day of the great patron saint John. This idea of uniqueness and the related pride had always joined together all Florentines, be they rich and wealthy or poor servants, aristocrats or artisans. Sergio Camerani, in his well-­ known work Cronache di Firenze Capitale, underlines the unification of classes under the banner of Florentine citizenship by stating that ‘. . . Ubaldino Peruzzi, who became prime minister and a notorious politician in the Reign of Italy, was and will always be for the people of Florence “sor Ubaldino” and his wife “sora Emilia” ’.3 No barriers divided upper from lower classes when it came to their common identity as Florentines. Another aspect of this closeness between peasants and nobility was the tradition of many patrician families to sell the wine they produced directly to local consumers. These consumers, people of Florence, walked close to the ‘little windows’ opened on the ground floor of the biggest aristocratic palazzi and enjoyed the service. These small windows, also called ‘wine holes’, are still visible on some of the façades of the buildings in the centre of Florence, mostly in the part of the city where, in the medieval era, there were vineyards and gardens. Some philosophers also described these windows as  ‘doors to heaven’, from which wine and sometimes food passed through, for mercy or for money. It is significant how, in Florence, people and patricians lived in the same neighbourhoods, with the aristocratic mansions dominating and defining the urban and social environment. The origin of this selling process from producer to consumer was not just the merchant mentality of the patricians in Florence, but also the desire to make people stay away from disreputable places such as taverns. Since the sixteenth century, next to the ‘wine holes’ there were also stone benches where people could consume their food and beverages, alone or together.4 The otherwise abysmal economic and social inequality existing in Florence in 1865 was accepted by the poor and the less fortunate also because of this shared sentiment of belonging that made everyone proud of their role without any complaint. People would be gratified to be a carpenter, an innkeeper, a laundress, a maid, an embroiderer or a waitress because they identified themselves in the sense of fiorentinità that people from outside Florence could only dream of, particularly all those foreigners who would move to Florence in 1865. Another important aspect that is central to interpreting popular life in the short-­ lived capital of Italy is the economic context. Still far away from the Industrial Revolution that was taking place in other countries of Europe, Florence had no proper industrial working class, but it had a fully organized and self-­conscious class of handiworkers, represented by the powerful association Fratellanza Artigiana. Politics interested people only inasmuch as they believed it would improve their life standards, procure new jobs and better their civil dignity. Of course, illiteracy made it impossible to follow the flows of information coming from the newly founded newspapers, but news circulated anyway, and public displays and festivities helped in spreading the founding values of the newly born nation. Florentines greeted the king with joy when he arrived to open the first Italian national exhibition (1861), devised by Bettino Ricasoli and organized by Cosimo Ridolfi, which was hosted in the Leopolda

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Station, in Porta al Prato.5 The arrival of the king was captured in detail in the painting by Enrico Fanfani showing the sovereign riding in Piazza della Signoria through a cheerful crowd, holding the Italian flag. Four years later, Florentines again welcomed the king upon his arrival to Florence, then the newly elected capital of Italy, with the same enthusiasm. Not all the people, though, appreciated the decision to move the capital to Florence. The Prefetto Cantelli noted that Florentines did not demonstrate hostility to this change, nor was there enthusiasm. The reasoning of the common people was not as thoughtful as that of the aristocrats or intellectuals who feared a drastic change in the city’s social equilibrium. Instead they shared a feeling of antipathy for the people from Piedmont, who were seen as ‘having taken control’ of the city as of Italy in general. At least since 1820, Florentines of all social classes were otherwise used to living in harmony with an abundant group of foreigners: the ‘anglo-­florentines’, so well described by Giuliana Artom Treves.6 Examples were the Trollope family, with Thomas and Theodesia among the supporters of the ‘Risorgimento’s cause’; the Brownings, Robert and Elisabeth, entertaining guests in their salon in Casa Guidi; or the eccentric Seymour Stocker Kirkup, a spiritualist and bibliophile who loved Dante Alighieri. More so than anyone else, Kirkup was close to the people of Florence. He even adopted the daughter of Virginia Ronti, his waitress and medium.7 The English loved all aspects of the city and tolerated the ways the locals lived and behaved, even if these were rude or exploitive at times. However, the 1865 invasion of Piedmontese clerks, politicians and bureaucrats was different and integration much more difficult. It was a question of numbers: there were only a few English people, while the Piedmontese came in the thousands, and wielding political influence, while the Florentines and Tuscans generally were proud of their independence and disliked the show of power of the new national political elite. Another typical character trait of the Florentines was the affection for religious festivities, be they Catholic or pagan, and the love for jests of any kind. In 1861, for example, during the holy celebrations of San Lorenzo, local democrats decided to add a little ‘Risorgimental spice’ to the merriments. Dolfi, chief of the Fratellanza Artigiana, decided to display in his bakery shop, to the eyes of the pious celebrating population, dough-­shaped figures that represented Italy with a crown and even a statue of Garibaldi made of bread.8 During the years when Florence assumed the role of capital of the kingdom, Florentines also decided to ignore completely the new laws regarding the suppression of many religious celebrations. The first one was the celebration of San Giuseppe, when all shops closed, despite the prohibition of the local administration, much to the bewilderment of the Piedmontese residents and foreigners. Another example is the Annunciazione, when, regardless of the new rules, people assembled for the traditional market in the Piazza della SS Annunciata and crowded into the church as usual. Another tradition, which was celebrated mostly by noble women, was the ‘tour of the seven churches’ on Maundy Thursday. Yet the most popular festivity for Florentines (and the most unintelligible for foreigners) was the Scoppio del Carro (‘Explosion of the Cart’) on Holy Saturday. Florentines particularly enjoyed it and would gather in the Piazza del Duomo and yell out in the impossibly thick crowd, cheering the colombina (dove) to fly towards the cart and ignite all the fireworks

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contained therein. The most important celebration for the city was that of the patron San Giovanni on 24 June, a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages. No laws and regulations could convince the Florentines to accept this event being cancelled from the calendar, renounce the religious service or the famed fireworks, filling streets and bridges with people waiting for their beloved spectacle.

2.  Working in the new capital city As seen, the most abundant class of workers in Florence consisted of artisans. Manufacturing labourers, however, were scarce as a consequence of the widespread diffusion of homeworking. Even fewer were the peasants who lived in the city and cultivated vegetable gardens and small expanses of land around the city walls. When such occupations became rarer, they often became beggars. Artisans were the aristocracy of the working class. Their internal organization was still medieval: from apprenticeship, the career path led the artisan to become master  of his own shop or a salesperson.9 A statistic of 1865, outlined in Table 8.1, shows an abundance of manufacturers and sellers of general consumption goods, first wine then groceries, bread, fruits, tobacco, metal wares, majolica and so on. The contemporary presence, though, of a wide array of more refined artisans, working wood, marble, silk and leather into high-­end goods, and also of hairdressers, jewellers, coffee shop owners and fashion houses, underlines the existence and persistence of a relevant quota of conspicuous consumption connected to the presence of an affluent aristocracy having access to vast sources of income. The best artisans sold their products to the nobility, making huge profits and obtaining a constant flow of commissions. Most of the artisans, however, worked for ecclesiastical institutions or for hospitals and many of  the shopkeepers owned small or minimal enterprises in poor neighbourhoods. The arrival of the capital caused a decisive jump in the quality of Florence’s trading sector. Along with the government workers also came many wholesalers, chocolatiers, modiste and bazaar owners who moved to Florence to open high-­end, luxurious shops that supplied the royal court and the highest nobility exclusively. The work of women was remarkable when it came to the handicraft of clothes: embroiderers, milliners and dressmakers were, for the most part, highly skilled females who owned their own shop and business. An extraordinary show of the city’s new role and its capacity to accommodate an increasing demand for high-­quality goods and housing was the arrival in the city of the newlyweds Umberto and Margherita di Savoia in 1868. The population participated to the merriment by cheering and tossing flowers at the royal couple whenever they appeared in public. What strained the receptive capacity of the city was the influx of all Italian nobility for the celebrations. Cafés, inns and restaurants worked at full capacity with growing profits. All suppliers of luxury goods had the possibility to prove their talents by servicing the most refined demands of the noble guests. With the arrival of the capital, though, the demand grew exponentially, not only for the producers and traders of consumer goods, but also for all those artisans and workers who were connected to the construction sector, because of the great number

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of projects to finish and old problems to solve with great haste. The first problem was indeed the housing emergency, but the renewal and reconstruction of entire neighbourhoods was also linked to the sanitation of old, crowded and populous areas. As Florence’s health department reported, people living in quarters such as the Camaldoli of San Lorenzo, San Frediano and San Niccolò experienced very poor and unhealthy conditions: 1,264 people lived in just 178 rooms with no drinking water and scarce sanitation. Street sellers set out their food and wares in dirty and narrow alleys. It was impossible to guarantee the cleanliness of Florence, as there were only a few sweepers, who each had to clear several kilometres.10 These areas became the object of complex projects of requalification that was as challenging as the construction of entire new neighbourhoods in formerly cultivated areas. To face the immediate necessity of lodgings for the Piedmontese public employees, Cambray-Digny suggested importing small houses in wood and iron from England. Unfortunately, the prefabricates proved to be as uncomfortable as animals’ cages. The housing problem would eventually be solved by a huge construction effort undertaken with the contribution of private capital. From the beginning of 1865, 190 building licences and 700 permits for restorations were granted.11 The new apartments, though, were assigned or sold to families of the bourgeoisie. The social housing problem, which concerned all people who had been expelled from the quartiers to be sanitized, remained unsolved since Florence’s municipality did not have enough funds to confront it with efficacity.12 The building effort, in any case, be it connected to the ambitious Poggi plan or to the rampaging private speculation, undoubtedly resulted in a growth in employment, which resulted in people moving to the city from all around the countryside. Just for the construction of the new covered marketplace in San Lorenzo, for example, over 500 workers were hired. Regardless of the growth in the supply of luxury consumption goods and the building effort to supply lodgings for the newly emerging middle class, the economic situation and the living conditions of Florence’s lower class did not improve in the years under study. Poverty grew and in 1867, out of 177,000 citizens, 15,116 were living in extreme conditions.13 Dying of starvation or of the recurring plagues caused by malnutrition and poor hygienic conditions was nothing unusual in the new capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

3.  The visible and invisible social emergency After the demolition of the more crowded and poor areas of Camaldoli, San Frediano and San Niccolò, many of their inhabitants moved to the former ghetto, located between the Cathedral and Palazzo Strozzi, where the situation rapidly became alarming. During the daytime, the ghetto burst with popular life and an incessant trading activity both in the old market, bustling with street sellers of every kind, and in an inordinate number of shops and taverns. Upon dusk, the buying and selling was replaced by criminal activities and prostitution. The problem was denounced by Florence’s newspapers, inflaming a widespread discussion about possible solutions. As such, even if no official statistical or sociological reports remain, an analysis of

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contemporary journals and papers gives a clear picture of the contemporary situation. One foremost example of journalistic inquiry of the time is given by the work of Giulio Piccini, writing as ‘Jarro’, particularly in La Nazione. Piccini was a clever observer of his contemporaries, a huge fan of the culinary art and a close friend of Gabriele D’Annunzio. His observations about the terrible conditions of the working-­class neighbourhood in the centre of Florence, particularly in the old market, are gathered in a book titled Firenze sotterranea.14 Piccini wrote: Florence wants to be called the beautiful city, the city of smiles and flowers. Nobody would believe that it hosts such putrid neighbourhoods where people are amassed like animals . . . where hired assassins live next to thieves, pimps and atrocious panderers, with a minority of surviving Jews. For centuries, these people have banded in the alleys of the old market that should now be demolished. Others have found refuge in the worst streets of San Frediano . . . where in thirty years the situation has worsened amidst the indifference of everyone. I have been in the courtyards, in the basements and in the attics, by day – and by night. I have witnessed tremendous promiscuity. Women, men and children sleeping all together on decrepit beds with feet, arms and heads inextricably intertwined. I have seen horrible mattresses black from putrid fluids and blood . . . In a refined and civilised city, men, women and children still live in brutish conditions.15

Only in the 1880s, with the demolition of the old market and surrounding buildings, would the city centre be cleansed of its worst malady. The reports of the commission of physicians and engineers elected by the municipality on the occasion confirmed Piccini’s description of the miserable and infamous life conditions of the poorest segments of Florence. The same situation characterized other neighbourhoods, particularly on the other side of the river Arno, in San Frediano. Many provisory lodgings had been built there on the abandoned property of churches and monasteries, in a spontaneous and uncontrollable response to the need for cheap housing. Every space had been occupied, even basements without windows and in terrible hygienic conditions. In San Frediano, as in any other working-­class area, next to honest artisans and workers you would also find all kinds of criminals, prostitutes and pimps.16 Care of Florence’s poor was delegated to private institutions and fraternities supported by aristocrats following Catholic ideals. In this, nothing had changed since the Middle Ages. Associations and monastic orders had always welcomed travellers and pilgrims, helped orphans and widows, and assisted the poorest, the elderly and the sick, practising the virtue of Christian charity. Many buildings, often with a significant architectural and artistic value, had been built or donated over time to accommodate poverty relief activities. Under the rule of the Grand Duke Leopoldo and under the French domination between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, charity associations and monasteries had been closed and their possessions confiscated by the state. With the return to power of the Lorena family, however, poverty relief again

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became a priority and most of the previous institutions were brought back to life and new ones were founded. At the same time, a lay philanthropy began to spread: no longer was the poor person an image of Christ to be helped as in the Middle Ages; now they were a social problem.17 Shortly after Italy’s Unification, a law about charity was approved (Law 753 of 3 August 1862) with the purpose of unifying all the measures already in force and permitting all institutions to administrate themselves autonomously without any state interference. The law was rendered necessary by the need to address the huge number of beggars that plagued all Italian cities. Only in 1890 did a debate erupt about the primacy of public over private charity institutions. On 17 July of that year, the Italian Parliament approved Crispi’s Law, inspired by the English Poor Laws, which decreed beggary to be illegal and that social inclusion should be favoured through education and compulsory work.18 When Florence was elected capital of Italy, charities were numerous and widespread. The Bigallo and the Spedale degli Innocenti were dedicated to the tutelage of orphans; the confraternity of the Misericordia helped the ill, provided burials for the poor and granted relief thanks to testamentary donations; the confraternity of the Christian Doctrine assisted the poor and provided education to children; the Montedomini workhouse gathered in its premises the elderly, children, poor and ill who had been referred by parishes and the police; the Demidoff Institute and the educational centre of the SS Concezione offered education to poor children. The most recent institution was the Società degli Asili Infantili, founded in 1863 to build and manage nursery schools. After just one year of operation, the society had realized five nurseries and two more were planned, in the sector of new urban development in Via Montebello, which would host 250 boys and 250 girls.19 All this effort, though, still seemed insufficient. On 4 November 1864, the Gazzetta di Firenze, in reporting a growing number of people in need of assistance, stated that ‘it is impossible to reduce the number of people in need of recovery, let us open more places to welcome them, let us spend as much as is needed to stop this terrible plague’. In a short period of time, the situation became unbearable for the municipality of Florence, the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova and the city’s workhouses, whose financial situations steadily worsened. The hospital of Santa Maria Nuova waited in vain for the promised public subsidy of 384,000 lire. The Montedomini workhouse, established in 1815 to assist the poor and teach them a trade, housed 400 people but was rapidly running out of resources when the municipality failed to pay the 175,000 lire due. La Nazione went so far as to suggest that all nearby municipalities should contribute to sustain the collapsing Florentine charity system. Winters were particularly dire. Beggars swamped the city, looking for a place to sleep and a hot meal to eat.20 In addition to the adults, who did their best to survive, there was a growing number of children and adolescents who could not survive. The child mortality rate tripled from 1865 to 1871. Often considered just as more ‘mouths to feed’, many were abandoned by their relatives. Youngsters lived in the streets as beggars, pickpockets and thieves, while newborns were left to charity institutions. When Florence was capital of Italy, the rota degli esposti was still operational and would be closed only in 1875. This ‘foundling wheel’ was a wood cylinder built into a wall’s niche where mothers placed the children they could not support. The rota was located at the Spedale degli Innocenti, a Renaissance building designed by Filippo Brunelleschi,

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not too far from Florence’s cathedral. Sometimes the children were left only temporarily, but in most cases the institute would take care of them until they came of age in the case of the boys, or married in the case of the girls. From 1865 to 1871, the rota children numbered 8,010, covering all ages. The biggest problem was finding women to breastfeed the fragile newborns.21 Most of these infants died in the first months of life, with an average mortality rate of 560.6 per thousand. Around 20–25 per cent of children were eventually returned to their parents; the others were put to work or sent to families of farmers or artisans scattered throughout the whole region. Becoming capital of Italy put Florence in the spotlight. People, especially the new Piedmontese citizens, started criticizing the social situation. Newspapers commented unfavourably on the underdevelopment of Florence in comparison to cities like Turin or Milan. Among the unacceptable blemishes on Florence, such as the healthcare emergency, was the housing issue, crime and poverty, with commentators placing much emphasis on many uncivilized habitations of the city’s population. People washed themselves, naked, in the polluted Arno; pig-­keepers would pass with their animals through Via Nazionale22 on their way to the old market; corpses were transported in the streets, escorted by the brothers of the confraternity of the Misericordia, without any coverage, for everyone to see; improvised markets sprouted in central squares as the Piazza della Signoria or in front of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, with street sellers offering every kind of ware. These markets produced enormous quantities of refuse that soiled the city centre as much as the garbage resulting from the daily activities of the old market. At times, the same squares adorned by the most beautiful monuments and works of art were transformed into open-­air slaughterhouses. During regular fairs, animals were butchered in the streets and their remains left to rot on the ground, with tremendous consequences for people’s health. A quite popular habit of the lower classes was also the selling of wares directly outside the entrance of main buildings on improvised counters. Street sellers would fight incessantly for the best corners of the city to set up their merchandise. In this case, also, all remnants were just left scattered behind, littering the centre of Florence. ‘The municipality,’ notes Camerani, ‘disposed of just 180 sweepers and garbage collectors who, every morning, cleaned the streets with water and gathered all the waste on twenty wagons. In Florence, there were 379 streets, alleys and 102 squares. It was comprised of around 60,000 square metres to clean . . . and 120,000 kilograms of garbage to remove.’23 The city’s administrators had known about and discussed all these problems at least since the cholera epidemic of 1855. In 1867, La Gazzetta d’Italia still lamented, ‘The most hideous and purulent wound that scourges the more or less pestilential alleys and the more neglected and desolate squares of Florence is our market. It is a true blot on an otherwise clean page of good calligraphy.’24 Nothing concrete would be done until the demolition of the old ghetto in the 1880s. Another habit that horrified the civilized Piedmontese was the daily procedure of emptying the drains that collected all the sewage of the city. In Milan and Turin, at least since 1863, modern steam pumps had provided an ‘odourless emptying’,25 while in Florence every night an array of men, driving small wagons, carried away barrels full of organic waste to be used as fertilizer in the nearby countryside. The sanitary commission was fully aware of this practice and did not consider it one of the priorities

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in the sanitation of the city. Florentines were used to it and perceived it as part of their daily routine, finding no reason to complain. So, while national newspapers reported with horror this characteristic of the new capital, the municipality discussed the issue as late as in 1870. Even then, the town council would not accept innovation easily: many representatives supported the cause of the old practice, complaining about the loss incurred by farmers in losing a precious source of fertilizer; others defended the position of the many workmen involved who would lose their occupation. In the end, it would take the joint effort of the influential Luigi Cambray-Digny, Ubaldino Peruzzi and Luigi Ridolfi to conclude the issue once and for all. The company Paoletti, Perini and C. was chosen to solve the issue thanks to their modern equipment,26 and the old method was prohibited by decree. On the night between 16 and 17 March 1870, for the last time, the wagons paraded in the streets of the sleeping capital, spreading the traditional infamous ‘odour’. In this matter, at least, being capital of the kingdom helped Florence to solve one of its long-­standing problems, introducing better services and modern infrastructures that were worthy of any other European city.

Table 8.1  List of artisanal professions exercised in Florence in 1865 Exercised profession Vintner Carpenter Fashion house and milliner’s shop Grocer Fruit seller Baker and pasta manufacturer Fuel traders and seller Taylor Grocer Tobacconist Blacksmith Milk Seller Shoemaker Cafée Butcher Typographer Hairdresser Porcelain and majolica seller Sellers of dried legume Jeweller and silversmith Gilder and Painter Drugstore Bauble shop Marble worker Greengrocer Confectioner, patissier, liqueur producer Scrap merchant

Number of professionals 374 319 308 199 194 177 142 134 133 127 125 113 106 99 96 96 85 71 69 69 67 58 57 57 56 54 48

(Continued)

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Table 8.1  (Continued) Exercised profession Stationer Trattoria Watchmaker Photographer Hat makers and seller Hotel manager Brazier Seller of crystalware and glassware Silk manufacturers and sellers Dyer Bronze and brass artisan Upholsterer Bookseller Ribbon producer and seller Producer and seller of leatherware Wood furniture seller Construction worker Book binding Carrier Construction wood seller Tinkerer Plumber Straw hat maker and seller Coachbuilder Roaster and chips shop Dressmaker Poulterer Wood carver Wholesalers of silk, colonials etc. Producer and seller of umbrellas made of silk, cotton and oilcloth Antiquary Grain seller Lamp manufacturer Manufacturer and seller of weights and measures Taylor with sales shop Straw hat worker and refiner Wood turner Hay seller Mechanics Passementerie manufacturer and shop Engravers Mosaicist Seller of medicinal herbs Glassmaker Tanner Hemp manufacturer or worker Hardware store Lithographer Commission merchant Busts and corsets manufacturer

Number of professionals 47 47 46 41 40 37 37 37 37 37 36 35 34 34 33 32 32 31 31 29 27 27 26 26 25 25 25 24 22 20 19 19 19 19 19 17 17 16 16 16 15 15 15 15 14 14 13 13 12 12

Popular Life in the Streets of Florence Sawyer Public coaches owner Farrier Bristles manufacturer Wool manufacturer or worker Music shop Optician Cotton wool producer Carpet manufacturer Restaurateur Knife grinder Manufacturer of artificial flowers Toy seller Packer Metal smelter Furrier Workshop of alabaster Pouch manufacturer Brewer Belt manufacturer Producer of printing types Wheeler Ice seller Musical instruments producer and seller Soap manufacturer Internal decorator Gunsmith Bath Nail manufacturer Military supplier Medical instruments manufacturer Metal furniture seller Wholesaler of oil Leather refiners Chemical products seller Tallow candles manufacturer Etchings seller Mattings producer Oilcloth manufacturer Sulphur wholesalers Gazzosa producer Playing cards manufacturer Ropes seller Designer of embroideries Linen workers Orcharder Sieve manufacturer Ceramic stoves producer Starch manufacturer Flag manufacturer Gold leaf manufacturer Copper engraver Cage manufacturer Wood enlayer Combs manufacturer

119 12 12 11 11 10 9 9 9 9 8 7 7 7 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

(Continued)

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Table 8.1  (Continued) Exercised profession

Number of professionals

Wax candle manufacturer Music strings manufacturer Matchsticks producer Ink manufacturer Manufacturer of precision instruments Basket manufacturer Water or steam sawmill Glass mill Glue producer Manufacturer of porte-­monnaies Stearin candle manufacturer Patents sold for: Street seller Public coaches Shoeshine activity Sandwich with lampredotto seller Others Omnibus in the city Omnibus in the cascine park Source: G. Fanelli, Firenze architettura e città, Firenze, Mandragora, 2002, pp. 417–19.

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 700 440 70 60 47 29 18

9

A Stroll around Florence: Places of Power,   Places of Leisure1 Maria Carla Monaco

The transfer of the capital from Turin to Florence rendered it necessary, in just a few months, to find worthy headquarters in the city for all the various political and administrative organizations of the kingdom: the Royal Palace with its court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, offices of the Council and all the Ministries. The supreme courts, the highest military structures and the headquarters of all state administrative bodies also needed to be transferred. The headquarters were placed in historic buildings that were extended, where possible, and adapted to meet the new requirements. Alongside these places where political and administrative power was exercised, other sites were formed or enhanced, which we may call ‘places of leisure’, since the rules that existed there were less formal and more concerned with cultivating and maintaining relationships, places where activities focused on enjoying oneself. These places of leisure included private salons, cafés, literary studios, taverns, meeting places, cultural institutions, hotels and theatres. These were more or less ‘official’ places, for every social category, where people came to exchange, compare and discuss ideas, to listen to each other and to have fun. As time has passed, memory of these places has – with very few exceptions – been lost. This research aims at recovering this knowledge, supplying a sort of historical touristic guide to the Florence of the time.2 Following the example of many contemporary guides, a list of locations has been produced that includes places of political power and places of social life.3 As stated already, places of political power refer to public offices (in a rather broad sense) and diplomatic missions (whether embassies, legations or consulates). Places of leisure are divided into a greater number of categories (theatres, cafés, salons and gathering places, brothels, cultural institutions, restaurants and bars, plus hotels). In each category the locations are listed with their historical name and alphabetically (to avoid any sense of greater or lesser importance among them). For example, today’s Teatro Verdi is listed as Teatro Pagliano, and the Palazzo Portinari Salviati as the Ministry of Justice and Religious Affairs. So as not to be overwhelming, the notes accompanying each place of interest provide only the essential information that generally relates to events of the period when Florence was capital of Italy. Where possible, information is given on the current use of each location.4 In addition to old street maps, a lot of information was retrieved

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from Florence’s historical city map database.5 All places can be located on Map 9.1 and Map 9.2, thanks to the alphabetical and numerical grid indications.

1.  Places of political power 1.1.  Public offices The buildings chosen for the central government offices were most often buildings previously owned by the state, except for a few cases where the buildings were purchased or leased. The new utilization required a series of structural changes, at times also quite elaborate. The work was carried out very quickly, concluding within a year. The renovation projects primarily considered the need to divide the spaces into as many distinct rooms as possible for office use. In most cases, the original structure was altered. In many instances, there was a means of increasing the surface areas by elevating floors or structures added in the gardens or courtyards of the buildings themselves.

Administrative Offices of the National Debt The Italian Revenue Agency building, formerly the Monari building – Via della Fortezza, 8 (Map 9.1: G, 4). The management was placed in a private building (owned by Celestino Monari) that was acquired by the state when the capital was moved to Florence. It was a kind of ‘shed’, with the interior divided into two by a row of pillars that supported the vaults and a canopy-­like roof. Expansion works led to the division of the building into two floors and the renovation of the exterior. Today, it houses the regional offices of the Italian Revenue Agency.

Chamber of Commerce Palazzo della Camera di Commercio, formerly the Commodity Exchange – Lungarno Generale Diaz (Map 9.1: I, 9). The building was constructed between 1858 and 1860 following the plans of Michelangelo Maiorfi that had been modified by Emilio De Fabris. On the site of a historic wool factory that was the property of the Wool Guild, the new building designed to house the Chamber of Commerce features a central part of the neoclassical façade that is a reproduction of a Greek temple. Today, it remains the headquarters of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture.

City Hall Palazzo Spini Feroni – Via Tornabuoni, 2 (Map 9.1: G, 8). The Palace was built in the late thirteenth century by a wealthy family of bankers, the Spini. After several changes of ownership, the Feroni family came into its possession

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somewhere between the late 1700s and early 1800s. In 1834, the new owners (Homberts) transformed the building into a hotel (Hotel de l’Europe), which hosted some of the most important names in foreign society. In 1846, it was purchased by the city as  the new headquarters for the City Hall. After much renovation, the City Hall  was moved to this building and remained there until the capital moved from Florence to Rome. In 1938, the building was purchased by Salvatore Ferragamo and became his flagship store. It now houses also the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo.1

Civil and Correctional Court Palazzo degli Uffizi – Uffizi Corti (Map 9.1: H, 8). Court of Appeals and Court of Assizes Former Convento San Pancrazio – Piazza San Pancrazio (Map 9.1: G, 7). The old church and the adjacent convent were fully restored, based on the plans of Carlo Falconieri, which drew strong criticism from La Nazione journalists. The courtroom (Camera delle accuse) was placed in the church. With the transfer of  the capital from Florence, the complex began to be used initially as a warehouse,  then became home to the Manifattura dei Tabacchi (tobacco factory), before  being later transformed into barracks. Since 1988, it has housed the Museo Marino Marini.

Court of Auditors Palazzo della Crocetta – Via della Colonna, 38 (Map 9.1: L, 5). This building, which was begun in 1619, was originally built to host the Grand  Duchess Maria Maddalena of Austria. Used as the headquarters of the Royal Court  of Auditors during the time that Florence was the capital, it underwent numerous transformations. The architect Paolo Comotto drew up the renovation project that included the widening of existing spaces (rooms, kitchens, stables, garages) in order to accommodate the new offices. Since 1880, the building has housed the National Archaeological Museum.

Court of Auditors, Archive Convento della Crocetta – Via Laura, 48 (Map 9.1: L, 5). In 1868, it was decided to allocate the Archives of the Court of Auditors to this convent (founded in the first half of the 1500s). The engineer Nicola Nasi oversaw the renovation, which involved the demolition of all the first-­floor cells. The complex was then completely demolished in the 1950s to construct the building that now houses the Department of Educational Sciences.

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General Treasury Former Monastery of the Badia Fiorentina – Via dei Magazzini or Piazza di San Martino (Map 9.1: I, 7). This ancient monastery of the Benedictine monks was heavily renovated to house the offices of the General Treasury. Only a small space was left to the monks so they could continue to officiate in the church. New doors and windows were created, rooms were divided with partitions, some floors were redone and entire parts of the building were consolidated. The work, directed by the engineer Nicola Nasi, was completed in 1866. Today the monastery is home to the Magistrates Court.

House of Representatives Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred) – Palazzo Vecchio (Map 9.1: H–I, 8). In 1865, under the direction of engineer Carlo Falconieri, extensive refurbishments within the palace were undertaken to best accommodate the House of Representatives and all its offices and also the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Adjustments were made to the courtyards on the ground floor and the halls connecting various rooms on the first floor to the Salone dei Dugento (Hall of the Two Hundred), which became the waiting room. New stairs were constructed to provide access to public forums and changes were made in the Sala degli Elementi and the Terrazzo di Saturno, while the floor was raised on the side of Via dei Leoni. In the Salone dei Cinquecento, a hemicycle was constructed on two-­thirds of the hall, and the side walls were covered with gold and white painted wooden panels up to the height of the frescoes. At the corners of the hemicycle, spiral stairs made of iron were built to allow access to the senators, diplomats and the public. New windows were opened both on the side of the building facing Via della Ninna, and on the side that looks out onto Piazza della Signoria. Today, the Salone dei Cinquecento is part of the Museum of the Palazzo Vecchio, with events and ceremonies often held therein.

Lottery Headquarters Former Convent of the Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella – Piazza della Stazione, 7 (Map 9.1: F, 6). Having been abolished by Garibaldi, the Lottery was reintroduced with Royal Decree n. 1534 of 5 November 1863. A part of the ancient Convent of Santa Maria Novella was chosen to accommodate the Lottery offices, which had previously been located in the former Church of San Pancrazio. Engineer Vittorio Pistoj was in charge of the restructuring. Particular attention was paid to the proper preservation of the large Cloister where the public lottery drawings were carried out. Until 1 September 2016, much of the convent was home to students of the School of Marshals and Brigadiers of the Carabinieri.

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Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce (1) Palazzo Galli Tassi, formerly Palazzo Valori, and Palazzo Rittafé, Via Pandolfini, 18–20 (Map 9.1: L, 7). The building was owned by the Galli Tassi family from 1623 to 1863, when it was bequeathed to the Hospitals of Tuscany. It was chosen to house the Ministry of Agriculture together with the nearby the Palazzo Rittafé and another Galli Tassi family-­owned building overlooking Borgo Albizi (nr. 23) to which it was connected (see Fact Sheet). The premises were rented, requiring significant restructuring due to the poor conditions in which they were found. It seems that Count Galli Tassi was very rich but also very stingy, and he had no desire to spend his money on maintenance. In particular, it was necessary to divide the rooms to gain spaces for the various offices. The terrace was closed to obtain six rooms while the large hall was divided to make two floors and eight other rooms. The entire building was equipped with gas lighting and stoves for heating.

Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce (2) Palazzo Valori – Borgo Albizi, 23 (Map 9.1: L, 7). Formerly a Valori palace, it was later owned by Count Galli Tassi. It is connected with another palace owned by Galli Tassi that overlooked Via Pandolfini (see Fact Sheet), with both buildings being chosen to house the Ministry of Agriculture. The premises were rented and significantly restructured due to their poor conditions.

Ministry of Education Complex of San Firenze – Piazza San Firenze (Map 9.1: I, 8). The monastery of the Filippini Fathers, located in the area where there was a church dedicated to St Fiorenzo, was built in several stages, based on plans drawn up by Pietro da Cortona in 1640. Eventually completed in the second half of the 1700s, the structure was dedicated to San Filippo Neri, the founder of the order. It included a new church to the left of the complex’s façade, an oratory on the right side in place of the old church and the convent, which was laid out around a large courtyard in the back. The building was occupied by the Italian government when Florence was the capital and eventually became the headquarters of the Ministry of Education. The renovation project was drafted by architect Marco Treves. The Filippini Fathers were to remain as caretakers of the church, hence some areas of the complex were restored to serve as quarters for the Fathers. It was quickly realized that the part allocated to the Ministry was much too small, so the decision was made to add a floor to the building, resulting in a three-­ storey edifice. All the existing staircases were elongated, while eighteen new windows faced out on to Via Filippina, a narrow and rather dark street. Partitions and the closing off of existing premises created many new rooms, bringing the total to 110 as opposed to the original sixty. When the capital moved to Rome, the building housed the Court House of Florence, where it remained until very recently, when it moved to its new premises in Novoli.

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Ministry of Finance Casino Mediceo di San Marco, formerly Palazzo della Dogana – Via Cavour, 57 (Map 9.1: I, 4). The mansion is located on the grounds that had been of the Medici gardens and where the Medici Academy, commissioned by Cosimo the Elder and sustained by Lorenzo the Magnificent, was located in the 1400s. Donatello, Pollaiolo, Verrocchio and Michelangelo were schooled here, while Marsilio Ficino and Agnolo Poliziano exchanged ideas. Francesco I de’ Medici commissioned the building to Bernardo Buontalenti in 1574  for use as a laboratory for his experiments. It remained in possession of the Medici family until the end of their dynasty, when the Lorraine family transformed it into barracks. Beginning in 1846, it came to house the customs offices. When Florence became the capital, all areas in the building were subdivided and made into offices, under the direction of the architect Paolo Comotto. With the transfer of the capital  to Rome, it was turned into the headquarters of the Courts of Appeals and Assizes, remaining so until 2012.

Ministry of Finance, General Headquarters of National Debt Convento di Santa Croce – Piazza Santa Croce (Map 9.1: I, 8). Founded in 1294, this Franciscan convent was restored in various ways at different times over the centuries. The decision to host the General Headquarters of National Debt in this building led to a further radical transformation and the drastic reduction of the space left to the convent dwellers.

Ministry of Finance, Offices of Duties and Customs Formerly Palazzo dell’ex Esposizione Italiana, formerly Stazione Leopolda – Viale Fratelli Rosselli (Map 9.1: C, 5). After renovations by the architect Marco Treves, the Offices of Duties were housed in this structure from 1867. It had been built in 1847 as the first station of the railway connecting Florence to Pisa and also hosted the Italian Exhibition in 1861.

Ministry of Finance, State Property and Tax Offices Palazzina della Livia – Piazza San Marco, 51 (Map 9.1: I, 5). These offices were headquartered in a house built by Grand Duke Peter Leopold between 1775 and 1780 for his mistress, the dancer Livia Malfatti Raimondi. As this was meant to be a temporary headquarters, major renovations were not initially made. Only later was work carried out to elevate the part of the building adjacent to the house on the side on Via degli Arazzieri. The project was completed in 1866.

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs Palazzo Vecchio – Piazza della Signoria (Map 9.1: I, 8). So as to provide an appropriate location for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, engineer Carlo Falconieri made some adjustments to the Palazzo Vecchio. These changes mostly involved the sides of the buildings on Via della Ninna and Via dei Leoni, where houses were constructed on the ground floor for the ministry workers. Kitchens were also created for official lunches, while a new staircase to the mezzanine level provided access to the second floor. The opening of a large skylight illuminated a space created from the union of three rooms that faced Via dei Gondi.

Ministry of the Interior Palazzo Medici Riccardi – Via Cavour 1, formerly Via Larga (Map 9.1: H, 6). Cosimo the Elder commissioned this palace to Michelozzo Michelozzi in 1444 for his new residence. It remained the property of the Medici family until 1659, when the Marquis Gabriello Riccardi purchased it. In 1675, the Riccardi family commenced major renovations and an enlargement of the building that almost doubled its size. The architect in charge was Giovan Battista Foggini. In 1814, the Riccardi family sold it to the state. When Florence was the capital, this building became the headquarters for the Ministry of the Interior, the offices of the telegraph, and the police headquarters (the latter two with an entrance on Via de’ Ginori). To make room for the large number of offices, all the rooms on all the floors were divided with partitions, with the exception of the hall of Luca Giordano and the Riccardiana Library. Today, the building is headquarters to the Prefecture.

Ministry of Justice and Religious Affairs Palazzo Portinari Salviati or Palazzo Da Cepparello – Via del Corso, 6 (Map 9.1: I, 7). In the second half of the 1400s, a two-­storey building was constructed in the place where certain houses belonging to the Portinari family had previously stood. Later enlarged by the new owners, the Salviati family, the palace subsequently became the main office of the Liceo Fiorentino. When the building was chosen to host the Ministry of Justice and Religious Affairs, a floor was added on the side of Via dello Studio and large halls were divided with partitions to achieve the number of rooms necessary to be used as offices. In 1881, it was purchased by the Padri Scopoli as the seat of the Pious Schools (see the plaque on the façade). Today, it is owned by the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

Ministry of Public Works Via della Scala, 24–26 (Map 9.1: F, 6). The building that housed the Ministry of Public Works was originally a nunnery built by Cosimo I. Renovated in the first half of the 1800s, it was intended to house the Regio

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Pensionato of the Santissima Annunziata, which was transferred to the Villa of Poggio Imperiale in 1865. With the restructuring entrusted to the engineer Vincenzo Ricci, two new buildings were constructed on Via della Scala and in Piazza della Stazione so as to join the pre-­existing edifices. Until 1 September 2016, the building was part of the School for Marshals and Brigadiers of the Carabinieri.

Ministry of the Royal Family Palazzo Pitti – Piazza Pitti, 1 (Map 9.2: G, 10). Ministry of War Palace of the Military Headquarters for the Land Army – Via Cavour, 49 (Map 9.1: I, 4). The building stands on the site where a Dominican convent dedicated to St Catherine had been founded in the early 1500s. Demolished in 1808, it became the headquarters of the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts. In the mid-1800s, it housed the sixth Legion  of RR. Carabinieri. In January 1865, the decision was made to allocate this building to the Ministry of War, previously housed in a part of the convent of the Friars of  the SS Annunziata in Via S. Sebastiano (now Via Gino Capponi). The renovation project was entrusted to Lieutenant Colonel Giovanni Castellazzi. The original structure of the Monastery of St Catherine consisted of a ground floor and one or two upper floors of differing heights. The lighting was very poor and the walls thin, weak and very unsound. Given the need for space to house several offices of the Ministry of War, a three-­storey building was needed. Considering the aforementioned faults in structure, the building was almost completely remade to look quite similar to how it looks today. Only the inner courtyard still reminds us of the original structure of  the monastery. Via degli Arazzieri was enlarged due to the need to completely redo  the façade of the building on this side (leading also to the demolition of the convent church that stood on this street). The architect Castellazzi was bitterly criticized for  the project, especially by the local press, and he himself admitted that the building  had very little artistic merit. Criticism also came because expenses exceeded the  budget. The palace, after the transfer of the capital to Rome, became Military Command Headquarters.

Navy Ministry Convento dei Padri della Missione – Piazza Frescobaldi, 1 (Map 9.1: G, 9). At the end of the 1200s, a building belonging to the Frescobaldi family (one of the first banker families of Florence) stood in this location. After various events, it was incorporated into the Convent of San Jacopo sopr’Arno and completely renovated at the end of the 1500s. In 1703, the monastery was given to the Congregation of the Fathers of the Mission, before ownership passed to the state in 1866. When Florence became the capital, the decision was made to turn it into the Navy headquarters,

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entrusting the renovations (which were extensive) to Lieutenant Colonel Castellazzi. Today, it houses the Liceo Machiavelli-Capponi.

Offices of the Council Palazzo Vecchio – Piazza della Signoria (Map 9.1: H–I, 8). Offices of the House of Representatives and Senate Spaces above the Loggia degli Uffizi – Via Castellani, Via della Ninna (Map 9.1: H, 8–9). Police Headquarters Palazzo Medici Riccardi – Via de’ Ginori, 2 (Map 9.1: H, 6). As well as housing the offices of the police headquarters, the palace was also the residence of the Police Commissioner (see Fact Sheet: Ministry of the Interior).

Postal Services, Management and Offices Building of the Royal Post Office – Piazzale degli Uffizi (Map 9.1: I, 8). Until 1864, the offices of the Royal Mail were located in the Loggia dei Pisani, in Piazza della Signoria. However, when Florence became the capital, the offices were transferred to the minting building that Giorgio Vasari had incorporated into the Uffizi. Architect Mariano Falcini ordered a series of demolitions in order to be able to construct the various offices for outgoing mail, incoming mail and a room for postmen, in addition to the great Hall of Crystal in which the public could send or collect mail or buy stamps. The lower part of the room was covered with marble and the room was lit by a glass lantern with a cast iron frame, supported by four columns in cast iron. This remained the Post Office until 1917. Currently part of the Uffizi Gallery, the premises are today used for temporary exhibitions.

Prefecture Palazzo delle Cento Finestre (100 windows) – Via Cerretani, 41r/59r (Map 9.1: G, 7). The palace, which belonged to the Strozzi family for about two centuries, was restored in a very noble manner in the mid-1700s. In 1810, the wife of Count Peter Galli Tassi bought it. It was rented out in 1865 to house the local Prefecture. Having been put up for auction in 1868, the building was purchased by Isaac Franchetti from Livorno, who engaged architect Giuseppe Poggi to make further renovations.

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The Royal Palace Meridiana district, Palazzo Pitti – Piazza Pitti, 1 (Map 9.2: G, 10). The Meridiana district, backing up to the southern wing of the Palazzo Pitti, was chosen as the residence of King Vittorio Emanuele II when the capital moved from Turin to Florence. The house was built at the directive of Peter Leopold, based on the initial plans by Gaspare Maria Paoletti (1776–1813) and then finished by Pasquale Poccianti (1822–40). It was chosen as the royal residence due to its seclusion compared to many other palaces in the city and because it was possible to enter and exit the building easily through the Boboli Gardens thanks to a secondary entrance on Via Romana. Italian royalty lived there also throughout the Savoy reign. It now houses the Costume Gallery.

Royal Stables ‘della Pace’ Piazza Porta Romana, 9 (Map 9.2: F, 12). When the Pitti Palace became the residence of Vittorio Emanuele II, it was necessary to find an area close to the royal residence to accommodate the stables. Those of the Grand Duke were located in Piazza San Marco, but they were too small and too far away from the new residence. In 1866, the decision was made to construct a new building near the Pitti Palace, in an area formerly home to a chapel of nuns and later a church dedicated to Our Lady of Peace (hence the name of the Stables ‘della Pace’). They were to house not only the horses, but also all the staff. The complex, designed by architect Fabio Nuti, was concluded in 1868, but was abandoned when the capital moved to Rome. It remained uninhabited until 1922, when possession passed to the Ministry of Education. Today, it is the headquarters of the State Institute of Art. The main building consists of a central body with a front porch. The entrance hall is an octagonal room: a double volume space topped with a glass dome. Two symmetrical wings flank the central part of the building, each spanning two or three floors and enclosing two courtyards. These rooms housed the luxury horse-­harnessing galleries, covered stables, rooms for the stable masters, rooms for the king’s guards (in the rooms to the right of the octagonal room), and even accommodations for coachmen and grooms, as well as storage areas. The entire complex was surrounded by a large park, adjacent to the Boboli Gardens, which served for outdoor riding.

Royal Stables ‘della Pace’ – the Pagliere Viale Machiavelli, 24 (Map 9.2: F, 12). Overlooking the Viale Machiavelli, the Pagliere is a subsidiary to the main stable building. As the name suggests, the rooms in this building were used for storing straw (paglia) and hay for the horses nearby. Built shortly after the stables, it too was abandoned when the capital moved to Rome. From the early 1900s, they were used by the Municipal Theatre as workshops for scenery and then as storage. Today, this space houses temporary exhibitions. The long, two-­storey main building is oriented from

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east to west with dual three-­storey lateral projections. The façade on the garden side of the stables has large grated windows to allow for proper air circulation. The side facing Viale Machiavelli is constructed with an arched portico. On the ground floor was one large room that served as a shelter for horses. Upstairs is where the straw and hay were stored, while the service staff was housed in the two wings.

The Senate Formerly Teatro Mediceo – Uffizi Gallery (Map 9.1: H, 8). The theatre, inaugurated in 1586, was commissioned by Grand Duke Francesco I to Bernardo Buontalenti. Restored after only three years, it occupied the space that now houses the Prints and Drawings Department (first floor) and Halls 2–8 (second floor). Of the original structure, only the entrance vestibule remains. Out of use since the end of the eighteenth century, it was originally intended to house the meetings of the Senate. For such a purpose, renovations overseen by engineer Carlo Falconeri were necessary, but these resulted in the complete demolition of the Teatro Mediceo. To facilitate the entry of the senators, the decision was made to rearrange the block in front of the Loggia del Grano, creating a new entrance to the gallery and a new small square in place of the dark and narrow Via di Baldracca. At the time, the renovations were highly criticized because the senators, many of them very elderly, were forced to climb the main staircase comprised of ninety-­seven steps to reach the assembly hall. The current accommodation on two floors is a result of restructuring done during the 1950s.

State Council Palazzo Nonfinito – Via del Proconsolo, 12 (Map 9.1: I, 7). Alessandro Strozzi began construction on this building in 1593 on land where houses belonging to the Pazzi family had been razed. Given the high cost of construction, the building was never completed, hence the nickname Nonfinito (or ‘not finished’). In 1814, it was sold to the Tuscan government. It was selected as the headquarters of the State Council during the period when Florence was the capital. Among various renovations were the completion of two sides of the courtyard and the consolidation of a part of the foundation. Today, it is the head office of the Museum of Natural History’s Anthropology and Ethnology department of the University of Florence, which opened in 1932.

Supreme Court of Appeals Former Convent of the Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella – Piazza della Stazione, 7 (Map 9.1: F, 6). The renovation of the old convent was entrusted to the engineer Carlo Falconieri. Until 1 September 2016, much of the convent was home to students of the School of Marshals and Brigadiers of the Carabinieri.

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Telegraph Station and Offices Palazzo Medici Riccardi – Via de’ Ginori (Map 9.1: H, 6). The telegraph station was placed on the ground floor of the building with an entrance from Via de’ Ginori. Since the space was not enough to house all the telegraph machinery, a structure of iron and glass was built in the courtyard in order to illuminate the two new rooms in the back. Everything was demolished in 1911.

1.2.  Diplomatic missions Exact identification of the headquarters of the various diplomatic missions was not  an easy research, both due to the discrepancy between contemporary sources and  the fact that many of the locations changed even after just a few years. The English embassy, for example, switched its seat from the Palazzo Niccolini to the Palazzo Orlandini when the ambassador Sir Henry George Elliot was substituted by Sir Augustus Paget.

Austria-Hungary Via Montebello, 23, or Palazzo Droutskoi, Via S. Apollonia, now Via Ventisette Aprile (Map 9.1: E, 7). Baden Piazza Indipendenza, 12 (Map 9.1: G, 4). Bavaria Via della Dogana, 2 (Map 9.1: I, 4). Belgium Villino Baldwin – Corso Italia 2, formerly Corso Vittorio Emanuele (Map 9.1: D, 6). The house, built based on a project by Giuseppe Poggi around the 1860s, housed the Belgian Embassy.

Bolivia (Consulate) Via de’ Bardi, 19 (Map 9.2: I, 10). Brasil Palazzo Pandolfini, formerly Palazzo Nencini – Via San Gallo, 74 (Map 9.1: I, 4).

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Chile Villa Sepp – Via della Colonna, 2 (Map 9.1: M, 6). The villa was built at the time when Florence was the capital and was the residence of Peter Sepp, Ambassador from Chile.

England (1865–67) Palazzo Niccolini – Via dei Servi, 15 (Map 9.1: I, 6). For two years (from 1865 to 1867) the building, owned by the Russian Count Demetrius Bouturline, was leased to the British legation. It served as both the offices and residence of the British Ambassador, Sir Henry George Elliot.

England (1867–71) Palazzo Orlandini del Beccuto – Via de’ Pecori, 6/8, Via Vecchietti (Map 9.1: G, 7). From 1867 to 1871, the British Ambassador Sir Augustus Paget and his wife, writer Lady Walburga Ehrengarde Helena, lived in this building. Today, it is the headquarters of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

France Corso Italia, formerly Corso Vittorio Emanuele, 11 (Map 9.1: D, 6). Greece Via Palestro, 6 (Map 9.1: D, 6). Mexico Via Magenta, formerly Via Ferruccio, 3 (Map 9.1: D, 6). Monaco (Consulate) Via de’ Bardi, 19 (Map 9.2: I, 10). The Netherlands Villino Trollope – Via Vincenzo Salvagnoli 1, formerly Via del Podere, 1 (Map 9.1: H, 3). Ottoman Empire (Turkey) Palazzo Antinori di Brindisi – Via dei Serragli, 7 (Map 9.2: F, 9).

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The Papal State (Consulate) Piazza de’ Vecchietti, 3 (Map 9.1: G, 7). Today the square no longer exists.

Paraguay (Consulate) Via della Scala, 15 (Map 9.1: F, 6). Portugal Villino Trollope – Via Vincenzo Salvagnoli 1, formerly Via del Podere, 1 (Map 9.1: H, 3). Prussia Palazzo Pazzi della Congiura – Via del Proconsolo, 10 (Map 9.1: I, 7). Russia Palazzo Baldinucci – Via Ghibellina, 87 near the Teatro Pagliano (Map 9.1: L, 7–8). Spain (Embassy) Palazzo Poniatowsky Guadagni – Piazzale Porta a Prato, 6 (Map 9.1: D, 5). Sweden and Norway Via Solferino, 4 (Map 9.1: D, 6). Switzerland (Swiss Confederation) Palazzo Arcangeli di Strozzavolpe – Via Magenta 11, formerly Via Ferruccio, 7 (Map 9.1: D, 6). The building, which served as the Embassy of the Swiss Confederation in the years when Florence was capital, was built in the second half of the 1800s and is now the Hotel Ariele.

United States of America Palazzo Rosselli del Turco – Via dei Serragli, 13, today 17 (Map 9.2: F, 9). The building housed the US embassy in the years that Florence was the capital. The ambassador at the time, George Perkins Marsh, resided in a villa just outside Florence.

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Venezuela (Consulate) Via Cavour, 5 (Map 9.1: H, 6).

2.  Places of leisure 2.1.  Cafés Caffè Bottegone Via dei Martelli, on the corner of Piazza Duomo (Map 9.1: H, 6). This was a meeting place of the bourgeoisie, but also of actors from the nearby Teatro Niccolini. The café remained open until 2.00 am, much later than the usual closing times for coffee shops of 11.00 pm, in order to give the public the opportunity to find a place open after the theatre. When Caffè Michelangelo closed in 1866, Caffè Bottegone was also patronized by some of the Macchiaioli artists (Fattori, Signorini). In 1870, it was renovated according to the style of the cafés in Turin (red velvet sofas, marble and frescoes on the walls). By 1896, it was no longer popular. Today, the café has the original name and is also a self-­service restaurant, but nothing remains of the original grandeur.

Caffè Castelmur Perini Via Calzaiuoli, on the corner of Via dei Tavolini (Map 9.1: H, 8). This café was best known for its fine pastries; customers could also enjoy sorbets and ice creams, meringues, jellies and preserves. The only downside was the high prices. In 1861, the café presented its products at the International Exhibition of Florence.

Caffè Centrale (Brewery/Café Paszkowski) Piazza della Repubblic, a Brunelleschi (Map 9.1: H, 8). In 1846, a refreshment bar and brewery opened on the corner of Via Brunelleschi and Piazza della Repubblica, an area still occupied by the ghetto at that time. With the reclassification of the square and the demolitions of the late nineteenth century, the locale was enlarged and became known as Caffè Centrale. In 1904, it was taken over by a Polish family, Paszkowski, who continued the tradition of the brewery, but also transformed it into a successful music café. Caffè Paszkowski is still one of the most stylish and elegant cafés in Florence.

Caffè-Birreria Cornelio Via Brunelleschi, formerly Via dei Naccaioli, on the corner of Via de’ Pecori, formerly Via dei Buoni (Map 9.1: H, 7). This brewery-­café was an elegant and spacious wooden construction. After Via de’ Pecori was widened in 1830, the building opened onto the gardens of the Palazzo

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Map 9.1  Plan of Florence with the new datiary perimeter and the new urban developments: Northern detail. Source: Pianta di Firenze con la cinta daziaria ed i nuovi quartieri secondo il piano regolatore d’ampliamento (Firenze: Tipografia Bettini, 1872). Property of Max Planck Gesellschaft and Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Fotothek.

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Map 9.2  Plan of Florence with the new datiary perimeter and the new urban developments: Southern detail. Source: Pianta di Firenze con la cinta daziaria ed i nuovi quartieri secondo il piano regolatore d’ampliamento (Firenze: Tipografia Bettini, 1872). Property of Max Planck Gesellschaft and Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Fotothek.

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Orlandini del Beccuto that stood in front of it. It was run by the Cornelio family, who did not own the building but rather rented it. After midnight, it was considered a suitable venue for young people in search of easy conquests, as it was frequented by women who went to the café in order to leave in company. It was devastated by fire and then knocked down at the end of the 1800s.

Caffè Pasticceria Doney Palazzo Altoviti Sangalletti – Via Tornabuoni, 10 (Map 9.1: G, 8). Gasparo Doney ran this café and pastry shop from the 1820s to the 1830s on the ground floor of the Altoviti Sangalletti building. The restaurant, divided into elegant lounges and decorated with chairs upholstered in red velvet, was also known as Caffè delle Colonne thanks to the presence of the four columns supporting the high-­vaulted ceiling in the main hall. It was frequented not only by the Florentine and foreign aristocracy, but also by government representatives and sometimes even the king himself. The café was closed in 1986 and the premises are currently occupied by a Giorgio Armani boutique.

Caffè del Genio Via San Gallo (Map 9.1: I, 4). Now closed, this café is where many of the Macchiaioli artists met after Caffè Michelangelo shut down. It was in front of the former Le Monnier Library.

Caffè Giacosa Via Tornabuoni, 83r (Map 9.1: G, 7). The house of Giacosa, founded in Turin in 1815, arrived in Florence with the transfer of the capital and was located in Via Tornabuoni in front of the Palazzo Strozzi. Initially a liquor store, where one could ‘enjoy the true vermouth of Torino . . . and freely speak the true language of Gianduja’,6 it later became a confectionery and tea and coffee room. It was very popular during the winter among foreigners who resided in Florence. In 1927, the café moved into the space formerly occupied by Caffè Casoni (on the corner of Via della Spada) and these days has been incorporated into the Cavalli boutique.

Caffè d’Italia Via Tornabuoni, corner of Lungarno Corsini (Map 9.1: G, 8). The café was opened in 1860 in the building opposite the Town Hall (Palazzo Spini Feroni). It was significantly large and very popular, especially in the summer time when tables were placed outside on the riverbank. The lemon sorbet was a favourite.

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Caffè Michelangiolo Morrocchi Palace – Via Larga, today Via Cavour 21 (Map 9.1: H, 6). Caffè Michelangiolo opened around 1848–50 in some of the rooms on the ground  floor of the Palazzo Morrocchi. From the beginning it was patronized by groups of intellectuals, politicians, writers (Domenico Guerrazi, Carlo Lorenzini/Collodi) and especially artists (Stefano Ussi), who shared similar political and patriotic ideals. In 1855, Telemaco Signorini, Edoardo Borrani and Vincenzo Cabianca (all of whom had formerly frequented the Caffè dell’Onore in Borgo la Croce/Via Pietrapiana) made their first appearance at Caffè Michelangiolo, eager to renew their pictorial experiences. They were soon joined by other artists who patronized the café (Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega and Angelo Tricca) and together they gave birth to the Macchia movement (they were even called Macchiaioli, originating from the Italian word which means ‘stain or blemish’). They distanced themselves from the sharp contour lines of academic painting, focusing on colour, its nuances, the chiaroscuro, the contrast between light and shadow. And at the Caffè Michelangiolo, in a room located behind the coffee room itself and depicted by Adriano Cencioni, these artists came together not only to discuss art and politics (with many of them participating in the undertakings of Garibaldi), but also to enjoy themselves and make fun of themselves and of each other. It was a source of ideas and of new artistic movements, ideas shared with the outside and their acquaintances on the other side of the Alps. With the transfer of the capital to Florence, the atmosphere changed and the café closed in 1866. A plaque on the façade of the Palazzo Morrocchi is the only reminder of its presence.

Caffè Parigi (Restaurant) Via Cerretani, corner of Via Panzani (Map 9.1: G, 6). Opened by the Turin-­born Budrand, this was a café and restaurant patronized in the evening by those coming from performances at Teatro della Pergola. At the end of the nineteenth century, it became the guitar shop Brizzi e Niccolai. The space is currently divided between the Hotel Cerretani and a Mandarina Duck boutique.

Caffè Parlamento Piazza San Firenze, Via dei Leoni (Map 9.1: I, 8). This café was patronized by senators and members of Parliament due to its proximity to the headquarters of both the House and Senate. Currently part of the Hotel Bernini Palace, some of the original frescos with portraits of the Risorgimento era (such as of Garibaldi, Cosimo Ridofi, Cavour and La Marmora) have been preserved in the Breakfast Room.

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Caffè dei Risorti Palazzo Panciatichi – Via Cavour, formerly Via Larga, near the corner of Via dei Pucci (Map 9.1: H, 6). Patronized by the upper middle class, writers (such as De Amicis and Fucini), artists and employees of the nearby ministries (War, Interior, Finance), the café was in a magnificent space with a large indoor garden. In 1880 it was closed due to bankruptcy, and today the premises are occupied by lingerie shop Frette.

Caffè Rivoire Piazza della Signoria (Map 9.1: H, 8). Caffè Rivoire was opened in 1872, in the same location as today, by the chocolatier Enrico Rivoire, official supplier of the Royal House; he moved his chocolate factory to Florence when it became the capital of the kingdom. The business is still active today.

Il Tivoli Piazzale Galilei (Map 9.2: G, 14). The complex, constructed between 1869 and 1871 and designed by Giacomo Roster, included a restaurant, ballroom, theatre, bazaar and a brewery. It was surrounded by a park, with the initial idea being that it would become an amusement park with private management. One paid an entrance fee, but while it was initially very popular, unfortunately the activity was short-­lived because the operating costs were too high. It was demolished in 1878.

Maison Gilli Via Calzaiuoli, formerly Corso Adimari, Via delle Oche (Map 9.1: H, 7). Opened in 1733 as a sweets workshop by Swiss confectioners the Gilli family, the shop remained a laboratory throughout the first half of the 1800s, ‘extensively equipped with all kinds of pastries with all kinds of flavours’,7 on the corner of Via delle Oche and what is today Via Calzaiuoli. With the transfer of the capital to Florence, the shop became even more popular with the upper middle class, officials, affluent individuals and professionals. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, it moved into a new building on the corner of Via degli Speziali and Piazza Vittorio Emanuele (now Piazza della Repubblica), directly opposite the current location where it has been since just after the war.

2.2.  Theatres At the time of the capital’s arrival to Florence in 1865, there were eleven or twelve theatres, as mentioned in the guides of the time. The first was the Teatro della Pergola,

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built in 1657 as a court theatre, before becoming a public fee-­charging theatre in 1718. There was also the Teatro Pagliano (present-­day Teatro Verdi), which opened in 1853. During the summer months, outdoor theatres basically took the place of indoor theatres (featuring other theatre genres): the Arena Goldoni opened in 1818, while the Arena Nazionale was inaugurated in 1864 in Via Tedesca (now Via Nazionale) and showed equestrian and historical dramas, musical works and operettas. Teatro Politeama was built by a consortium of Florentines. Inaugurated in 1862, it had a capacity of 6,000 and usually featured opera and music. At least in 1867, the daytime theatre season began in late April. Due to the increasing demands for greater space, two new theatres were built in this period: Logge del Grano (Teatro Salvini) in 1868, and Teatro Principe Umberto in 1869 – the only recreational structure in the emerging neighbourhoods of Mattonaia and Savonarola.

Arena Goldoni Via dei Serragli, 107 (Map 9.2: E, 10). Given the success of Teatro Goldoni (see Fact Sheet) after its opening in 1817, the theatre’s impresario, Luigi Gargani, acquired the Augustinian monastery that was located in Via dei Serragli. Here he built an outdoor theatre (the Arena) and other recreational settings in the adjacent gardens, notably the dance hall, the Goldonetta or Saloncino Castinelli (named after the architect who designed it), which had its entrance in Via Santa Maria. The Arena was quite large, with a capacity of 1,500 spectators, and was inaugurated in 1818.

Arena Nazionale Via Nazionale, 41r (Map 9.1: G, 6). Opening in 1864, the Arena Nazionale was one of the theatres that opened in the period when Florence was capital. This was an open-­air theatre that had no architectural pretence, and therefore is often described as a ‘shapeless shed, a ramshackle, a wooden frame with a roof of stars, or clouds, rustic’.8 It had been built in part of the Baron Franchetti’s garden, at the end of Via Nazionale (near the Santa Maria Novella Station) and was frequented by the lower middle class. It had relatively economic tickets (60 cents). Some of its more notable features were the chairs of the audience, real straw chairs that, at a cost of 70 cents, allowed one to have a seat but also to be free to move around during the breaks. Each seat had a hole in the middle where the first to arrive could insert their cane or umbrella to reserve it. For 10 cents more, you could rent pillows. Inside the theatre you could buy newspapers, cigars and beer. Operettas, plays, horse shows and musicals were all held there. For a time, some theatre companies added the notorious can-­can dance to their shows. In the 1930s the building was completely renovated to house the Cinema Rex (later Apollo). After years of neglect, the complex has again been renovated, and in a portion of the building there is a luxury hotel (Hotel Mercure).

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Teatro Alfieri (Accademia dei Risoluti) Piazza dei Ciompi, Via dell’Ulivo (Map 9.1: M, 7). The theatre stood between Via Santa Maria (now the Via Buonarroti side of Piazza dei Ciompi) and Via del Giardino (now Via dell’Ulivo). From the middle of the 1700s, it was run by the Accademia dei Risoluti. It was restructured several times, most recently in 1828 when it was enlarged and equipped with a new entrance in Via Pietrapiana (which was also the home of the Academy). As it had excellent acoustics, both musicals and plays were put on at this theatre, which was patronized by the middle class. In 1865 the price of admission was one lira. Remembered as ‘one of the most elegant Florentine theatres’9 after a final restoration in 1896, it was demolished in 1934 when the neighbourhood was completely renovated.

Teatro Goldoni Via Santa Maria, 15, formerly Via Santa Maria Oltrarno (Map 9.2: F, 10). The area where the theatre was had been occupied by the Convent of St Vincent of Annalena since the mid-1400s. In 1807, Luigi Gargani purchased the convent and the adjacent land with the aim of creating an impressive project in this area (which extended to Via dei Serragli): a large theatre to be designed by Giuseppe Del Rosso, intended to hold up to 1,600 people. It was inaugurated in 1817 in the presence of the Grand Duke Ferdinand III. The building contained an outdoor arena (see Fact Sheet: Arena Goldoni), a party room and other recreational settings. In the years when Florence was the capital, the theatre was mostly frequented by the lower middle class. Comedy and dance shows were held therein. Even masked balls were sometimes held. In 1865, the entrance fee was one lira. After many ups and downs, today the Teatro Goldoni is managed by the Opera Florence Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and some plays from the Teatro della Pergola are also performed there.

Teatro delle Logge del Grano o Salvini Via dei Castellani, on the corner of Via dei Neri (Map 9.1: I, 8). The theatre was built in 1868, elevating by one floor the Loggia del Grano, which had been built by Cosimo III to improve the conditions of what was a storage area for a market selling grain (grano) for centuries. It became connected to the adjacent building through a project by Andrea Scala. Initially called the Teatro delle Logge del Grano, in 1876 it was named for its owner, the actor Tommaso Salvini. The theatre was very nice and well illuminated, although there were a good seventy steps to get to the seating. In 1896, it served as a training studio for amateur actors. In the early twentieth century, it was transformed into a music café and then into a cinema. Today, it is no longer active.

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Teatro Nazionale (della Quarconia or Giglio) Piazza de’ Cerchi, Via dei Cimatori (Map 9.1: I, 8). Built in the late 1700s, this was the first theatre in this area and became known as the Teatro della Quarconia. In the 1820s (under the name of Teatro del Giglio), it was enlarged, restored and became very successful since many comedies starring the popular Florentine character Stenterello were performed there. Restored again during the nineteenth century, the theatre had its name changed to Teatro Nazionale (National Theatre) when Florence became the capital. It was very popular with the lower-­income classes. In fact, in 1865 the admission was only 40 cents. From 1926 to 1985, it was used as a cinema (Supercinema). Today it is abandoned.

Teatro Niccolini (del Cocomero) Via Ricasoli, 3, formerly Via Cocomero (Map 9.1: H, 6). Teatro Niccolini is considered one of the oldest theatres in Florence. In fact, in 1648 a group of theatre-­loving aristocrats who met at the Academy (later called the Infuocati – meaning ‘enflamed’ in Italian – having a bomb as their symbol, which is still visible today on the decoration above the entrance to the theatre) rented a few rooms on the first floor of a palace belonging to the Ughi family. One room in particular was used as a theatre (taking the name Teatro del Cocomero, or ‘Watermelon Theatre’, from the name of the street it was on). Over the centuries, the building was extensively renovated and enlarged. In 1859, the name became Teatro Niccolini after the late dramatist Giovan Battista Niccolini whose works were performed in this theatre, always drawing large crowds. The theatre had a ‘loyal customer base, made up of the most chosen, the most illustrious, and the most glorious that the Florentine population had to offer’.10 The public’s opinion of Niccolini confirmed without a doubt the true value of dramatic representations. Italian operas were performed, as were those in foreign languages (especially French), particularly during the time of Carnival when performances were done in original language. Among the dates to remember is 3 February 1865, when the masterful performance of Francesca da Rimini was put on during the celebrations for the centennial celebration of Dante Alighieri, with actors including Ernesto Rossi, Adelaide Ristori and Tommaso Salvini. In the first half of the 1900s, the theatre was used as a cinema, ceasing only as of 1995. The publisher Pagliai bought the property recently and oversaw its restoration to turn it into a multicultural centre. On 8 January 2016, the theatre was officially reopened and returned to life.

Teatro Nuovo (degli Intrepidi) Via Cresci, now Via Bufalini, 11–13 (Map 9.1: I, 6). Called Tetatro degli Intrepidi (Fearless) from the name of the Academy that owned the theatre, it was built in 1779 on the block between Via Cresci and Piazza Duomo (where there was an entrance reserved for the court). The name changed to Nuovo (new) after complex restructuring during the 1840s that made it more spacious and comfortable,

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now having five tiers of boxes, numerous dressing rooms, a ballroom and a pool hall. Mostly dramas were performed, but the acoustics were not great. In 1865 the entry ticket cost was one lira. The theatre drew its audiences from the working classes. In 1896, a saying began to circulate that it ‘is closed on average twelve months a year!’,11 meaning that it was no longer popular. It was dismantled in 1914, one part then being used as a garage and a warehouse. Purchased in 1998 by the Opera del Duomo, it is part of the new Museo dell’Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, which opened in November 2015.

Teatro Pagliano Via Ghibellina, 97a, formerly Via del Diluvio (Map 9.1: L, 7). When it opened in 1853, the theatre was one of the largest in Italy. It was built based on plans by Telemaco Bonajuti, commissioned by the former baritone Girolamo Pagliano, who went on to became famous and wealthy thanks to his herb-­infused syrup. The theatre was named for him until it changed to Teatro Verdi in 1901. In this area stood the ancient Stinche prison and some public washrooms that had been partially dismantled and incorporated into a new building designed by architect Francesco Leoni during the Lorraine rule. Audiences attending the Teatro Pagliano were quite diverse. Indeed, the theatre almost seems to have brought in the public from all the other theatres in Florence without discrimination (apart from admission which, in 1865, varied depending on if that shown was an opera for 1.50 lire or a comedy for  1 lira). The most famous actors of the time performed there, and many of the shows were exceptional. One downfall, which is still a problem today, is that the doors of the auditorium were just a few steps from the exit door onto the street, and this continuously hindered the construction of an entrance worthy of the grandeur of the theatre. The theatre continues its activities today and is managed by the Foundation for the Orchestra Regionale Toscana (ORT).

Teatro della Pergola Via della Pergola, 12–30 (Map 9.1: L, 5). In 1652, a part of the Academics of the Infuocati who ran the Teatro del Cocomero formed Accademici Immobili and bought a property in Via della Pergola where there was a workshop of the Wool Guild. Here they built a wooden theatre that was inaugurated in 1657 when it still was not finished. Initially the theatre of the Court, it was opened to the paying public only in 1718. Over the years it underwent considerable renovations and enlargements, including being rebuilt in stone in the mid-1700s before assuming its present appearance. The audience was distinguished and elegant, and in 1865 the price of admission was 2.50 lire. Performances at the Teatro della Pergola were mainly of opera (a precursor to lyrical opera), music and dance. Galas were held in the presence of the monarchs (Othello I in January 1867), and the traditional veglione (ball) for Shrove Tuesday that saw the theatre transformed into a grand hall lit by large gas lanterns. The audience level could be raised up to the height of the stage, and the

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tier boxes were illuminated for the festival. The success of the theatre wavered over  the years; however, it is still in business today.

Teatro di Piazza Vecchia Via del Melarancio (Map 9.1: G, 6). This small theatre, run by the Accademia degli Arrischiati from the mid-­eighteenth century through to 1879, was located on the side of the Hotel Baglioni in Via del Melarancio. The name comes from its location in the square that was then called the Piazza Vecchia (or Old Square) of Santa Maria Novella. Originally a small wooden structure, it was repeatedly restored and enlarged during the 1800s, until 1860 when it was incorporated into the present building that was home of the Prince of Lucedio. Today, it is the luxury hotel Grand Hotel Baglioni. High on the façade of the street number 5 is the coat of arms of the Arrischiati, together with part of their motto (‘nothing gained’) and a relief of a child with a mousetrap. Performances in this  theatre were mostly popular comedies, particularly those of Stenterello. In 1865,  the price of admission was 40 cents and the theatre was patronized by the poorer classes.

Teatro Politeama Fiorentino Corso Vittorio Emanuele, today Corso Italia, 20 (Map 9.1: D, 6). As predecessor of the Teatro Comunale del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the theatre was inaugurated in 1862 based on the neoclassical designs of Telemaco Bonaiuti. A consortium of Florentines, as the Società Anonima [Anonymous Society] del Regio Politeama Vittorio Emanuele II, had put up the 410,000 lire for the construction of this great open-­air theatre, which could hold about 6,000 spectators. The building’s façade featured arches that formed the windows and the doors accessing the large atrium that led to the ticket office, party rooms and cafeteria. The theatre itself had an elliptical shape with two tiers of seats and boxes. In 1863, a fire destroyed much of the theatre. It was quickly rebuilt, and only in 1882 was the decision made to close it with a roof. Programming of the shows was mainly focused on music and plays, with some of the most famous actors of the time (such as Ernesto Rossi and Tommaso Salvini) performing there. The price of admission in 1865 was 40 cents. King Vittorio Emanuele, for whom the theatre was named, was a regular visitor of the Politeama, especially on summer evenings. After ups and downs in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the theatre became the property of the city of Florence in 1929. It has since been known as the Teatro Comunale (Municipal Theatre). It remained in use until 2014, when the building was abandoned and the theatre moved to its new complex of the Opera di Firenze.

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Teatro Principe Umberto Piazza Massimo d’Azeglio, 38 (Map 9.1: M, 6). In 1869 in Piazza d’Azeglio, where the Villino Uzielli stands today (1902–4), a new daytime theatre was opened, dedicated to the Crown Prince Umberto who was present at the inauguration together with the king. It was also known as the Morini arena,  named after its owner. It consisted of a large building built almost entirely of wood. It was popular with the upper middle class and even King Vittorio Emanuele was  a frequent patron. However, the theatre was short-­lived, being destroyed by fire in December 1889.

Teatro Rossini (former Borgognissanti) Evangelical Christian Baptist Church – Via Borgognissanti, 4 (Map 9.1: F, 7). This theatre was established in 1778 and the plans for its construction were developed by Gaspare Maria Paoletti for the Accademici Solleciti. Performances were mainly popular Florentine comedies such as those by Stenterello. In 1865, entrance tickets cost 40 cents each. Though it was very popular, the theatre had a short life. In 1896, it was already being used by Gabinetto Visseux to store various publications. A radical restoration in the early 1900s transformed the building into a church, but the original layout of the theatre was preserved.

2.3.  Meeting places/salons There were well-­known salons held in Florence when the city was capital of Italy. Some were so famous that monographs were written about them (Peruzzi and Rattazzi). Others were less known but equally important (Bartolommei). Some were held in the private homes of certain families (Peruzzi, Fenzi, Corsini) or in the residences rented by those who moved to Florence with the arrival of the capital (Rattazzi). Others were in newly constructed buildings, such as the Villa Rovezzano bought by Baroness Favard, paramour of Napoleon III, and renovated by Giuseppe Poggi. The same architect also constructed her new residence in the city, in Via Curtatone.

Casino Borghesi Palazzo Borghese – Via del Palagio, today Via Ghibellina, 110 (Map 9.1: L, 7). The Palazzo Borghese was built in 1821 by Prince Camillo Borghese and designed by Gaetano Baccani. Beginning in 1843, all the apartments on the first floor of the building were rented to the Società del Casino di Firenze (the Florence Casino Society), which is still there today, although it has changed its name to Circolo Borghese. Many receptions, charity events and concerts were organized here, but every night one could find entertainment at the ‘green carpet’ tables. When Florence was the capital, lavish celebrations were thrown for the Dukes of Aosta (1867) and for the Princes of Piedmont

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during their honeymoon (1868). Every year, the day of the Epiphany was celebrated with daytime balls for children and their families.

Casino de’ Risorti Palazzo Panciatichi – Via Cavour, fomerly Via Larga, Via dei Pucci (Map 9.1: H, 6). On the first floor of the building, above the café of the same name, people danced and played at the ‘green carpet’ tables. Every Sunday evening, parties were organized for the bourgeoisie and officers.

Circolo dell’Unione Palazzo Corsi – Via Tornabuoni, 7 (Map 9.1: G, 8). The Cricolo dell’Unione (Union Club) held its first meeting in 1853 in the Palazzo Corsi, which had been built in the late sixteenth century, having been designed by Giorgio Vasari and by Ammannati. The club itself had been founded a year earlier by Prince Anatole Demidoff, who had invited a group of friends who enjoyed galloping races to his villa in San Donato. The club’s original name was Società Anonima per le Corse dei Cavalli, though later it became known as the Jockey Club, taking on its current name only in 1871. Exclusive to male aristocrats, the club rented the rooms on the main floor of the palace before eventually buying it in 1920. The headquarters of the club are still there today.

Palazzo Bartolommei Via Lambertesca, 9–11 (Map 9.1: H, 8). The patriotic salon of Marquis Ferdinand Bartolommei and his wife Teresa, ‘a great lady of dignity, elegance and serenity’,12 was patronized by Florentines of all walks of life. Aristocrats and bourgeois met there during musical events, discussions and dances, secretly preparing the peaceful revolution of 27 April 1859, which was the first step towards the unification of Italy. After the fall of the Grand Duchy of Lorraine, the Marquis was appointed the first Gonfalonier of Florence, all commemorated with a plaque on the façade of the building. From 1860 onwards, many important people (such as Fanti, Cadorna, Ridolfi and Ricasoli) passed through the salon in Via Lambertesca, all united by a love for their country. ‘The exquisite touch the Marquise Bartolommei had given to the Palace of Via Lambertesca is a sign of political vitality and ardent patriotism.’13

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Palazzo Favard Lungarno Vespucci, 36 (Map 9.1: D, 6). In 1857, Baroness Fiorella (Suzanne) Favard of Anglade, owner of Villa Rovezzano, commissioned the architect Giuseppe Poggi to construct her new residence in the city along the Arno river, where she had bought land for this purpose. Many balls and concerts were held in the sumptuous ballroom, decorated completely in white and gold. Today, it houses the Polimoda School.

Palazzo Fenzi Via San Gallo, 10 (Map 9.1: H, 5). Formerly Marucelli, the Palazzo was bought in 1829 by Emanuele Fenzi, a rich banker and astute businessman to whom we owe thanks for the construction of the FlorenceLivorno railway line. The salon of the Fenzi residence is remembered for the grand hospitality of the hosts, without literary or artistic pretensions, and especially for the great masked ball given in 1866 attended by Mrs Rattazzi (wife of Prime Minister Urbano) disguised as Bacchante. Typically, the receptions at the Fenzi home were  held on Sundays. In 1890, the Fenzi family sold the building to the Banca Nazionale Toscana. Today, it houses the Departments of History, Archaeology, Geography, Art and Performing Arts of the University of Florence.

Palazzo Guadagni (Salotto Rattazzi) Piazza Santo Spirito, 10 (Map 9.2: F, 9). In 1865, when the capital was moved to Florence, Urbano Rattazzi came to town with his young wife, Maria Letizia Wayse Bonaparte. They rented the first floor of this building and every Thursday evening received friends and acquaintances, but also politicians or diplomats.

Palazzo Hooghvorst Palazzo Gianfigliazzi – Lungarno Corsini, 4, formerly Lung’Arno Nuovo (Map 9.1: G, 8). While Florence was the capital, this was the residence of Baron Adrian Van der Linden of Hooghvorst, honorary officer of the Belgian embassy. Many memorable and lavish receptions, parties, dances and concerts were held here, patronized by the best of Florentine and international society. The carnival party of 1870 goes down in history: ‘from which guests came away just before 11 o’ clock in the morning’.14 The unsurpassed hostess was the wife of the Baron, the Marquise Aurora Guadagni, who spoke five languages and had a brilliant mind and affable manners.

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Palazzo Incontri Piccolellis Via de’ Pucci, 1 (Map 9.1: I, 6). This building, owned since the mid-1600s by the Incontri family of Volterra, was bought in the mid-1800s by the Neapolitan Filippo de Piccolellis. It became a destination for the best of Florentine society, thanks to receptions held on  Wednesdays. The hostess, Isabella Poniatowski, received guests and friends in the parlours of the building, organizing elegant banquets and evenings during which  they talked (absolutely not about politics), played chess and cards, and smoked  good cigars. In July 1885, the Marquise Isabella died in a carriage accident on a Wednesday, just before one of her parties. Today, the building is the property of Banca CR Firenze.

Palazzo Peruzzi Borgo dei Greci, 10–14 (Map 9.1: I, 8). Palazzo Peruzzi, thanks to Donna Emilia Toscanelli, wife of Ubaldini Peruzzi,  hosted for several years the most important salon of Florence among those that ‘mattered’. In fact, not only the writers, scientists and illustrious politicians of Italy attended it, but also the most important men from many other countries always  made it their (most pleasant) duty to be in the company of the exceptional Donna Emilia Toscanelli.

Villa Favard Rovezzano Via Aretina, 507 (outside map) Purchased in 1855 by Baroness Fiorella (Suzanne) Favard of Langlade, the building was renovated and enlarged following a design by Giuseppe Poggi. The same architect was commissioned by Baroness Favard to construct the palace on the riverbank (see Fact Sheet). In this villa, the Baroness received intellectuals and artists, and organized many balls and concerts.

Villa La Torre (Antella) Via Ubaldino Peruzzi, 158, Antella (outside map) The villa was the property of the Peruzzi family from the end of the 1200s. During  the summer months, the ‘Red Parlour’ of Piazza Peruzzi (see Palazzo Peruzzi) moved into this villa. After a brief period as a luxury hotel, the entire complex was divided into apartments.

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2.4.  Academies/libraries Accademia delle Belle Arti Via Ricasoli, Piazza San Marco (Map 9.1: I, 5). Around 1784, the Academy was housed in the former hospital of San Matteo, upon the request of the Grand Duke Peter Leopold. It still has its headquarters there today. In 1871, it was open daily from 9.00 am to 3.00 pm, except on Sundays and holidays.

Accademia della Crusca Convent of San Marco – Piazza San Marco (Map 9.1: I, 5). Established in 1583, the Academy was transferred from the Palazzo Medici Riccardi (which later became the offices of the Ministry of the Interior) to the guest rooms  of the Convent of San Marco during the period in which Florence was the capital.  The engineer Vittorio Pistoj carried out the renovation, which consisted mainly of the enlargement of the windows to give more light to the rooms, and the relocation of  the libraries. The current headquarters of the Academy is the Villa Medicea di Castello.

Accademia dei Georgofili Via Ricasoli, Piazza delle Belle Arti (Map 9.1: I, 5). The Academy, established in 1753 to closely examine and improve the ‘art of Tuscan cultivation’,15 was located in Via Ricasoli from 1802 in the former nunnery of San Niccolò di Cafaggio (today the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini). The meetings of the Academy were held in the room called Buonumore (good humour). Since 1932, it has been housed in the Torre de’ Pucci behind the Uffizi courts.

Biblioteca Nazionale (National Library) Palazzo dei Veliti e Biblioteca Magliabechiana – Via dei Castellani, 1–3 (Map 9.1: I, 9). The National Library was established with a decree of 22 December 1861 that united the Biblioteca Magliabechiana and Biblioteca Palatine in the new institute. Since 1885, the library has assumed the title of Centrale (Central), along with that of Rome. In the period when Florence was the capital, the newly established library was housed in the premises of the Caserma dei Vèliti and in the Biblioteca Magliabechiana at the Uffizi. The renovations of the two buildings were entrusted to the engineer Francesco Mazzei who demolished and divided several rooms, opened and closed windows, and built a new entrance on the Loggia of the Uffizi (the latter after the intervention and insistence of the Minister of Education because Mazzei himself wanted the entrance on Via dei Castellani). In 1871, it was open every day from 9.00 am to 4.00 pm, except holidays. The Library has been housed in the building of Piazza Cavalleggeri since 1935.

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Gabinetto Scientifico-Letterario G. P. Viesseux Palazzo Buondelmonti – Piazza Santa Trinita, 2 (Map 9.1: G, 8). In January 1820, Giovan Pietro Viesseux, a merchant from Geneva, opened his scientific-­literary studio to the public. In 1867, it was remembered as one of ‘the oldest, the most reputed and most abundantly supplied with works in various languages, and both Italian and foreign newspapers. One of the only places you can freely go to savour some quiet time.’16 And again, ‘they even do lending of subscriptions for reading at home.’17 One could read the newspapers as well as scientific and current events publications. To access the studio one paid weekly, monthly or annual dues adjusted according to the time frame. Users (both Italians and foreigners) were generally very well-educated. In 1921, the property was transferred to the city of Florence and since 1940 its collection has been housed in the Palazzo Strozzi.

2.5.  Brothels Borgo Stella Borgo Stella (Map 9.2: G, 9).

Chiasso della Coroncina Chiasso della Coroncina (Map 9.1: H, 7). The alley, which no longer exists, used to connect Piazza dei Tre Re to Via degli Speziali.

Chiasso dei Limonai Chiasso dei Limonai (Map 9.1: H, 8). Via delle Belle Donne Via delle Belle Donne (Map 9.1: G, 7). A clandestine brothel often visited by the upper class.

Via dei Giudei Today Via dei Ramaglianti (Map 9.2: G, 9). The brothel was at number 8.

Via dei Lanzi Today Chiasso dei Baroncelli (Map 9.1: H, 8).

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Via de’ Lontanmorti Via de’ Lontanmorti (Map 9.1: H, 8). This is represented in the painting La toilette del mattino, by Telemaco Signorini.

Vicolo dell’Oro Vicolo dell’Oro (Map 9.1: H, 8). Via del Porcellana Via del Porcellana (Map 9.1: F, 7). In addition to this brothel at number 39, there was at least one other bordello on this street that was closed in 1887.

Via San Miniato Via San Miniato (Map 9.2: L, 10). Via dei Servi Via dei Servi (Map 9.1: I, 6). This was a shrouded brothel often visited by the upper class.

Via dello Sprone Via dello Sprone (Map 9.2: G, 9). 2.6.  Hotels Albergo Bonciani Palazzo Pitti Broccardi – Via Panzani, 17 (Map 9.1: G, 6). This hotel is especially remembered for the fact that Giuseppe Garibaldi stayed there in 1867. Today, the entrance is on Via Panzani but during the time when Florence was the capital, the entrance was in Piazza Santa Maria Novella.

Albergo La Pace Piazza Ognissanti, formerly Piazza Manin (Map 9.1: E, 7). Albergo Milano/Locanda di Milano Via dei Cerretani, 10 (Map 9.1: G, 6).

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Albergo Roma/Locanda di Roma Piazza Santa Maria Novella, 8 (Map 9.1: G, 7). Albergo Stella d’Italia e San Marco Via Calzaioli, 8 (Map 9.1: H, 7). The building that housed this hotel was built at the end of the 1800s, when Via Calzaiuoli was widened. It was a rather large hotel. In 1896, there were 100 rooms that cost 2 lire a night, service and candles included. The building has since been incorporated into the Hotel Brunelleschi, which has maintained the original plasters of the Liberty Room as well as the stairway with the art nouveau baluster and the boiserie panelling.

Casa Guidi Piazza San Felice, 8/18r/11r (Map 9.2: F, 10). Grand Hotel de New York Lungarno Corsini, 14–16 (Map 9.1: F, 8). The construction on this building began at the end of the 1400s, but it was only used as a hotel from the late eighteenth century. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was very popular with American tourists. Due to its location on the banks of the Arno, the Municipality of Florence spent 1,000 lire on the occasion of the marriage of Prince Umberto in 1868 to rent the terrace of the hotel to launch fireworks for the occasion.

Grand Hotel Porta Rossa Via Porta Rossa, 19 (Map 9.1: G, 8). Hotel d’Europa Palazzo Minerbetti – Via Tornabuoni 3, formerly Piazza Santa Trinita (Map 9.1: G, 8). Today this is the Hotel Tornabuoni Beacci. In 1869, the American author Henry James was a guest there.

Hotel de la Grande Bretagne Lungarno Acciaiuoli, 6–8 (Map 9.1: G, 8). The hotel was located in a building between Ponte Santa Trinita and Ponte Vecchio that no longer exists after being destroyed by German mines in 1944 and then replaced by

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a modern structure. At the time when Florence was the capital, it was very popular with Americans.

Hotel de la Ville Piazza Ognissanti, formerly Piazza Manin (Map 9.1: F, 8). Locanda di San Marco Via de’ Saponai (Map 9.1: I, 9). In 1868, the owner was N. Staderini.

Metropoli e Londra Palazzo Sassetti – Via Sassetti, 4 (Map 9.1: G, 7). A hotel from the late nineteenth century until 1924, it then became the headquarters of the Bank C. Steinhauslin.

Pensione Molini Palazzo Medici Soderini – Lungarno Guicciardini, 19–21, formerly Lung’Arno, 13 (Map 9.2: F, 8). Pensione Svizzera Via Tornabuoni, 13 (Map 9.1: G, 7). In 1868, the owner was F. Monin.

2.7.  Bars/pubs Birreria Cornelio Via Brunelleschi, formerly Via dei Naccaioli, on the corner of Via de’ Pecori, formerly Via dei Buoni (Map 9.1: H, 7). See Fact Sheet: Caffè-Birreria Cornelio.

Il Falchetto Piazza Duomo, corner Via Martelli (Map 9.1: H, 6). This was a liquor shop located right on the corner in front of the Caffè Bottegone.

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3.  Other Archbishop’s See Palazzo Arcivescovile – Piazza San Giovanni, 3 (Map 9.1: H, 7). The present appearance of the Palazzo is due to renovations carried out between 1892 and 1895 as part of the improvements of the historic centre of Florence. We know that in 1867, the Curia remained open from 9.00 am to 2.00 pm.

Villa La Petraia Outside map Residence of Vittorio Emanuele II and his morganatic wife Rosa Vercellana, later the Countess of Mirafiori.

Part III

Economy and Society

Figure P3  A street market. Source: ‘Il mercato degli uccelli’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 2, no. 40, 7–13 October 1865. Private Collection.

10

An Economy Stuck at the Crossroads   to Modernity Andrea Giuntini

1.  Continuity and change: the rationale of a snapshot Six years are not sufficient to analyse economic processes and surely not adequate to understand how becoming capital of Italy influenced the economy of Florence amidst older and more profound development trajectories. A simple snapshot of Florence taken in such a short time span would appear distinctly unfocused. In the case of the years under study, however, the events that transformed Florence into the capital of Italy almost overnight are so extraordinary, also in the economic sphere, as to legitimize the interest in a historiographic analysis, even if with some caveats.1 As a consequence, it is of some interest to outline the distinctive characters of Florence in 1865 and follow their evolution over the ensuing six years, connecting the perceived changes on one side with their premises in the century past and, on the other, with the lasting consequences on the further economic development of the city and its surroundings. Without any pretence of rewriting the economic history of the city, nor profoundly revising its historiography, the present chapter aims to contextualize economic events, projecting a clear and comprehensive picture as has not been done before. Minor aspects of the economic life of the capital will also be highlighted, looking for precocious signs of an emerging modernity. The crucial question will be: did the assignment to be capital of Italy redeem Florence from its provinciality? Undoubtedly, the aspects that have inspired past historiography the most were political and architectural.2 The limited interest shown by historians for the economy can be explained, contrary to the urban planning revolution, by the take-­off of the local economy after the 1860s. In that decade, describing the city as ‘industrial’ would definitely be erroneous. At the time, Florence still lacked a diffused entrepreneurial culture. The local economy was directed by the same leading characters of the old Grand Duchy: noblemen, merchant-­bankers and speculators. Innovative entrepreneurs were rare. The persistent anti-­industrialist character of the Tuscan economy had been nurtured by the Austrian government initially and then by the ruling class of the moderates after Unity. Nothing could be changed in the short run in the face of such long-­run continuity.

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A mature and international bourgeoisie was still absent in a context that remained mainly provincial. Florentines so exploited the time their city was capital to strengthen trade networks and family-­ruled strategies, particularly in the developing finance and banking sectors. They did not build up industries of much consequence. ‘We can affirm,’ remarked Coppini several years ago, ‘that the long journey of the Tuscan ruling class towards a real integration with political and interest groups of other Italian regions was completed via banks and speculations, the preferred object of investment for the local aristocracy and bourgeoisie.’3 Ascending from the local dimension to a new national and globalized one proved difficult if not impossible for Florentines. Their ability to forge alliances and to create family networks between the established aristocracy and the emerging bourgeoisie  was chiefly directed towards occupying the newly created bureaucratic machine of  the national state and political positions. In this sense, becoming capital regaled Florence with an infinite possibility of fraudulent intermingling between business and politics. Speculation forcefully entered the local economic scene, shaking its sleepy traditionalism. As a consequence, the social structure of Florence remained locked in a stagnating permanence. Society was composed of a slim ruling class and a vast population of poor, gratified by paternalistic and philanthropic policies, typical of Tuscany’s governments. In summary, the inequality of the past Grand Duchy also proved dominant in the new institutional setting. Beggars flooded the city daily. Their pressuring for social measures, though, was appeased by numerous welfare institutions, soup kitchens, hospitals and hostels, so that social unrest never unravelled. The city, untouched by protests, riots and turmoil, was depicted as tranquil and sleepy in many contemporary descriptions, surely not frenetic like the London described by Dickens. Becoming capital of Italy reanimated this picture, partially altering the existing social equilibrium. The first riots ensued as a consequence of the rent increases. As thousands of administrative personnel poured down from Turin to Florence, the existing housings proved insufficient to accommodate all the newly arrived and the pre-­existing local population. Faster than the rampaging speculation could fund the building, rents sky­rocketed and the poorer sections of Florentine community had to move to the outskirts of the city in miserable barracks and provisory lodgings. The external shock proved remarkable in many aspects, both demographically and urbanistically. The immigration flow itself consisted of 30,000 people, comprised of politicians, office workers, soldiers, officers and all their servants. In just a decade, from 1861 to 1871, the population increased from 114,363 to 167,953. In 1865, the aggregation of many adjoining territories to the municipality of Florence corresponded to an administrative and fiscal reconfiguration. A ‘greater Florence’ was born by merging the old municipal territory with the boroughs of Legnaia, Pellegrino, Rovezzano and Bagno a Ripoli, as well as by enclosing part of Galluzzo and Brozzi. Florence thus acquired the administrative space it still holds today. Without any of the hagiographic intent indulged in by many historians, it must be concluded that Florence maintained, even as capital of the Kingdom of Italy, many of the economic characteristics of its past, but was also subject to a decisive push towards

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change. The economy of the city in 1871 would not be different from what it was in 1865, but in these few years some seeds would be sown that would flourish in the modernization of the end of the century.

2.  Productive activities In 1865, considering the absence of a veritable industrial bourgeoisie and mature entrepreneurship, Florence could hardly be defined as industrial, a judgement undisputed by historiography. Productive activities still comprised handicraft and home employment, spread all over the city and its surroundings. Initial manufacturing and industrial enterprises were tentative and rare. The arrival of the new population when Florence became capital of Italy particularly favoured the first,4 while industry still suffered from technological backwardness and scarce entrepreneurial culture. With limited dimensions and its vocation in art and culture, Florence reflected the choices made by the political elite of the newborn Kingdom of Italy: liberalism and agricultural development. The oldest manufacturing district of the city occupied a small portion of the Oltrarno area, along the city wall near the city door of San Frediano. Two premises in particular had been confined there to avoid offence to the citizens’ sight and smell,5 and the idea of industrial pursuits was even banned from the city centre. The Pignone foundry had been established in 1842 when Pasquale Benini, a manufacturer of straw hats in Lastra a Signa, and the Florentine merchant Tommaso Michelagnoli had decided to set up an iron metalworks manufacturing plant that exploited cheap local labour. Many small artisans, boatmen and sand collectors, belonging to the lowest proletariat of Florence’s suburbs, thus came to know the strain of factory work. The concentration of the new workforce in San Frediano also led to the building of new houses surrounding the local river port. The foundry produced high-­quality products like iron gates and doors, rosettes, chimneys and pipes for the local market. The famous lampposts with their base formed like a lion’s paw still illuminate the lungarni river banks of Florence, testifying to the diffusion of the Pignone’s products.6 A gas production facility was also set up next to the Pignone in San Frediano, due to the ease of shipping the necessary coal there. Thanks to the new manufacturing, Florence became one of the first cities of Italy to be illuminated by gas.7 Other industries, completely different to those located in San Frediano, were the railway workshop and tobacco manufacturing plant. The tobacco factory had a workforce entirely composed of women. It had initially been located in the cloister of Santa Caterina and then in that one of Sant’Orsola in Via Guelfa. Another factory that should be mentioned is the Officine Galileo, set up in Florence by Giovan Battista Amici. Since 1831, Amici had been the director of the Specola Natural Science Museum and of the Physics Museum. Aside from possessing technical capabilities, he was well aware of the necessity for precision instruments to spread technological advancements in scientific research in industrial pursuits. The production of the Officine Galileo started with a limited number of optical devices and microscopes, generally appreciated but still hand-­crafted, ending up with a serial production of a growing number of

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precision instruments in the premises of Via Romana under the direction of Giovan Battista Donati, Angelo Vegni and Giovanni Poggiali. In the 1870s, the Officine Galileo moved to the new manufacturing district of Le Cure, acquiring a definitive industrial configuration.8 Florence had a clear primacy in Italy within the typographical industry, having a widespread network of small and medium-­sized enterprises scattered all over the city. In 1836, still under the rule of the Lorena family, Florence hosted thirty-­five print-­ houses. Four years later, Felice Le Monnier and Gaspero Barbèra both established businesses that would shape the Italian editorial production for the entire nineteenth century. Le Monnier, a young French typographer, migrated to Florence in 1831, while Barbèra arrived from Turin. The latter, aside from the printing of books, also edited  the most important newspaper of Florence: La Nazione, set up in 1859 to celebrate the annexation of Tuscany to Piedmont. In 1843, the English Henry Roberts opened in the central Via Tornabuoni an apothecary where he also sold unique liquors, wines and cosmetic products. The initiative garnered such great success that Roberts decided to start the production of such wares on his own in the premises of Via del Romito. The factory would further expand under the guidance of Alfred Houlston Morgan and later the Italian associate Manetti. Considering the employment data, the most important production sector of the city was that of straw: an in-­home production dispersed throughout Florence and its countryside. Still having the form of a proto-­industry, the processing of straw magnified the social role of the trecciaiole in the rural sharecropping economy, both at home and in the communities surrounding Florence where they resided and worked. Straw production began in the 1820s, rapidly becoming the most important manufacturing factor in Tuscany. The most popular product was the straw hat, a fashionable item that spread fast over Continental boundaries to the Americas and Asia.9 While straw boomed, the other typical home-­produced item of Tuscany – textiles – receded. The entire sector suffered from a technological gap due to the lagging introduction of steam machines even in the spinning process. In Florence, the main textile production continued to be the weaving of silk, done at home with looms that were passed from one generation to the next. After the flourishing decades between the 1820s and the 1840s, looms diminished to 2,500 in 1850 and just 1,517 in 1864. By 1864, Florence housed just sixteen spinning facilities, with twenty-­three in the whole province.10 Dyeing facilities were located in the outskirts of Florence, two in Rovezzano and one each in Legnaia, Bagno a Ripoli and Girone. Minor manufacturing productions, many of which were conducted by foreign entrepreneurs, included glass, varnishes, coaches, frames, crystal wares, oilcloths, leather, hides, silverware, jewels, cabinetry, sculpture, marquetry and carpets. Also worthy of mention are the pharmaceutical laboratory set up by Cesare Pegna on the Via Settignanese, the photography studio of Leopoldo Alinari and the wax factory of Francesco Carobbi near Doccia in the outskirts of Florence. From these few outlines, it is clear that the new capital of Italy was not an industrial city. In effect, it could not be one given the political choices of the first Italian governments. Florence nevertheless hosted production facilities, even if many of them

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were still technologically backward and dedicated to handicraft. The related employment was also still minimal and contemporary statistics do not help. In the census of 1861, 261,219 Tuscans were counted as working in a generically defined manufacturing industry that comprised, in reality, small workshops, home networks, furnaces, bakeries, mills, mines and oil mills. This productive potpourri risks  being misleading to the historian trying to analyse the data, as it exaggerates the  role of industry in employment. Cataloguing as workmen all people employed in Florence’s handicrafts, art productions and small laboratories11 would be as wrong as interpreting the economic situation at the time as modern, while in reality it was pre-­ modern in every sense. A genuine proletariat did not exist when Florence was capital of Italy. Realistically, Florence could be described as a city swarming with activities that, even if widespread, did not change its urban aspect. Polluting productions such as that of gas for illumination were exiled to the outskirts, while artisans, workshops and other small production facilities were quietly integrated into the city without major vicissitudes. The Industrial Revolution was still a long way off.

3.  Trade and finance More developed than industry were trade and finance, even if afflicted by a similar backwardness. Two aspects characterized these sectors in continuity with the past: the spread of merchant houses, dedicated to a mix of banking and trading activities, and street trade that was practised everywhere without rules. The first were unspecialized hybrids resembling big emporiums where businessmen and adventurers alike could find anything and everything, thanks to wide networks of commercial relations stretching throughout Europe and beyond. The second was a varied small trade taking place in every street and square, much to the chagrin of a dandy such as John Ruskin.12 Both underline the provinciality of Florence and its lack of economic specialization. In the absence of covered markets, wares were sold on set dates under unsatisfying conditions out in the open. Fruits and vegetables were traded initially in Piazza Strozzi and subsequently in the backstreet of the Santa Maria Novella church. Every Friday near the city door Porta alla Croce, all sorts of foodstuff could be traded, while horses could be bought and sold at the Uffizi. During festivities, the squares of Santissima Annunziata and Signoria would be swarmed by farmers with their carts full of merchandise from the countryside. In 1865, when the king and government moved to the new capital, many traders and shopkeepers from Turin followed. ‘The storekeepers from Turin,’ wrote the newspaper Gazzetta di Firenze on 27 November 1866, ‘immediately migrated here and established subsidiaries of the shops they possessed in Piedmont.’ The phenomenon was massive. It upset the entire merchant economy of Florence that was scarcely capable to confront it, even with its solid banking system. Newcomers were disparagingly named buzzurri, surely not appreciated nor loved by the local population. As a consequence of their arrival, many ground-­floor apartments in the centre of

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Florence were transformed into shops or cafés. Former tenants had to leave their home with scarce probabilities of finding economic alternatives, while local shopkeepers had to renovate their stores in order to face the incoming competition. Italy’s unification process and the moving of the capital to Florence stimulated the planning and implementation of modern covered markets where trading activities could be concentrated, freeing the city’s streets and squares. The model of reference was obviously Paris. The first project was drawn up by Luigi del Sarto in 1861. He developed a plan to rebuild the food market completely between Piazza Brunelleschi and Via dei Cardinali. Costs, however, were deemed too high by local administrators, considering that a temporary market had to be erected while the new one would be under construction, and the project was never implemented. The following year, even the architect Giuseppe Poggi intervened with a plan of his own. He considered it vital to erect a huge central market and four smaller peripheral ones to host all vendors and traders of fresh food that were swamping Florence. His plan did not change when Florence became the capital of Italy. The event, in fact, accelerated the implementation of the new markets, imposed to sanitize and embellish Florence’s streets and squares. The greatest obstacle to the realization of the new markets was the necessity of demolishing the old market, located in the maze of narrow medieval streets of the old ghetto in the heart of the city. In the end, the redistribution of market spaces would be effectuated well after the date when Rome became capital of Italy. Instead of the old one, completely destroyed to make space for a monumental square and a new elegant district, three new markets were built: the central market near San Lorenzo and two peripheral ones in Porta alla Croce and San Frediano. Social opposition, due to the necessity of moving a significant portion of the local population away from the new construction sites, was ultimately overcome by the cholera epidemic that plagued Florence in 1867. The city centre would thus be forever changed, mainly keeping in mind the necessity of creating new concentrated and closed marketplaces. The central market in San Lorenzo was designed by a prominent engineer, Giuseppe Mengoni, who had already realized the famous Vittorio Emanuele Gallery in Milan. Mengoni took inspiration from the Parisian Halles, while avoiding any temptation for monumentality. He therefore created a huge iron structure, divided into three naves, with a maximum height of thirty metres. The coverage was devised in zinc plates. The central market was finished in 1873, with the International Horticulture Exhibition inaugurated there by the king himself in 1874. The new market was designed to host petty sellers on the ground floor, immediately visible to everyone entering the huge halls. There were 501 places for them along orthogonal itineraries. To build the market according to the plan approved by the municipality in 1865, the entire district of Camaldoli to the rear of the San Lorenzo church was demolished, with the poor and destitute local population moved elsewhere. Such a decision brought decorum to an area that had become contiguous to recently built bourgeois sections of the city, being the Barbano, Maglio and Cascine. Mengoni also designed the other two closed markets of Florence. One built in Sant’Ambrogio was inaugurated in 1873, the other one in San Frediano in 1875.13 Another capital event concerning commercial activity in Florence was the opening of the first department store. In November 1869, the Duilio 48 was built on the cinders

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Figure 10.1  Lungarno delle Grazie and the Ponte alla Carraia, built in iron by the Belgian company Schessing. Photograph by Giacomo Brogi. Source: Il lungarno delle Grazie, photograph by Giacomo Brogi. Private Collection.

of the bazaar Bonajuti; it was the first example in Florence of a building designed ex novo (in 1834) to host trading activities in Via Calzaioli, a typical nineteenth-­century urban section characterized by cafés and a passeggiata. Financial activities also flourished in the years when Florence was capital of Italy, in substantial continuity with the past of the Grand Duchy. Over the decades, Florence’s bankers and merchants had already distinguished themselves for their propensity to invest with speculative intent.14 The years between 1865 and 1870 would only heighten this long-­term characteristic. Florence, thanks to the many opportunities of sudden enrichment and easy business, envisioned itself as a financial capital, becoming the seat of many banks, two of which (the Banca di Credito per le Industrie ed il Commercio and the Banca Nazionale Toscana) were even allowed to print money. As of 31 December 1866, the city hosted forty-­four joint stock companies, 18.6 per cent being Italian. Their nominal capital corresponded to almost half of the sum invested in all Italian limited companies. The twelve banks even covered 86.7 per cent of all capital invested in Italy in financial enterprises. The same prevalence held for railway companies. Four of them were based in Florence, accounting for 45.5 per cent of the Italian capital dedicated to this industrial sector.15 The financial profile of the city can be completed by remembering the arrival of foreign insurance companies, such as the pertinent Gresham Life Assurance Society, and the opening of the stock exchange in 1863. A closer scrutiny of the typology of banks present in Florence, however, highlights how many of them did not limit their operations to credit and money management,

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but instead operated as intermediaries in all kind of trading businesses. Banks were more similar to emporiums than to modern banking establishments. As such, they were often managed by speculators of dubious honesty, bent to exploit all possible occasions for short-­term gain.

4.  The construction industry and the housing emergency A particularly dynamic sector in Florence, when the city was capital of Italy, was that of construction. Given the arrival of functionaries, shopkeepers and politicians en masse, the housing situation soon became critical. The consequences were some serious building and many dubious speculations to which local elites were particularly prone. In 1865, the new districts of Barbano and Cascine had already been completed16 and the city was ready for a new speculative bubble that would burst after the capital was transferred to Rome. Prices would then fall and many new houses be left empty. In 1865, though, the building frenzy attracted many labourers from the countryside, including bricklayers, carpenters, window fitters, painters, plumbers and metalworkers. All the while, many entrepreneurial adventures began that would bring about poor results. The housing problem should also be read in social terms. The skyrocketing of rents and real-estate values17 constrained the poorest groups of Florence’s population to abandon the city centre, migrating towards the areas of Santo Spirito, San Frediano, Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella. The change would not pass unchallenged. Tumults, protests and unrest plagued the city throughout all the years of rampant speculation.18 The excess demand for housing, intoxicated by the sudden immigration, also favoured speculating activities on expropriations. Among those, mostly enriched by the reimbursements conceded by the municipality in the case of forced expropriations, were the already-­wealthy house owners. Others were developers and contractors who amassed fortunes at the expense of the community. They transformed the building of labourers’ housing into a lucrative business by buying terrains from the municipality at low prices and then renting the built apartments at high rates to functionaries and middle-­class families instead of to artisans and workmen. Many house-­owners, aware of the business opportunity, decided to take part in the speculation, subdividing the areas they owned, enlarging their buildings and closing up courtyards in order to multiply the rooms available for rent. The most active company in the business of popular development – with ten housing blocks for a total of 3,000 available rooms – was the Società Anonima Edificatrice (SAE), set up as a charity in 1848 with a statutory mandate. The company became ‘one the most fruitful cases of the entrenchment of entrepreneurship and charity’.19 In 1865, the municipality conceded to the company an official agreement, granting a generous 5 per cent to amortize the capital necessary to operate its huge developments. The SAE was managed by Leopoldo Galeotti (president) and Giuseppe Garzoni (general secretary). Among its shareholders were all major representatives of the

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Florentine elite. Despite all good intentions, though, the newly built neighbourhoods came to house members of the middle class, able to pay high rents. Poorer labourers were forced to live in 237 pre-­built houses of wood and iron, also provided by  the SAE. Those houses were of such poor quality that they immediately roused many critical comments in newspapers, irony in satirical journals and unrest among tenants. Ultimately, the impact of housing development in the years 1865–71 was substantial. A total of 1,843 edifices were built, totalling 35,530 rooms, most of which were located in the new areas designed by the architect Poggi.20

5.  The Tertiary sector and infrastructures For Florence, becoming capital of Italy meant the need to enhance mobility inside the city and the connectivity with the rest of the peninsula. The very renewal plan devised by Poggi involved many changes in viability with concern to a modernization along European lines. Movement came to be synonymous with development and the new boulevards, built by destroying the old city walls, answered to the new traffic. The multiplying of coaches and carriages traversing the city, full of functionaries, newly enriched people, speculators and noblemen, had effectively caused traffic jams in the capital of Italy for the first time. Mobility centred around the railway stations and the new public transport services. Alleys and enlarged streets had to assume the new significance of connecting pathways, as in any modern and bourgeois European city. The fragmentation typical of the Grand Ducal city due to the plurality of railway stations was resolved by Poggi’s plan, which devised a singular station.21 Poggi designed only one station in a strategic position in respect to the lines of development of his plan. He was sceptical about the possibility of enlarging the existing Maria Antonia station that was, many decades later, destined to become the present Santa Maria Novella station. He considered it to be too small and exceedingly  separating.22 Poggi was also in favour of closing down the station of Porta alla Croce that divided in the middle one of the areas of development of his plan.  He wanted to position the new railway terminal in the area where today is  Piazza della Vittoria, near the ring road on the right-­hand side of the Mugnone river,  in front of the development sector located between Piazza della Libertà and the city fortress. Poggi understood perfectly how the railway station simultaneously constituted an element of connection for the city and a line of separation, in any case in the centre of the new urban planning. For the first time, the station was so designed – in a long-term perspective – as being de-­centred but also in connection with the evolution lines of Florence’s enlargement. Poggi also abandoned the idea of a head-­on station, embracing instead the option of a transit station, suitable for the kind of rapid and fluid traffic required for the capital of Italy. The municipality, however, rejected this part of Poggi’s plan due to its costliness. After Rome became the capital and the municipality fell into a deep financial crisis, the

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construction of the new station became impossible. As a consequence, Florence lost the possibility of having a railway station in line with modern ideas. In this, Poggi’s plan was too oriented on future changes and urban growth, too revolutionary to be really appreciated and defended in the face of financial restrictions.23 The communication lines designed for the new capital of the Kingdom of Italy  were no longer exclusively a prerogative of the upper classes. Poggi’s urbanistic solutions assumed, in this sense, a social hue, allowing everyone to take advantage of the new mobility as in more advanced actualities around the United States and Europe. Public transport systems were thus introduced as an essential trait of modernity. A chance for commoners, for servants having to reach their working places, for the employees of the many eateries around the city, for all people wanting to reach places dedicated to new collective entertainment each Sunday. The municipality would not offer such services but readily gave licences to private enterprises that would. The very name of the means of transport – omnibus – meant that it was devised to serve everybody, citizens and foreigners alike. Omnibuses would thus reach all parts of the city, even the farthest, such as the new passeggiata route on the hills behind the Palazzo Pitti up to the Piazzale Michelangelo. The Piazzale itself became one of the preferred destinations of Sunday strolls for flaneurs looking for a completely new dimension of loisir.24 Already in June 1865, the municipality made an agreement with the Monari company from Bologna to license public transport services as had already been done in many other cities.25 The first coaches thus began to pass through the city along predetermined routes, inside the centre and from the centre to the new peripheries, collecting many positive reactions from the population. Initially there were thirty-­five coaches that soon became sixty, with 150 horses to run them. Their success was immediate and the service helped to shape a new image of the city.26 Costs, however, were high and the enterprise produced only limited profits. In 1866, 2,019,622 tickets were sold. In 1870, this number rose to 3,180,978. In October 1866, Monari merged with the newly established Società Anonima degli Omnibus per la Capitale d’Italia. The resulting enterprise took the name Impresa Generale degli Omnibus per la Capitale d’Italia and maintained its licence until 1905. The introduction of the public service did not discourage the old curricle drivers that still offered their services to high-­ranking clients, paying up to 1 or 2 lire each drive. In 1869, 518 public coaches operated in Florence, a startlingly high number that confirmed the necessity for the new Omnibus service. A capital also had to be illuminated, clean and without disagreeable smells. For an Italian city in the nineteenth century, it would not be easy to abide to any of these requirements. It would also be difficult to satisfy the exigence for a general decorum. This heartfelt necessity was what sparked the political will of the municipality to supply these public services through licensing. During the years when Florence was the capital of Italy, the gas illumination for the city centre was provided by a private and foreign enterprise.27 The same gas, even if nauseating, entered into the most popular public cafés and clubs to provide everlasting light. The question of hygiene was also confronted more in the context of the general idea of decorum rather than the problem itself. Obtaining a prestige equal to that of other

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European cities constituted a sought-­after goal that clearly outranked any sanitary preoccupation. Aesthetics surpassed functionality and the real aim was to embellish the city, not make it more rational. As in the case of illumination and transport, here again the municipality outsourced these services to private enterprises, maintaining only a regulatory function.28 Public administrators and the local political elite still considered that in the field of urban services, the only duty of the municipality was to supervise private contractors. Public entrepreneurship was completely out of the question. Private contractors, on the other hand, were ready to exploit opportunities, even in the restoration of sewer systems and waste management. Despite the typical bourgeois hypocrisy, the problem of Florence’s sewer system could not be ignored indefinitely. Supporters of the cesspit system praised the opportunity to profitably recycle human dejections as fertilizers in agriculture. But in Paris, London and other European capitals, the most widely used system was the tout à l’égout, an innovative method that eliminated all faeces rapidly, sanitizing the soil and avoiding the peril of infections.29 The similar problem of garbage collection, at the time still left to rot in dedicated areas of Florence such as the Sardigna, gained more interest because it entailed the possibility of profits. Private groups, licensed by the municipality, thus managed this public service for the whole time span analysed herein. In summary, both the sewer system and waste management issues were not satisfactorily resolved and even when it was the capital of Italy, Florence remained a dirty city.30

6.  Tourism: origins of a vitrine city In 1865, the new administrative role of Florence obliged the city with an even greater openness than that of the past. Not only did Anglo-Saxon intellectuals and artists come to the city in search of inspiration, but also functionaries arrived to work there and curious visitors to explore the new capital of Italy. A new tourist phenomenon spread, even if it was mainly limited to foreign elites, and the management of this constrained the city to equip itself. This period set the future vocation of Florence as a tourist destination and a space for art. The first edition of the Moniteur des Touristes was published in 1868. The Moniteur contained information about merchants and traders in Florence, public services and other data. At the time, the city counted 188 hotels, taverns and lodgings, 597 wine dealers, 215 restaurants and 178 cafés. The hospitality capacity of the city steadily grew after the national exhibition of 1861. As the capital of Italy, Florence honed its sociability skills, its receptivity and capability to entertain. As in every other capital, private parties, theatres, clubs and cafés in Florence were all places where businesses and political affairs were discussed and concluded. New means of entertainment were also devised. Examples are the beach resort near the mint tower or the high-­level resort of Vagaloggia. These initiatives proved a failure but nonetheless are indicative of the nouvelle vague sweeping Florence when it acted as the capital of Italy.

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Figure 10.2  The olive harvest. Source: ‘La raccolta delle olive’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 1, no. 22, 28 October–3 November 1864. Private Collection.

7.  An economic modernization? In the years when it was capital of Italy, Florence definitively abandoned its Grand Ducal dimensions and limitations. Yet it was still a pre-­modern city, mirroring the uncertain and immature capitalism of the newly born Italian nation. There was little trace of innovative enterprises and entrepreneurs, of technological advancements and mechanization of production processes. Usually conservatism prevailed over change and there was no indication of an evolving class-­conflict. Still, it is difficult to pass judgement on such a limited time span. In synthesis, Florence – a city bent on a new openness even if locked in ancient obtuseness – had not enough time to change its economic structure, but manifested some of the prerequisites for the later economic development. Yet the road to modernity would still be long and, after 1871, post-­capital Florence would face even more difficulties.

11

Florentine, Italian and Foreign Entrepreneurs in the Urban Renewal of Florence Daniela Manetti

Man has been at various times a poet, artist, philosopher and soldier. Now he is invaded by a   mania for business.1

1.  The urban renewal of Florence The problem of Florence’s urban renewal began before and concluded after the years when the Tuscan city was capital of the Kingdom of Italy, from 1865 to 1870. While the process of transforming Florence had begun in the early nineteenth century during the French occupation,2 the enlargement and improvement of the city’s sanitary system and infrastructure had already been subject to debate before the September Agreement, stipulated on 15 September 1864 between the Kingdom of Italy and the Second Empire of Napoleon iii.3 The urban layout, with its narrow, winding streets had remained practically unchanged since the early sixteenth century. The problem of upgrading the city to meet contemporary urban standards without subverting its artistic and monumental nature had long been felt, and with Unification, Florence too, like many other Italian cities, had launched urban renewal programmes. Prior to 1864 the city government, with a bond issue of 12 million lire,4 had decided to widen some of the streets where traffic was heaviest, namely those linking the railway station to the main fulcrums of activity (such as Via Cerretani, Via Panzani and Via Tornabuoni). In further discussion, it was then agreed: l l

l

to demolish the city walls; to construct in some vacant areas within these walls (there were no buildings, for instance, between Via Valfonda and Via Faenza, Via San Gallo and the city walls, Via Cavour and Via La Marmora (the Maglio quarter), Porta alla Croce – in today’s Piazza Beccaria – and the river Arno); and to connect the city more directly to the expanding suburbs outside of the gates and the town customs barrier.

Furthermore, many sections of today’s riverside avenues did not yet exist (such as Lungarno Serristori, Lungarno Torrigiani and the avenue between the tower of the

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Zecca Vecchia and Ponte alle Grazie). Only recently, moreover, had the textile workshops been demolished to make room for a building designed by the architect Michele Maiorfi to be occupied by the Banca Nazionale Toscana, the Chamber of Commerce and the Stock Market. As for the bridges over the Arno, Ponte alle Grazie and Ponte Carraia, these were too narrow, and the latter additionally too steep, to accommodate wagon traffic easily.5 Suddenly these initiatives, which were to be implemented according to the means available, could be postponed no longer and urban renewal of the city took place in an extraordinary atmosphere, under the sign of urgent haste.6 The government immediately exerted pressure on the Municipality, since the population of Florence, already lacking space (with about 120,000 inhabitants) would soon be swollen by thousands of people, between 30,000 and 50,000, according to a first approximative estimate:7 members of Parliament, ministers, secretaries, ambassadors, army officers and soldiers, court dignitaries, officials, employees, members on various levels  of the bureaucratic/administrative system and journalists, all with their families  and domestic staffs, in addition to an inflow of persons attracted by new prospects  for work. Within the context of an overall rise in the cost of living, the demand for housing immediately resulted in a drastic increment in rents, which increased by nearly ten

Figure 11.1  The clearing out of Turin. Source: ‘Sgombero da Torino’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 2, no. 20, 20–26 May 1865. Private Collection.

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times between 1859 and 1869.8 This in turn led to the expulsion from the historic centre of the lower-­income classes, and to a worsening in the utilization of housing, with the widespread phenomenon of subletting and subdividing apartments.9 Between 1865 and 1870, over 50,000 housing units were created in Florence, also by renovating service areas (stables, terraces, basements, warehouses and courtyards), by adding floors (which produced 3,600 rooms) and by dividing apartments into several units.10 No less important, still regarding the private building trade, were the initiatives taken for improvement. In the city’s first fifteen months as capital – according to the report presented by the Mayor to the Municipal Council in March 1866 – compared to 190 licences for new buildings, 400 licences were granted for remodelling existing apartments and 327 for refurbishing.11

2.  The first provisions The transferral of the capital brought with it changes in both the old equilibrium of the population and the structure of the city, which was obliged to confront, as Deputy Giuseppe Guerzoni wrote, problems of ‘space, time and expenditure’.12 With Law No.  2032 of 11 December 1864, Parliament allocated 7 million lire;13 in November the Municipality set up an extraordinary commission to decide on  the most urgently needed projects. In the same month it approved the expropriation  of land between Porta a Pinti (later demolished) and Porta la Croce, the  so-­called ‘Mattonaia orchards’,14 a green oasis that had remained intact over the centuries. Urban enlargement called for appropriate supervisory bodies to be set up. For example, the Municipal Department of Art was not qualified to deal with problems related to altimetry, or making the city safe from floods. Reinforced by more architects and engineers, it was assigned the task of internal upgrading, while a new department was established under the direction of Giuseppe Poggi, who could boast a prestigious professional career and had been studying projects for renewal of the city’s centre since 1861. He was to direct the demolition of the walls and to create ‘a grandiose public promenade . . . a ring conjoining the old and the new city’.15 In an official letter dated 22 November 1864, Poggi was commissioned to prepare  a town-­planning scheme which, ready by the end of January 1865, could be shown  to King Vittorio Emanuele, who had just arrived in Florence, and was approved on  18 January.16 For this plan, the Municipality granted 59,000 hectares of land free of charge.17 Briefly, the plan provided for, among other things: demolition of the city walls, conserving as monuments the gates, which from being defensive barriers, ‘become the fulcrums of a new urban dynamics’;18 a long, wide, tree-­lined avenue on the right side of the Arno stretching from the iron bridge outside of Porta alla Croce to Porta al Prato (following the trace of the demolished walls); and on the left side of the river – where, except for one brief section, the walls were left standing – the grandiose avenue called Viale dei Colli, which rose from Porta Romana to today’s Piazzale Michelangelo and then descended to Porta San Niccolò. Also included in the plan were the renovation

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and extension of the sewers, a flood control system, and the construction of new markets and public slaughterhouses. One of the first provisions consisted of purchasing from the London-­based Curbit company, through the mediation of Commendatore Giacomo Servadio, soon to become Deputy – and his brother Giuseppe, a business ‘shark’19 – temporary housing built of iron and wood to be erected outside of Porta alla Croce and Porta San Frediano (approximately 1,000 rooms). This would offer wholesome, inexpensive housing20 to evicted families and the labourers who flocked to the capital to find work. Their exorbitant cost – over 1,340,000 lire, 20 per cent more than would have been needed to build them in bricks and mortar – was severely criticized by the press.21 This was followed by the cession of the Cascine Park promenade and the garden of the Parterre, State property, while negotiations were conducted for incorporating a large part of the surrounding territory that the outlying municipalities would have to grant to Florence, increasing its population to nearly 175,000. The most keenly felt objective was in fact that of finding areas suitable for building. With the aim of enlarging the city towards its outskirts, the projects to be implemented in the centre were temporarily suspended, including the widening of Via Porta Rossa and the lengthening of Via Condotta as far as Piazza Santa Croce. Except for the Mattonaia grounds and a few other areas not yet built over, insufficient for the new needs, the Municipality possessed no territories outside of the city walls. Accordingly, the extension of the customs barrier was approved, with a reconfiguration of the city that involved administrative and fiscal aspects as well. Four municipalities – Legnaia, Pellegrino, Rovezzano and Pian di Ripoli – were dissolved and encapsulated, along with parts of Galluzzo and Brozzi, in the city of Florence.22 The state, in turn, passed no special transitory legislation designed to mitigate  the effects of the transferral of the capital, but issued two provisions that formed the indispensable legal framework for many public initiatives: Law No. 2359 of 25 June 1865, concerning expropriation in the interests of public utility,23 Royal Decree No. 3036 of 7 July 1866, for the suppression of the religious Corporations, Law No. 3848 of 15 August 1867, for liquidation of the ecclesiastical axis, thanks to which numerous convents and monasteries were swiftly transformed into ministries, barracks, law courts, hospitals, schools and public offices.24

3.  An event emblematic of the many interests involved: the expropriation of the Mattonaia ‘orchards’ This vast area belonged to Marchese Lorenzo Ginori Lisci, a nobleman from the ancient Florentine family of the Ginori, whose merchants and bankers had loaned money to all of Europe in the fifteenth century;25 to Cav. Costantino Morrocchi26 (later to become Town Councillor and President of the Società delle Belle Arti di Firenze); and to Marchese Ferdinando Panciatichi Ximenes d’Aragona, an architect and engineer from one of the city’s wealthiest families, District Councillor from 1860 and Deputy from 1867.27

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Immediately after the deliberation for expropriation, the Municipality questioned the owners as to whether they ‘intended to negotiate this territorial cession in a friendly manner and in the modes and forms to be established’.28 While Marchese Ginori Lisci, who was also a member of the Municipal Council, was ready to sell his property at the price of 110,000 lire on condition that his house be safeguarded, Morrocchi, already in contact with a company for selling the entire property ‘under highly advantageous circumstances’, sold only the areas needed to open new streets. Panciatichi as well, he too a City Councillor, was about to stipulate a contract with ‘private individuals’ to sell his property at a price that ‘could never . . . coincide’ with the one offered by the Municipality.29 By January of 1865 the property owned by Morrocchi and by Panciatichi had already changed hands:30 in the former case, to Giacomo Servadio and Baron Angelo Adolfo Levi, both bankers and prominent members of the Florentine Jewish economic-­ social elite;31 in the latter case, to the engineer Vincenzo Stefano Breda, an entrepreneur who operated in the field of railways and public works, close to the most powerful financial oligarchies of the time and a member of Parliament whose activities as businessman and politician were always linked;32 moreover, he was a personal friend of the Mayor of Florence, Luigi Cambray-Digny.33 While the Municipal Council was awaiting a royal decree for total expropriation  of the area for public use, the Ministry of Public Works rejected its request, deeming  it prejudicial to property rights.34 The conflict between public and private interests thus became a contention between real-­estate operators and the local administration, and between the latter and the government. ‘Who can be sure,’ asked the Municipality, ‘that instead of six or seven thousand rooms, there might not be built in that locality only a few elegant houses, extremely pleasant if you will, and very profitable for  the owners but of little advantage for the City, which has need of many residences?’35 Amid these concerns and pressure exerted by the businessmen, a Royal Decree  (28 March 1865) declared the building of the new quarter to be of public utility. Moreover, it authorized the Municipality to expropriate ‘the property necessary for implementation of the work to be done on it’, inviting the owners to reach agreements with the city for carrying out the work themselves, starting within the next two months.36 In May, Breda declared himself ready to assume responsibility for constructing the new streets and Piazza della Mattonaia at the price, inclusive of compensation for the expropriation, of 1,960,000 lire. In August the proposal was accepted, transferring to Breda all of the rights assigned by the Royal Decree to the city of Florence.37 That same month a bond issue of 30 million lire was approved, to which would be added the loans granted by the banks.38 Still in May, the Municipality sold to Breda, Levi and Servadio39 the territories purchased from Ginori, who could only comment: ‘My neighbours made a lucky speculation in selling their possessions to others, and the purchasers promoted their own interests with the City.’40

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4.  Contracts, projects and business Among all of the projects to be implemented, priority was assigned to the construction of Viale dei Colli, due to the interest of the king, it was said, who bestowed on Poggi the title of Cavaliere Mauriziano motu proprio and ordered him to begin building the royal stables at once, in the space between the avenue and the walls.41 The avenue – synthesis of the new vision of the city, resulting from well-­designed vistas offering magnificent panoramas – provided on the one hand access to the hills and the perfect setting for an urban promenade, and on the other a link to the new residences on the hills, inhabited by the upper middle class and by diplomats, with the ensuing speculation.42 The building of this first section of avenues, decided on 6 May 1865, was commissioned for 120,000 lire ‘in round numbers’43 to the entrepreneur Angelo Gemmi44 who was, along with Edoardo and Ferdinando, one of the shareholders of the Banca del Popolo di Firenze. Founded in 1865 with a capital of 1 million lire, increased to 10 million the following year, with the scope of ‘providing Credit to the classes less favoured by fortune and forgotten by the existing Banks, by means of association and savings’,45 the bank was present throughout the Peninsula, having at one time no fewer than 124 branches.46 In the following July, interrupting (as will be seen) negotiations already in course with Domenico Balduino47 – an entrepreneur engaged in founding the Società Italiana per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali48 but above all director of the Credito Mobiliare

Figure 11.2  The municipality of Florence (mayor Cambray-Digny on the left) satirically represented sleeping while all renewal projects – potable water, Poggi plan, iron houses – lie around abandoned. Source: ‘Il muncipio della capitale-­tappa’, Il Frustino, 4 April 1865. Private Collection.

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Italiano (after the Banca Nazionale the most important institute of credit, active in many fields) whose headquarters had been moved to Florence in 186549 – the Municipality signed an agreement with the Società Anglo Italiana. It concerned all of the major works in the project, which the company engaged to carry out according to Poggi’s designs and under the supervision of the administration.50 Both Italian and British capitalists participated in the Società Anglo Italiana; outstanding among its members were Breda and the Englishman Charles Neve Cresswell, a barrister who represented other British investors. Also participating were Yung, the engineer Luigi Tatti, and the engineer Valentino Favero, all well known in the financial sphere and the public life of Florence for their high positions in many firms and their important friendships.51 The main contracts stipulated during those years resulted from the synergy between Luigi Cambray-Digny and Ubaldino Peruzzi (city councillor and several times minister, who succeeded Cambray-Digny as mayor when he became head of the Ministry of Finance in 1867),52 both highly influential in the business-­entrepreneurial world rotating around the consorteria and the administrations, both central and peripheral. They collaborated closely, discussing every project in their frequent meetings and the letters they exchanged.53 Thanks to their commitment to Unification, to the leading positions they held on the morrow of its realization, ensuring solid ties on the national level and with the court, and to their presence in the municipal and provincial bodies,54 they were able to direct ‘the delicate interweaving . . . of political and financial circles, as well as the younger spheres of construction companies’55 and to acquire a predominant position, distributing the favours of the Municipality among the companies headed by their friends. In this scenario, the transfer of the capital to Florence offered the Tuscan moderates a chance to establish relations with the great international financial groups. Banks were now seen as links to an infinity of other affairs in which to expand, thanks to the demand for ample credit by the numerous enterprises that were springing up, especially in the construction field,56 giving rise to a real ‘banking frenzy’ in Florence.57 Of the various projects being fervently negotiated in 1865, the first to be concluded was the one with the Società Anglo Italiana, backed up by the Anglo-Italian Bank, an anonymous limited liability company with a capital of 1 million pounds (approximately 25 million lire) entirely amassed in Britain. Behind this company, founded in London in 1864, was the International Financial Society holding company.58 Authorized that same year to operate in Italy, it was one of the main institutions for the largest interests of Italian and foreign finance in the capital, along with the Banca Nazionale Toscana, directed since 1872 by Cambray-Digny, and the Banca di Credito di Firenze, directed by Luigi Ridolfi, around which was concentrated part of the French capital present in Italy at the time.59 Among the top-­level managers of the Anglo-Italian Bank were: James Hudson, British ambassador to Italy, favourable to Cavour and the Italian cause,60 linked to the most illustrious Tuscans since the time of the Grand Duchy when, having abandoned a diplomatic career, he had assumed the role of spokesman and intermediary for important British companies; Ippolito Leonino, an Italian banker who had resided in London for some years; and Bettino Ricasoli, Mayor of Florence in 1847–48, one  of the leaders of the consorteria, who had succeeded Cavour as Prime Minister at the

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death of the latter.61 Basically, the managerial organs of the Italian committee could be divided into two groups. To the first of these belonged Sir James Philip Lacaita, a well-­ known English banker of Italian origin,62 and numerous personages from the Società Italiana per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali; and to the second, officials of the Banca Nazionale Toscana, among them Cambray-Digny and Peruzzi.63 On 22 August a pre-­contract was signed between Cambray-Digny on the one hand and Cresswell, Breda and Marchese Carlo Alfieri di Sostegno (a senator from Turin, related to the Benso di Cavour family) on the other.64 The nonchalance shown by the Municipality is unsurprising. In adjudicating the projects, the councillors rejected the public auction system, justifying this decision by the urgent need of housing, which only ‘powerful enterprises’ would be able to build, and by the fact that the Società Anglo Italiana was formed of ‘capitalists and constructors of the highest reputation’.65 The moderates clearly intended to assign the projects to certain chosen companies. Out of five companies that had applied, the only one remaining to oppose them, E. B. Webb, improved its offer still further, but in vain. The Gazzetta di Firenze – a publication close to the consorteria and above all to Peruzzi – noted that the bid must ‘be advantageous indeed, if it was preferred to that of Mr. Webb, which no one could call burdensome for the City’.66 To the Società Anglo Italiana were thus assigned in block: the demolition of the walls, the realization of new avenues on the right side of the river and of piazzas along them; construction of the buildings in today’s Piazza della Libertà and along one side of today’s Viale Matteotti and Viale Lavagnini; the river-­bank wall of the Arno starting from the Old Mint; the flood defence system with its effluent; and the railway viaduct over Viale in Curva (between Porta al Prato and Viale della Fortezza).67 One of the conditions of the contract was highly significant: permission to reutilize elements from demolished structures, consisting of stone materials that were already prepared and of top quality, to be used in constructing new buildings and houses, while materials  of poorer grade, used as landfill, were employed to raise the level of the terrain and smooth the surface. Only in the following October did engineer Enrico Guidotti – technical director of the Società Anglo Italiana – resign from the Municipal Council with the motivation  of having been ‘for some time engaged in the management of Cresswell’,68 as it was called in Florence. The preference shown for the latter, compared to the powerful Balduino, demonstrated the dominant moderate group’s general intention of utilizing British capital, abandoning that of France,69 an intention backed mainly by the family of Marchesi Ridolfi, always prominent but more marginal than the victorious Digny–Peruzzi axis. The interests of British finance and those of the Tuscan oligarchy were also consolidated through insurance companies (Gresham Life Assurance Society, Sunfine Office Company) and industrial enterprises (Cagliaris Gas and Water Company Limited, Moncenis Railway Company), which all opened offices in Florence between 1867 and 1869,70 despite the fact that both Italian and foreign investors continued to prefer the construction sector during those years. At first the Anglo-Italian Bank limited itself to financing the Società Anglo Italiana and controlling it with reliable men. A year later it ceded, through some of its directors,

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the obligations and rights of the contract and founded the Florence Land and Public Works Company with Sir James Hudson as president and James Montgomery Stuart as secretary, the latter having been a reporter for the Morning Post and the Manchester Guardian since the time of Grand Ducal Florence, and an active supporter of Italian independence.71 In the company, whose representative in Florence then became Sebastiano Fenzi (member of a family of bankers and landowners who had amassed a huge fortune),72 appeared men of the Società Italiana per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali and the Banca Nazionale Toscana. Among the board members were some pre-­eminent representatives of Tuscan moderatism who were active in both the local institutions and Parliament, such as Tommaso Corsi, town councillor, district councillor and astute ‘guardian’ of the company’s interests.73 The Florence Land company made a real bargain by paying the building grounds fronting on the avenues 5 lire per square metre and reselling them at 20 lire. In  addition, the company received the areas occupied by the avenues free of charge; in the meantime, Cambray-Digny was appointed as a member of the company’s board of directors.74 As concerns the quality and extent of the advantages granted by the Municipality to the Anglo Italiana and later to Florence, we need only note the disapproval expressed in 1879 by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on the ‘Florence question’ in regard to the expenses and the decisions of the Municipality. It fell to the Florentine Deputy Adriano Mari, a liberal close to Ricasoli, to defend the city’s political class, albeit acknowledging ‘the great advantages’75 conceded to the enterprise and ‘the heavy sacrifice of the Municipality as regards Florence’,76 while according to Peruzzi, the company had ‘appeared under the aspect of one possessing an abundance of capital’.77 The Anglo-Italian partnerships appeared unrivalled, moreover, not only for the strength, know-­how and experience that let them triumph over competitors, but expressly for their political and business ties to the local potentates who, as has been seen, were not really so local, being able to boast interwoven relationships and interests that went well beyond the Florentine and Tuscan sphere. This was the case, on the one hand, of an industrialist from Turin, the engineer Borghetti, whose projects for the water system were not even taken into examination,78 and on the other hand, of the relations with Balduino, with whom the Municipality, as has been noted, was dealing at first. Some disagreement having arisen, Peruzzi – president of the Municipal Building Commission – allocated other projects to him, while attempting to reassure various financiers certainly unwilling to arouse the enmity of the Credito Mobiliare, also considering their mutual participation in the Strade Ferrate Meridionali and in the Società per la Vendita dei Beni Demaniali del Regno d’Italia.79 In other words, by assigning contracts to the big companies directed by their friends, whose capital came from every part of Italy, the Tuscan moderates were acting in a manner that went beyond regionalism, laying the bases for controlling and extending power over the Italian moderates as a whole. At closer range was, instead, the different and contextual allocation of less important projects, contracted to small and medium-­sized entrepreneurs. They consisted of recently formed groups of speculators and businessmen, new members of the upper middle class who represented the social basis of the democrats, and this operation was

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intended to nullify de facto the opposition of the older members of the party. In addition, its roots lay in the climate of conservative philanthropy derived from utopian socialism, responsible on the European level for the passing of regulations on subsidized housing and the founding of the first companies for the construction of ‘working-­class housing’.80 This was the case of the Società Anonima Edificatrice, founded in Florence in 1848 to build the two new quarters of Barbano (around today’s Piazza Indipendenza and Fortezza da Basso) and the Cascine, the former planned for textile artisans, but in reality inhabited by the middle class, the latter designed for the wealthier classes, so that the façades of the buildings facing on the main piazza had to comply with strict regulations governing their form and decoration. These quarters too were overwhelmed by the arrival of thousands of inhabitants, urgently calling for a rapid solution of the impelling problems of housing. This company gathered the Florentine elite, concerned about possible social demands and engaged in charitable activities,81 around an objective that was humanitarian as well as economic82 and Peruzzi himself had shares in the company in his diversified financial portfolio.83 The Deputy Leopoldo Galeotti, a member of the minor nobility from Pescia,84 and Marchese Giuseppe Garzoni, a member of the Board of Directors of the Banca Nazionale Toscana – the president and secretary, respectively, of the SAE and both town councillors as well as district councillors85 – gave considerable impetus to the undertaking that was supposed to offer work to the unemployed immediately and to fulfil the dream of housing at an affordable rent. In the attempt to solve the housing problem, the Municipal Council – as was decided on 20 May 1865 – through an agreement guaranteed the company ‘a yield of 5% and amortization of the capital’ necessary to build 3,000 units ‘suitable for the poor’.86 Buildings were thus constructed in various streets around the city, inhabited at the end of 1868 by 685 families for a total of 2,773 individuals who by the following year had become 966 and 4,000, respectively.87 In reality, the company offered the neediest families only ‘educational and charitable works’, since the flats were immediately grabbed up by labourers, employees, professionals, public administration personnel and ‘those practicing various trades’ who were able to pay the rent, which was by no means low.88 The Anglo-Italian Bank participated in some operations of the SAE and it is understandable that, apart from good intentions, its managers did not disdain to take advantage of the circumstances and earn conspicuous amounts along with the private individuals caught up in the whirlwind of speculation.89 Several construction company entrepreneurs understood, in fact, that low-­cost housing was a lucrative affair, making it possible to purchase land at a low price from the Municipality and then to rent the houses built on it like any other residences. Accordingly, while the ‘buildings for the people’ grew in number, the demand was increasing in parallel, and the measures taken by the Municipality had only modest effects. As Peruzzi said, the administrators, in addition to importing from abroad houses built of wood and iron, should provide new assistance and guarantees to the SAE and be ‘open-­handed in transferring city property’.90 Such favours were also extended to some new-­rich individuals and constructors who bid for the work, such as Gelasio Lazzeri. Of democratic origin, he had carried out several road-­building projects

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in Florence and had begun to make money with the euphoria of speculation. As his interests began to coincide with those of the ruling classes, he gradually moved away from the radical wing inspired by Mazzini and Garibaldi. When he appeared before the Municipal Council declaring himself ready to implement low-­cost housing projects, he was immediately assigned a contract.91 While Lazzeri’s parabola perfectly exemplifies a class of entrepreneurs who were to make fortunes out of expropriation and to consolidate their unscrupulous ambitions with the sale of ecclesiastical property, the houses he built met the same fate as those of the SAE. The still-­unsatisfied demand induced some councillors to invest in founding a company to fabricate so-­called low-­cost housing, attracted by the fact that the construction costs would be rapidly amortized thanks to high rents and enormous profits. This was the case of Giuseppe Servadio and of Count Cosimo Degli Alessandri, the latter also a shareholder in the Banca del Popolo, who were each about to found a company when the capital was suddenly and unexpectedly moved to Rome.92 While Giacomo too had purchased building grounds in Florence to revitalize his bank,93 both of the Servadios, until then excluded from the ‘drawing-­room’ of Tuscan finance, began to find their legitimation expressly through these undertakings of clearly speculative nature, destined to last only long enough to conclude an affair, altering the traditional circuit and the institutions through which it had been expressed. Even the Anglo-Italian Bank, which had been de facto inactive since 1868, was transformed from an instrument of financial internationalization to the ‘synthesis  of various financial bubbles’, its ties to Lombard Street with its regulations now  broken.94 Although the construction work carried out by the SAE, by Lazzeri and by other firms proceeded without a pause, the housing situation in Florence remained critical. The dominant social class was the one that benefited most from the municipal compensation for expropriations of public utility, as well as, obviously, the speculators who had rushed to the city when it was named capital. Their objective focused immediately on the apartments predicted to be subject to great demand, and numerous transfers of ownership took place, especially among the minor property owners and the artisans, who along with the lower class, were the hardest hit by the general rise in prices. Understandably, those who could not await the time of higher earnings sold their property, while the wealthier had no intention of selling anything they owned. Moreover, they raced to buy up houses, intending to exploit them to the maximum by dividing the flats and rooms, by adding floors and roofing over courtyards, operations precluded to those who could not afford it. The upper middle class and the nobility looked to the future, thinking that the urban development plan could affect their own property, and not only as concerns the higher value of the land, but above all for the possibility of selling to the Municipality. Exemplary is the expropriation of the property owned by the Del Corona family – members of the minor nobility who could boast important public positions and significant wealth – in the vicinity of Porta a Pinti. The estimation of the municipal experts was 120,000 lire, that of the owners, 229,000. Despite the opposition of the former, thanks to the mediation of Peruzzi as President of the Technical Commission, a price of 160,000 lire was agreed upon, but the Councillors remarked ‘how often

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property is expropriated not for the value it has according to its current destination but for what it would have consequent to the work for which the expropriation was intended’.95 Accordingly, it was the public administration that got the worst of the bargain during those years, while the middle and upper classes got the best. The town councillors Pietro Morelli96 and Degli Alessandri were, for example, among the property owners who were paid the highest sums for the expropriation of property on Viale dei Colli, while Count Piero Guicciardini was paid 40 lire a square metre for the Mattonaia land, an amount never to be equalled even in Rome during the housing craze of the 1880s. Frequently the compensation paid to private individuals was more than double that paid to the State for the implementation of Poggi’s project, even in zones of greatest strategic importance such as the end of the avenues around the Zecca Vecchia.97 In addition to the lack of low-­cost housing and the construction of new quarters suited to the upper-­class decorum of a capital, Poggi had to confront the problem of safeguarding the city from floods, which meant protecting Florence from its river and the streams that ran through the city. As regards the Mugnone, various proposals were made in 1865 and in 1867, which resulted in the widening of Ponte Rosso, the building of a retaining wall between it and Madonna della Tosse, of one between Ponte Rosso and the Fortezza, and raising the right bank from the bridge itself as far as the Terzolle torrent. Other initiatives were taken in regard to the Affrico, the San Gervasio drainage ditch, whose bed was diverted, and other ditches and little drainage canals. These projects were carried out by different companies prior to 1870 for a little less than 3 million lire.98 Along with the projects launched by the Municipality, others deliberated by the government were implemented,99 either in accord with the former or on its own account, as in the case of remodelling several buildings (with the relevant rearrangement of the streets leading to them) designed to house institutional headquarters and public offices. In 1865, for example, the Military Engineers had requested land on which to enlarge the Barbano barracks. In response, the Municipality transferred to the government land between Via Faenza and Via Valfonda, engaging also to contribute 200,000 lire to the project, a decision revoked shortly thereafter. In 1867 the Municipality and the government reached an agreement. The barracks were to be built next to the new parade grounds and the Municipality was to transfer the land on the right bank of the Affrico to the Ministry of War.100 While today’s Piazza d’Azeglio and the streets around it were laid out and the entire Mattonaia area was built over in great haste – less than two years – the entrepreneur Ferdinando Morini started work on the Teatro Principe Umberto, which opened in 1869 at the edge of the new piazza.101 In September 1865 the construction of a new quarter adjacent to the Central Station was approved, with the streets Luigi Alamanni and Jacopo da Diacceto and houses of important architectural aspect, such as Villino Lemmi and Villino Crispi in Via della Scala. Meanwhile, in the same area, the SAE had engaged with the Municipality to complete the building between Via Garibaldi and Via Montebello in eighteen months, starting from May 1865. In January 1866 the Municipal Council resolved to build the second section of Viale dei Colli up to Via San Leonardo, contracting the work on 20 August to Pietro Fattori

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(Società Fattori Cheli & Sandrini) – who was also commissioned to build the street along the Affrico and the junction with Via di Maiano – for a cost of 211,567 lire.102 In March the Council definitively approved the urban development plan and the urban extension and decided in June, among other things, to widen Ponte alla Carraia, built in iron by the Belgian company Schessing.103 The layout of the quarter situated outside of Porta alla Croce, between Via Aretina and the Arno, dates from June 1867. In July contracts were stipulated for the construction of roads, sewers and sidewalks for the new Savonarola quarter. In the next month it was decided to extend Via della Scala as far as San Jacopino; this was followed in September by projects for work on Via del Romito and in December on the Mugnone quarter, assigned to the Budini brothers, owners of vast properties there, for 204,192 lire.104 While the first part of Viale dei Colli was being completed, on 17 July 1868, the Municipality, again ‘abandoning the usual system of auctioning to pursue the more profitable one of private negotiations’,105 subcontracted the realization of the remaining three sections to the two companies bidding for the project: Lazzeri and Ciampi for 885,000 lire and Cheli-Sandrini.106 Between Lazzeri and the Municipality there existed, moreover, a sort of do ut des facilitated by the state. Considering that foreigners did not want to live in the city, Lazzeri asked the Municipality to buy all of the lots destined for building around Viale dei Colli, obtaining from the state the land between it and Viale del Poggio Imperiale. From this arose the first hillside quarter between Via S. Leonardo and Porta Romana (the Via Madonna della Pace zone). The company offered to construct some of these streets ‘at the very low price of 50 lire per linear metre, since it was highly interested in building houses on the property acquired’.107 Instead, works were contracted to the Cheli-Sandrini company on the old street of San Domenico and – ‘as subcontractor of the Florence Land, although said Società Cheli does not appear’108 – of Campo di Marte with the avenues around it and of the viaduct over Viale in Curva. This was as regards the brickwork, while the metal girders were supplied by the Società Finet-Charles of Naples and the work of moving the railway tracks and erecting the temporary scaffolding was ‘assigned by fiduciary contract to the Società delle Strade Ferrate Romane’.109 The entrepreneurs Salvadore Castaldi and Ranieri Guarnieri were awarded contracts for the work on the first and the second section of Viale Militare, respectively (from today’s Piazza della Libertà to Campo di Marte), while the third section went to the Florence Land. Other works were variously assigned to the Società Michelagnoli and Giorgi (constructing streets in the Piagentina quarter) and Sebastiano Stradella (some of the streets in the Savonarola quarter).110 By the summer of 1871, before the seat of the government was moved to Rome, the entire length of Viale dei Colli had been finished. In 1869 Maurizio Meyeri had obtained a sixty-­year concession of land along this avenue on which to build a structure offering entertainment of every kind (with café, beer-­hall, dance floor, concert hall, little theatre, restaurant, shooting range and Oriental bazaar).111 While some sections of the suburban streets within the new customs barrier were improved, work was done to embellish the Cascine park, the extension of Lungarno Torrigiani was approved, the layout and slope of Via Erta Canina were modified and

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the widening of Via Martelli was preliminarily resolved, it was decided to build a new slaughterhouse, with the addition of a cattle market. The project, contracted to Stefano Fortini, was designed by the architect Felice Francolini, a member, along with CambrayDigny and Peruzzi, of the Extraordinary Commission, several times Town Councillor and influential director of numerous real-estate and building initiatives.112 Meanwhile a great public bath was opened in Corso dei Tintori and by the end of the year the new seat of the Banca Nazionale in Via dell’Oriolo had nearly been completed, in the first section of the suitably widened street.113 By July 1869 the ‘building fever’ was so intense that a group of capitalists submitted to the Municipality of Fiesole a plan for enlarging the town and constructing houses for the workmen, to be made available to Florentines as well, with an adequate system of communications, but the project was never implemented.114 Starting from that year, plans began to be made for the renewal of Florence’s historic centre, and especially of the Mercato Vecchio quarter, distinguished by the lively, vivacious presence of shops of all kinds, pedlars’ stands, artisans’ workshops and humble habitations, an ensemble of ‘lurid alleys’ between Porta Rossa, Via Calzaioli, Via Cerretani and Via Tornabuoni, labelled by the press ‘cloaca maxima’ and deemed to be ‘on the level of a city in Asiatic Turkey’.115 A group of enterprising citizens, backed up by reliable financiers, formed a committee whose president was the Senator Prince Ferdinando Strozzi, who had commissioned Poggi to renovate his villa, situated between Boschetto and Monte Oliveto, and to redesign its park. They proposed to the Municipality, in exchange for the areas they would occupy, to assume the costs of the work carried out between Piazza Signoria, Piazza Santa Trinita, Piazza Antinori and the Duomo, to be concluded in eight years. The members of the committee included Ferdinando Quercioli (a wealthy grain merchant and bakery owner, he too a shareholder in the Banca del Popolo), Cosimo Degli Alessandri, the Deputy Count Pietro Manfrin from a wealthy, aristocratic Venetian family, Baron Sonnino and a nobleman from Friuli, the engineer Federigo Comelli.116 The proposal was not accepted, to avoid worsening the housing problem, made even more urgent by the decision taken in February 1870 to build the San Lorenzo Market and to reorganize the nearby Via Sant’Antonino and Via Panicale, demolishing many of the buildings in which poor people lived. It was unthinkable, then, to demolish any other buildings, since the SAE housing remained inadequate and the Municipality had had to assign homeless families to monasteries and other temporary facilities.117 The structures of the indoor market – a contract for over 2 million lire – were built by Guppy di Napoli, a mechanical enterprise founded in 1853 at the initiative of Mr Guppy, an entrepreneur from Bristol, and Thomas Pattison, which at the time of Unification employed a workforce of 600.118 The projects implemented for Florence as capital, however, were not only those relevant to the network of streets and to housing, although the efforts exerted in that direction were the maximum. Between 1865 and 1870, a total number of 51,380 habitations were built, including over 1,800 in the area around Piazza D’Azeglio.119 These projects ranged from the water supply system and the sewer system to the façade of the Duomo, inaugurated in May 1887, whose executive committee included

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illustrious members of the nobility, the Florentine upper class and the political-­ financial world as benefactors of the highest standing: from Cambray-Digny to Baron Firidolfi Ricasoli, from Marchese Filippo Torrigiani to John Temple Leader (a cultured, refined nobleman, son of a wealthy English industrialist, who settled permanently in Florence in 1844120), from Marchese Antonio Gerini to Cavaliere Pietro Tartini Salvatici.121

5.  The ‘interrupted capital’: from Florence to Rome All of this activity came to a sudden end with the transfer of the capital to Rome,122 voted by the Chamber of Deputies on 23 December 1870.123 At the September Agreement, Florence had reacted with cold detachment, due both to the quietism of its ruling class and to the awareness ‘of being a temporary Capital’.124 Bettino Ricasoli, in writing to Peruzzi, had expressed disappointment and fear: ‘A great misfortune . . . that will bring with it at first not only heavy expenditure, but no little embarrassment, and a period of greater confusion in the administration.’125 No one, however, could have imagined that the Roman question would be resolved within five years’ time, and that the sovereign, Parliament and the government would have left Florence by the end of June 1871. No one had foreseen this, neither the politicians,126 nor the Banca Nazionale, nor the king, the ministers, the military, the Municipality, the financial operators, the banks, the companies that had moved their headquarters to the capital, nor the enterprises and agencies engaged in great projects involving conspicuous investments and considerable expense. Between 1865 and 1876, the work carried out for enlarging and renovating amounted to 41 million lire, and to 34 million as indemnity for expropriation. Viale dei Colli alone required 2.5 million for the projects implemented and 734,000 for the expropriations; 9 million had been spent for extending the water system, and Poggi directed works for 33.5 million lire. The entire amount can be calculated as around 100 million lire.127 Many projects remained on paper, and numerous works remained unfinished. Poggi’s plans having been interrupted, only the projects already in an advanced state of progress were brought to conclusion, while others remained suspended and those still in the planning stage were abandoned.128 Of the entire belt of avenues, only that of the Colli was completed as originally designed; the rest was almost a ‘ghost’ of what had been planned by Poggi. It fell to Peruzzi – in informing the Municipal Council on 16 December 1870 of his appointment as mayor – to outline the plans for downgrading the administration’s building policy, although he was obliged to mention the contractual obligation for the works already assigned to construction companies, such as the Florence Land, according to which projects for nearly 5 million lire still remained to be implemented.129 With the halt of financing, through Law No.  257 of 9 June 1871, a revenue of 1,217,000 lire was entered in the Great Book of Public Debt in favour of the Municipality of Florence, and it was assigned several buildings belonging to the state, almost all of them monumental. To conclude the work and fulfil its contractual obligations, the

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Municipality had to deepen its already critical indebtedness with a bond issue of  30 million lire, to be paid off in forty years.130 The city was abandoned by everyone involved in political, military, diplomatic and administrative functions, and the overall population decreased appreciably.131 Many houses – in the preceding years some 100,000 units had been built132 – remained empty, rents dropped to a new low, and realestate was depreciated,133 arousing distrust in investments in this field. Moreover, a complex shifting of the population from one quarter to another began. The more modest classes moved from the centre to the peripheral zones, whose value had suddenly sharply decreased. The middle class moved towards the more elegant quarters in the newly expanded areas outside the belt of avenues (which had become accessible in the meantime), and the wealthy to villas in the hills around the city. Thus began the decline of the historic centre, taken over by an even humbler population.134 Many projects came to a halt, business deals came to a standstill with a succession of financial debacles and even the SAE was no longer able to meet its obligations, calling upon the Municipality to pay the guaranteed amortization of the capital.135 Adding to the crisis and discontent was an increase in fiscal pressure, while even more discouraging were the data on the so-­called ‘morale statistic’. From 1874 to 1876, the number of sentences issued in civil cases decreased, because nearly 40 per cent of the suits brought were abandoned due to insolvency of the defendants. Florence exceeded Milan in the number of bankruptcies and even in that of suicides (sixty compared to thirty-­eight, almost all of them for financial ruin).136 No less dramatic was the situation of the Municipality. From 1860 to 1865, the balance sheets had shown 45,700,000 lire of revenue and 43,486,000 of expenditure compared to 121,778,000 and 125,419,000 lire from 1865 to 1869, respectively,137 while a surplus of 2,330,000 lire in 1864 had fallen to a deficit of 3,157,000 lire in the budget for 1871. It was calculated that the municipal finances had worsened by approximately 5.5 million lire for each year.138 Thus the problem of capital continued to drag on for many years, in its effects not only on urbanistic-­architectural aspects but also on economic and financial ones. Controversy and legal action arose among the construction companies seriously damaged by the closing of the worksites, including disputes with the Società Lazzeri e Ciampi, with the Società Cheli-Sandrini, and the ‘exceedingly intricate and extensive liquidations with the Florence Land’, but also disputes with the neighbouring towns, such as the controversy with Brozzi over the discharge of waters from the new outlet into the Macinante Canal.139 The creditor firms, in severe difficulties due to the drop in demand and the unpaid debts, began to exert pressure on the Municipality which, in an attempt to give them a breath of air and to save itself from bankruptcy, decided to consider massive new initiatives in public building as an anti-­cyclic measure. On 19 June 1877, Francolini presented to the Municipal Council a proposal for work on the Mercato Vecchio with the demolition of the ghetto,140 frequently proclaimed ‘the affair of the centre’.141 The initiative was opposed by Poggi, although for reasons that were more personal than theoretic.142 The sudden exodus of thousands of persons had provoked the closure of businesses, vacancies in houses and shops, unemployment and a bottomless pit in the public

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accounts. On 17 March 1878 the Municipality, submerged by debts, had to suspend all payments. This was followed by the resignation of the mayor and the Giunta and the dissolution of the Municipal Council on 5 April. That same year the Florence Land declared bankruptcy, for the negative outcome of the initiatives undertaken in the new capital after 1870.143 In 1879 the city was obliged to accept the results of a Ministerial Committee for the liquidation of its debts, approximately 130 million lire. To satisfy its creditors, the Municipality was ordered to sell its property, including the seat of its activity, Palazzo Spini Feroni, for the sum of 1,250,000 lire to one of its major creditors, the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze.144 Francolini’s initiative was reprised in February 1881 and the work on Piazza Vittorio Emanuele (now Piazza della Repubblica) was carried out between 1885 and 1895, as a de facto conclusion, with highly debatable results, of the ‘great works’ in the capital.145 This initiative was labelled, in the commemorative terminology of the time, as the ‘hygienic-­sanitary reclamation’ of the area,146 while it was in reality the gutting of Florence, as well as a ‘social reclamation’. It involved, in fact, the destruction of buildings of the utmost historic importance: medieval towers, churches, the headquarters of the medieval guilds and the palaces of noble families, as well as artisans’ shops and homes.147 But not even this was enough to steer it towards full economic recovery. While the ‘Florentine issue’ became part of the crisis of the moderate oligarchy,148 Poggi, embittered also for having been cited by the Board of Inquiry, could only claim that the support of the state should have been from the start more incisive and specific: If on such a very special occasion as was the improvisation of the Capital of a great Kingdom in a little city, there had been promulgated in the interests of the Nation a special Law contemporaneous with the Decree of Transfer, many expenses, much indiscretion and much injustice would have been avoided.149

6.  Conclusions The ‘transfer’ of the capital, as it was called at the time, constituted an unexpected and highly appealing occasion for the ruling class. Although Florence, upon receiving the news, was at first ‘a reluctant capital’,150 the Tuscan moderates, one of the strongest, most compact groups in the Italian ruling class, soon realized that they could reinforce their power and pursue a position of supremacy on the national level also through projects for enlarging the city and the ensuing enormous volume of business. The entrepreneurs, for their part, responded promptly and in large numbers to what was a kind of call to arms. While personages linked to the world of banking and finance, Italian and foreign profiteers – as exemplified by Vincenzo Stefano Breda and Charles Cresswell – obtained the most important contracts, small and medium-­sized constructors also managed to undertake various building and remodelling projects, in a continuous overlapping of financial activity, political initiatives and real speculation. Those mainly involved were members of the government on both the local and the national level, representatives of the city’s institutions, often holding many positions in

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the top management of banks, industries and companies, and hence active at the vital nerve centres of power. Legitimizing the decisions taken in the name of emergency, they distributed their favours without control, often contrary to the opinion of the technicians but even more often in a ‘hasty collusion between technicians and administrators’.151 The beneficiaries of this activity were, in addition to the politicians themselves, both the big operators and the ‘diffused class of entrepreneurs present and ramified in the economic fabric of the city’,152 in an intermingling that cemented their relationships and was at the basis of every transaction. Not even the master builders, labourers, carpenters, glaziers, stone-­cutters, house painters, cabinet-­makers, decorators, plumbers, smiths, roadmen and pavers – in short, all those who operated in the sub-­ sectors entrained by the ‘flywheel effect’ of construction work – were excluded.153 They presented a highly varied picture, with recently immigrated, poorly qualified workers alongside others having specific skills, in other words, exercising a ‘trade’, more representative of the artisanal world and with a clear sense of belonging.154 In its years as capital, Florence undoubtedly changed in appearance. Tumultuous expansion was accompanied by a massive increase in construction, renovation and embellishment both inside and outside of the walls. With a more modern urban layout and an image renewed on the international level, the city thus inherited not only disorder and gutting, but a residential patrimony of the first order. The aristocratic Tuscan families as well as the nobility and upper classes of all Europe continued to live in the city, often in sumptuous villas. But above all, Florence was to remain a capitalist-­ financial node of decision among the strongest and most influential in the country, and its future resided not so much in the factories and smokestacks that were changing the face of Milan and Turin, but in the ‘boards of directors of the unregistered companies in the drawing-­rooms of patrician palaces in a city modernised and oxygenated but not devastated’.155

12

Entrepreneurs and Enterprises in and   around Florence Monika Poettinger

1.  Introduction Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship have never been popular topics in the historiography of Tuscany.1 Most economic theories regarding entrepreneurs, from Schumpeter to Kirzner,2 have been ignored in interpretations of nineteenth-­century Tuscan economic history. Thus, many enterprises enlightened the economy of  Florence, but very little is known about their founders, the capitalists that financed them and their managers.3 Entrepreneurs remained ghostly apparitions in mainstream historiography, biased by Marxian interpretative categories and a macroeconomic point of view. This chapter seeks to bridge this gap, analysing enterprises and entrepreneurs operating in Tuscany when Florence was the capital of Italy. The period under analysis, although very brief, represented an external shock for the economy of the former Grand Duchy and a cause of distress for its operators. Entrepreneurs will thus be examined in their reactions to this general state of excitement induced across all layers of economic life, from construction to banking, from consumption habits to technology. To this end, entrepreneurs will be defined by their functions: organization of production factors, risk management, innovation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. These functions are historically verifiable and in some cases quantifiable. The great challenge posed by the birth of the Italian kingdom with Florence as its capital obliged Tuscan entrepreneurs to abruptly change their strategies. Adapting to a new geographical and normative environment meant that risks had to be freshly assessed and cost–benefit analysis on investments had to be redone according to a vastly augmented potential demand. The modernization of the city, along the lines of other European capitals such as Paris, Vienna and London, similarly bore many entrepreneurial opportunities in the form of state orders and contracts. Firms could exploit them only by updating technologies, enlarging production facilities and modernizing management functions, while confronting an increasingly competitive environment. Some established Tuscan enterprises, like the mechanical manufacturing plant of Pignone and the porcelain producer Ginori, proved to be up to the challenge, experiencing a boom in production and sales. At the same time, entirely new sectors

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Florence

Figure 12.1  The passeggiata delle Cascine and the Pignone foundry (on the right). Source: Lung’Arno Nuovo e Cancellata delle Cascine, photograph by Giacomo Brogi. Private Collection.

like gas illumination and railways were established. In some cases, though, local entrepreneurship left opportunities unexploited, leaving space for foreign investors and entrepreneurs. Being the capital also rendered Florence the financial centre of the Italian state, attracting many investments and quite a large number of limited companies, particularly in the banking sector. The ensuing speculative frenzy created a bubble that would be further inflated by the suspension of money convertibility in 1866. Florence therefore jumped directly from a sleepy agricultural economy into a financial nightmare, characterized by fraud and bankruptcy. Carlo Lorenzini, best known as Collodi, aptly described this sudden evolution in his masterpiece Pinocchio.4 The city whose name translates to ‘Trap for Blockheads’ and its Field of Miracles are powerful symbolic representations of the speculative excesses characterizing Florence in these years.5 A satirical genre flourished from the economic and financial scandals of the time. Bankers and entrepreneurs were born overnight and just as quickly vanished after their flimsy apparitions. What remained were bankrupted investors and the empty shells of joint-­stock companies that had never really produced anything, beyond benefits for fraudulent managers and supervisors.6 To represent all this turbulence correctly, caused by the shock of Italy’s unification and the selection of a capital for the new kingdom, this chapter comprehends a joint macroand micro-­analysis of entrepreneurship in and around Florence. Sections 2 and 3 of this

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chapter investigate the productive capacity of Florence and Tuscany quantitatively, comparing joint-­stock and limited partnerships in shares.7 Corporations, particularly in the banking and railway sectors, experienced an impressive growth during the years in which Florence was capital, rapidly diminishing afterwards.8 In 1878, the ensuing economic and financial crisis would even cause the bankruptcy of the municipality of Florence. Data on the utilization of motive power in the province of Florence further articulate this picture, highlighting the sectors that attracted most investments and resources.9 Section  4 encompasses a microeconomic approach. The changes that the years as capital of the kingdom brought about in the risk assessment, strategies, marketing policies and international competitiveness of local enterprises will thus be clarified by a qualitative analysis of single case studies particularly rich in archival sources. The joint macro- and micro-­analysis of entrepreneurship in Florence will demonstrate how institutional changes, public investments, the increasing financialization and the expansion of the internal market elevated the pace of modernization for the local economy. The research will also redeem entrepreneurs from the judgement of flimsiness imposed by historiography, rendering them leading characters of the Tuscan economy in this period of rapid change.

2.  Entrepreneurs in and around Florence: a general overview An initial analysis of the changes in entrepreneurship brought about by the assignment of the capital to Florence can be effectuated through the official statistics of the Ministry for Agriculture, Trade and Industry summed up in Tables 12.1–12.3. These studies were issued in the years 1865, 1867 and 1877, and thus perfectly represent how local entrepreneurships reacted to the arrival of the administrative machine of the newly created Italian state to Florence in 1865 and its subsequent departure in 1871. Statistical data of the time were, clearly, far from precise; nonetheless they give an overview of how, in a brief time span, both the financialization and the socialization of capital changed throughout Florence and its surrounds. They also allow a glimpse behind the scenes of a rising speculation that would, in the end, bring down the entire Table 12.1  Limited companies and limited-­liability companies in Tuscany between 1845 and 1864 Sector

Number

Italian total (%)

Capital (Lira)

Italian total (%)

Insurance Railways Banking Industrial

0 5 8 67

0 16.7 26 30

0 146,702,000 62,759,080 63,187,836

0 11.6 18 10

Total

80

272,648,916

Source: elab. of Quadro delle società industriali, commerciali e finanziarie anonime ed in accomandita per azioni al portatore costituitesi nelle provincie che ora formano il Regno d’Italia dal 1845 al 1864 compilato per cura del Ministero per l’agricoltura il commercio e l’industria (Torino: G. Faziola e C., 1865).

Florence

194

Table 12.2  Limited companies in Tuscany at 31 December 1866 Sector

Number

Insurance Railways Banking Industrial Limited liab. companies Foreign

2 3 12 22 2

Total

44

3

Italian total (%) 2.7 17.6 28.5 23.6 20 20 18.6

Nominal Capital (Lira)

Italian total (%)

– 354,120,000 297,040,500 22,452,332 400,000

45.5 86.7 17.7 20.7

17,500,000

20.3

691,512,832

49.5

Source: elab. of C. de Cesare, Il Sindacato Governativo, le Società Commerciali e gli Istituti di Credito nel Regno d’Italia (Firenze: Pellas, 1867).

Table 12.3  Limited companies in Tuscany at 31 December 1876 Sector Insurance Railways Banking Industrial Cooperatives Foreign Total

Number

Italian total (%)

Nominal Capital (Lire)

Italian total (%)

 1  6 40 43  6  5

  2.2 33.3 16.2 15.8 21.4 11.4

   2,500,000 300,620,000     123,159,105.89   25,277,199    3,248,500   19,551,828

  5.8 78.9 15.3   2.8 85.8   5.8

101  

   474,356,632.89

Source: elab. of Statistica ed elenco generale degli istituti di credito e delle società per azioni nazionali ed estere esistenti nel regno al 31 dicembre 1876 (Roma: Botta, 1877).

economic system of the city. Fraud and corruption followed the capital from Florence to Rome, culminating in the political and financial scandal of the Banca Romana. In the end, only the institution of the Bank of Italy in 1893 could save the monetary system and the lira. Jurist Carlo de Cesare denounced the malpractices of banks and corporations as early as 1865. As the main censor of the inspectorate on joint-­stock companies, he revised all the statistical analysis undertaken by the Ministry in 1865 before reissuing the work in 1867.10 De Cesare sent inspectors to all general assemblies of corporations and analysed balance sheets, acts of boards and statements of auditors. He reported any fraud and illicit behaviour of administrators, directors and shareholders. One of the first to do so, De Cesare analysed the perverse consequences of the relationship between politics and entrepreneurship, particularly evident in the tumultuous rising of joint-­stock companies in the railway and banking sectors in the years when the government seat of Italy was Florence. Errors are like cherries [admonished De Cesare]. You take one and, if you do not rescind the first from the others as soon as possible, ten or twenty will follow. The economic principle, badly implemented, was not amended after its initial failure and everything went on as before. The best businesses so became those undertaken

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with the Italian government – a well-­known maxim in the national and foreign business world – since if an enterprise makes profits they are its own; if it loses money the loss will be covered by the Italian state treasury.11

Statistics show how this unproductive entrepreneurship,12 dedicated to rent-­seeking activities and scarcely innovative and competitive, thrived in Tuscany from 1865 to 1867, while productive enterprises barely maintained their positions. Disregarding all industrialist rhetoric particularly connected to universal expositions, entrepreneurs in and around Florence continued to manage their firms as limited partnerships or personal enterprises, limiting their dimensions and capitalization. The case of the Ginori porcelain manufacturer was extreme in that it continued to be part of the patrimony of the Ginori family as a personal possession until its sale to Augusto Richard in 1896. In order to compare non-­financialized yet productive entrepreneurship with the speculative and rampant entrepreneurship denounced by De Cesare, the statistics published in 1865 are particularly helpful in that they include data on limited partnership in shares along with those on joint-­stock companies.13 The form of the limited partnership was chosen by entrepreneurs to gather the highest possible capital sum from the widest arena of investors, maintaining at the same time complete control over the management of their firm. Investors appreciated it, in respect to joint-­stock companies, because entrepreneurs had to guarantee their actions with full and personal responsibility. Limited partnership in shares also allowed an easy trade of participation quotas, another popular feature among investors. As such, limited partnerships had their moment of glory in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when a certain diffidence towards joint-­stock companies still limited their diffusion.14 The data on 1864 confirm that in Tuscany, just before Florence became capital, limited partnership in shares were particularly relevant within the industrial sector, while joint-­stock companies mostly pertained to the highly speculative banking and railway sectors. Industrial firms thus numbered sixty-­seven, while the ministerial figures, excluding limited partnership in shares, counted only twenty-­two industrial joint-­stock companies in 1867 and forty-­three in 1877. Industrial firms accounted for 63 million lire of capital in 1865, including partnerships in shares, and only 22 million in 1867 and 25 million in 1877, when the statistics excluded partnerships in shares. The overview on partnerships in shares provided by the 1864 data is precious in understanding the operations of productive entrepreneurship in Tuscany. The emerging picture is that of an economy exporting primary resources, while producing goods mostly for the internal market. Innovative firms were marginal, while the presence of foreign entrepreneurship was significant. Dominating were mining firms, one fifth of the total,15 a percentage confirmed in 1877 when mining corporations numbered nine out of forty-­three. In 1864, the mining sector comprised both partnerships in shares with limited nominal and paid-­in capital and joint-­stock companies with huge capitalization. Many firms, even in this sector, were still managed as limited partnerships and so excluded by all quoted ministerial statistics. This is the case, for example, for Fratelli Hall, Sloane e Coppi, which managed the mine of Caporciano, with an annual production of 3,000 tonnes of copper. An

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extreme case is that of the sulphurous fumaroles of Pomarance. Managed at the beginning of the nineteenth century by a limited partnership, they were, in time, bought out by a minority associate, becoming a personal possession attached to a title of nobility. François Jacques de Larderel so ascended from French trader in baubles to feudatory nobility through an entrepreneurial trajectory opposite to that which might be expected in the nineteenth century. At the time of his death in 1858, the premises for boric acid production were valued at more than 9 million lire: an enormous sum, self-­ financed outside any capital market, as with the case of the Ginori factory. Another notable feature of mining firms in Tuscany concerned the nationality of entrepreneurs. Many of them were foreigners. François Jacques de Larderel, Horace and Alfred Hall and Joseph Francis Sloane were not alone in making their fortune by immigrating to Tuscany and managing its mines. Stefano Masson, of Savoyard origin, was long responsible for the extraction of wood coal in Val d’Elsa to provide local ironworks with the necessary fuel.16 Ruggero Sancholle Henraux was an official of the Napoleonic army who founded an enterprise for the extraction of marble that, in 1865, had a capital of more than 1.5 million lire. At the end of the century, his sons would even buy out their main competitor in the Val d’Arni. Despite its size and relevance, their company, Héritiers Henraux, maintained the form of limited partnership well after the beginning of the twentieth century. Similar cases can be cited in regards to the extraction of mercury. Direct foreign investments, on the other hand, were done through joint-­stock companies. This was the case, for example, with the Società Mineralogica AngloToscana, later becoming the Compagnia Mineralogica Anglo-Toscana. The corporation, however, never produced the expected profits. De Cesare would ironically comment: ‘The company is still looking for minerals after having depleted all its capital.’17 Without a foreign entrepreneur personally involved in the venture, it seems that no mining firm could survive for long. Were other Tuscan traditional production sectors, such as textiles and agricultural-­ food, any different? With regards to textiles, the 1865 statistics mention only a few companies. They all had the legal form of limited partnerships in shares and, as such, vanished from later ministerial data. In the production of wool fabrics, partnerships possessed capital ranging from 63,000 to 600,000 lire, while for the production of silk drapes, Riva e Maffei required only 18,480 lire of capital. Evidently in Tuscany, at least until the end of the 1870s, the textile sector remained characterized by small and medium-­sized enterprises that organized production through networks of home-­workers, with almost no fixed capital requirements and limited production facilities. The statistics on the distribution of motive power among the sectors in the province of Florence in 1890 confirm that the textile sector was scarcely mechanized. Only 6.5 per cent of total motive power was dedicated to the production of wool textiles and 0.03 per cent to silk drapes. By avoiding the form of limited company, the relevant productions – including straw hats and silk or wool pieces – were completely absent from the official statistics quoted, even if employing thousands of people. The same holds true for many other productions, still exercised in small workshops more as expressions of handicraft than industry, that populated Florence and its

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Table 12.4  Horsepower utilized in the province of Florence (data from 1882 for grain mills and from 1890 for all other manufacturers) Industry

Horsepower (hp)

Grain mills Wool manufactures Paper mills Oil presses Ironworks Foundries Pomace manufactures Electricity lighting workshops Mechanical manufacturers with or without foundry Furnaces for majolica, white dishware and porcelain Smaller workshops for iron working Furnaces for lime, concrete and bricks Producers of pasta Producers of liquors, jams and chocolate Copper workshops Tanneries Knitwear factories Sawmills Tobacco manufacturers Gunpowder factories Matchstick factories Silk industries

8017 635 293 229 220 66 51 45 44 40 37 18 18 10 8 8 6 6 6 5 4 3

Total

9769

Total (%) 82 6.5 3 2 2 0.7 0.5 0.5 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.08 0.08 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.05 0.04 0.03

Source: elab. of Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio, ‘Notizie sulle condizioni industriali della Provincia di Firenze’, Annali di Statistica, no. 79 (1895), 1–136, 29.

surroundings. The 1865 statistics unveil many of them: typographers, publishers, floriculturists, paper mills and forgeries, all in the form of limited partnerships in shares and with scarce capital requirements. Even if re-­founded as a joint-­stock company in 1865, the Società Tipografica dei Successori Le Monnier, one of the main Florentine publishers, had, for example, capital of just 20,000 lire. Data on the use of motive power confirm that paper mills consumed just 3 per cent of the total for the province of Florence, ironworks and mechanical manufacturers 3.5 per cent and tanneries 0.08 per cent (Table 12.4). The main consumer of motive power in the province of Florence, even at the end of the century, was still the agriculture-­food sector, absorbing 84.8 per cent of the total. Only 0.3 per cent, however, went to processing factories like producers of spirits, confiture, preserves, chocolate and pasta. Almost all energy, in the form of water power, was consumed by grain mills. Steam power for the production of wheat18 had been introduced at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the port city of Livorno, thanks to foreign entrepreneurship.19 The 1865 statistics stand as testament to the existence of two mills operated by steam-­power thanks to capital of 420,000 lire. Both belonged to Henri Bougleux, also owner of the first Italian steamboat lines. In the 1850s, Bougleux produced wheat and hardtacks with his mills. His food business was

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so successful that he was able to buy out the only other Tuscan steam mill, located in Pontedera. The case of Bougleux is relevant in that it confirms that also in the traditional agriculture-­food sector, innovation and capital easily came from abroad. Whenever long-­ term uses and habits are locked in technology, business forms and property structures, novelties are often introduced violently by foreign entrepreneurship. In Tuscany, this holds true for all productive sectors and for the entire nineteenth century. The six years in which Florence was capital of the Kingdom of Italy could not change this picture substantially. They only added some characters, many of them of dubious entrepreneurial quality, while accelerating the already-­operating drive towards modernization.

3.  Entrepreneurs and politics Florence becoming capital of Italy had an immediate effect on local entrepreneurship. Many of the new joint-­stock companies, particularly banks, established their registered offices in Florence. Carlo de Cesare amply reported the flourishing of corporations in and around Florence after 1865. As already noted, he was preoccupied by the speculative excesses entailed in this sprouting of companies whose purpose lay in anything but producing profits. To the contrary, secure sectors were shunned by Florentine investors. Insurance services, in particular, were almost completely in the hands of foreign businesses. ‘Why,’ Table 12.5  Per capita paid-­up capital in limited companies in Italian regions at 31 December 1876 Region

Number of companies

Paid-­up capital (Lire)

Piedmont Liguria Lombardy Veneto Emilia Umbria Marche Tuscany Rome Abruzzo and Molise Campania Apulia Potenza Calabria Sicily Sardinia

97 73 128 64 47 6 15 100 39 2 36 5 1 1 26 17

181,391,005 112,983,508.77 139,400,237.35 38,701,115.72 26,729,626.59 269,484.63 3,590,550.21 412,029,138.73 257,485,259.97 339,206 78,434,155.75 1,948,939.25 28,168.35 65,011.49 29,642,764.50 43,193,176

Total

657

2,012,952,603.37

Per capita paid-­up capital (Lire) 62.56 133.90 40.28 14.65 12.79 0.49 3.92 192.31 307.74 (or 128.4621) 0.77 28.48 1.37 0.06 0.05 11.43 67.79

Source: Statistica ed elenco generale degli istituti di credito e delle società per azioni nazionali ed estere esistenti nel regno al 31 dicembre 1876 (Rome: Botta, 1877), v.

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asked De Cesare, ‘cannot Italians present a praiseworthy competition to foreigners and even win it?’20 In 1866, the Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà, still on Austrian territory, had earned an impressive 6.7 per cent on its capital. It seemed that Florence lacked entrepreneurial spirit. Only in 1879 would an insurance company of national standing, named Fondiaria, be established there. Other sectors did not fare better. Even if capital was found to establish new joint-­stock companies, they would not produce profits. Exceptions were rare. Only fraudulent managers and speculators would gain from such enterprises, contended De Cesare – with many a reason.22 One of the strong points of his analysis would be to collect in his statistics not only the entirety of the paid-­in capital of every company, but also their declared profits and distributed dividends. In Tuscany in 1866, the twenty-­two joint-­stock companies involved in industrial pursuits accounted for 22,452,332 lire in capital, earning profits at a rate of 5.9 per cent. Railway companies, in comparison, absorbed 354 million lire, with profits of 8.2 per cent. Despite these encouraging results, De Cesare could not resist underlining the perilous situation of the Strade Ferrate Romane and the Strade Ferrate Vittorio Emanuele, due to their excessive indebtedness on the bond market. An exception was the Strade Ferrate Meridionali, also established in Florence, capable of generating a steady flow of profits.23 Its success, however, was outshone by its involvement in an extensive corruption system that would soon cause a nationwide scandal. Considering the profit-­capital ratio, without doubt, the most successful sector in 1866 was the financial one, with a staggering 24.8 per cent on 297 million lire of  capital. Alas, this result was shadowed by grave suspicions of fraud and speculation. Particularly aggravating the emission, as a consequence of the suspension of the convertibility of the lira, of an illegal quantity of paper-­money in excess in respect to the admitted circulation.24 This held true, specifically, for the Tuscan Banche Popolari, a fact openly denounced by De Cesare. The fraud had created an artificial wealth that would vanish as soon as the convertibility could be restored.25 The suspension of convertibility was also the cause of the brilliant results of the emission banks based in Florence: Banca Nazionale nel Regno, Banca Nazionale Toscana and Banca Toscana di Credito. In Tuscany, notwithstanding all the warnings of De Cesare and other critics, capital flew easily and rapidly towards the sectors and firms granting the highest profits despite their malpractices. Comparing the statistics of 1865 and 1867 (Tables 12.1 and 12.2), the results are indisputable: limited partnerships vanish from the statistics and so two-­ thirds of all capital that was invested in manufacturing, while investments in railways grow from 146 million to 354 million lire and those in the banking sectors from  62 million to 297 million lire. In 1876, despite the cooling down of speculation, Tuscany maintained the second highest value of per capita paid-­up capital in limited companies in Italy, bettered only by Rome (Table 12.5), with Florence home to more than half of all limited companies of the region (Table 12.6). As capital of the Kingdom of Italy, Florence rapidly became the city of Catchfools, where dreams of wealth made an outspoken puppet bury his golden coins in the Field of Miracles, believing that in the passing of just one night they would grow into a tree bearing golden fruits.26 With this tale, Carlo Lorenzini stigmatized the new religion of

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Table 12.6  National and foreign companies with seat in Tuscany at 31 December 1876 Province Arezzo Florence Grosseto Livorno Lucca Massa-Carrara Pisa Siena Total Tuscany Total % in Italy

Number of companies

Nominal capital

Paid-­up capital

3 55 1 7 5 4 13 12

300,000 464,008,784 13,500 7,901,400 920,000 1,300,000 3,276,454.89 3,373,100

288,280 400,143,077.60 – 4,278,400 516,790 1,162,827 3,351,454.89 1,988,609.21

100

481,093,238.89

412,029,138.73

15.2%

23.9%

31%

Source: Statistica ed elenco generale degli istituti di credito e delle società per azioni nazionali ed estere esistenti nel regno al 31 dicembre 1876 (Rome: Botta, 1877), vi.

money, the financial infatuation that in Florence had conquered bourgeoisie and nobility alike. De Cesare wrote: Never have the desires of men gone toward the betterment of society as in present times. Never has ambition been so diffused and impatient. Never has man been so dominated by the thirst for material goods, for proud desires and every sort of enjoyment. Today the insatiable craving for richness pertains to all men and all social strata. Even fame becomes more beautiful when framed in gold instead of flowers and laurels. Desires, though, do not equate to will. While everything seems accessible to anyone, only a few work hard enough to gain the prize. The wish to act is defeated by the inertia of the intellect. The weak willpower is crushed under the immensity of desires. The cantankerous soul, thus, runs in search of adventures, of risky endeavours, of impossible benefits. When disillusioned and weary, it surrenders to idleness and lays around without motivation or vision.27

‘Time is money!’ countered Carlo Lorenzini in his Un romanzo in vapore. ‘This is the maxim of a merchant nation: the motto of a banking century! This the alarm and the hurrah of millions of men, running with bayonets ready towards every capital increase and the conquest of the stock exchange: the Golden Fleece of modern Argonauts.’28 De Cesare and Lorenzini both rightly pointed towards a complete upturn in the mental habits of people in regard to money and wealth as one of the main consequences of technological progress and modernization. At a time when everything seemed possible and the social ladder was available to everyone, many men would not want to wait for long-­lasting efforts to bear the desired success but, like Pinocchio, they were led astray by speculators and thieves, seeking short-­cuts and abiding by fraudulent activities. Satirical journals such as Fanfulla denounced the malpractices of politicians and entrepreneurs involved in dubious affairs throughout the years when Florence hosted

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the Italian Parliament.29 The victim, inevitably, was the ever-­paying stock-­bird, actiomerolus semperpagans,30 readily flying wherever joint-­stock companies were established, with whatever programme or economic rationale. It sufficed that at the bottom of the founding act, the most influential citizens of Florence signed their name so that the stock-­bird immediately believed all foolishness, sold to it in form of bonds and stocks, ignoring the fact that that municipalities created enormous debts that would never be repaid and banks had given in to deranged emissions that would bring chaos to the Italian financial system.31 Culprits of this story were financiers and speculators of which Florence hosted  a great number. Under the protection of their nom de plume, satirical journalists named many of them: Carlo Bombrini,32 Domenico Balduino33 and Pietro Bastogi,34 most frequently. They were all bankers involved in the big financial operations connected with the setting up of the Italian railway network and with establishing  the first joint-­stock companies in a range of industrial sectors. At the same time,  they pursued political careers or actively lobbied and corrupted politicians in favour  of their projects.35 ‘They arrive from nowhere,’ mocked the journal Fanfulla, ‘they triumphantly pass through stock exchanges, they audaciously play with law codes, they grab what they can, they live in grandeur . . . but in the end they take flight, when fortune allows it.’36 The problem, De Cesare noted, was in the wrong incentives given by the legal system and the newly established Italian institutions. Politics and business were allowed to mingle and the law was completely unprepared for such innovative economic fraud. The city of Catchfools knew no justice. When Pinocchio accused his robbers, the judge ordered the gendarmes to put him in prison.37 The same had happened in Florence to a member of Parliament, Cristiano Lobbia. The honest man had denounced the bribes taken by many fellow members of Parliament to approve the concession of the monopoly on the production of tobacco to the Florentine Regia Manifattura Tabacchi. On his way to Parliament on 15 June 1869, Lobbia was attacked in the infamous Via dell’Amorino and left wounded on the pavement. As he attempted to press charges against his attackers, the Florentine attorney general accused him instead of fabrication and had him condemned to prison. It took many years for Lobbia to clear his name, while politicians, bankers and speculators celebrated the monopoly on tobacco obtained, throwing a raucous party in one of Florence’s chic cafés.38 The speculative excesses of the years in which the Italian Parliament held its sessions in Florence did not end, in effect, in the courtroom. Public prosecutors and judges connived with political and financial elites. Scandal followed scandal and it took the meltdown of the entire system for some serious action to be taken. As late as 1893, the Bank of Italy was founded to establish some order in the monetary emissions and to repress swindling and malpractice. Florence, however, saw a precocious ending of this unproductive entrepreneurship and organized rent-­seeking activities. When Rome became capital of the Kingdom of Italy, speculators, bankers and entrepreneurs involved in state commissions followed, leaving behind a financially devastated city. The 1877 statistics already show the cooling down of economic speculation in Tuscany (Table  12.3). The amount of capital invested in railways receded from 354 million lire to 300 million, while the credit sector diminished from 297 million lire to

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123 million. In a short time span, even the municipality – involved in pharaonic realestate projects – had to declare bankruptcy. Carlo Lorenzini, again, painted a realistic albeit unmerciful portrait of this Florence: The streets were crowded with dogs who were drowsy with hunger, shorn sheep trembling with cold, roosters without combs begging for a grain of Indian corn, large butterflies that could no longer fly because they had sold their beautifully coloured wings, peacocks that had no tails and were ashamed to be seen, and pheasants that went scratching about in a subdued fashion, mourning for their brilliant gold and silver feathers that were gone forever. In the midst of this crowd of beggars and chagrined creatures, some lordly carriage passed from time to time containing a Fox or a thieving Magpie, or some other ravenous bird of prey.39

In the midst of this desolation, though, the capital invested in industrial enterprises remained stable in regards to the quota concerning joint-­stock companies, with a  slight increase from 22 million lire to 25 million (Table 12.3). At the same time, many cooperatives were born, a phenomenon coalescing 3 million lire of capital. Cleaned  of all temporary players that had crowded the scene when Florence represented the centre of political power in Italy, the economy of Tuscany so returned to be characterized by a more productive entrepreneurship, along the lines of its long-­lasting path of development.

4.  Novel consumption patterns and a new urban asset As capital of Italy, Florence was not solely speculation and unproductive entrepreneurship. The process of unification in 1861 and the later immigration of thousands of administrative personnel from Turin in 1865 created many entrepreneurial opportunities, by expanding the market and boosting demand. Many firms had to adjust their production by improving technology and enlarging plants and premises. The same held true for the state orders connected to the embellishment of the city, a public demand that sustained the local economy for more than a decade, up until the bankruptcy of the municipality. The change in the consumption patterns due to the bourgeoisification of society interacted with these institutional changes, stimulating innovative and productive entrepreneurship. The architectural styles that characterized the enlargement of the city from the palaces of the seventeenth century to the boulevards designed by the architect Giuseppe Poggi (being neoclassicism, gothic revival and liberty) meant a boost in orders for Florence’s industries, manufacturers and artisans operating in the sectors of constructions, interior design, gas illumination, cast-­iron architecture, marble extraction and so on. The business history of Tuscany is full of entrepreneurial careers that had their beginning or at least a decisive turning point during these years. The iron foundry named Pignone exemplifies these entrepreneurial histories. The company was initially set up in 1842 as Fonderia di Ferro di Seconda Fusione Fuori la Porta di San Frediano. Technical competences fell to the German Federico Schenk,40

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203

while capital and management were supplied by Pasquale Benini (until then a cottage manufacturer of straw hats in Lastra a Signa) and Florentine merchant Tommaso Michelagnoli. The premises of the foundry were situated on the river Arno, just outside the city walls, next to the San Frediano city gates. The place had strategical value since its little port, protected by a stonework wedge – a pignone – gave access to the Arno, navigable up to Pisa. Resources could thus arrive directly to the foundry via the river and finished products could be shipped to their destinations.41 Thanks to the port and the construction of an iron bridge in 1837, the area around the San Frediano city gate had rapidly become a manufacturing centre, hosting tanneries, the gas works and further manufacturers of glue, dishware and straw products. The foundry thrived thanks to the technical direction of Pietro Benini, son of the founder. In 1859, his role become predominant and the company was renamed Pietro Benini e C.42 The continued development of the firm is easily exemplified by the employment data. In 1860, eighty people worked in the Pignone; in 1871 that figure had grown to 120, a 50 per cent increase. State orders played a major role in this impressive evolution. Already by 1846, the foundry was the supplier for all of Florence’s gas lamps, a role it maintained up to the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1866, the Pignone also won the public tender for the supply contract for the iron gates of a new fenced excise area of the city, followed by that for the provision of the benches and balustrades for the newly designed Viale dei Colli in 1868, along with many decorative elements for the Piazzale Michelangelo. In 1869, the municipality also ordered from the foundry a water tank and a pump to operate in the Cascine park and a lavatory to be situated in Corso dei Tintori. Within these same years, however, the greatest state orders would be the set-­up of the aqueduct in the city of Montereggi and the enlargement of the Alle Grazie bridge in Florence.43 It is indisputable, even from this rapid sketch, just how much of the growth of the Pignone foundry was connected to the spread of modern and fashionable cast iron architecture, to the enlargement of the city of Florence, to the implementation of new public services such as gas illumination and water supply. Next to this booming state demand, though, flourished a growing private request, associated with the construction of entire new blocks of buildings and the renovation of pre-­existing ones. The Pignone supplied all of them with an infinite number of balustrades, gates, railings and lamps.44 A last component of the growing demand for the products of the Florentine foundry was the industrial one. Pignone supplied, sporadically at first and then regularly, machines for the agriculural-­food sector, being pumps, motors, olive-­presses and even steam-­engines. The modernization of the Tuscan primary sector, confirmed by the data on motive power (Table 12.4), had the side effect of stimulating the mechanical sector, in this case the Pignone foundry.45 On the outskirts of Florence, another emblematic entrepreneurial case was the porcelain manufacturing of Ginori. The productive premises were located in a Villa in Doccia, Sesto Fiorentino. In the 1860s, the plant founded in 1737 was still the personal property of every first-­born within the noble Ginori family. After Italy’s unification, the marquis Lorenzo Ginori had to confront the challenge of increased competition. In Milan, Giulio Richard had set up an innovative factory, producing Wedgewood-­style earthenware that perfectly responded to the demands of the bourgeoisie class for solid

204

Florence

yet fashionable dishware in massive quantities. At the same time, English and French producers had conquered international markets, adapting to mass-­demand and ever-­ changing fashion styles. Pressure to change was overwhelming for the porcelain producer of Florence. Archives preserve a letter of the marquis lamenting that his factory had not been awarded any medals at the international exhibition in London.46 In it, Lorenzo Ginori defended, for one last time, the inveterate strategy of the manufacturer, based on an artistic niche production coupled with a varied range of low-­cost majolica products for the local market. The changes in consumption patterns and, after Unity, the opening of the Italian market to competition from France and England rendered this strategy obsolete and unprofitable. Against the conservatism of the proprietor, intervened the management of the manufactory – Paolo Lorenzini, older brother of Carlo Lorenzini. For some time, Paolo had been a personal assistant to Lorenzo Ginori when he was appointed to the management of the porcelain production. He would remain in this role from 1854 to 1891. Paolo Lorenzini attended all universal exhibitions and acquired a precise knowledge of the changes in the demand and production of porcelain occurring in the second half of the nineteenth century. He immediately recognized the necessity of a complete restructuring of the Doccia factory. The owners nonetheless denied all evidence until a debit balance in 1865. Only then were the necessary measures enacted to alter the strategy. As Paolo Lorenzini had wished, the majolica production was diminished. To the contrary, porcelain pieces were manufactured in greater quantity and with a medium quality so as to capture the growing demand by proposing moderately priced items. All this meant a veritable revolution for the production site in Doccia. Painters, decorators, turners and modellers arrived from Paris and Limoges. Three new furnaces were built in order to produce 25,000 pieces simultaneously. Suddenly, the old factory located in a historic villa was surrounded by a maze of new buildings to host the separate production processes and the increased number of workers. At the same time in Calenzano, the number of grinders for the crushing and mixing of raw materials and colours increased to twenty-­four. While the production sites were adapted between 1866 and 1872 to suit the new strategy, tonnes of white porcelain pieces were imported from France in order to be decorated and finished in Doccia then sold under the Ginori brand.47 The data on occupation, again, usefully summarize the magnitude of the change: in 1864, 250 people worked in Doccia; in 1872, employees numbered 500. Production could thus increase from 1,350,000 to 2,000,000 pieces, of which  75 per cent were made of porcelain and only 25 per cent of majolica. The end market, however, remained Italy. Only pieces mimicking antique Italian majolica in Etruscan or Renaissance style would be sold abroad. The boost in occupation and production of the Ginori production was a reaction to the enlargement of the market due to the unification process of Italy, to the change in consumption following the arrival of a huge middle class in Florence in the wake of the government settlement in 1865 and to the bourgeoisification of society. State orders, on the other hand, were less of a help for Doccia than for the Pignone foundry. Without the safety net of state aid, in the form of commissions or protectionist policies, the

Entrepreneurs and Enterprises in and around Florence

Figure 12.2  Maiolica of the Ginori factory at the Parisian Universal Exhibition of 1867. Source: ‘Le maioliche italiane della fabbrica Ginori’, in L’esposizione Universale del 1867 Illustrata (Milano-Firenze-Venezia: Sonzogno, 1867), vol. 2, 636. Private Collection.

205

206

Florence

management of the porcelain factory was more hurriedly compelled to find autonomous ways to confront the increased competition inland and abroad. It did so only with the described change in dimension and strategy. In the end, Doccia produced a doubled quantity of wares, of the type and fashion appreciated by the new emerging classes. The two micro-­cases, briefly outlined here, allow us to draw some conclusions  on the productive entrepreneurship centred in Florence in the 1860s. In this brief time span, firms experienced a clear discontinuity in their path of development. The altered frontiers of the internal market and the new consumption patterns in the  cities represented a clear entrepreneurial opportunity, hampered by the increase in competition. The industrial enquiry, published between 1870 and 1874, gives ample proof of the disturbing effect that the rapid acceleration of institutional and economic change brought to Italian entrepreneurs.48 Both the Ginori factory and the Pignone foundry reacted positively, heightening investments in new production premises and generating employment. Both remained mostly focused on the internal and local market, being more than capable of absorbing the augmented production. In the case of Doccia, the technical knowledge imported from France through specialized labourers proved essential, as did good management capabilities, represented in Doccia by Paolo Lorenzini and in Pignone by Pietro Benini. Other enterprises did not react as positively as the aforementioned examples. The case of gas illumination was exemplary, with an entrepreneurial occasion clearly generated by the modernization of Florence.49 It was nonetheless an opportunity that was exploited by the French Lyonnese company and not by local entrepreneurs. In the years when Florence was capital of Italy, the French monopoly was endangered but, yet again, by foreign entrepreneurs: Giuseppe Mojon and Giacomo Thompson. As seen, the situation was similar to that of the mining and insurance sectors. Despite these failings, productive entrepreneurship thrived in the years under scrutiny, reinforcing a growth path that crossed the entire century up to the take-­off in its last decade. Ignored by official statistics due to being instituted in the form of limited partnerships or managed as personal properties, many Tuscan and Florentine enterprises modernized their facilities, adopted new technologies and enhanced their occupation. A wave of mergers and acquisitions, such as in the case of Henraux, allowed small firms to cope with an enlarged internal market and a new demand. Some of them even became competitive on the international market. Carlo Lorenzini described this productive environment as the Village of the Industrious Bees: The road was alive with people running here and there to attend to their business; all were at work, all had something to do. You could not have found an idler or a vagabond, not even if you had searched for him with a lighted lamp.50

A utopian representation, surely, that nonetheless was the new ideal of all Tuscans weary of the old development model based on agriculture and sharecropping. From some scattered seeds, a few steam-­mills and a porcelain factory, uncompetitive ironworks and a clattering locomotive, a new idea of society began to spread, based on the morals of work and the centrality of industry. The productive entrepreneur, though,

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207

never became the hero of this new dreamed-­of ideal, atoning – perhaps – for all those Catchfools that had created so much damage in the years when Florence was the capital of Italy.

5.  Conclusions Florence was the capital of Italy for just six years. Including Italy’s unification, the period of rapid institutional change would barely cover a decade – a mere instant in the long-­running material history. Nonetheless, this short time span represented a clear discontinuity for Tuscan entrepreneurship and merits careful analysis. The sudden expansion of national boundaries and the change of political economy towards free trade required new reference models for entrepreneurial action and stimulated investments in new and enlarged facilities, mergers and acquisitions. When Florence became the capital, a veritable wave of speculative frenzy swept the banks of the Arno river, with a dubious tide of credit agencies and limited companies. Contemporary statistics provide testimony on how capital flooded towards Florence’s banking sector and the corporations that were set up to facilitate fraud and speculation more than for productive purposes. Jurist Carlo De Cesare judged these initiatives severely as temporary and unproductive. As he predicted, when Rome became capital of Italy, most of these limited companies rapidly abandoned Florence or vanished altogether. Next to this flimsy entrepreneurship, though, Tuscany (and Florence in particular) hosted more productive enterprises, often of foreign origin, expressing itself in limited partnerships and limited partnerships in shares. Extreme were the cases of de Larderel and Ginori: families managing two of the most important Tuscan productions as a personal possession. The institutional, normative and political changes of the 1860s acted on this productive entrepreneurship as an accelerator of change and development. Entrepreneurs in and around Florence modified strategies, acquired new competing horizons and adjourned administrative and technological competences. Exemplary the cases are the Pignone foundry and the Ginori porcelain factory. In just a few  years, both production facilities expanded dramatically, while occupation grew significantly – a revolution in dimension, technology and strategy. At the beginning of the 1870s, Tuscany was still an agricultural economy. The countryside, however, scarred by the new railway lines, hid among the mills and farmhouses a growing number of steam machines and significant agricultural-­food producers. At the same time, the production facilities that had been set up in the cities or near mining facilities throughout the entire century grew larger and more competitive, if not increasing in number. Entrepreneurs – a varied mix of foreigners, noblemen, merchants and technicians – mostly avoided financialization and concentrated on the internal market, looking beyond the frontiers in search for technological knowledge more than for exit markets. The fear of speculation and the pressure of free-­trading policies had nurtured this cautious but productive entrepreneurship, capable of exploiting the opportunities provided by the expansion of the internal market and the change in consumption patterns, while avoiding the perils of limited liability and stock-­ exchange crashes.

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Florence was indubitably the economic centre of the region, hosting most of its limited companies in the service sectors and many factories. In spite of the damage brought about by the bankruptcy of the municipality, all these firms would steadily grow to the point of take-­off at the end of the century. From a city of Catchfools, Florence would slowly evolve into a land of Industrious Bees, leaving scandals, corruptions and frauds to the new capital of Italy: Rome.

13

Food Availability and Consumption Patterns in Florence and Tuscany after Italy’s Unification Francesco Ammannati1

Food is a key element of Italian identity, and it is broadly acknowledged that Italian nutritional habits enjoy global popularity. However, it is by now evident that what we identify today as being ‘Italian cuisine’ is substantially a historical construction resulting from different elements established over the most recent two centuries.2 This does not merely coincide with ‘popular cuisine’, but includes a rich heritage of food and culinary traditions, a hybrid assortment of rustic food with ancient origins and elements of Renaissance court cuisine as well as Baroque cuisine and preparations such as the ‘French-­like one of official banquets and that of nineteenth-­century urban-­bourgeois, without overlooking elements and contaminations from the most diverse culinary invasions (Arabic, Jewish, Spanish, Central European . . .)’.3

1.  Italy in the mid-­nineteenth century: development and nutrition Throughout a large part of the liberal history of unified Italy, the state remained considerably absent with concern to the initiatives aimed at improving citizens’ nutrition. The various governments of that period merely opted for interventions of support in the parliamentary inquiries on Italian living standards and passed laws against food adulteration and fraud. Before the civil strife of the 1890s, the liberal governments did not have a clear agenda as to the social policies to promote, which often proved to be little more than a jumble of ideas and good intentions. Moreover, the Italian state itself was poor and its lack of funds prevented profound interventions in the public health sector. Precisely because of the government’s inaction, the public debate on the theme of food consumption was mainly focused on the difficulties of Italians making ends meet. Poor people, farm workers, labourers and all tended to suffer, with different intensity, from inadequate nutrition and a repetitive diet, also based on the emerging international scientific standards. For the majority of Italians, food scarcity and the difficulties of daily food provision was likely a concern at least until the end of the nineteenth century. Commentators from that period ‘agree  in defining food availability and the diet composition of a large share of citizens respectively as insufficient and unbalanced’.4

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Florence

Figure 13.1  The pleasures of winter: the kitchen. Source: ‘I piaceri dell’inverno-­la cucina’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 4, no. 5, 2–9 February 1867. Private Collection.

There is a vast amount of reference material on nutrition in Italy. In the years immediately following the country’s unification, as mentioned already, the food issue led to the collection of information and statistics related to the production and consumption of food. The activity of the national Statistical Office of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce and the important inquiries promoted by the Parliament provided so much data that ISTAT (the Italian National Statistical Institute), in 1957, could publish the reconstruction of the series concerning food production and consumption throughout the entire 1861–1955 period. Since then, historians and economists have continued to debate this statistical series, although often referring to the state as a whole while placing the regional analysis on a subordinate level.5

1.1.  Nutrition and life conditions in unified Italy The possibility of using such a significant amount of data urges an analysis of food consumption from a national perspective, firstly connected with the problem of disposable income. This, in turn, broadens the scope of our investigation, indeed indeterminate and generally hard to explore, on Italian people’s life conditions throughout the second half of the nineteenth century.6 It is in these decades that we can pinpoint the beginning of Italy’s modern economic growth. Between the first years of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, the per capita GDP grew by over 200 per cent, and private consumption by

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30 per cent, aligning the country with the other advanced European economies. Looking at the situation more in detail though, the general picture proves to be more indefinite, as we can see in Table 13.1, where we may find the average values (by decade) of some variables used as economic indicators of well-­being. We shall resume the analysis of these data shortly. For the moment, let us just underline that historians and economists used the theme of life standards as an indicator of the country’s development, with specific reference to consumption, particularly of food. However, such an approach aroused perplexities, or at least  raised questions: the implications of nutrition studies, in fact, involve several different disciplines and methods of analysis, from economics to sociology and even anthropology. Moreover, the official food consumption statistics are far from being accurate and sufficiently meaningful, since they face the impossibility of observing  the actual life of families with specific reference to food allocation or to the  phenomenon of self-­consumption, which in that period was still relevant in rural communities.7 The transformations in the Italian primary sector between the end of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century were so profound that many historians described them as an ‘agricultural revolution’,8 whose main trait was the capacity of the primary sector to adjust production to consumption. Consequently, famine and mortality crises – which until then had blocked the European population’s growth – gradually vanished. This implied a new relationship between the countryside and the market, a ‘diversification in production finalisation’9 that shifted a broad range of products (wheat, livestock, wine, oil and citrus fruits) towards local, regional or national commerce, thanks also to a phase of price increases, and thus progressively subtracted them from rural self-­consumption and the diet of the working class.

Table 13.1  Well-­being and national accounting: Italy 1861–1913 Year (1)

Per Capita GDP (2)

1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 1911

2178.0 2167.5 2211.8 2202.7 2366.8 2812.6 2306.5

Consumption Share (3) 89.3 88.7 88.0 87.6 86.0 82.8 87.1

Food (4) 58.8 59.0 58.7 56.6 56.5 54.8 57.4

Housing (%) Clothes (%) Other (%) (5) (6) (7) 14.6 15.2 14.9 15.1 14.7 13.6 14.7

11.1 10.7 11.9 13.3 12.5 12.9 12.1

15.5 15.2 14.5 15.0 16.3 18.7 15.7

Notes: amounts in 1938 lire. Source: estimates based on data described in N. Rossi, A. Sorgato and G. Toniolo, ‘I conti economici italiani: una ricostruzione statistica, 1890–1990’, Rivista di Storia economica, 10 (1993), 1–47; table from G. Vecchi, ‘Il benessere dell’Italia liberale (1861–1913)’, in Storia Economica d’Italia, ed. P. Ciocca and G. Toniolo (Bari: Laterza, 2003), 71–98, 73.

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Concerning these lights and shadows, Riccardo Bachi observed: The living standard, particularly of the urban and rural working class, which already was quite low at the time of the Kingdom of Italy’s creation, declined considerably after some initial signs of nineteenth century partial improvement or standstill, throughout the final part of the nineteenth century, coinciding with an extremely serious economic depression.10

Dalla Peruta made similar remarks analysing the dramatic consequences of a diet that ‘for large strata of the population often consisted only of wild herbs or acorns’.11 Such remarks led Stefano Somogyi to pay special attention to the contemporary descriptions of the miserable conditions of large sections of society, concluding that ‘whichever the period or the author, the resulting scenery often takes on nightmarish contours and traits’.12 In truth, in the debate between pessimists and optimists concerning the quality of life in Italy over the second half of the century, the latter seemed to prevail. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Alfredo Niceforo wrote that Italian consumers were the soberest in Europe, due to the sad circumstances, compared with the other nations, of having to eat worse and definitely low-­quality food. Such a vision quite recently brought about remarks regarding Italy suffering at that time a physical and nutritional disadvantage, confirmed by the low performances of a wealth of physiological parameters (such as height and mental development).13 Yet later studies deeply modified this interpretation. The data in Table  13.2 indicate that, based on the estimates of per capita caloric availability, at the time of unification Italians on average did not suffer from an  energy deficit. The key to the analysis is precisely the expression ‘on average’, which does not exclude the existence of pockets of malnutrition or under-­nutrition. The analyses of inequality over the forty years following Italy’s unification describe a country with a considerable level of income inequality. In the 1880s, 42 per cent of total expenditure came from the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population, whereas the poorest (20 per cent) contributed with a 6.7 per cent share.14

Table 13.2  Well-­being and nutrition: Italy 1861–1913 Indicator

1861

1871

1881

1891

1901

1911

Total calories Animal proteins (g) Vegetable proteins (g) Carbohydrates (g) Lipids (g)

2466 15.3 73.5 404.4 39.1

2400 14.6 70.6 391.6 43.0

2508 15.4 71.8 401.6 50.9

2582 16.6 72.4 409.8 54.3

2682 19.0 73.2 419.5 57.5

2752 21.0 74.3 430.4 55.5

Source: The assemblages employed are described in G. Federico, Another Italian miracle? Heights, calories and economic growth in Italy, 1860–1910, mimeo, 2001. Proteins, carbohydrates and lipids are expressed in grams and calculated using the coefficients specified in Tabelle di conversion degli elementi, ed. F. Carnovale and F. Miuccio (Roma: Istituto Nazionale della Nutrizione, 1989). Table from G. Vecchi, ‘Il benessere dell’Italia liberale (1861–1913)’, 71–98, 78.

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We should also consider that average caloric availability does not offer any information on the necessary nutrients for an adequate diet, nor on the aspects related to the quality of food. However, Table 13.2 shows that carbohydrates were a considerable part of the average Italian diet, whereas the low quota of lipids (which nonetheless increased by more than 25 per cent over fifty years) emphasizes the limited consumption of meat and dairy products. This is the sign of a diet with an indeed considerable presence of vegetable substances, which actually provided 80 per cent of proteins.15 Yet, what was the impact of food consumption on per capita GDP? The relation between income and food consumption is particularly meaningful, and is usually described by the so-­called Engel’s law, indicating that the share of family income destined to food diminishes when income increases, thus highlighting the necessity of satisfying primary needs first.16 The share of GDP destined to consumption, which economists consider an index of people’s life conditions and of national wealth, currently fluctuates in Italy at around 50 per cent, with housing accounting for 28 per cent of real expenditure, followed by food (19 per cent) and transport and communications (18 per cent),17 whereas in the Ancien régime economies it absorbed at least 80–90 per cent of income. Up to the beginning of the last century, the expenditure for food accounted on average for 70–80 per cent of private consumption. For Italy, such data are confirmed in Table 13.1. It remained substantially unaltered, and sometimes grew even higher, throughout the entire period we are examining. If we consider other basic needs such as housing, clothing or healthcare services, we realize that other expenses (like education, leisure, transport, etc.) were necessarily considered non-­essential, and exhibited a high elasticity compared with income, appearing exclusively in wealthiest class family budgets. However, Vecchi resolutely criticizes such an approach, deeming the historical series of food consumption expenditure a misleading well-­being indicator.18 Still, it is undeniable that a large share of per capita income, although increasing over the first century after Italy’s unification, remained destined to the purchase of food for decades.

1.2.  Food consumption If we move on from the incidence of consumption for an average Italian citizen to food selection and its evolution over the first forty years of the kingdom’s history, we can create a chart such as Table 13.3. The figures confirm and qualify the previous remarks: a preponderant amount of wheat, paddy rice, potatoes, pulses and vegetables in general, and an amount of meat less than 20 kilograms per year, albeit diminishing over time down to an average of about 15 kilograms. The consumption of non-­essential foodstuffs like coffee, beer and sugar was generally low, whereas at the beginning of the twentieth century, consumption of wine was indeed considerable, exceeding 100 litres a year (probably necessary to provide the calories that lacked in a low-­animal protein diet). The limitations of these data are evident: apart from the previously mentioned problem of self-­consumption, they do not emphasize product variety and their territorial and social distribution. It is therefore clear that they may not be used to describe the food model of specific situations, which could be indeed very diverse. It is inconceivable, especially in relation to this time ­frame, to employ one single figure to

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214

Table 13.3  Annual per capita consumption of some categories of foodstuffs, expressed in kilograms and litres

Wheat Paddy rice Potatoes Dried pulses Tomatoes Other vegetables Fruit Beef and veal Pork, lamb, goat meat Other meat Fresh and dried seafood Eggs Milk and cheese Olive oil Butter Bacon fat and lard Sugar Coffee Wine Beer

1861

1881

1901

134.9 5.8 23.9 13.9 11.4 37.0 69.6 5.7 9.5 4.1 2.6 8.1 31.3 8.6 0.3 5.1 2.3 0.4 87.4 0.2

117.6 15.7 22.7 16.0 12.6 38.5 57.6 5.3 7.9 3.8 3.7 5.9 36.1 8.8 0.6 4.2 1.6 0.5 94.9 0.6

145.7 15.1 25.3 16.7 19.9 35.2 71.5 6.0 6.4 3.2 3.7 57.1 38.2 4.7 0.6 3.4 3.1 0.5 108.6 0.7

Source: P. Quirino, ‘I consumi in Italia dall’Unità a oggi’, in Storia dell’economia italiana. III. L’età contemporanea. Un paese nuovo (Torino: Einaudi, 1991).

describe consumption in urban and rural contexts, or to compare common people’s diet to that of the upper classes. Regional peculiarities, too, influenced family food consumption: a direct consequence of the morphological features and agricultural methods of the different parts of Italy. At the time of the country’s unification, in fact, agriculture absorbed the large majority of the labour force (67 per cent in 1861, compared to 59.1 per cent in 1911), but rather similar values persisted until the eve of the First World War.

2.  Tuscany within unified Italy According to Roberto Vivarelli, three distinct consumption areas could be identified in unified Italy: wheat flour, maize flour and chestnut flour. The situation of Tuscany (the region we are examining here) was just as complex, so that we could almost say that its inhabitants lived in different ‘Tuscanies’, with reference to areas whose respective territories had varying economic and geomorphological structures. Subdivided into seven provinces (Arezzo, Florence, Grosseto, Livorno, Lucca, Pisa and Siena), Tuscany had a surface area of about 22,200 square kilometres, with a limited plain extension being largely unhealthy and marshy, especially in its central and southern parts, delimited and crossed by sizeable mountain formations. The main river

Food and Consumption in Florence and Tuscany

215

basins pertained to the three major rivers of Serchio, Arno and Ombrone, whereas over the rest of the region the typical hilly Tuscan landscape prevailed. Such a territory, therefore, was indeed diverse with regards to the different areas considered. Let us think of a quadrilateral whose vertexes were Florence, Pistoia, Viareggio and Livorno. Such a surface area was completely in contrast with the rest as it contained eight of the ten cities with more than 6,000 inhabitants and thirty of the forty-­three villages having over 2,000 individuals. This was a strongly developed area. It enjoyed evident economic advantages that actually influenced people’s diet. The hilly and mountainous parts, rather, with the Apennines from Mount Amiata to Lunigiana, offered agricultural activities based on the exploitation of the wonderful undulating hills, aside from the wood- and chestnut-­based economy. The district of Grosseto was even more distinct, with its extended marshes, cattle farms and large estates. So many environments in a sole region, the Tuscany of the time of Italy’s unification was still suffering from delayed industrialization processes and thus proceeded slowly and with many contradictions. The whole territory consisted in one-­third woods, one-­ third arable land and one-­third pastures. In 1861, Tuscany had 1,827,000 inhabitants, of which 64.5 per cent lived in the hills and 22 per cent in the mountains, with only the remaining 13.5 per cent on the few planes without marshes. Thus, agriculture was the strongest economic sector, although not of outstanding quality. It absorbed 54 per cent of the labour force, compared with industry’s 25 per cent. Moreover, agriculture was essentially based on sharecropping. This is another point on which we should reflect, since sharecropping and associated crops allowed peasants autonomy in the management of their own activities, but at the same time oriented their nutritional habits towards self-­consumption. The effects were almost automatic: trying to destine the majority of their products to the market, peasants limited the quality and diversity of food intended for their own family use.

2.1.  Food consumption and family income in Tuscany during the nineteenth century When analysing the incidence of food consumption on the total income of Tuscan families, one of the main sources of information is the fair amount of family budgets available for this region. Historians know very well the limits of this documentation. In fact, family budgets have only recently begun to be taken into account within the context of diet evolution studies. According to the most severe critics, these materials are suitable for descriptive investigations, but they are not compatible with statistical and quantitative analyses, since the documents are not well structured and therefore are unable to provide data referable to the entire population.19 After the pioneering researches by Niceforo (1933), Somogyi (1959) and Vecchi (1994),20 a few studies have emerged in recent years that re-­elaborate and standardize family budgets, making them comparable in time and space, and are thus representative of the entire Italian population.21 In this case, we shall not proceed with similar operations for the simple reason that the family budgets related to the Tuscan territory for the period under examination are not numerous enough, and any elaboration would not be adequate for quantitative analysis standards.

216

Florence

The above does not exclude the possibility of a merely descriptive use of the remaining documentation collected over the years by scholars and repeatedly catalogued in order to homogenize the various items as much as possible, while making the results comparable at least within specific time intervals. Here we shall take Vecchi’s work into consideration. In fact, while developing Somogyi’s researches, he systematized a broad corpus of Italian family budgets between 1860 and 1960, limiting expenditure items (often numerous and diverse) to a few elements, borrowed from the structure elaborated by Le Play during the first half of the nineteenth century:22 Food, Housing (inclusive of Rent, Furniture, Heating and Lighting), Clothing and residual items under Miscellaneous Expenses. In Table 13.4 the data related to Tuscan families are summarized, chronologically ordered and subdivided by type of activity carried out by the head of household.23 Save for a few exceptions, these are essentially the budgets of peasant and labourer families living in rural areas. The shares of food consumption were predictably high,  if not very high. In some cases, the entire family budget was absorbed by food expenditure (a sharecropper from Roccalbegna and a peasant from Arezzo). However, in general terms, the average was really high (over 80 per cent), and only in very rare cases did the percentage decrease below 65 per cent. The direct consequence was a dramatic reduction in other expenditure items, mostly housing, which nonetheless could be provided by the farmstead owner, depending on the type of agricultural contract. With concern to this period, we do not have data related to the budgets of families belonging to higher social strata. In fact, the social and scientific interests of the authors of these papers was oriented towards the study of life conditions for the poorer classes and resulted in scientific publications often written by physiologists or anthropologists who only dealt with the nutritional aspects. In this regard, it is particularly interesting to read the wealth of documentation, until now unpublished, kept in the private Martini-Edlmann archive, since it has proven to be an effective indicator of daily food expenditure habits of a Florentine upper-­class family in the late nineteenth century.24 The initial analyses carried out on the documentation relating to the family household expenses offer an insight into the annual budget management. Thanks to Elena Edlmann’s diligent notes in specific notebooks, we can reconstruct the most important expenditure items over a period from 1872 to 1884. In Table 13.5, we find a set of data that, although not closely corresponding to the Table  13.3 outline, can provide an impressive amount of information. A comparison with the previous data is discordant, although the two series are not directly comparable due to the difficulties in applying the ‘Le Play model’ to the various expenditure categories indicated in the Martini-Edlmann documentation (nonetheless summed up in the main entries of Table 13.5).25 Figure 13.2 briefly illustrates the trend of food expenditure over the years, compared with the total family budget. It goes without saying that its incidence, which was on average low, further decreased when exceptional expenses were incurred, such as those related to the extraordinary house maintenance of 1880. Food expenditure, which we shall examine in detail further  on, was rich and varied, never exceeding 30 per cent of the total, averaging around

Table 13.4  Budgets of certain Tuscan families (1857–91) Year

Head of household’s job

Place

1857

Sharecropper

Florence

10

1965.55

  66.16

1860

Lead smelter worker Miner Sharecropper Sharecropper

Apuan Alps

 4

  965.49

  61.08

Maremma Pisa plain Roccasancasciano (FI, until 1923) Montantico (GR) Montantico (GR) Massa M.ma (GR) Massa M.ma (GR) Massa M.ma (GR) Pitigliano (GR) Pitigliano (GR) Arezzo

 3 12  5

1015.38 1489.32 1355.25

  67.90   57.63   56.60

 5  5  6  6  6 10 10 12

  918.00   870.00   797.4 1283.15 1651.40 1435.00 1541.28 2047.60

  85.35   84.01   87.16   86.86   84.41   83.02   78.87   99.41

Arezzo

10

1235.37

  99.41

Arezzo

 5

  242.70

  91.07

Roccalbegna (GR) Roccalbegna (GR) Roccalbegna (GR) Pian di Pisa Pescia (PT) Florence

10  6  4 12  2  4

1812.5 2856.60   702.00

100.00 100.00   90.44   74.43   92.64   77.10

1860 1860 1878–79 1878–79 1878–79 1878–79 1878–79 1878–79 1878–79 1878–79 1878–79 1878–79 1878–79 1878–79 1878–79 1878–79 1880 1882 1891

Tenant Tenant Farmer Farmer Farmer Sharecropper Wage labourer Sharecropper peasant Sharecropper peasant Temporary labourer Sharecropper Working owner Farm labourer Sharecropper Labourer Artisan

No. of Income in members lire

1066.00 2380.00

Food (%)

Rent (%)

Furniture (%)

Heating (%)

6.69

2.62

2.41

12.70

12.7

16.01

6.29

2.18

9.17

2.04

19.67

15.56

3.68

5.61

1.78 6.14

4.02 4.59 12.63

2.16

13.57

1.26

19.25

14.12 21.49 21.15

4.41 10.15 3.00

13.32 12.24 11.67 9.39 7.42 14.15 11.32

2.28 1.17 3.75 8.17 2.83 2.26

5.36

Lighting (%)

1.33 1.47

1.33 1.47

7.55

8.12

0.59

7.55 0.59

0.59

0.59

0.81

8.93

3.86

9.56 16.23 7.36 8.16

9.56 1.23

Total Clothing housing (%) (%)

7.36 3.08

9.34 14.74

Misc. expenses (%)

Wages

2336.55 19.04 2930.98 23.69 2701.51 22.98 2912.12 20.65 2645.82 25.68 2912.10 21.24 2924.44 20.20 2932.86 16.74 2964.67 9.35 3688.83 21.21 3825.26 24.56 3813.90 21.46 3982.23 20.92

966.00 7.87 965.50 7.80 751.00 6.39 861.00 6.10 768.60 7.46 958.00 6.99 923.00 6.37 935.70 5.34 1050.00 3.31 1262.00 7.26 1303.00 8.37 1354.00 7.62 1574.85 8.27

Rent and other housing expenses 2279.87 18.58 1915.27 15.48 2460.68 20.93 1746.92 12.39 2339.37 22.70 2228.67 16.25 2833.08 19.56 2750.29 15.70 9310.50 29.35 1930.59 11.10 983.21 6.31 1253.89 7.06 711.40 3.74

Heating

Transport

Clothing

137.15 1.12 145.50 1.18 155.24 1.32 168.70 1.20 65.70 0.64 12.18 0.09 41.59 0.29 115.57 0.66 201.50 0.64 232.95 1.34 283.50 1.82 325.05 1.83 290.95 1.53

185.45 1.51 132.35 1.07 426.19 3.63 593.01 4.20 218.70 2.12 235.96 1.72 240.18 1.66 298.77 1.71 362.11 1.14 228.87 1.32 124.23 0.80 157.41 0.89 156.90 0.82

1856.12 15.13 1695.87 13.71 1702.91 14.48 2063.38 14.63 1256.68 12.20 2075.06 15.13 1813.31 12.52 1805.47 10.30 2632.03 8.30 1013.82 5.83 1198.63 7.70 1386.08 7.80 1776.41 9.33

Notes: Data taken from the FME and hence elaborated, FME-REG028, pages not numbered.

Leisure Miscellaneous and extraordinary exp. 2623.11 21.38 3283.29 26.54 2443.98 20.79 1780.27 12.62 225.00 2.18 2884.30 21.03 3693.62 25.51 4386.21 25.03 10188.26 32.12 2639.08 15.18 2224.26 14.28 3459.96 19.47 3862.49 20.29

1845.48 15.04 1278.19 10.33 1100.92 9.36 1655.21 11.74 511.90 4.97 104.37 0.76 60.20 0.42 1101.39 6.29 2069.22 6.52 3695.53 21.25 2984.15 19.16 3764.55 21.18 4030.11 21.17

Taxes and duties 40.28 0.33 25.59 0.21 14.45 0.12 2323.69 16.48 2271.64 22.05 2301.53 16.78 1951.58 13.48 3196.59 18.24 2944.70 9.28 2696.42 15.51 2649.51 17.01 2256.70 12.70 2649.33 13.92

Total 12270.01 100.00 12372.54 100.00 11756.88 100.00 14104.30 100.00 10303.41 100.00 13712.17 100.00 14481.00 100.00 17522.85 100.00 31722.99 100.00 17388.09 100.00 15575.75 100.00 17771.54 100.00 19034.67 100.00

Florence

1872 % 1873 % 1874 % 1875 % 1876 % 1877 % 1878 % 1879 % 1880 % 1881 % 1882 % 1883 % 1884 %

Food

218

Table 13.5  Composition of the annual expenditure of the Martini-Edlmann family (1872–84)

Food and Consumption in Florence and Tuscany

219

Percentage of total annual expenditure

30.00 25.00 20.00 15.00 10.00 5.00 0.00 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 Year

Figure 13.2  Trend of food expenditure expressed as a percentage (1872–84).

20–25 per cent over the years. We cannot exclude that part of the food came from  the Martini-Edlmann family properties, as was certainly the case for wine (as proven by other documents)26 and oil. However, its incidence was undoubtedly different to that of working-­class family budgets. The item related to wages is also particularly meaningful. It is unclear if this figure refers to the total number of employees of  the family businesses (day labourers, farmers, etc.) or only to domestic staff, which  in any case must not have been an irrelevant expense. One of the typical traits of Florentine wealthy families, still at the beginning of the nineteenth century and then in later years, was the employment of a large number of servants. Four hundred ‘well-­off ’ families of the first half of the century employed on average five servants each.27 However, the figure that emphasizes the Martini-Edlmann’s different social and economic condition is the budget share destined to leisure and clothing, which rarely dropped below 20 per cent, with several peaks of around 40 per cent in some particularly ‘carefree’ years.

2.2.  Food consumption We can now attempt to broaden the scope of observation in order to cover the entire territory. Due to Tuscany’s specific features, applying the statistical elaborations previously considered for Italy as a whole may result in even less significant data. However, some information found in a series of studies from the late nineteenth century may be taken as a basis from which we can start developing a more detailed analysis of the various environments (such as in relation to the aforementioned city/ country or rich/poor dualism). In 1879, Raseri published a substantial study in the Annali di Statistica carried out on a national basis on food consumption in the different social classes.28 This research

Florence

220

was effectuated thanks to data provided by physicians in 471 municipalities of the kingdom. Such data were collected in eight macro-­zones comprised of numerous regions. In particular, we focus on number V, comprising sixty municipalities in Liguria and Tuscany, plus Rome (see Table 13.6). Apart from the dubious composition of the various zones, it is evident that the distinction between ‘poor’ and ‘rich’, however evocative, is arbitrary and has limited explanatory value, since the parameters employed in the categorization are not specified.29 Therefore, analysis of these data should be with some reservations. Nonetheless, we can rather easily notice certain features related to this area that distinguished it from the northern regions (where corn was abundantly used), while associating it with southern Italy with regards to the prevalent use of wheat. However, minor cereals that were scarcely consumed in Zone V were almost exclusively used by the poorest classes, which could also eat chestnuts in mountainous areas. As to meat, it was a secondary element in poor people’s diet. The difference between the consumption of animal substances by the poor and wealthy is impressive. Only in one-­quarter of the municipalities examined did the poor consume meat, while the wealthier classes utilized it, and especially beef, in all territories considered. Table 13.7, presented by Raseri but drafted by Lombroso,30 is especially meaningful, since it specifies the quantity of meat slaughtered annually in some rural hamlets of Lucca’s countryside. These data are consistent with the national values illustrated in Table 13.3, yet indicate an extremely low and occasional consumption level. Further on, we shall focus on the role of meat in rural areas. Table 13.6  Nutrition of poor and wealthy people, 1879 Poor people’s diet % of Municip. in which people abundantly use Cornbread Polenta Wheat bread Rice Potatoes Chestnuts Pulses and fruit Pasta Acorns Barley Millet Rye         Beef and veal

Region I

II

29 100 52 12 38 19 69 10 – 2 2 – 17

64 100 17 30 15 6 55 9 – 2 3 5

62 100 22 11 7 – 74 2 – 4 – 2

24

27

(3)

(3)

50 2 9

25 – 22

Meat    Lamb

8

        Pork Dairy products Frogs and snails Seafood

2 25 2 –

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

100 (1) 29 – 10 4 67 7 4 – – – 6

73 (2) 68 2 23 22 72 12 2 3 – – 18

100 20 39 – 45 4 79 15 – 2 – – 5

24 1 52 3 25 1 100 7 – 26 1 3

4 – 90 – – – 100 21 – 2 – 6

13

4

18

10

21

11 17 – 13

5 7 – 2

19 2 – 2

3 3 4

– – 13

Food and Consumption in Florence and Tuscany Cured meats Chicken Water alone Vinello (light wine) Wine Spirits

4 – 31 37 33 2

8 – 49 11 29 8

18 5 33 27 31 13

4 4 42 33 27 6

221

5 – 35 12 53 7

9 – 39 9 48 4

6 – 29 5 66 5

2 – 28 5 67 –

VII

VIII

– 100 5 96 4 – 67 97 (4) 9 29 8 10 23 4 96 12 –

– 100 – 91 – – 28 90

  Poor people’s diet

Region

% of Municip. in which people abundantly use Cornbread or polenta Wheat bread Rice Pulses and fruit Potatoes Chestnuts Pasta         Beef and veal Meat    Lamb         Pork Seafood Chicken Cured meats Dairy products Vinello (light wine) Wine Spirits Beer

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

19 100 19 53 6 6 11 98 – 15 6 15 4 17 11 89 – –

15 100 30 21 2 – 10 97 – 5 6 – 2 32 – 100 2 5

30 100 36 30 – – 13 91 6 25 11 45 – 11 4 96 – 4

8 100 10 18 2 – 6 90 16 16 10 18 2 18 2 98 2 –

5 100 5 22 7 7 20 86 8 5 18 24 – 18 – 100 2 –

2 100 4 32 4 – 63 79 31 9 21 17 14 40 5 95 2 –

(4) 48 11 – 22 2 98 2 –

Notes: (1) mostly polenta; (2) often focaccia; (3) especially pork products; (4) more often lamb. Source: E. Raseri, ‘Alimenti e bevande prevalenti nell’alimentazione dei poveri e in quella dei ricchi’, Annali di Statistica, s. 2, no. 8 (1879), 42.

Table 13.7  Meat slaughtered annually in Lucca’s countryside, 1877 Name of rural hamlet

Porcari Capannori, Fossignano e Paganico Badia di Pozzeveri Ruota, Castelvecchio, Colle di Compito and Sant’Andrea

Population Slaughtered Slaughtered Total Meat eaten beef and veal pork (Kg) slaughtered annually by one (Kg) meat (Kg) person (Kg) 4,261 4,222

5,600 8,000

26,333 20,533

31,933 28,533

6,995 6,788

1,338 5,052

– 7,333

  1,666   26,766

  1,666 34,099

1,245 8,411

Source: E. Raseri, ‘Alimenti e bevande prevalenti nell’alimentazione dei poveri e in quella dei ricchi’, Annali di Statistica, s. 2, no. 8 (1879), 44.

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222

Finally, let us refer to wine consumption, whose use was spread all throughout the region, albeit predominantly among the wealthier strata of the population. The poor could barely afford the so-­called vinello or acquerello (light wine), a term that could indicate different beverages according to the region, but could generally be described as a low-­quality surrogate of the ‘decent wine’ present on the tables of the wealthy. This generally was a drink obtained by pouring pure water into the marc and leaving it to ferment in the vat for a few days. Only according to 50 per cent of the municipalities surveyed did poorer people also drink more quality wine. Table 13.8 offers an overview elaborated by Raseri on the basis of the calculations provided by the consumption duty offices of each Tuscan city. These figures therefore concern nutrition in urban contexts, gathered within a regional perspective. Here,  we can observe the per capita annual consumption of certain foodstuffs. Based on  the above, when comparing this table with Table 13.6, we cannot be surprised by the considerable difference in meat consumption levels between cities and the countryside. The abundant use of bread, rather (on average, half a kilo per day), is confirmed alongside a long list of non-­essential items such as sugar and coffee having much higher values than the national average, and obviously wine.31 At this point, in order to examine the situation in greater detail and to see what Tuscans of all social origins actually ate, it is necessary to carry out a predominately qualitative analysis. From this point of view, the documentation that may be used to describe the various eating habits and diets of Tuscans in the nineteenth century is virtually limitless. Indeed, it is not surprising that economic historians also draw largely on sources they would not normally use, such as literary and anecdotal evidence, newspaper reports and so on. In order to explore this topic more thoroughly, we should first make the aforementioned distinctions between city and countryside and between working classes and upper classes.

3.  Nutrition in the countryside 3.1.  Sharecroppers’ diet With over half the working population involved in activities related to agriculture, we should certainly effectuate a distinct analysis of Tuscan peasants’ diet, with concern to a type of contract and production relationship predominant back then throughout a large part of central Italy and particularly in Tuscany: sharecropping. Introduced in an indeed remote historical phase (at least from the late Middle Ages or the beginning of the Modern Era), the sharecropping contract was used uninterruptedly for centuries, abandoned only after the Second World War. Indeed, it deeply influenced the region’s natural, economic, social and cultural environment. Eating habits are reliable indicators of a social organization’s traits. This is particularly evident in traditional societies, in which material production often fluctuates around the subsistence threshold, thus placing extraordinary importance on food.32 A rough examination of the features of

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Table 13.8  Per capita annual consumption of various foodstuffs in Tuscany, 1879 Foodstuffs Ox meat Cow meat Veal Fresh meat Total Pork Lamb Poultry and game meat Salted meat Seafood Meat total Eggs Butter Cheese Milk Honey Bread Inferior cereals Dried pulses Fresh pulses (*) Potatoes Chestnuts Rice Dried fruit Fresh fruit Citrus fruit Oil Sugar Coffee Home-­grown coffee Wine in litres Alcoholic drinks above 59% Alcoholic drinks below 59% Beer in litres Total foodstuffs Total beverages (wine and beer) Daily food ration

Population 283,308 ″ ″ ″ . . . 202,394 283,308 ″ ″ ″ ″ 283,308 ″ ″ ″ ″ ″ ″ ″ . . . . . . 270,308 ″ ″ 283,308 ″ ″ ″ ″ ″ ″ ″ ″ 247,377 . . . . . . . . .

Consumption (Kg) 11.160 1.200 9.430 2.660 24.450 5.470 3.350 4.720 1.070 7.960 49.020 5.130 1.960 3.360 19.340 0.050 172.100 4.640 6.230 80 . . . 5.88 4.82 8.15 32.91 9.47 9.79 14.11 2.48 0.54 167 2.9 2.9 1.6 429.98 168.6 1,180

Source: E. Raseri, ‘Alimenti e bevande prevalenti nell’alimentazione dei poveri e in quella dei ricchi’, in Annali di Statistica, s. 2, no. 8 (1879), 72–73.

‘classic’ sharecropping (despite the varying places and situations), suffices to allow us to imagine how much and in which ways it conditioned peasants’ daily life. As a rule, the produce from the farmstead (podere)33 was shared equally between the farming family and the owners, possibly excluding the limited amount of produce coming from vegetable gardens, which was reserved for the homesteader. In the middle of the area lay a farmhouse where the sharecropper and his family lived. This was a sort of integrated production compartment, modelled in accordance with the farming

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needs. Such an economic unit was oriented towards both self-­consumption and the market: two elements combined based on the specific farming features of the podere, the number of family members and the proximity to marketplaces.34 The farming family’s eating habits were the result of a series of factors inherent in the system’s operating mode and in the social relationships that it generated. Many eating choices were determined within such a framework of reference, regulating the quantity and quality of the resources to which the family had access for its own nourishment. In other words, the very perception that sharecroppers had of themselves was conditioned by the problem of food scarcity. The fact of being a production and consumption economic unit caused the sharecropper family to organize its own life following a specific hierarchy and a rigid distribution of duties. At the top was the capoccia, the head of the family, in charge of directing and controlling everything, although being assisted in his responsibilities by the massaia (‘housewife’, generally – but not always – his wife). The two of them organized and regulated the productive, social and devotional activities of the entire extended family, as well as its eating habits. It was they who determined which resources were destined to the daily meals or to the market. Meals were consumed in the farmhouse by all family members (compatibly with their work in the fields). This ritual strengthened the internal bonds of solidarity and belonging, and emphasized the diversity of family roles between sexes and generations. In a sharecropper’s house, the capoccia typically sat at the head of the table, and beside him were his working-­age sons, either married or not. At the opposite head of the table were the women, that is, the massaia, the unmarried daughters and the daughters-­in-law (the spose, literally ‘brides’, in the Tuscan tradition), who took care of the children of the house. Sometimes, women were excluded from the common meal and had to eat in the kitchen, or in other rooms, after serving the men.35 The ritualistic nature of sharecroppers’ meals ‘blended, with perfect continuity, the perception of the natural sacredness of earth produce with pre-Christian fertility and fecundity cults, apotropaic traditions and the Christian rites of death and rebirth’.36 Think of soups with eggs and certain cakes prepared during the Easter period. Some ‘magic beliefs and practices’ were also numerous and widespread, and part of these concerned the nutrition sphere. These could be divided into two types: therapeutic and preventive.37 In the former case, some foodstuffs became the basic ingredients for preparations destined for the treatment of human or animal diseases, whereas in the latter consumption was prescribed in order to prevent the possible occurrence of illnesses, especially in pregnant women. In traditional cultures, pregnancy was the subject of many ‘magical’ precautions, whose function was to facilitate childbirth and protect the psychological and physical health of the newborn. They could result in dietary-­nutritional prohibitions, such as rules preventing the consumption of specific items – for instance, the meat of certain animals – or their single parts or interiors, whose negative properties could be passed on to the baby. Concerning positive prescriptions, there was the obligatory consumption of specific types of food, known as voglia (craving), that had to be satisfied, since neglecting this desire might affect the newborn in horrible ways.

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3.2.  Nutrition and territory Territorial morphology, as we have remarked, influenced peasants’ habits and diet, and impacted upon their eating preferences whether they lived in the mountains, plains or hills. The Agricultural Survey on farmers’ conditions in Italy, decreed by the law dated 15 March 1877 and known as the ‘Jacini Survey’,38 had focused on the various features of estates, cultivations and farming methods, as well as on peasants’ life conditions. Thus, it had revealed that, twenty years after Italy’s unification, there were still various environmental and productive settings, with different relative habits, customs and cultures. The Findings of the Giunta per l’Inchiesta Agraria (Committee for the Agricultural Survey), which were published in 1881, provide interesting information as to farm workers’ physical, sanitary and health conditions, placing a special emphasis on the different nutritional features of Tuscan peasants in relation to the typology of territory inhabited.39 In mountainous regions, chestnuts played a crucial role, either by being ground into flour or eaten boiled or roasted. An adult man’s daily consumption could even reach a kilo. In some mountainous areas surrounding Lucca, chestnut flour ‘made into polenta or necci (12–15 cm diameter circles cooked between two stone slabs)’ could be the main meal throughout every season, whereas in other less-­wooded regions it alternated between cornflour or vecciato or segalato bread, being baked blends of wheat, vetches (vecce) and rye (segale). These products were accompanied by cheese, ricotta, dried salted cod, herring and other types of salted fish, beans and potatoes, while pork products were generally only eaten at solemn feasts. Wine was not normally drunk in mountainous regions. Rather, during the hardest-­working periods, peasants would enjoy a moderate quantity of spirits. Corn, instead, was typical of the area across the Apennines as much as in the plains, predominantly so during winter, whereas in other seasons wheat bread was preferred (seldom pure, but rather mixed with vetches, broad beans and rye). On the hills that cover two-­thirds of Tuscany, the main foodstuff was wheat flour bread (also in this case mixed with inferior cereals), integrated by other sorts of ingredients already mentioned in relation to the mountain dwellers’ diet, but with important additions like vegetables and a general use of pulses such as beans and chickpeas used in the preparation of soups drizzled with olive oil or pork fat and meat. Wine, habitually produced and often destined to the market, was not the main drink, which was rather vinello or, in the summer, mezzo vino (low-­quality and watered-­down wine) alternated with water.

3.3.  Diet and seasonality Another element influencing the peasant diet was seasonality: summer and autumn-­ winter were the food supply seasons that conditioned the entire following year. Summer harvests provided basic products for winter, whereas pig derivatives, such as sausages and other cured meats prepared during the coldest months, were the essential foodstuffs for summer activities.40 Different from what we might think, it was precisely in summer that the diet was enriched. During winter, rather, breaks from work in the fields

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permitted a reduction in the minimum number and relevance of meals, which were prepared to make homesteaders capable of withstanding the cold.41 An overview of the seasonality of farmers’ diets along with the different paces that fieldworks had during the year, may be found in a survey carried out on the peasants  of the Pistoia area over the first years of the 1880s by the medical officer G. Berti from Tizzana, and reported by C. M. Mazzini in his 1882 report.42 In winter, if the weather did not permit going out to work, there would be two main meals, one at eleven in the morning (often being 110 grams of beams dressed with olive oil or rifatti – ‘re-­cooked’ – in the saucepan, and half a kilo of cornbread) and another at five in the afternoon (a cornbread and cabbage soup cooked in the bean water, in which the massaia would boil a piece of salted pork). The drink was the aforementioned vinello. If, however, the weather permitted working in the fields, there would be three meals, which were actually consumed outdoors: at nine in the morning (beans and cornbread accompanied by real wine), at two in the afternoon (dried figs or walnuts,  or 60 grams of cheese, some fruit and half a kilo of cornbread, accompanied by  vinello or mezzone – one-­third wine and two-­thirds water, with the addition of cotto di granella, a sort of wine made with marc and water that made the drink stronger and tastier)43 and at half past five in the afternoon back at home (as a first course, a bread and cabbage soup in bean broth or a pasta soup, 250 grams per person, drizzled with pork fat or meat; as a second course, potatoes rifatte in the saucepan, or salted codfish or herring). The winter diet continued throughout the spring, yet the extra energy required by the preparation of land for the sowing of the so-­called second crops through to mowing the hays required an additional meal and a more substantial drink. Wine (albeit watered down) replaced the vinello, while in the morning mowers could have some rinfresco di Modena or acquavite (a spirit). Summer was the season in which work required maximum effort from peasants and diets consequently changed, raising the number of daily meals to four. Three of these were consumed directly in the fields: at seven in the morning (sixty grams of ham or salami, three hectograms of bread and 0.4 litres of wine), at midday (110 grams of beef, with whose broth the massaia prepared a pasta soup, plus 300 grams of wheat bread), at five in the afternoon – the merenda or ‘snack’ (fresh beans or boiled pumpkin coated in olive oil, or fried courgette flowers, wheat pancakes, bread and wine), then back at home at half past eight in the evening (a salad dressed with vinegar, bread and vinello). In autumn, when there were no more laborious tasks beyond the grape harvest and wine preparation, the diet was again similar to the winter one, although slightly richer and consumed at different hours (ten in the morning and six in the evening). The wine drunk was that newly vinified, when available. Overall, field workers’ typical diet, especially in the case of sharecroppers, was based on grains transformed into polenta or bread, as well as on soups made with bread.  All of this was accompanied by vegetables grown in the kitchen garden (carrots, cucumbers, all sorts of cabbage-­family varieties, turnips, onions, tomatoes and salads), potatoes, cheeses, cured meats and dried fish. In the 1920s, the sharecropper diet was still based on the daily consumption of wheat flour (61 per cent), potatoes and pulses

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(15.6 per cent), dairy products and eggs (10.2 per cent), meat (4.6 per cent), olive oil (2.8 per cent) and wine (0.6 per cent).44 Thus, meat was scarce and rare, usually reserved for non-­working days (Sundays and holidays). Beef was particularly limited since cows were essentially employed as working animals. Apart from game (hares, pheasants, ducks and birds), the protagonist of the peasants’ table was undoubtedly the pig, whose meat was consumed throughout the year either fresh or, more commonly, in the form of sausages or other kinds of cured meat. The diversity of products obtained from slaughtered animal meat, which followed their year-­long fattening with inferior cereals and bran, chestnuts or acorns, demonstrates that no parts of the pig were wasted, from the blood to the less valuable cuts. Pig slaughtering and meat processing, which were usually scheduled after the olive harvest and pressing, and carried out under the direction of the norcino (‘pork butcher’) – the nomadic worker specialized in pork processing – were among the main events of the sharecropper work calendar.45 The resulting products would provide food for the summer as well as for the following year, since the ripening time required by sausages and other cured meats could fluctuate from between six months (finocchiona, salami and rigatino – ‘salt-­cured bacon’) to one year (ham). Delicious and highly caloric pork products produced with discarded parts, such as soprassata or burischio, and migliaccini made with blood, were consumed immediately.

4.  Nutrition in the cities Albeit having different aspects, the complex phenomena that governed the countryside also emerged in the cities. While in the countryside, nutrition was influenced by the seasons and territorial morphology, in urban contexts the social structure determined the different eating habits. A more complex social stratification, from aristocrats to poor people, passing through the bourgeois classes, artisans and labourers, necessarily resulted in different consumption patterns. What’s more, food supply was more market-­ related, and therefore more price sensitive, compared with the countryside.46

4.1.  Working classes The diet of the working classes in the cities presented many analogies with that of the countryside, apart from a higher consumption of bread, pasta, wheat flour, beef (not top quality indeed) and dried fish. Bread, in particular, was a distinctive element, also in a symbolic sense, between the two environments: white bread for city inhabitants, rye bread for country-­dwellers.47 As to meat consumption levels, it is hard to reach specific conclusions. Testimonies from that period refer to its frequent presence also on the tables of the poorest families – even beef, which was certainly eaten less frequently in the countryside. The Risultati dell’inchiesta sulle condizioni igieniche e sanitarie nei Comuni del Regno (‘Results of the survey on sanitary and health conditions in the Municipalities of the Kingdom’) of 1886 offer a very brief overview of nutrition in the main Tuscan cities.48 Although wheat consumption prevailed everywhere (seldom accompanied by corn),

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Figure 13.3  A family of labourers. Source: ‘Buon esempio. Una famiglia di operai’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 3, no. 42, 20–27 October 1866. Private Collection.

fresh meat – mainly beef – was ‘used somewhat’, whereas pork was eaten less than sheep meat in several places, being a rarer sort of food intended for long storage (through salting) or used to produce sausages. So it was in Florence, Grosseto (‘fresh meat, that is, beef, sheep meat and pork, is quite broadly used’), Livorno (where it was predictably accompanied by seafood), Lucca, Massa, Pisa and Siena, where meat was part of the ‘ordinary diet’. Obviously, the quality and quantity of the meat contributed to structuring the urban social hierarchy, even if the ‘popular [cuisine] tradition’, in the nineteenth century aroused the bourgeois classes’ curiosity too.49 Veal, and particularly loin (from which the Florentine steak was made), cost as much as a labourer’s average daily wage. Still, the poor could nonetheless benefit from a food supply that in cities – and particularly in Florence – permitted them also to have their fill with a whole range of tasty but cheap foodstuffs, like plucks, or slaughtering offals such as tongue, paw, tripe, coratella, liver, muzzle, matrice (cow’s womb) and the very well-­known lampredotto. These products were usually offered to the people on the streets or in market squares by street vendors under ‘iconic’ names such as brodai (broth vendors), lupinai (lupin bean vendors), friggitori (fryers), castagnacciai (castagnaccio – ‘chestnut cake’ – vendors), fruttaioli (fruit vendors), cocomerai (watermelon vendors), testicciolai (vendors of small slaughtered animals’ heads) and so on.50 The street food tradition, the main catering business of all time worldwide,51 would last for a long time in Florence, and is still quite active today. Inns were also greatly appreciated by many people. Reporters

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from that period mention some of them, including Cervia on the old Via degli Speziali, Fila on Via del Corso (frequented also by poorer people, and whose milk-­fed veal ‘would wake the dead from their burials’),52 the so-­called ‘Doctor’s Inn’ on Via Piagentina by the Arno (so named because the innkeeper covertly administered medications to the people), which was famous for the fish fries prepared with catches from the river, Cianchi on Via Porta Rossa, Papini in Baccano, Gigi il Porco on Via de’ Pucci, which was mentioned in Carlo Collodi and Giosuè Carducci’s works,53 with its renowned stufatino di muscolo (a stew made with veal thigh and shoulder) and the cibreo di rigaglie, prepared by mixing chicken innards and eggs.54 However, the diet of the working classes was still based on soups and broths or bread and the relative accompaniments: vegetables, beans, pasta and wine, sometimes coming together with rifatta boiled meat, chicken giblets and similar inexpensive dishes. If we wish to imagine an average Florentine’s diet in around 1880, we may refer to the data reconstructed by Woolf, and so speculate on some figures related to those that he defines as the ‘pillars of popular food consumption’: bread, pasta, fresh pulses and wine (plus beef). The bread, pasta and wheat flour quotas amounted to about half a kilo per day, just as that of fresh vegetables, whereas milk and meat were eaten much less, amounting respectively to about a decilitre and a 100 grams per day. Wine, on the other hand, was consumed abundantly, on average half a litre per day (calculated on the entire population!). Obviously, these figures have to be read with a lot of caution, particularly because when major product price changes occurred, the extremely low-­level wages resulted in a rapid reduction in consumption.55 However, such figures may be considered compatible with those related to other comparable contexts: a labourer in a Casentino wool factory consumed an 850-gram bread ration daily (made with inferior flours), to which 100 grams of rice, 145 grams of beef and 330 millilitres of wine were added.56 We can provide more examples of working-­class and middle-­class typical eating habits. Conti, quoted by Wolf and Nanni, illustrates the meals of a mid-­nineteenthcentury Florentine shopkeeper’s family: You would start in the morning with the bread soup – replaced by coffee and milk only around the end of the century – and kids went to school with a buttered slice of bread, or a dried fig, an apple, pods, cherries or a slice of pattona (chestnut flour polenta). At the tocco, that is 1 pm, people ate at home with soup and boiled meat, whereas on holidays the favourite dishes were coratella (cooked in a saucepan), liver with eggs, chicken cooked in a bastardella (terracotta saucepan or pot used to prepare stews), lamb or roasted pork loin, especially during Carnival. In the evening, you would dine at eight, often with cold cuts: salami, presciutto [the Tuscan word for prosciutto, ‘ham’], finocchiona.57

During Lent, Conti remarked: ‘You would eat caviar, which back then was sold in slices, and was delicious; or herring, dried figs, walnuts and dried apples: in brief, whatever could be bought for a reasonable amount of money and accompany bread.’58 The analysis of 1914 daily memorandums of costs for an employee’s family (composed of five adults) reveals that the average daily consumption of each family member consisted of around half a kilo of bread, 100 grams of rice and pasta and one

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more of beef, which a couple of times a week was replaced by chicken, fish or cheese. All of this was accompanied by an egg, 100 grams of potatoes and other fresh vegetables, 200 grams of fruit and about 250 millilitres of wine.59

4.2.  Charitable institutions Not all city-­dwellers could benefit from complete and regular nutrition, and those who lived below the poverty threshold could end up into difficult situations for the most diverse of reasons. That is why, in various parts of Italy, special institutions were created, like the cucine economiche (public low-­cost kitchens) where, for little money or even for free, people could receive a simple but nourishing meal. Thanks to the cucine economiche, ‘labourers and poor people, without losing their dignity, secured rich and tasty meals at a minimum price’.60 In Florence – in contrast with other cities like Turin, Milan, Ferrara, Bergamo and Livorno – they did not last long. In many cases, due to rather obscured reasons, the ‘Health authority [Società d’igiene] thought it inappropriate to support their establishment’.61 The purpose of the cucine economiche was not charity; on the contrary, in some cases, they could take on the form of cooperatives for families that agreed on purchasing wholesale foodstuffs that ‘expert people’ would then cook. Advocates ensured that attending these places should not humiliate people or impact on their dignity but, to the contrary, should support them in situations of temporary difficulty.62 The first cucina economica was established in Florence by Elena Demidoff in 1878 and operated, albeit for just few months, in a place within the Santa Maria Novella cloisters. It was offered free of charge by Baron Reichlin, who also provided all necessary utensils. The food ration to administer was so quantified: half kilogram of bread, 90 grams of pasta or rice (served on Thursdays and Sundays), 200 grams of meat (100 of which net of bones and fat), and vegetables and herbs to use in different soups corresponding to a litre of liquid. For 20 lire (compared with a cost for the institution of over 50 lire), people received a coloured voucher. If it was white, it covered just one ration, if red two, if green three; yellow vouchers entitled the bearer to free rations. Although the Demidoff cucina economica did not last long, it was quite successful, satisfying the needs of an average of 116 families a day during the opening month (November 1878), which increased to 300 in December, 450 in January, and more  than 550 in February and March, overall amounting to 89,123 rations, 21,995 of which were free.63 During the last years of the century, a new food provision charity was established in Florence, named Pane quotidiano, which actually distributed ‘daily bread’ free of charge in 250 gram rations. In this case, too, success was immediate, emphasizing the creeping poverty present in the main city of Tuscany. In its first eleven months, starting from 1898, the institution distributed 132,562 rations, equivalent to 33,025 kilograms of bread. The next year, even if ‘the city’s economic conditions had improved’, an average of 197 ‘truly poor people’ a day knocked on the doors of the institution, which annually distributed 70,536 rations.64 In Florence, there were ad hoc institutions in which, compulsorily or due to health or poverty reasons, part of the population could receive board and lodging. Woolf mentions some of them, from which – thanks also to the relatively standardized meals

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offered to guests – we can reconstruct the daily menu in greater detail, compared to the data relating to entire families.65 The Pia Casa di Patronato pei Minorenni Corrigendi (a sort of home for juveniles) each day served bread (between 540 and 720 grams, depending on occupants’ age), two soups with rice, pasta, semolina (65 grams) or bread (80 grams), one of which was prepared with meat broth, and the other coated with olive oil or butter, 100 grams of meat and 250 millilitres of wine twice a week. On days of penance, the soup was made with the liquid from pulses and drizzled with olive oil, whereas meat was replaced by pulses, dried salted cod, eggs, sardines or other salted fish. Food prizes were awarded to those who ‘behaved themselves’ (a meat dish and fried meal on Sundays plus a ration of wine on Tuesdays). The Istituto Femminile di San Silvestro (an institution hosting 7-to-12-year-­old ‘poor girls at risk’) offered them three meals: bread and soup for breakfast, consommé or lean meat broth for lunch, with meat, fish, pulses, salami, eggs or fruit as a second course, and a soup and another dish for dinner. The Asilo Professionale Evangelico (a kindergarten for 2-to-12-year-­old children) provided bread and milky coffee for breakfast, a bread soup with wine for lunch, and meat with vegetables or pulses for dinner.66 In the Pia Casa di Lavoro, men were given 640 grams of bread (540 for women) and 200 millilitres of wine. For lunch, was a bread, pasta, rice or semolina soup, as well as 150 grams of meat, fish or pulses. Dinner was a warm or cold dish such as cheese, macaroni, pulses, mortadella, anchovies, sardines or fruit.67 Finally, the archive of the Ospedale di San Giovanni di Dio (a hospital) includes a wealth of documentation that, appropriately elaborated, permits expressing some remarks as to the food respectively offered to inpatients and health staff (Table 13.9). Considering a daily average of about fifty people (with a prevalence of ill people), the meals offered were so structured: those who were not ill received more bread, about half a kilogram, compared with over 300 grams for inpatients, whereas both received 60–70 grams of pasta and not more than 20 grams of rice a day on average. A substantial ration of meat, almost 200 grams, completed the ordinary rations, accompanied by an egg every two days and vegetables bought daily in the market square. The consumption of common wine was abundant among the healthy people, whereas it was served in very low quantities to the ill (the ration was about 5:1), although the latter could enjoy twice as much vino generoso (good-­quality wine) as the healthy ones. In terms of quantity, ill people’s diet was obviously less varied than that of the healthy, but guaranteed a balanced and nourishing treatment. In fact, these dishes consisted of pasta and rice that were served alone or in a broth, accompanied by boiled meat or chicken, whereas eggs and ‘steaks’ (probably small beef or veal loins) were often served for dinner along with vegetables. However, there were sometimes also tastier dishes like the so-­called rosbiffe (the Florentine way of saying ‘roast beef ’) or fry, but sweets and fruit in general were not permitted. Healthy people’s meals were much richer: on their tables, pasta or rice were always present, either prepared with meat sauce or in a soup with lean meat and vegetables like cabbage or peppers. Even sophisticated dishes were offered, like mostarda, turkey, cold stuffed chicken, pigeons, cheeses, different sorts of seafood (fresh tuna, dried salted cod, squids, crabs and caviar), cured meats like ham and mortadella, seasonal vegetables of all sorts, which were boiled, cooked in a saucepan or fried, and abundant fruit.

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On feast days, the staff ’s menu grew even richer. The first and second course were preceded and followed respectively by hors d’oeuvres and sweets (such as trifle or fruit with whipped cream), with traditional dishes making an appearance also (lamb for Easter and capon for Christmas).68

4.3.  The wealthy classes What is surprising is the abundance and variety of foodstuffs that the Hospital offered to the lay and religious staff in the Institute, which represented an evidently medium-­ high social class, much more well off than the poor people whose daily diet we have examined up to now. When Florence became the capital of Italy in 1865, it needed – much against its will – to take on the new demeanour of a bourgeois city ready to welcome not only ‘rich and refined foreigners’,69 but also a manifold range of politicians, dignitaries and public administrators who, arriving from Turin and all other parts of Italy, perturbed the routine of the ‘drowsy’ Florence under the Grand Duchy of Tuscany within a few years. New habits emerged, while others took root, such as that of frequenting cafés that had already opened around town during the first half of the nineteenth century. Undoubtedly, the most renowned was the Doney. This café served excellent ice creams, ‘which had become popular in Florence later than coffee and chocolate, dating back to the very early years of the nineteenth century’. It was normally preferred by select clients, considered the most ‘aristocratic’ in town, but in truth ‘in the morning, countrywomen from the suburbs, on their way to the market, stopped there to drink white coffee with buttered semel’ (a typical Tuscan bread roll).70 Other fashionable cafés up to the end of the nineteenth century were the Wital in the New Market and, not far from there, Ferruccio; Risorti on Via Cavour was frequented by the employees of the nearby Ministries of War and Interior; the Caffè di Parigi between Via Cerretani and Via de’ Panzani, appreciated by Piedmontese people and deputies; the very famous Giacosa opposite to the Palazzo Strozzi; the Falchetto liqueur shop at the junction with Via Martelli, particularly lively around public offices’ closing time, the so-­called ora del vermutte (vermouth time) – a habit that had been introduced and was growing popular in Florence; and many others mentioned in the chronicles and guidebooks of that period.71 Other businesses, reserved to an upmarket clientèle, were the most elegant trattorie and ristoranti, among which the Doney et Neveux stood out, between the Palazzo Strozzi and the Doney café, ‘where you could invite to lunch whomever, being certain that you would make a good impression’; and that opened by Mr Leonzi on Piazza Ognissanti ‘with a large table attended by young secretaries or diplomatic attachés and also some deputies’; the Toscana that had taken over the clients of the historical trattoria named Antiche Carrozze on Borgo SS. Apostoli; the Fenice, the Stella, the Patria, the Melini fiaschetteria (wine shop) that transformed over time into a ‘first-­class restaurant’; or the Luna on Via della Condotta, known for having been, up to 1848, the best place to eat in Florence.72 If we exclude the menus offered by the top restaurants, it is not easy to document the diet of the highest social strata, which were free from the constraints of farm workers or poor people. Apart from somewhat indirect sources such as the numerous

Table 13.9  Daily per capita consumption of various foodstuffs administered to staff and patients at the San Giovanni di Dio Hospital (1874–81) Date Total participants Bread Pasta Meat Common wine Vino generoso Rice Flour Salt Eggs Butter Milk Olive oil Coffee Sugar Vinegar Semolina Minor expenses lire

     1874

     1875

     1876

     1881

Healthy

Ill

Healthy

Ill

Healthy

Ill

Healthy

Ill

25.14 563.82 66.05 184.17 835.62 7.68 25.41 1.74 36.14 0.39 6.14 0.12 59.12 12.35 46.00 3.97 / 0.48

28.10 332.54 69.03 178.72 224.11 9.93 23.27 0.89 6.77 0.52 10.93 0.15 3.83 9.27 30.42 1.20 / 0.13

23.59 447.08 60.83 173.76 998.95 5.92 15.43 11.61 28.68 0.55 / 0.13 73.57 9.06 42.75 3.65 1.52 0.42

27.91 348.96 56.53 187.47 195.45 27.44 22.28 6.43 8.44 0.35 / 0.14 19.68 7.45 35.78 2.06 7.34 0.12

20.54 440.57 68.77 168.60 997.74 6.49 9.50 11.44 32.98 0.65 / 0.15 94.43 9.34 49.61 2.66 1.12 0.38

30.30 361.15 54.48 196.69 207.77 43.35 20.36 3.25 7.67 0.33 / 0.11 21.31 6.76 36.64 1.26 5.79 0.12

19.12 507.50 81.21 232.40 956.88 22.86 15.69 8.59 44.98 0.62 / 0.16 86.43 15.81 53.10 5.93 3.38 0.39

26.76 334.38 64.88 276.26 208.05 58.95 23.36 3.85 12.46 0.53 / 0.16 22.30 13.07 39.03 2.87 7.65 0.12

Notes: data related to foodstuffs expressed in grams. Milk expressed in litres. Eggs expressed in units. The milk flask measure has been rounded down to 2 litres, the olive oil flask 2.08 litres and wine flask 2.28 litres. Source: ASCF, Archivio dell’Ospedale di San Giovanni di Dio, 550–7 (Healthy and ill people’s board, 1874–1881).

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cookbooks orientated towards the bourgeois society (let us mention the famous La Scienza in cucina e l’Arte di mangiar bene by Pellegrino Artusi, of 1891), which back then was growing ever more influential, we may refer almost only to scientific studies, often written by physiologists or anthropologists, or to specific family memos on the management of home expenditures. The first category includes the 1896 study on the nutritional balance of an Italian bourgeois family composed of three people – father, mother and son – which, according to the authors of this research, was a significant sample: ‘The man spends his days in manual chemistry lab works, apart from a few hours he devotes to studying. The woman, as usual, takes care of the housekeeping, and the boy does not do anything.’73 Bearing in mind that this analysis was carried out in the middle of summer, this is how meals were distributed throughout the day: at 8.00 am, only the woman and the boy drank white coffee, whereas at midday the three of them had a light lunch with ham, bread and wine, or tuna in olive oil. Dinner, served at 7.00 pm, was richer: a hearty soup (rice with broth) or pasta dressed with butter, and two more meat courses (meat balls, boiled beef, stewed kidney or beef stracotto), all accompanied by about 200 grams of bread, seasonal fruit and an abundant dose of wine (up to 660 millilitres for men and less than half of that for women). Finally, we have several home expenditure notebooks, which belonged to the Martini-Edlmann family from Fiesole, covering, albeit with evident gaps, the whole second half of the nineteenth century. These documents, structured not as a daily menu as with the board registers analysed in relation to the San Giovanni di Dio Hospital, but as long lists of daily expenses, perhaps do not let us understand how the kitchen was organized, but do at least offer us a chance to peek into the food pantry.74 Furthermore, not knowing the family structure (and the exact number of servants), it is impossible to deduce the per capita daily consumption, also because only costs, and not quantities, were registered in notebooks related to food purchases. From all this information, we may gather an idea of the variety of foodstuffs appearing on the tables of a medium-­high social group – without forgetting what we were previously saying on landowner families’ self-­consumption. Although they could benefit from several foodstuffs coming from their estates, such as wine and olive oil (which, in any case, also reached them through the markets), the Martini-Edlmann’s daily expenditure included bread and pasta, butter, vegetables (among which mushrooms, green beans, beans, cabbage, potatoes, peas, onions, courgettes and spinach), seasonal fruit, eggs and predominantly fresh meat of all sorts, from beefsteaks and veal to chicken and cockerel, as well as liver and other less valuable cuts. Of course, there were also fish (mainly tuna, dried salted cod, herring and anchovies) and many types of cheese, from Parmesan to pecorino. The accuracy with which these lists were drafted seems to be confirmed by the presence of an indeed specific type of purchase, that of dry bread for the dog.

5.  Conclusions The remarks made until now are based on data drawn from several sources, from national statistics to the most detailed micro-­studies carried out on specific households,

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each of which is considered as representative of an entire social stratum. Clearly, the choice between aggregating and carrying out detailed analyses of single cases depends on specific research interests, and may lead to quite different conclusions. Undoubtedly, the employment of average macroeconomic data, not appropriately balanced or inserted into the right context (per capita GDP or the share of earnings destined for consumption, for instance, are not significant indicators, in case of sharp economic inequality), risks leading to not very meaningful results – all the more so if we intend to reflect on food consumption patterns. However, it is just as difficult to formulate detailed conclusions when studying specific areas such as regional or multi-­regional aggregates. In these cases, we may just observe decennial or centennial trends, adopting the consumption of some significant foodstuffs (such as wheat flour, various types of meat, wine, etc.) as a reference parameter; or, when possible, we can evaluate food consumption incidence on family budgets. Precisely this type of analysis has confirmed that in Tuscany also family budgets of the poorer social strata (countryside inhabitants, and labourers) were almost completely eroded by food necessities. Likewise, it is evident that those who lived and worked in rural areas – which were not only the region’s typical landscape, but proved to be its economic fabric well into the twentieth century – were more deeply influenced by the territorial morphology and the seasons. Urban consumers, either working-­class or wealthy, rather, were exposed to the dynamics, opportunities and vagaries of the market. An example of this dualism is the consumption of two symbolic products such as bread (white bread for city inhabitants and rye bread for peasants) and meat which, in the cities was also consumed by poorer people who took advantage of the availability of cheap and lower-­quality cuts. A completely different situation, however, appeared on the tables of the wealthier classes, the only ones for whom the gap between dietetics and gastronomy, or between necessity and greed, had been gradually deepening for a few centuries.75 The remarkable differences that still existed at the end of the nineteenth century between the different classes and which influenced their eating habits would shrink only during the twentieth century, with the loosening then definitive breaking of bonds with the rural world and the involvement of all social strata into a modern market economy.

14

Banks and Capitalists in Florence in the   Decades after Unification Marco Cini and Simone Fagioli1

1.  Introduction The fact that the establishment of the new Kingdom of Italy was not preceded by  any process of economic integration among the numerous pre-­unification Italian states is well known. This rendered both urgent and necessary the creation of a  banking and financial structure that would be able to support successfully the  country’s modernization processes promoted by the governments and parliaments  of the time. It is therefore no surprise that more than 300 banking and credit  companies were founded in the first fifteen years of the newly unified kingdom.2 During the period in which it was home to the kingdom’s capital, Florence also experienced an impressive increase in the number of banking companies, set up to finance both the city’s expansion from a construction viewpoint and to support the creation of important infrastructure networks (with railways first and foremost) and developing industries. Hence, in the space of a few years, Florence became one of the new kingdom’s main financial centres, home to numerous banks of national standing – the most significant being Banca Nazionale Toscana, which we shall look at in the first section – as well as small banking institutes of regional importance.3 This expansion of banks and lending institutions also involved the community of private bankers, traditionally based in the former Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The new national economic and political context forced them to redefine their own role and credit strategies, above all by bringing them into line with the banks’ new ways of taking action. It was thus that the foundations for consolidating some of these private banking houses – such as Banco Schmitz & Turri, whose history will be analysed in the second section – were laid during these years. Nevertheless, these houses were obliged to adapt to a radically different credit market in respect to the pre-­unification period that resulted in the collapse of certain private Florentine banking houses of major standing such as Banco Fenzi.

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2.  Banca Nazionale Toscana in the post-­unification   years (1865–78) 2.1.  Banca Nazionale Toscana following unification: some preliminary observations It has been noted how, following the unification of Italy, the Banca Nazionale Toscana (BNT) quickly developed into a solid aggregation of the most advanced exponents of regional land ownership and Florence’s financial leader.4 This process became evident during the years of Florence as the capital, when the Grand Duchy’s former caput became a melting pot of business projects arising mainly from the large-­scale construction works to expand the city. Inevitably, the Grand Duchy’s entry into the Kingdom of Italy forced BNT to tackle the dual problem of the issuing of banknotes and managing a relationship with the new singular state. As regards the former, during the period prior to the introduction of the Inconvertible Paper Standard, the circulation of banknotes increased rather slowly. This was also because issuance was strictly subject to a two-­fold restriction, in compliance with by-­law provisions, with a third concerned paid-­in capital, as with other issuing institutes, while actual circulation was subordinate to tripling the treasury’s metal reserve. While the bond involving the relationship between the bank and the interest was promoted on one side, the state on the other side was much more complex. We shall look more extensively at this point further on. However, it is appropriate to note that the problems experienced by the Florentine bank in the 1870s can only be partly attributed to the management criteria adopted by its directors during the years when Florence was the capital. The complex relationship that the state established with issuing banks following the introduction of the Inconvertible Paper Standard5 had a much greater effect. Established in 1857 following the merger of the Grand Duchy’s two main banks (being the Cassa di Sconto di Firenze and the Cassa di Sconto di Livorno),6 BNT’s organizational model catered for the credit needs of small and medium commerce and regional land ownership7 right from its very foundation. During the post-­unification years, this model was not subject to any major changes, as can be seen from the bank’s failure to expand on a territorial level. In 1866, BNT had a total of seven offices and branches, all located within the former Grand Duchy area. By 1874, this number had increased to eight following the opening of a branch in Massa and another subsequently opened in Bologna. In the meantime, other issuing institutions – starting with Banca Nazionale nel Regno (BN) – had experienced a much more marked territorial expansion.8 It is therefore no surprise that when it came to investments, BNT favoured discounting of bills right from the start, while advances on securities and goods were always very limited and disbursement was always dependent on the excessive availability of cash compared to the need for discounting of bills. From 1859 to 1865, commercial investments absorbed three-­quarters of available resources. A similar position can also be noted during the period following the introduction of the

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Inconvertible Paper Standard (see Table 14.2).9 Also highly indicative is the category of operators to whom discounting of bills was granted: from 1864 to 1867, landowners and local public institutions accounted for 35.8 per cent of discounted bills at the Florence office, merchants for 31.2 per cent, industrialists for 21 per cent and bankers for 12 per cent.10 The composition of the credit limit faithfully reflected this direction, providing for credit facilities ranging from 500 to 500,000 lire. The bank’s commercial nature can also be clearly seen in the discounting of bills procedure adopted that provided for only two signatures (while the BN’s by-­laws foresaw three, a characteristic that steered the Piedmont-­based financial institution towards bank intermediaries and not towards merchants and industrialists).11 Lastly, it is appropriate to note that, during the early post-­unification period, the position of economic operators linked to local commercial interests who were unwilling to transform the bank into an instrument of financial vocation was still very strong within the Bank’s Higher Board. These operators included Cesare Conti, Chairman of Florence’s Chamber of Commerce, and Francesco Scoti, also linked to the same institution, who consistently favoured the bank’s more traditionally commercial role over that as an issuing bank. It is no coincidence that the aforementioned individuals feature among BNT’s bigwigs that most heavily opposed the merger with Banca Nazionale nel Regno, as presented by the Minister Giovanni Manna in 1863, aiming to simplify the situation of issuing banks.

2.2.  Amid growth and crisis: the years of Florence as the capital The years in which Florence was the capital witnessed the gathering of new wealth  by the middle class and the consolidation of assets on the part of the city’s historic landowning nobility. In many cases, this phenomenon showed itself through the nonchalant way in which the city’s elite handled public interests, often using banking companies that had emerged during this period and which were supported, either directly or indirectly, by issuing institutions. Two processes became intertwined during that time, with the same leading players involved in both. On the one hand, the expansion of the market’s boundaries resulting from the political unification of the peninsula had pushed the network of Tuscan bankers and businessmen to make more frequent use of suitable legal instruments in the new situation, investing in railway, mining and banking joint-­stock companies. Prior to transferring the capital to Florence, BNT itself had started to finance some railway companies in which a large number of the bank’s shareholders held interest. For example, in 1866 BNT was a creditor of Ferrovie Romane for the sum of 1,675,000 lire. The board of directors and shareholders of Ferrovie Romane included numerous bank shareholders such as Carlo Fenzi, Ubaldino Peruzzi and Leopoldo Galeotti.12 Twenty thousand shares in Ferrovie Meridionali were also held by BNT shareholders. Overlapping with the first phenomenon, the second pertains to the climate of speculative euphoria in Florence following the transfer of the capital. This can be seen firstly in the creation of numerous limited liability companies operating in the realestate sector, interested in works to expand the city.

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Florence

Figure 14.1  Front door of the Palazzo Fenzi with coat of arms representing a locomotive. Source: Porta del Palazzo Fenzi in via San Gallo, photograph Giacomo Brogi. Private Collection.

During the years in which it was home to the capital, Florence saw the establishment of countless joint-­stock companies operating in the banking sector,13 a phenomenon that can be easily accounted for by the growing need for credit on the part of construction and real-­estate firms. As regards business management, the banks set up during this time often disregarded the most basic criteria of prudence, granting long-­term, difficult-­to-collect credit and providing advances for individuals in the same situation as bank managers, without any precautionary and detailed analysis of the solidity of their investments. Concerning the Florentine bank, its progressive involvement in transactions that only complied with by-­laws at an official level can undoubtedly be attributed to the entry of exponents more open to the new business trends into the bank’s Higher Board after 1865. These

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included Giuseppe Servadio, who was appointed to the Board in 1865 (and was elected substitute director in 1867 and 1869), and Carlo Fenzi, son of the better-­known banker Emanuele, who was appointed to the bank’s Higher Board in 1867 (and who subsequently became the bank’s Chairman).14 Definitive transfer of the capital to Rome did not trigger an immediate end to the speculative climate that had been created during the previous six years. It was only from 1873 onwards, at the same time as the serious crisis experienced by Italy’s banking system,15 that the first repercussions became apparent in Florence as a result of the depletion of the financial bubble that had grown disproportionately during the previous years. Yet some changes in the national banking system had come to light well before the 1873 crisis that significantly transformed the bank’s management equilibrium. Firstly, it is fitting to note the transfer of BN’s main office to Florence in 1865 and its capital increase from 40 million to 100 million lire. This move meant an excessive increase in BN’s competitiveness with the Tuscan bank that had bitterly opposed the Piedmont bank’s entry into its own ‘market’ during previous years. From that moment on, a priority of the Florentine ruling class became rebalancing the position between the two banks. A merger was seen as the only solution, also in order to be able to sit on the board of directors of the kingdom’s main business centre.16 The disputes regarding the merger of the two banks dragged out from 1865 to 1869.17 During this period, certain draft laws were presented by the Tuscan side, which pushed for the merger of BNT with BN.18 These were nevertheless rejected by the Parliament, even if (as we shall see further on) the option of merging the two banks was never abandoned by the Tuscans. The Inconvertible Paper Standard’s concession to BN’s notes in May 1866 was even more significant. Indeed, this said measure generated a pyramidal system in which BN’s notes had a greater deliberative power than the notes of other issuing institutions. The circulation of minor issuing banks ceased to be independent, since the changes in BN’s issue directly affected the liquidity of other institutions. BN’s notes could not be converted into metal and went into the reserves of other institutions, while the notes issued by the latter could be converted into BN notes. This mechanism generated an asymmetry for the Piedmont-­based institution since, while the other issuing institutions were obliged to comply with the obligation of convertibility vis-à-­vis BN, the latter was released from the obligation of conversion. BNT was, undoubtedly, considerably affected by this measure to the extent that the average period of circulation of its notes dropped progressively (Table 14.4) and not even the 1874 bank law – introduced to rebalance positions among issuing banks – was able to have any marked effect on this trend (see Table 14.3).19 In order to make up for the failed merger with BN, the Parliament allowed BNT to increase its capital from 10 million to 50 million lire in 1870, also authorizing it to open branches in other cities of the kingdom (Law 5801 of 18 August 1870). However, the capital increase was only partial, with it rising to 30 million (resolved upon by the Extraordinary General Meeting of BNT on 22 October 1871), while only 21 million of this was actually paid in. This meant that the bank’s issuing limit increased to 63 million. If, on the one hand, the unexpected increase in the circulation of banknotes (see Table 14.1) represented the premise for expansion of the bank’s turnover, on the other

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hand it led to numerous incongruities that the bank had to deal with over the following years. Indeed, the increase of circulation intensified the difficulty of converting notes, since issue of its own notes exceeding the demand meant that the bank had to deal with higher costs due to the purchase of BN notes necessary to make repayments, or with rejection of its own notes by economic operators. BN was forced to suspend discounts and advances on the Florence and Livorno marketplaces in 1872 because its coffers were overflowing with BNT notes that the latter could not manage to repay. The Florentine bank’s situation only improved following the stipulation of an agreement between BN and BNT, in which the former undertook to submit its notes to BNT for barter only twice a week and returned 14 million Tuscan notes in its possession to the Florentine bank in exchange for repayments spread out over an eighteen-­month period. This agreement also provided for BN’s acceptance of re-­discounting BNT’s portfolio among operations of mutual exchange of notes issued by one of the banks and included among the coffers of the other.20 Despite these facilitations, stipulation of a new agreement proved necessary in 1873, seeing BN supply BNT with 6 million lire of metal coins in order to increase its fixed reserves, so as to be able to pay the same amount of its own banknotes in note exchange transactions.21 After having been Finance Minister from 1867 to 1869, Luigi Guglielmo CambrayDigny was appointed to the bank’s management by the government in December 1872 in order to tackle the impasse in which the bank found itself. The structural problems posed by the mutual exchange of notes mechanism were clearly outlined by the new director in a report to the bank’s Higher Board in 1875. In this report, Cambray-Digny pointed out how BNT had had to mutually exchange with BN (or had received ‘barter’ requests from its own customers), with 390 million lire worth of notes against receipts from non-­convertible notes totalling just 53 million in the two-­year period from 1873 to 1874. This had obliged the Florentine bank’s management to acquire 337 million lire through one-­off transactions. Approximately 67 million lire was obtained through free counter-­exchange of BNT notes with banks, bankers and other institutional parties. As regards the remaining 272 million lire, it proved necessary to operate in marketplaces outside Tuscany, specifically Genoa, purchasing annual government bonds on the Florentine marketplace and reselling them in Genoa, or through the purchase of bills of exchange on Italy. A total of 120 million lire was obtained through the first operation, yet this had various disadvantages, as Cambray-Digny noted. Indeed, on the one hand the constant purchasing of annual government bonds in Florence generated an excessive increase in its listings on this marketplace, while causing a decrease in price when transferred to the Genoa exchange, progressively damaging BNT.22 It was for this reason that the director gradually reduced this type of operation. Bills of exchange on Italy were the favourite strategy pursued by Cambray-Digny during his years in charge. Indeed, as a result of the aforementioned agreement entered into with BNT in 1872, BN also accepted bills of exchange rather than inconvertible notes at the moment of mutual exchange of notes. However, also in this case, there was no shortage of problems. On one hand, BNT had to win against the competition of larger banks such as Banca Nazionale and Banco di Napoli in order to obtain trade bills

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on the market. On the other hand, the scant turnover achieved with Tuscany’s various commercial exchanges represented a limit that was difficult to overcome. In this regard, BNT never exceeded 140 million lire of discount operations per year throughout all its offices and branches23 during the period in question. The situation generated by the 1874 banking law did not bring about any real improvements for BNT. The fact that this law had established the restriction of an issuing bank’s circulation to triple the paid-­in capital actually neutralized the opportunity provided for under said law as regards the territorial expansion of minor banks who were now authorized to open offices in other regions. Indeed, it was impossible to open branches and acquire new markets with circulation set at triple the paid-­in capital, which could not be increased without specific government authorization. In fact, BN’s notes continued to be a form of Inconvertible Paper Standard. This was because customers of other issuing banks continued to ask for conversion of their notes into BN notes, given that the bank was to be found throughout the kingdom and the notes were accepted in all Italian provinces. Moreover, given that the law also set an insurmountable limit on BN’s circulation, BN’s notes only flowed into provinces where it operated without the competition of other banks from all over the country and at times when there was an increase in exchanges. What’s more, the provinces where notes of other banks also circulated were left without almost any BN notes, leaving them exposed to serious problems when effectuating repayments.24 Obstacles experienced by BNT during exchange transactions became evident in the average figures for the 1873–75 period: ‘bartering’ of own customers’ notes, 79 million lire; mutual exchange of notes, 97.33 million lire. The total average for the three-­year period was 176.33 million lire, while the bank’s average circulation during this period was 57.65 million lire. This meant that BNT’s circulation was fully recouped through barter and mutual exchange of notes three times a year, thus every four months25 (see Table 14.1). Table 14.1  Capital-­circulation-exchange ratio of BNT notes from 1 May 1866 to 31 December 187626 Years 1866 (8 months) 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876

Capital (in millions) 10 10 10 10 10 15 21 21 21 21 21

Circulation (in millions) 27.54 29.20 28.74 27.35 28.24 38.09 45.98 57.50 58.44 57.02 51.41

Note exchange (in millions) 14.11 8.03 20.33 39.38 55.84 45.60 156.66 222.45 169.63 136.92 147.20

Source: BNT, Relazione del Direttore Generale all’Assemblea generale straordinaria degli Azionisti del 14 agosto 1877 (Firenze: Barbèra, 1877), 35.

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The problems encountered by the bank can be clearly understood on the basis of the above figures, along with the reason for the banking transactions that were to lead to the collapse of the bank’s financial statements during the 1870s. Pushing the bank into increasing its support for industrial or service companies in order to obtain trade bills that could be submitted for exchange with BN, Digny’s strategy ultimately resulted from the need to make up for the chronic lack of notes in mutual exchanges. Clearly, there was no desire to deny the combination of interests that tainted these transactions and whose origin lay in the bank directors’ modus operandi and clear entrepreneurial tendencies. However, it is appropriate to note that since the capital increase approved in 1870 caused an increment in circulation, albeit this was largely limited to the Tuscan area, this generated a sizeable surge in requests to convert notes into BN banknotes. This trend pushed the bank towards financing numerous companies, often of questionable business solidity, that could be based in Florence or operated in other provinces where the BN note circulated. Instances such as those pertaining to the funding of the Ferrovia Marmifera di Carrara (the railway servicing the marble quarries),27 supporting infamous investments by the Banca del Popolo and hence its winding-­up, or the purchasing of the Mongiana metal plants in Calabria owned by Achille Fazzari28 are easier to understand if looked at within the context of mechanisms regulating the issue and exchange of notes between provisioning institutes, firstly with the Inconvertible Paper Standard, and secondly with the 1874 banking law. In this regard, Digny himself recalled that discounting of bills had ‘never reached the desired proportions, and in some cases had caused the Bank to become involved in transactions that were not in line with its nature’.29 By the mid-1870s, Digny’s policy had already proven to be no longer sustainable. It actively helped increase the bank’s vulnerability, with the only solution to its problems being a merger with BN. The concept of a merger between the two banks arose once again following the left-­wing’s rise to power. Indeed, in 1877, Maiorana Calatabiano, the Minister of Agriculture, Industry and Trade in Depretis’ government, presented a draft law that provided for the adoption of a banking system modelled along the lines of America’s free banking.30 However, the Minister rejected a counter-­project presented by Digny, which provided for the creation of a single issuing bank in Banca Nazionale, with whom the other minor issuing banks would have been able to join.31 The Minister did not enjoy any better luck, and was forced to abandon his proposal to reform the issuing system due to resistance encountered both in Parliament and in banking circles. In any case, regardless of the failure of Maiorana’s project, it was clear that the aim of a merger pursued by Digny had failed. Following this, Digny gave notice of his intention to stand down from BNT’s management in 1878, and was replaced by Luigi Binard, a background figure in Florence’s banking circles. Digny’s resignation brought forward the setting up of an Issuing Banks Enquiry Commission by several months, as it was authorized under the decree issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Trade on 7 April 1880. As regards BNT, the inspectors noted a drop in its commercial portfolio from 1875, with the annual average size of its portfolio dropping from 44.1 million to 33.5 million lire throughout 1874 to 1875, a trend that continued over the following years. According to the inspectors, the problems experienced by the bank were caused by the locking-­up

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of assets for certain erroneous transactions (such as the aforementioned Ferrovia Marmifera di Carrara and the Mongiana metal plants). They ascertained that 34 per cent of bills on hand were manifestly dummy bills, while 14 per cent was comprised of bills with an expiry of over three months. Investments in securities absorbed more than a third of the capital that resulted in fewer liquid assets for trade. The study performed by the Commission regarding the bank’s ‘true’ nature was especially emblematic: the commissioners observed that, rather than being a commercial bank, the Tuscan financial institution seemed to be an agricultural credit bank whose customers were mostly landowners and farmers for whom commercial transactions were an extra to the performance of agricultural activities.32 As of 30 April 1880, BNT had lost over 5 million lire of its capital and another 7 million lire was frozen in non-­collectable investments. It also locked up over 6 million lire in the same year against the municipality of Florence, which went into receivership in 1878. The subsequent years were characterized by low-­profile management, with focus placed on regaining credibility and not repeating the mistakes made in the recent past. In any case, there was neither a radical change in the discounting policies adopted until that point, nor was a suitable territorial expansion strategy formulated. Its

Table 14.2  Circulation of BNT notes (in millions of lire) Year

Notes

1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 186633 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882

19.16 21.20 26.53 27.74 25.22 27.98 25.14 26.85 29.40 27.10 27.90 28.30 42.50 46.60 60.00 59.10 60.52 50.26 54.07 52.54 59.24 52.17 45.48 49.72

Source: until 1874, ‘Relazione sulla circolazione cartacea’, Atti parlamentari (1874–75), document no. 94 bis; after 1874, Annali della previdenza e del Credito (1884).

Florence

246

turnaround was thus very slow, and only the decision taken by Giolitti in 1893 to merge BNT – then Banca Toscana di Credito per le Industrie e il Commercio – with BN was able to put an end to an experience which, by that stage, had failed to offer any possibility of real development. Table 14.3  BNT credit for discounts and advances (in millions of lire) Year

Discounts

Advances

1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882

10.32 13.82 18.61 20.79 18.56 26.30 29.07 25.90 25.60 26.10 28.70 26.00 29.80 33.40 44.80 43.30 36.52 26.00 30.87 29.86 33.39 26.62 23.11 25.35

2.70 4.22 2.37 4.89 5.06 5.01 5.21 35.70 7.20 8.50 6.80 5.90 3.90 6.10 0.60 2.90 2.47 1.71 1.42 1.68 1.14 1.00 0.77 0.86

Source: Annali della previdenza e del Credito (1884).

Table 14.4  Number of times BNT changed its own circulation annually and average period of note circulation (in days) Year 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882

Number of times BNT changed its own circulation annually – 2.90 2.40 3.86 3.05 3.23 2.88 2.14 2.31 2.91

Average period of note circulation (in days)   91 126 152 128 119 113 127 170 158 125

Source: ‘Relazione sull’andamento del consorzio e delle banche di emissione nel 1881’, Atti parlamentari C.D., XV Legislature, first session 1882–83, no. xii.

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3.  Banco Schmitz & Turri amid the bourgeoisie and industry In 1842, Carlo Schmitz and Carlo Capezzuoli founded Banco Schmitz & Capezzuoli in Florence, a trading house with credit and investment interests in the textile, mining and metal sectors. The history of Schmitz & Capezzuoli, which took on the name Schmitz & Turri from 1869 after radical corporate reorganization that has never been looked into to date, is extensive enough to be able to offer us a guide to the changes in Florence’s banking and finance sector throughout the Grand Duchy’s last years and the first years of unification while Florence was the capital, along with their intertwining with the business system. This guide is even more important if the bank’s history is interpreted in a synchronous and diachronic way together with the history of the Banco Fenzi from which the Banco Schmitz & Capezzuoli sprung,34 checking common points and functional differences, as well defining the network of relations to which the two banks belonged. The most important archive records of Banco Schmitz & Capezzuoli and subsequently Banco Schmitz & Turri can be found in Fondo Turri (FT), a private archive which I analysed in various phases from 2004 onwards.35 The distant margins of the period of time referred to in the title, which exceeds the period of Florence as the capital, allow for an analytical overview of the bank. This renders it possible to trace it from its establishment through to a rational disinvestment policy (at the end of the 1800s) that allowed it to avoid bankruptcy, which was the fate of Banco Fenzi.36 The year 1899 was when most of the bank’s companies and investments were sold. The sale of the Limestre and Mammiano Basso copper production plants in the Pistoia mountains, which the company had founded in 1881, to the Livorno-­based Società Metallurgica Italiana was of great importance. I have found records of Schmitz & Turri up to at least 1915, but by this time it was only an echo of a totally obsolete and different system. The nouns listed in the title of this section – bourgeoisie and industry – offer an introduction to the bank’s main role: that of disinvesting the capital of a growing merchant middle class and, to a lesser extent, the aristocracy’s land capital, and of steering them towards industrial investment. In addition to their role as money issuer, the Grand Duchy’s banks were focused on offering small credit to minor citizens and entrepreneurs, as well as more general support for public finance.37 The other banks either proposed major investments (such as Banco Fenzi) or were simply money changers.38 The trading house was in the middle of these transactions, also acting on the front line as an entrepreneur in expanding segments such as copper production, albeit not always with good results.39 Lastly, I chose to include only Schmitz & Turri in the title because it is of greater importance in the bank’s general history – even if only officially established in 1869 – than Schmitz & Capezzuoli, already operating in the years when Florence was the capital, albeit under its old name. *  *  * Banco Schmitz & Capezzuoli (and its subsequent denomination of Schmitz & Turri) represents an important player in the Florentine scene and, indeed, to the whole of

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Tuscany given that investments in Siena and Grosseto provinces are pertinent. Should we wish to use a broader key of interpretation, a more specific analysis has to contrast and also compare Florence and Livorno. Schmitz & Capezzuoli had clear limitations as a result of a reduced share capital, a small area for money collection and limited investment opportunities, as well as working models which proved to be obsolete in the long term. Casa Fenzi’s main weakness, which Andrea Giuntini outlined at the end of his aforementioned work, was its inability to grasp the need for modernization, above all on part of the heirs following the deaths of Emanuele (1875) and Carlo (1881). Modernization was called for especially after 1870 when Florence ceased to be the capital, ‘the defeat of the challenge to modernise’.40 It was required during a period of increasingly risky changes, made even more difficult by the start of a series of financial and production crises.41 These aspects were not evident in the trading house, not because the challenge had failed to be taken up, but because Cipriano Turri42 had avoided bankruptcy during the last years of his life with a series of clever moves, making disinvestments and new investments in land that acted as a buffer to the problems in the industrial area. That said, the complexity of the Schmitz & Capezzuoli and, above all, the Schmitz & Turri system must be noted, being the result of the numerous roles and relations of its main actors. I refer to the ‘system’ because business relations which, broadly speaking, are less obvious43 than the political ones, formed the bank’s framework. Carlo Schmitz and Giulio Turri (with Carlo Capezzuoli of lesser importance, virtually a front man for the company) were the architects of an extensive and diverse network of interests and relations. They penetrated the key points of Tuscany’s economy – railways, banks, industry and the Chamber of Commerce of Florence – in their own right or as a bank. They weaved a fabric that served to benefit their own interests and those of the  bank using a model copied from the Fenzi44 family; benefits that, nevertheless, were neither immediate nor evident and which, in some cases, weakened certain parts of  the structure. Generally speaking, the financial and production credit market in Tuscany during the first half of the 1800s (that is, post-­restoration) was starting to acquire an international structure, even if there were significant differences between Livorno and the internal areas of the Grand Duchy. In this sense, even if Carlo Schmitz was from Livorno (but with Prussian origins), commercial and, above all, financial relations with the port city were kept to a minimum while the Fenzis’ relations were very close. As mentioned, the bank also presented an anomaly: a return to land ownership on the mountains of Pistoia from the early 1890s, led by Cipriano and Ferdinando Turri45 with the bank’s support.46 If we are to consider the industrial and financial crisis from the end of the 1880s and the early 1890s, it is possible that the Turri family attempted to overcome the crisis by investing in land, a formula that had already been adopted in Tuscany during the 1780s.47 After the sale in 1899 of the assets of Ferdinando Turri & C.48 which was a continuation of the aforementioned Felice Ponsard & C., interest in the land became a genuine obsession for the Turri family, especially for Ferdinando, which resulted in

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him amassing holdings. Twenty-­three estates purchased in the Limestre valley near San Marcello Pistoiese were not managed in a rational manner and only produced a surplus of agricultural products for family use. In 1938, the estates were sold by the Turri heirs to Luigi Orlando, the majority shareholder of Società Metallurgica Italiana, for the sum of 1.3 million lire and transformed by the latter into a truly productive project.49 During the initial phases of the period of time in question, the Florentine banking system was in a transition phase. If we wish to obtain some figures along with information regarding ownership and precise positioning of the banks operating in Florence during the first and second half of the 1800s, key sources are the guides published for the city that offered lists of commercial activities, either as an appendix or as key figures, so as to facilitate visitors. In 1845, shortly after the establishment of Schmitz & Capezzuoli, eighteen banks were registered in the city,50 even though the trading house is not mentioned at that time. In 1856, it is mentioned by Carlo Lorenzini in an appendix to Un romanzo in vapore.51 In 1862,52 immediately following Unification and just before Florence became the capital, the aforementioned number had increased to twenty-­four. In the same guide, the trading house is also listed under the section headed ‘Wholesale Manufacturing Merchants’. Another guide from 1862 offers an additional list, distinguishing ‘Bankers’ (fifteen) from ‘Moneychangers’ (six).53 In 1866, the number totalled thirty-­seven54 even if, in said year, Schmitz & Capezzuoli was no longer listed among ‘Bankers’ but only among ‘Milliners’.55 Although this position may seem anomalous when considering the current meaning of the term, it actually makes us think about changes to the bank’s mission, being more focused on the production and brokerage of goods rather than on principally providing credit, even if the discounting of bills was a key balance sheet entry during the 1870s. Apart from some inaccuracy as regards names and undoubtedly some omissions in the lists, these four successive entries in 1845, 1856, 1862 and 1866 above all show us figures that we are to find in many other key points of the economy of the Grand Duchy, and later Tuscany, in ever-­increasing sectors of investment, as well as the vivacity of Florence’s marketplace. Apart from the odd exception resulting from short-­ lived experiences or an exclusive role as moneychanger, many trading houses were not limited solely to banking activities, as the founders or managers held strategic roles in the city and throughout Tuscany. Partial reconstruction of some equity investments presented by Romano Paolo Coppini56 also highlighted the partnerships in the business area rather than the financial area in a broad sense: Florence’s private banks, the Banchi, had to be seen as part of a ‘system’, at least through to the end of the 1800s, where competition was overcome by mutual interests in the management of economic power within a political project to be interpreted in a liberalist key. The banks mentioned did not outlive the end of the 1800s, at least from an operating viewpoint, and the model underwent structural transformation. Banking institutions became commercial banks. A leaflet from 191357 lists the banks in Florence, including private banks, with those from the past century having all disappeared. *  *  *

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The trading house Schmitz & Capezzuoli was set up in Florence in 1842 as a de-­facto corporation between Carlo Schmitz (Stollberg, 5 June 1809–Florence, 2 March 1878) and Carlo Capezzuoli (?–1878): The trading house in Florence, firstly known as Schmitz & Capezzuoli, then later as Schmitz & Turri was established in 1842 with its main focus being trade. . . . It subsequently successfully expanded over time to include other operations without any official deed regulating its establishment, without any agreements apart from verbal ones between shareholders and without any hypothetical duration.58

Giulio Turri59 became a shareholder shortly before 1850 and was to take on a key role over the following years to the extent that the name of the house was later changed to Schmitz & Turri. During these years, the capital was 1,250,000 Tuscan lire split into 25 carats of 50,000 Tuscan lire each, divided as follows: Carlo Schmitz – 10 carats (500,000  Tuscan lire), Carlo Capezzuoli – 5 carats (250,000 Tuscan lire), Giulio Turri – 5 carats (250,000 Tuscan lire), Giuseppe Bardi – 3 carats (150,000 Tuscan lire), Roberto de Filippi – 1 carat (50,000 Tuscan lire), Emilia Capezzuoli née Bardi – 1 carat (50,000 Tuscan lire).60 Both Giuseppe Bardi and Roberto de Filippi had interests in the railway sector. The former handled line projects between Pistoia and Florence (1844), between Siena and the Papal State (1844), between Florence and Arezzo (1845) and between Tuscany  and Ancona (1845),61 while the latter was present (along with Carlo Schmitz) in the company that obtained the first Porrettana railway concession.62 The most indicative figure during this phase of the bank’s history was Carlo Schmitz (Stollberg, 5 June 1809–Florence, 2 February 1878), an entrepreneur, banker and diplomat. As mentioned, a key area for the bank was the railway sector, where it could not help but become involved, albeit with a different role for the Fenzis with the Florence– Livorno rail link.63 During the initial phases of the Porrettana railway line (the Appennine railroad running between Bologna and Pistoia), Carlo Schmitz and Schmitz & Capezzuoli acted more like subcontractors and headhunters for companies that could work on the route, rather than like true investors. However, this role did not suit them and, after acquiring the contract for excavation of the Pracchia tunnel (1854), being the most important and complex tunnel of the whole route, they quickly abandoned the enterprise, failing to complete the works.64 The credit sector did not seem to be of importance for Schmitz & Capezzuoli and archival records in this sense are insufficient. It can, however, be reasonably assumed that its main activities were money changing and small loans. The industrial and commercial sector was more developed and some ‘business deals’ are detailed below in order to provide a general overview. On 6 December 1842, Pasquale Ariani, the agent of Rosa Pelagatti (widow of  Mr Razzei) sold to Schmitz & Capezzuoli a piece of land known as Podere del Bagno in Montecatini. The trading house ‘wanted to purchase it in consideration of a fresh water spring it contained’.65 Following this:

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Schmitz & Capezzuoli, involved in performing works needed to connect and treat the water, commissioned a chemical analysis and report of the water from Professor Targioni-Tozzetti in order for it to be accredited for sale;66 and obtained the right from the government to sell it under the name of Acqua della polla dei Tamerici [Tamerici spring water].67

In January 1844, Schmitz & Capezzuoli sold the land and spring to Carlo’s father, Giovanni Schmitz, who nevertheless started legal proceedings against the trading house regarding the original purchase price. Giovanni and his heirs – with the exception of Carlo – kept the right to use and the land.68 Regardless of the outcome, the most important aspect of this business deal was that the bank wanted to join an undoubtedly innovative sector – the bottled mineral water sector. Certain parts of the report by Targioni-Tozzetti highlighted how the water in question could be stored and hence sold and drunk after many days, in keeping with Schmitz & Capezzuoli’s plan.69 It was clearly speculation. Initially classified as being broadly profitable, it was subsequently considered no longer suitable and hence abandoned just over a year later. 1848 represented a political turning point in Tuscany, but one which allowed  for ‘business deals’ by exploiting the current situation: the need for weapons and ammunition. It was not Schmitz & Capezzuoli’s idea to deal in weapons, but rather that of Tommaso and Bartolomeo Cini, as described by Andrea Giuntini in 1847.70 The Cinis, who were paper entrepreneurs from San Marcello, business partners with the Fenzis on an unsuccessful felt cloth project71 and in complex relations with the trading house, formalized the idea of setting up Società Nazionale per la Fabbricazione di Armi in Limestre through public subscription of 8,000 shares. The project failed to take off and production (supposedly of rifles) never got under way. In 1848, Schmitz & Capezzuoli imported and subsequently sold sidearms and ammunition to the Grand Duchy. This was nothing new since the company, in the process of being set up (with the shares having been subscribed by the trading house), was obliged to notify the few shareholders that the weapons would be purchased in Piedmont, France and Belgium instead of being manufactured in the Pistoia mountains. Indeed, the trading house bought and subsequently resold the following: 8 June 1848 – 550,000 capsules at a cost of 9 lire for 1,000 and 500 infantry sabres (unitary price of 6 lire); 27 July 1848 – 993 sabres for a total of 8,958 lire; 22 October 1848 – 3,000 second-­hand sabres; 24 February 1849 – 300,000 capsules.72 In 1864, Carlo Capezzuoli was responsible, on behalf of the bank, for selling the Florentine properties of Gioachino Rossini, who wrote to Capezzuoli from Paris for information and reminders. The composer was in France at that time, having moved there permanently in 1855, and wanted to sell certain properties purchased in Florence in 1851.73 Specifically, I have recovered a signed note by Rossini which makes mention of the trading house74 and at least one letter addressed directly to Capezzuoli.75 Regardless of the musician’s fame, it is important to note that the trading house was also involved in the real-estate sector, an aspect in relation to which little information

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can be found in Fondo Turri, and Carlo Capezzuoli in particular was responsible in this regard.76 The de facto company, Schmitz & Capezzuoli, ceased to exist in 1869 and was replaced by another de facto company, Schmitz & Turri. The company was incorporated as an unlimited partnership on 1 July 1880 (backdated to 1 January). Its shareholders were merchant and landowner Felice, son of Adolfo Schmitz, born in Livorno and resident in Florence;77 landowner Luigi, son of the deceased Giovanni Batta Lombard, born and resident in Florence; and landowner and merchant Giulio, son of the deceased Cristoforo (Cristofano) Turri, born in Isera, resident in Florence. The corporate purpose was ‘trading of manufactured products on its own behalf, of manufactured products subject to commission and banking operations’.78 The corporate offices were always the same, located on the ground floor of Via del Proconsolo n. 10. The share capital of 300,000 lire was split into equal thirds.79 The possibility of paying off the other capital account investors, and in some cases their heirs, of Schmitz & Capezzuoli and subsequently Schmitz & Turri in a lump sum was initially taken into consideration, returning the subscribed capital to them. Individual agreements were then reached to return the sums in instalments inclusive of interest.80 This was a lengthy procedure because we can still find caratisti (carat holders) in the 1877 financial statements. An overview of the trading house’s status can be assembled from a series of documents dating from 1876 to 1878 (hence referring to the de facto company Schmitz & Turri), assessing the data retroactively and taking into account the network of long-­ term investments and equity investments. The securities portfolio was as shown in Table 14.5 as of 31 December 1876. The greatest number of equity investments were in projects devised by Schmitz  & Turri or in which it was an active member: Banca Industriale Toscana,81 Società per l’Industria del Ferro82 and Fenice Massetana.83 The Fenzis were heavily present in others. A significant quantity of railway shares was held, given that it proved impossible not to invest in this area. During the early 1880s, Giulio Turri was Chairman of Ferrovia Marmifera in Carrara – having been one of the founders in 1874 – as part of a more widespread project to exploit the mineral basin in Carrara, linked not only to marble but also to the area’s iron and argentiferous galena mines, together with the company Società d’Arni, whose main shareholders included Giulio.84 As regards Banca Industriale Toscana, in addition to information provided in the footnotes, it must be mentioned how the official receivers in 1875 were Pietro Igino Coppi and Giulio Turri. The shares in Cassa di Sconto were also significant. Indeed, on 21 January 1867, during the years when Florence was the capital, Carlo Schmitz and other shareholders set up Società Anonima Cassa di Sconto di Firenze, which ‘routinely handled discounting of bills and other order instruments, bearing stamps and with an expiry of no more than six months, and the signatures of two people85 at least one of which was domiciled, really or electively, in the city where discounting was performed’.86 This institution was founded with a capital of 500,000 lire split into 1,000 shares of 500 lire each, fully subscribed at the set-­up date.87

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Table 14.5  Securities portfolio at 31 December 1876 Value no.

Type

Issuing institution

Quota (in Lire)

Yield (in Lire)

200 200 163 118 86 55 50 30 28 25 25 10 7 5 2 1 1 1 L. 1000 L. 140 L. 21

Shares Shares Bonds Bonds Bonds Shares Shares Shares Bonds Bonds Shares Bonds Bonds Shares Bonds Bond Bond Share – – –

Banca Industriale Toscana Industria del ferro Ferrovie Maremmane Municipio di Firenze Godimento Fenice Banca Nazionale Italiana Banca Toscana di Credito Ferrovie Romane Ferrovie turche State Cassa di Sconto Regia Tabacchi Società edificatrice italiana Regia Tabacchi Ferrovia Centrale Toscana Banca Credito Italiano Fonderia del Ferro Banca Nazionale Toscana Imp. Nazionale Annuity 5% Annuity 3%





– 50,000 51,312 28,320 25,800 90,750 17,500 2,400 8,960 12,500 12,500 5,500 2,100 3,250 570 300 672 500 400 2,100 315 315,749

– – 386,310 128,180 2,580 5,555 900 – – 53,250 – 28,320 105 255 4,220 1,260 3,646 1,750 12,552 12,152 1,823 1,572,96388

In relation to this, it must be noted that twenty credit institutes were established in Florence between 1864 and 1874, only four of which were still in existence at the last date stated in the title.89 This figure is of even greater importance if compared with those of other Italian cities and regions.90 However, even this figure alone for Florence’s chief city shows how there was a considerable presence of speculative credit, above all in relation to the manufacturing sector. The shareholders of Schmitz & Capezzuoli and subsequently Schmitz & Turri played an important role in the incorporation of many of these, and what stands out is the intertwining between a private system that was increasingly shifting from a money-changing system into an advanced finance system, and a banking system (including a private one) that nevertheless still had to find a clear role. Indeed, it started to experience a crisis following a Roman bank scandal that further highlighted its weakness. The assets of Schmitz & Turri’s financial statements at the end of 1877 were as follows (Table 14.6).91 Compared to the original financial statements, the values have been entered in ascending order and the percentage value has been added. We can find two values that are equally important at the top and at the bottom: if we are to exclude movables (1), the value of the money-­changing service (2) which has a truly minimum percentage incidence, and discounting of bills (14) which accounts for almost one-­quarter of the total. Items (3)–(8) illustrate the trading house’s network of equity investments.

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Table 14.6  The assets of Schmitz & Turri’s financial statements at 31 December 1877 No.

Item

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Furnishings and movables Exchange rates in Monte Naples house capital and current accounts Ricci, Bocci and Del Soldato Machinery Schmitz, Turri & Schwarzenberg Accesa & Montieri-Schmitz & Turri92 San Marcello Prato house capital accounts Cash Account Trading account Industrial values Debtors for goods Current account debtors Bills on hand Total

Amount in Lire

% incidence on total

6,177.50 44,804.70 48,453.60 70,000.00 82,383.00 96,624.00 116,241.76 138,000.00 138,244.31 316,838.62 316,861.00 575,262.27 590,658.94 795,046.19

0.19 1.35 1.45 2.09 2.46 2.89 3.48 4.13 4.17 9.49 9.50 17.25 17.71 23.84

3,335,595.89

100.00

As regards ‘Naples house’ (3), there are no direct or indirect archive records. It can be presumed that it referred to a local agent operating on behalf of the Florence  office, even if I have not found any evidence of business dealings in that area. Item (4) refers to the operation of textile machinery owned by the trading house and used at  the wool factories in Stia, Limestre (Lanificio Schmitz, item (7)) and Prato (Lanificio Del Soldato). Item (8) also referred to Prato-Luigi Del Soldato, a textile entrepreneur, who was a Schmitz & Turri agent in Prato and also maintained relations with Stia. Items (5) and (6) referred to the trading house’s interest in the mining area. Filippo Schwarzenberg worked closely with the Turri family – indeed, the mining sector was managed directly by Cipriano, a German-­born engineer with investments in Tuscany, who promoted modern cultivation of the mercury deposits on Monte Amiata. Specifically concerning the Accesa area located a short distance from Massa  Marittima, Schmitz & Turri was involved in large-­scale exploitation campaigns,  also performing sizeable works such as a drainage tunnel measuring several kilometres and new shafts. Items (12) and (13) which, when added together, accounted for almost 35 per cent of the total, represented the weak point of Schmitz & Turri’s economic system: classifying trading account payables as immediately collectable (at that time the textile products of Lanificio Schmitzlargely transferred to Stia and Del Soldato) and active accounts that were actually liabilities and which represented a risk (as we shall see with an example of a none-­too-easy settlement), with the trading house being well aware of this for certain aspects. The liabilities in the financial statements were as set out in Table 14.7.93 As can be seen, the capital shareholders of Schmitz & Capezzuoli were still a burden on the company, both as locked-­up share capital and clearly as privileged account holders. Although there were agreements to repay capital shares in instalments as from 1880, their value exceeded the value of all other accounts.

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Table 14.7  Liabilities in the financial statements Item

Amount in Lire

Share capital (25 carats) Various current account carat holder creditors Current account creditors Reserve provision Profit

1,250,000.00 996,549.59 989,934.82 2,600.00 96,511.48

Total

3,335,595.89

Observations were attached to the financial statements, which offered an analytical examination. Let us split assets into three parts: I. Realisable assets comprising all easily-­collectable items from which money can be made immediately; II. Fixed assets for goods, which included tied-­up capital for production; and III. Non-­collectable or fixed assets, which included all items other than production, items that could not be accomplished immediately or that could not be realised without more or less major losses.94

Realizable assets were calculated at 1,022,185.22 lire and comprised bills on hand (267,118.52 lire), split according to customers: Du Fresne, Del Soldato (wool and transfers), Bosshard and Le Monnier; exchanges (44,804.70 lire); a part of industrial values (shares, bonds, etc.), 224,581 lire, approximately one-­seventh of those seen at the end of 1876; cash (138,244.31 lire) and current account debtors (347,436.69 lire). Fixed assets for goods totalled 1,130,381.06 lire and comprised bills of exchange for goods (232,102.67 lire) as well as a trading account, furnishings and movables, and debtors for goods. The fixed or non-­collectable assets were much more serious – not so much for the amount, which was a third of assets at 1,118,029.61 lire, but for the people and interests in which the trading house had invested most heavily: bills of exchange (del Soldato, also on Lanificio Schmitz), the Prato and Naples branches, the shares in Società per l’Industria del Ferro, current account debtors including Ubaldino Peruzzi (with an exposure of 15,049.65 lire), Lanificio Schmitz, mining equity investments, etc. The situation was clear to the writer of the observations, most likely Cipriano Turri: Not having any observations to make with regard to the first four liability items comprising Various Creditors the afore-­listed exposure clearly showed: 1. The fact that general Assets were misleading and that a major sum was lacking to cover them; 2. The possibility of repaying with realisable assets the non-­carat holder current accounts which totalled 989,934.82 Lire, in other words to reduce the interest

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on these from 5% to 3% per year, a measure which would normally increase the trading house’s credit and in any case would heavily benefit Discounting and Interest; 3. The need to tirelessly deal with the best settlement possible of 1,183,029.61 Lire, including Fixed or Non-Collectable Assets, or at least with the measures to be taken in this regard so that the consequent losses are not so serious; and finally, 4. The following matter: whether it was a good idea to distribute a misleading profit which increased the creditors’ amount and consequently increased the amount of annual interest and that compromised future financial statements and exposed the capital of the shareholders concerned to serious risks by failing to focus on taking measures to right this anomalous situation.95

The state of affairs was not the rosiest and the trading house had to take measures. The death of Carlo Schmitz in March 1878 and the entry of his nephew Felice into the company undoubtedly led to major changes. These changes, even if not explicitly detailed in Fondo Turri or the partially existing paperwork, can be listed as: an in-­ depth review of relations with Lanificio di Stia, the thorn in the trading house’s side; winding-­up in the short-­term of Lanificio Schmitz in Limestre with the sale of machinery; and auditing of relations with Luigi del Soldato in relation to his trading house in Prato, in Stia and San Marcello. Major pressure was placed on current account debtors for them to reduce liabilities that dropped from 1,017,511.47 lire in 30 June 1870 to 965,981.78 lire by 31 December 1877.96 The most serious current and trading account debtors were subjected to temporary receivership, including Salvadore Ciatti’s fashion boutiques in the centre of Florence that were well known during the 1800s and co-­managed by the trading house from 1876 to 1883 as a guarantee for repayment of the debt, with withdrawals on takings. As mentioned, an important sector of investment for both Schmitz & Capezzuoli and subsequently Schmitz & Turri was the textile sector, which developed from the 1850s to the 1890s, with a series of speculative operations and direct and indirect management. The trading house’s most important commitment, including as regards its duration, was in Lanificio di Stia, in Arezzo province. From its foundation in 1851,97 the wool factory was in constant difficulty, putting it under the close supervision of the trading house on several occasions. Schmitz  & Capezzuoli was a major backer of the wool factory from the 1850s, with Schmitz & Turri eventually purchasing the factory at the beginning of the 1890s, installing the fiduciary Luigi Lombard as manager. During the 1860s, Schmitz & Capezzuoli became directly involved, setting up Lanificio Schmitz in Limestre in the Pistoia mountains. Although we have no significant archive records of this, there is a short summary published in 1868 that described  the factory.98 It had 120 workers, and production was carried out year-­round with four spinning wheels, 34 looms, two trimmers, weavers, etc. The raw materials were largely Argentine and Prussian, but production management was the most important aspect:

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We liked one thing above all when visiting that factory, and it was the absence of stocks of its products. Instead, we learnt that the same quantity manufactured therein was the same quantity sold. In other words, cloth was not produced on a whim and customers subsequently looked for; instead orders were received first of all, customers’ tastes were researched and subsequently products were manufacture.99

This account allows us to presume that the wool factory worked exclusively on behalf of third parties, with Del Soldato’s factory in Prato with which the trading house enjoyed close relations with as from the early 1850s, and with the wool factory in Stia. This working model reduced business risks and represented a safer investment strategy, within the context of the trading house’s precautionary working measures. The trading house made large-­scale investments in the metal sector too. These were firstly in iron, albeit indirectly with investment in shares, and then in copper, where the trading house committed itself in first-­person and with sizeable capital from 1881. Upon approval of Luigi Langer’s project, supported by Ubaldino Peruzzi and Carlo and Emanuele Fenzi for Società per l’Industria del Ferro aimed at exploiting lignite in Valdarno and iron production in San Giovanni and Mammiano Basso in 1872, the trading house subscribed 400 shares for a total of 200,000 lire. The 6,000,000 lire capital, split into 12,000 shares, was nominally subscribed in full and Schmitz & Turri was in fifth position as regards the number of shares held. A total of 4,000 were purchased by Banca Generale100 di Roma and 2,000 by Banca Fenzi, while 1,995 were bought by Banca del Popolo di Firenze.101 Neither Carlo Schmitz nor Giulio Turri were members of the board of directors, as could have been expected; however, it did include, among others, certain Fenzi family members, Peruzzi and Filippo Schwarzenberg. The history of this company has been analysed in depth by Giovanni Busino, to whom reference should be made.102 I shall only mention the fact that the trading house assessed the project’s low level of earnings and quickly disposed of 200 shares. Keep in mind that, as we have seen, the 1877 portfolio only included 200 company shares. The remaining 200 shares were valued at 50,000 lire, 250 lire per share instead of the nominal 500 lire. Upon incorporation, the company capital paid into Banca Industriale Toscana103 was 3,000,000 lire, while the remaining sum was to be effectuated in scheduled payments. The company’s difficult history, with constant losses, led to the winding-­up of Società per l’Industria del Ferro in 1880 and the establishment of Società delle Ferriere Italiane. Owned by Banca Generale, Schmitz & Turri was no longer interested in the project and did not purchase shares.104 The trading house was undoubtedly aware of problems with the project, given the close relations with Peruzzi, Fenzi and Vilfredo Pareto, manager of the company,105 hence its opting not to become involved. As regards copper, for which I can only provide some general information,106 in 1881 Schmitz & Turri installed a factory for the production of copper and brass pins plus semi-­finished goods in Limestre. This was at the same premises already owned by Cini, which had been home to Lanificio Schmitz. The factory was called Felice Ponsard & C., with the shareholder being the Turri brothers and their manager Felice Ponsard, son of Auguste, both of whom were engineers.107

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The choice of copper was a strategic one given that iron production had existed in the Pistoia mountains since the 1500s, managed as a monopoly by the Grand Duchy of Magona. However, the sector was in crisis in that area, given the need for absolutely excessive investments in order to relaunch it following the shift from the public to the private sector.108 Copper production, however, still had to be developed and required a lower level of investment compared to iron. Schmitz & Turri started working with Orazio, Alfredo Hall and Pietro Igino Coppi, being the businessmen who had opened a copper plant at La Briglia in the Bisenzio Valley in the 1840s, one of the few plants in Tuscany that employed the copper found in Montecatini Val di Cecina.109 Under the guidance of these businessmen, the trading house decided to set up a workshop in Limestre as an investment also linked to relaunching the house. This investment likewise proved to be unfruitful in the long term, until 1899 when it became necessary to dispose of this division in order to prevent the trading house from going bankrupt. The trading house made additional investments in the mining sector. In addition to the aforementioned Fenice Massetana, it also took over as a concession the Poggiofuoco antimony mine in Manciano that was managed by Giovanni Haupt, son of Costantino, who had conducted the survey of the mine from 1883 to 1886, and nephew of the better-­known Teodoro. Even if Schmitz & Turri increased its investments in the industrial sector, it did not abandon the credit sector and an undated document (which can be placed between 1885 and 1890) lists the account holders managed by the company, with amounts and interest rates applied. Once again, I have to propose summarized data and the most interesting aspects come from disbursed amounts and applied interest. The note mentions forty-­six customers, forty-­five people and heirs and Banca del Comune Artigiano, founded in Florence in 1865 as a branch of Fratellanza Artigiana for the purpose of granting loans to affiliate cooperative shareholders.110 There is also mention of Giulio Turri’s brother, Floriano. The amounts attributed to account holders range from a minimum of 658 lire with a 3 per cent interest to a maximum of 173,793 lire with 5 per cent interest. A letter to the trading house dated 1878 is also of importance for understanding the general mechanisms of this credit system, even if for current account debtors: Further to the estimates dated 2 and 21 of this month, I am asking you to state   how you acknowledge my current account as at 31 December of the past year   with a balance in your favour of: L. 27256, and how you are still not able to state   a date for the balance of said account since any arrangement attempted to   date with the help of relatives and friends has only given results that can be implemented in time. I have decided without a doubt to contact Monte dei Paschi di Siena, for whom I still do not have the necessary documents in order, given   the requirement of a check of the assets owned by my wife and I for the estimate certificate following the expansions and reductions performed in several phases   by my son. I hope that your kindness will leave me enough time to carry out such a task.111

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Subsequent correspondence fails to clarify whether the debtor’s application to Monte dei Paschi was successful. In any case, the properties were most definitely put up for auction in 1881 and purchased by a front-­man of the trading house. As we can see, Schmitz & Turri managed to obtain the properties at a good price regardless, even if the debtor obtained the loan from the bank and paid off his debt, given the customer’s generally weak position. The trading house did not usually ask for real-­estate guarantees, probably because of the small amounts disbursed. In this case the customer asked Monte dei Paschi to provide the sum of 100,000 lire (against the sum of 27,000 lire owed to the house), an amount which requires guarantees and which, in any case, it was unable to repay. As from the years subsequent to the period of Florence as the capital, disinvestment, or more correctly a transformation in investments that moved towards disposal in the long term as a result of changes in the markets, dominated Schmitz & Turri’s strategies, also a result of changes in Tuscany’s social fabric. If Schmitz & Capezzuoli was set up as an investment instrument of a group of Tuscan nobles and middle class who were looking for sources of speculative income in addition to land, in sectors with a moderate risk, Schmitz & Turri took a truly industrial direction, at least from 1880 onwards, where the short-­term speculative models (also obtained from various types of shareholdings) were replaced by attempts to build solid business models. Joining the copper sector, which progressed from pins initially to semi-­finished products with refining of the mineral and transformation into bars and sheets, required a low level of investment in 1881, also because of the much simpler manufacturing process compared to iron. The Turri family directly built the furnaces they required in Limestre, rolling the metal at the Mammiano plants belonging to Società delle Ferriere Italiane112 that it rented from the company in 1892 before purchasing them in 1894. The choice proved to be immediately disadvantageous. Mammiano had shortcomings, especially as regards driving force. The mill-­pond system dating back to the 1700s was obsolete and the telodynamic plant that the Turri family installed in 1895 – one of the few plants in central Italy – failed to resolve the problem. In this sense, the correspondence between Cipriano and Ferdinando Turri shows how Ferdinando Turri & C. worked at a loss even if the company was one of the five most important for copper production in Italy and was involved in trade union agreements with other companies, along the lines of a national copper syndicate that was increasingly strategic for its use in energy transmission. It proved to be completely unsuccessful as an investment, even though Felice Ponsard & C. had generated profit during its early years. Towards the middle of the 1890s, Schmitz & Turri, at the time run by Felice Schmitz and Giulio Turri (although Cipriano also had a key role), had investments in Lanificio di Stia that was entering a growth phase, and Ferdinando Turri & C. suffering decline. There were also certain hydraulic concessions in Bussi sul Tirino (Pescara). The transfer of Ferdinando Turri & C. to Società Metallurgica Italiana (SMI) in 1899 for 600,000 lire (in cash and shares) was the outcome of a series of negotiations that had been under way at least from the early 1890s, together with working relations, given that SMI featured as both the company’s supplier and customer. Cipriano Turri invested some of the income from the sale in shares of Società Anonima per Azioni Elettrochimica Italiana Volta113 (subsequently Società Italiana di

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Elettrochimica), of which he was one of the founders on 17 June 1899.114 The hydraulic concessions in Bussi had an important role in the operation insofar as Volta planned to (and subsequently did) install plants for chemical and electrochemical production of soda in Abruzzo, rendering it possible to dispose of hydraulic energy. Cipriano was also a member of the board of directors. However, he resigned in 1905 and sold his shares in Volta. This would seem to have been the last action of Schmitz & Turri, which no longer had ‘business deals’ in progress at that date. Nevertheless, the name of the trading house survived beyond its founders. After the death of Luigi Lombard (1892), Giulio Turri (1900) and his son Cipriano (1907), the only shareholder left was Felice Schmitz. As per the by-­laws of 1880, the company had to be wound-­up after the death of Lombard.115 It remained nonetheless active even if, generally speaking, business deals were conducted personally by Cipriano Turri in his own name and through Ferdinando Turri & C. The last important record of the trading house that I have found is a mention in the Gazzetta Ufficiale of 1914, comprised of a few words as an obituary for the Florence I have described so far. It is worth mentioning by way of conclusion. On 7 April 1890, a mixed group of Florentines bought from Ubaldino Peruzzi ‘for the cost of L. 90,000 some pieces of stony ground where one of his furnaces could be found and owned by him in the municipality of Bagno a Ripoli in Florence’.116 It is reasonable to assume that the purchase was made to help Peruzzi in the last difficult years of his life, given that he died on 9 September 1891:117 ‘The shares of each buyer were calculated by a sixtieth of the price equivalent to L. 1500, and the assets were transferred to the land registry in proportion to the total of the respective contributions, on behalf and in the name of each, but in community of property.’118 We can also find Schmitz & Turri in the project, having maintained relations with Peruzzi for some time as an account holder of the trading house and partner in various projects.119 Due to a series of problems, the communion of property underwent a crisis in 1914 and, seeing as it was still impossible to find a large part of the original subscribers, a new owner who had purchased a share from Banca d’Italia took legal action to acquire the other shares. The bailiff tracked down: 1. Marquis, Senator Carlo Ridolfi domiciled at Via della Scala no. 50, Florence – 2. Comm. Odoardo Philipson domiciled herein at Piazza della Indipendenza no. 19. – 3. Marquis, Senator Pietro Torrigiani domiciled herein at Piazza Mozzi, no. 6. –   4. Marquis, Senator Filippo Torrigiani, domiciled herein at Via Cavour no. 2. – 5. Marquis Raffaele Torrigiani, domiciled herein at Via del Campuccio no. 63. – 6. Marquis Carlo Torrigiani, domiciled herein at Via dei Serragli no. 130. – 7. Cav. Felice Schmitz, representative of Schmitz e Turri, domiciled herein at Via Pandolfini no. 14. – 8. Prince Senator Tommaso Corsini domiciled herein at Via del Prato no. 50. – 9. Cini Elena, the widow of Mr. French domiciled herein at Corso Tintori (Via Tripoli) 25. – 10. Stefano Sommier domiciled herein at Lungarno Corsini no. 2. – 11. Cav. Biagio Macciò in the capacity of manager of Banco di Napoli – Florence

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office, domiciled herein at Via Pecori no. 8. – 12 and 13. Faliero and Fernando Batacchi domiciled herein at Via Torta no. 9.120

This was followed by a list of thirty-­eight people ‘whose domicile was unknown, untraceable or living abroad’. In truth, most of these were deceased, important figures in the Florence of Schmitz & Turri, people with whom the trading house had enjoyed close relations and business dealings. It seems strange that the court lost record of them, since they were Emilio Dufresne (banker), Enrico Appelius (general manager of Banca Nazionale Toscana, ?–1893), Emanuele Fenzi (banker, entrepreneur, politician, 1784–1875), Alessandro D’Ancona (historian, senator, 1835–1914), Carlo Alfieri di Sostegno (politician, 1827–97), Leopoldo Franchetti (economist, politician, 1847– 1917), Pietro Bastogi (banker, politician, 1808–99) and Emilia Toscanelli (wife of Ubaldino Peruzzi, 1827–1900), to mention only the most well known. Indeed, the list sounds like a relentless obituary to that Florence, a sign of a major change on 11 July 1914 when the rustles of war could already be heard in Europe. Nineteenth-­century Florence came to an end forever with the court’s list of the unknown dead.

15

Straw Hats: The Invisible Work of Women   behind the International Image of Florence Monica Pacini

1.  Florentine straw hats: a production known   around the entire world In describing the changes in Florence as a capital, Charles Richard Weld rejoiced that the ‘city of flowers’ had not become a manufacturing centre like Manchester: silk fabrics, carved frames and semi-­precious stone mosaics were all still hand-­crafted products created without the intervention of machines or steam.1 In three activities which, in his view, held considerable weight on the urban economy – straw, cigars and porcelain – the work of women played a fundamental role.2 Although the American Civil War (1861–65) had put their own export-­directed manufacturing in crisis, the official historian of the Royal Society wrote that the greatest Florentine manufacture was still that of straw hats and plaits.3 More than thirty years had passed since the publication in Paris of the third tome of the Dictionnaire de l’industrie manufacturière, commerciale et agricole in which the entry ‘Straw Hat-Technology’ stated that it was ‘always the voluptuous valleys of the Arno alone that have, including the surrounding areas of Pistoia and Florence,  the privilege of equipping the entire world with these light head coverings destined  to protect the complexion of all women from the blazing rays of the sun’.4 According to the report drawn up by the Chamber of Commerce of Florence in 1864, the art of straw-­making constituted in Tuscany, and in particular in the north-­western province of the regional capital, one of the major industries, offering ‘a living to more than 100 million workers of every age and gender’, be it throughout the entire year or seasonally. In reality, the production of plaits and creation of the hats through the sowing of the plaits with ‘invisible points’ was carried out mainly by women at home, without the aid of machines.5 The employment of men was more frequently in harvesting the marzuolo grain that, from the eighteenth-­century experiments of Domenico Michelacci in Signa (Florence), had determined the fate of the ‘Florentine straw hat’, a practice still in existence in the surrounding territories within a 30–35 km radius from Signa, despite the growing competition from foreign straw or similar fibres, such as rushes from Panama, hemp from Manila and, from the 1870s onwards, especially Chinese plaits.6 Men’s labour was also used in the preparation of the material before plaiting and in the

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Figure 15.1  The Florentine woman. Source: ‘La Fiorentina’, Il Giornale Illustrato, 2, n. 32, 5–12 August 1865. Private Collection.

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task of shaping (moulding, polishing, dyeing) of goods. Yet above all, it was the intermediation managed by the men between the female workers scattered throughout the villages and sharecropper countryside, along with the entrepreneurs who commissioned and sold the half-­processed and finished products, that bore the brunt of the risk concerning changes in fashion and style, of customs duties and of the competition of other national and international producers. Beyond Tuscany, the manufacture of straw was localized in various areas of central-­ northern Italy (the Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, the Marches and Umbria regions) and presented a wide range of specializations, be it in the materials employed or the manufacturing techniques.7 Switzerland, France, Germany and England were not the only countries that imported and fashioned straw hats according to the shape of trends that had their epicentre in Paris, the world capital of luxury. From the second half of the 1820s, different English, German and Swiss firms had also entered into the production of hats, mostly with imported straw and with systems of weaving that differed from the Tuscan ones, looking to new medium consumer groups especially abroad. Fashion and innovation in the processes of manufacture and business made straw, and generally plaiting fibres, sought-­after materials for the manufacturing of accessories to the clothes of nobles and the middle class. They were no longer simply products for the poor, being refuse materials with which to make rustic head coverings for the land-­workers exposed to the sun and the elements.8 Throughout the course of the nineteenth century, the press, literature, paintings and photography offered many examples of the growing destiny of the straw hat as a universal accessory to the wardrobe of urban European and American middle-­class and petty-­bourgeois. The public success of the comedy by Eugène Labiche, Un chapeau de paille d’Italie, staged for the first time in Paris in 1851 and reproduced in various theatrical, cinematographic and musical versions up to the second half of the twentieth century,9 the portraits of the young women in the painting of Biedermeier or the scenes from daily life  en plein air of Jean Renoir and of other contemporary impressionist painters all come to mind.10 Worthy of note is the nineteenth-­century development of manufacturing centres in Wohlen, in the German canton of Argovia in Switzerland, and of Luton in Great Britain, where they still make hats today, even if they are felt ones.11 In Luton, the precocious institution of schools for the training of plaiting works (from three years of age) would make one think of an organization of women’s work that was more structured from the top, with high regard for the informal management on a familial and communal basis that dominated within the Italian contexts after the suppression of guilds. In the same time period, the major centres of Swiss production focused on the mechanization of the manufacture of plaits – substituting or matching straw to other more resistant materials such as ribbons of hemp, cotton, silk and horsehair – and on the improvement of refining processes in order to reduce costs and differentiate the products they offered, despite not using a valuable raw material like Tuscan straw. Throughout the course of the nineteenth century, the move to Florence and the neighbouring towns (Bagno a Ripoli, Fiesole, Prato) of English and Swiss families, already working in the straw industry such as Wyse, Guerber Gonin, Kubly and Bruggisser,12 is explained by the double role of producers and commercial intermediaries

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exercised by these firms from their inception. Before exporting a winning production model to a country that offered low-­paid skilled workers thanks to a long tradition of craftsmanship, they looked to the convenience of being present in a Florence market that, after the unification of Italy, maintained its relevance in the international commerce of straw (semi-­worked and finished products). Very often the business relations with local shopkeepers were even reinforced thanks to matrimonial unions.13 From Florence, Prato, Empoli, Signa and Livorno, straw hats and plaits were exported to France, England, Germany and the United States for an estimated total value of around 15 million lire annually, to which the internal market consumption needs to be added.14 In 1858, before the crisis of the American market, the straw industry contributed about a quarter of total Tuscan exports.15 Examining the long-­term data relating to the exports of the principle sectors of Tuscan industry between the second half of the eighteenth century and the second half of the nineteenth, the progressive substitution is evident of straw and leather for silk, already in crisis at the end of the modern era and put to the test in the 1850s and 1860s due to the shortage of cocoons following a disease in the silkworms. The parallel decline in the Florentine production of wool, which in 1766 still involved almost a fifth of the urban population, was partially compensated by the emergence of the wool centre in Prato.16 We still do not know much about the role undertaken by the business communities in Florence and Livorno during the crisis of traditional craftsmanship activities of silk and wool,17 but it is undeniable that the development of straw manufacturing places itself in continuity with the resources, competencies and the business and credit networks transmitted to the nineteenth century by the silk factory organization model, with particular regard to the relationships between countryside, city and the international market.18 Since the sixteenth century, in the travel narratives of foreigners in Italy one can find observations on the peculiarity of straw hats in the countryside and in the villages close to Florence, a presence that became pervasive in the rural countryside throughout the succeeding decades of the Restoration period.19 It is only later, however, in around the 1840s that more or less illustrious visitors describe women at work inside the walls of the city. Among these, the writer Alexandre Dumas identified ‘young girls who plait straw walking on the street’ as the only sign of commercial vitality in a city, that otherwise seemed to him to be devoid of entrepreneurial spirit and of an industrious middle class, notwithstanding the glorious past of the ‘queen of trade’.20 In effect, between the 1850s and 1860s, there are many clues concerning the trajectory from silk to straw being a prevalently feminine activity, above all in the villages near  the new city custom duties area resulting in the breaking down of the walls and the expansion of the township of Florence, with the annexation of the suppressed communities of Legnaia, Pellegrino, Rovezzano and part of the territories of Bagno a Ripoli, Fiesole and Galluzzo (1865).21 In these six years with Florence as the capital of Italy, this urban belt appears to have been the most exposed to the double movement  of attraction from the countryside of a workforce looking for work, especially in construction and in services,22 and of expulsion from the historical centre – where the

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value of property and rents was on the rise – of employees in the traditional crafts that were most precarious (silk). Moreover, from the 1840s to the 1850s, following the development of rail transport, local and foreign agents (the latter being mostly Swiss) had established themselves in areas close to the urban centre and to the Leopolda Station settlement for the crafting of straw hats and plaits, centres in which they had concentrated some stages of work, also having introduced machines for steaming and sewing as of the late 1860s.23 At the height of the Grand Ducal nominative census of 1841 a strong concentration of women silk workers lingered in the neighbourhoods of San Lorenzo (between Via San Gallo and the city walls) and above all in San Frediano where at least 35 per cent of women aged nine or older declared themselves to be silk spinners or weavers.24 In the Statistics of the Manufacturing Industry entrusted after Unification to the Prefect of Florence, based on the data of singular municipalities,25 specifically in Legnaia, which extended beyond the San Frediano gate on the road to Pisa, two factories of straw hats were listed (Antonio di Giovanni Gonin and Piero Pennetti with eight or six workers) and twenty-­four ‘workers of straw hats and plaits’ who distributed work to homes in groups of ten to forty workers for a total of approximately 685 employees.26 Albeit incomplete specifically due to the difficulty highlighted by many mayors in registering an activity that was dispersed throughout the territory, this source allows for a geographical tracing of the diffusion of straw manufacturing during the period of transferring the capital from Turin to Florence. If in Legnaia, many firms that employed male workers (the Pignone foundry, the gas works and a violin string factory)27 were also mentioned, elsewhere the craft of straw hats and plaits was almost the only manufacturing activity ascertained. This is true for Pellegrino, Brozzi, Galluzzo, Casellina e Torri, Campi, Signa and Lastra a Signa, Carmignano, Montespertoli, San Casciano, Castelfiorentino and Barberino di Mugello (see Figure  15.2).28 In the towns where the reeling and spinning of silk survived (Calenzano, Dovadola, Galeata, Modigliana, Porta Carratica, Porta Lucchese, Palazzuolo and Pontassieve) or other fabric works had developed at home – for example, at Vicchio in Mugello where about fifty women would sew hemp for bedsheets and pieces of wool for the hospitals of Florence, Santa Maria degli Innocenti, San Giovanni di Dio, and for the Montedomini hospice29 – the manufacture of straw was, as a result, largely absent or marginal. Negative economic trends such as that tied to the block on the US market seem to have restricted the distribution range of work at home in towns closer to Florence as the regional capital,30 while in the centres characterized by a tradition rooted in male crafts such as in Scarperia (the manufacture of knives) or Incisa Valdarno (brick and mortar furnaces), there was no mention of any women’s manufacturing activities, not even seasonally or as integral to the family income. Without the activities of sewing and plaiting, women’s labour simply disappears from the frame of productive activities. When Florence became the capital of Italy, the manufacture of straw was still the prevalent speciality in the Florentine suburbs within a regional context characterized by the coexistence of areas with specific productive vocations (wool, cotton, leather, ceramics, paper, etc.), particularly along the Arno valley and its tributaries, merging various wages in handicraft, work at home and mechanized manufacturing firms.31 If

Figure 15.2  Production of straw hats in the province of Florence.

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the work of the plaiters has been partially studied, we still know very little about the entrepreneurial paths, the relationships between local and foreign business owners and between production and commercialization in the decades of the second half of the nineteenth century (1860–90), during which the face of the city was redesigned.32

2.  The places and businesses of straw in Florence as the   capital of Italy Restricting our gaze to Florence, still closed within the perimeter of its walls until the dynamite explosions of 1865, the aforementioned Statistics of the Manufacturing Industry cited fourteen names from a total of 217 business owners under the heading ‘Straw Factory’.33 We are dealing with small numbers for an expanding city that, in the decade from 1861 to 1870, had a growth rate that was higher than that of Milan, while passing from 153,306 inhabitants in 1861 to 188,348 in 1871.34 Yet behind these small numbers hid a chain of work that extended beyond the city walls and was difficult to quantify. Comparing this data with the numbers quoted in the Report of the Chamber of Commerce of Florence for the year 186535 and with the list of published names under the entry Straw Hats in The Commercial Guide to Financial-Industrial-Administrative Florence for the Year 1866 (Florence, Fabbrini), the range of active workers in the sector broadens and is articulated socially and geographically. There are twenty-­six names indicated in the Guide to Florence (1866), of which fourteen do not appear in the Statistics of the Manufacturing Industry.36 The discrepancy is significant, explained only in part by the expansion of the city borders following 1865. It is probable that this list comprises very different typologies of businesses, placing side-­by-side important entrepreneurs of plaits and hats – like the aforementioned Kubly, Vyse and Conti – that controlled a vast network of women workers at home, while being the owners of settlements in the urban suburbs and of stores in the city centre and also holding a larger number of family handicraft workshops, where the borders between production and sale were fluid and high in turnover. Some business-­ateliers sold straw hats together with other fashionable articles, being specialized in refining products with decorations of various kinds (ribbons, flowers, fringes, feathers, etc.). One illustrious example is that of Adelaide De Cesaris in Via Por Santa Maria, which runs between the Mercato Nuovo and the Ponte Vecchio.37 From 1817, a Straw Market was held each Tuesday and Friday in which straw and straw hats were sold under the loggia of the Mercato Nuovo, a stone structure erected by the Medici in the Renaissance and reserved for the sale of non-­food items, in contrast to the nearby open-­air Mercato Vecchio.38 In the season of silk worms, cocoons and mulberry leaves alternated with straw, which was alternated with flowers in other moments of the year.39 Throughout the course of the 1820s, the presence of shopkeeper-­ manufacturers of straw hats had increased in the latticework of streets surrounding the loggia of the Mercato Nuovo, especially in Via Porta Rossa next to the grocers, vintners and, above all, the silk shop owners.40 Despite the redevelopment of the urban centre in the 1880s and 1890s, which had a consistent impact on the distribution of city fabric

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manufacturing activities,41 the area of the Mercato Nuovo continued to be characterized by the presence of straw; however, it was increasingly defining itself as an area of commerce, given also the proximity to Via Tornabuoni.42 In the same way, Via Por Santa Maria increasingly assumed the profile of a bourgeois street with the opening of haberdasheries and fashion stores. Studies about fashion and the evolution of activities connected to clothing in nineteenth-­century cities have underlined the new and growing importance assumed by the work of women tailors in the passage from the end of the guilds system to the affirmation of fashion houses, with particular reference to the strategic functions undertaken by women haberdashers and milliners in the diffusion/imitation of styles from France.43 In one of his ironic pieces on the costumes of nineteenth-­century Florence, Collodi portrayed with these words the figure of the modistina (milliner): ‘certain little happy wasps, elegant in their simplicity, and who, ahead of their time, did many things – sometimes also fashionable little caps.’44 It is known that the opening of fashion stores in Florence in the 1840s was on the initiative of female tailors, milliners and French and English fashion houses and there is evidence of the renewed interest in the Florentine markets from broader Italian (Turin and Milan) and foreign (Maison Ferrand) firms in the 1860s and 1870s, yet the entire dynamics of the clothing sector and its various accessories in the city environment have not been reconstructed.45 From an examination of the records concerning trade or companies registered by the Civil Tribunal of Florence from the three-­year period of 1866–68, the straw sector appears to be anything but dynamic. Of a total of 236 documents, only 2.5 per cent regard the production and/or sales of straw hats and plaits.46 With regards to the estimates done by Scardozzi for the period 1808–56 on twenty-­nine of a total of 286 company documents, the relative weight of straw decreases sharply,47 but in a broader context regarding the constituent number of companies – especially general partnerships – be they in traditional sectors (fabrics, typographies, restaurants and hotels) or in new fields (chemistry, mechanics, photography, omnibus, insurance, etc.). In light of the documents examined, certain aspects emerge that are worthy of reflection in a long-­term perspective. The promotion of a few among the most ambitious commercial initiatives came from the world of straw, such as the ‘company in general partnership in order to do business in straw, manufactured articles, pictures, and other works’ constituting straw business owner Emilio Bacciotti with his son Giovanni, having a capital of about 110,000 lire and establishing their place on Via Cerretani, the same street between Maria Antonia station (today Santa Maria Novella) and the Piazza del Duomo where, in 1868, the A bon marché clothing store was opened, remaining active into the early twentieth century.48 Becoming capital of Italy for Florence and, above all, the regeneration of the handicraft-­artistic vocation in the subsequent decades rendered the city ‘the Athens of Italy’, the cradle of the ‘Renaissance of the arts’, seemingly stimulating a diversification of investments from consolidated shop owner-­manufacturers of straw hats in commercial and handicraft sectors favoured by a growing demand for qualified services and luxury goods. It would need to be investigated, for example, the

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intersections of family interests in straw, watches and the sales of refined alabaster of the Porcinai or of other dealers in straw in jewellery shops (Paoletti, Rastrelli) or in the restaurant industry (Donnini). The presence of women was prevalent among the account holders or business partners of activities related to the commerce of hats and other articles of clothing. This was the objective, for example, of the company represented by Elisa Sati Guerra and Alessandro Maranghi under the denomination Widow Guerra and C. ‘for the buying and selling of hats and berets of national and international quality, from bourgeois to military, with a capital given entirely by the widow, to be practised on the ground-­floor workshop that belonged to Mr. Cesare Volpini in Piazza San Firenze’.49 It was not uncommon for the leading Florentine business elite virgola who had made their own fortunes on the union of silk and straw, such as Cesare Conti Esquire, who won a prize for his hats at the International Exhibition in Dublin in 1865,50 to own the premises opening shops in the historical centre ‘for the sale of manufactured pieces and items called articles of fashion’ – such as the one dedicated La Ville de Paris on Via Vacchereccia trading under the name Borghigiani e Nistri.51 It is striking the diligence with which Ottavia Zocchi ensured to distinguish pertinences and reciprocal responsibilities in constituting the company Ottavia Zocchi and Sons. She claimed ‘to have practised for many years in Florence the business of plaits and straw hats’ along the Porta San Frediano city entryway, at the time of extending this ‘traffic’ of hers with her sons Cesare, Stefano and Enrico (as industry partners) with the approval of her husband Luigi.52 When her son Enrico, a grocer in Pisa, asked to no longer have a holding in the company, Ottavia registered an official written document at the Tribunal in which she specified that the companies in essence were actually two: one together with her sons ‘for the acquisition and shipping of plaits and hats packaged especially for abroad’ with an active net worth of 93,446 lire, and another ‘separate’ one for the buying and selling of straw and the crafting of plaits and straw hats that she managed ‘for herself and exclusively by Ottavia Zocchi in her house of residence at number 9–11 on Via dei Vanni’. With regards to the first company, Ottavia reserved the right to ‘break in part or in full the company and put it for liquidation’ if the budget showed a loss of a third of their company capital, confirming her own right ‘as a capitalist’ to take a daily fee from the company till ‘to the tune of twenty Lire a day with which she will have to fully provide maintenance of the whole Zocchi family as she has done up to the present day’.53 In addition to providing precious hints concerning the division of labour among an entire family and among the sexes, the strategies used to divide the risks of the business activity from that of the manufacturing, the income of a family that lived off the craft and the business of hats and plaits of straw in the years of Florence as capital of Italy, the source brings to light an entrepreneurial female protagonism that still remains to be explored for the most part.54 Five years after the transfer of the capital to Rome, the ‘artisans and dealers of hats and plaits of straw’ mentioned in the Guide to the City of Florence compiled by Ercole Bianchi were thirty-­four, followed by fourteen ‘polishers, washers or dyers of straw hats’.55 Of the twenty-­six names in the Guide of 1866, only about half had remained. Some firms had passed on from father to son (Conti and Costa), others had changed

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owner (Vyse). To the Swiss ones had been added the firm Bruggisser M. and C.,56 while new and different Italian last names (Bargioni, Donnini, Marchini, Raddi, Rastrelli, Susini, Taddei and Zocchi) were traceable to urban projections of business and manufacturing activities of entrepreneurs of the suburbs and of centres of straw from the province of Florence (Brozzi, Campi and Fiesole). A more net distinction between manufacturers and shop-­owners was evident, with the former having their storehouses and fashion stores concentrated along the streets of Porta Rossa, Por S. Maria and Calzaioli. The geography of the manufacturers maintained its concentration along the roads towards Prato and Pisa, but the presence of firms was also indicated in the direction  of Santa Croce, which remained a predominately working neighbourhood even after the 1880s, along with the left bank of the Arno (Costa San Giorgio), favoured among foreigners (especially Anglo-Saxons) as an area of residence. The recurrence of the same last names among the artisans and polishers, washers and dyers of straw hats would make think of a joint in the activities of production, refinement and sale of straw hats split among various branches of the same family. On the other hand, with the distribution of these activities throughout various areas of the city, and not only in the more industrial or commercial ones, one considers the straw hat as an article of clothing of the quotidian bourgeois to be cleaned and refurbished, besides being a manufactured article destined to be exported or acquired by travellers passing through the city. In April 1865, finding himself in Florence for his honeymoon and passing the evenings walking along the Arno, Fabrizio Rossi (a well-­off farmer from the province of Bari) wrote in his diary: More than any other thing, the beautiful and courteous Florentine women held our gaze. With the height of cleanliness and richly-­coloured dresses, they wore on their heads the famed straw hat, tied with a ribbon around their neck, and that fell all down their shoulders. This way of wearing the headdress they have in the city, while in the countryside, in order to shelter themselves from the sun they cover their heads, letting the very wide perpetually-­in-motion brims shade their face. It is an indigenous and proverbial custom that makes the little women so endearing.57

3.  Straw hats and the Florence of the foreigners Not only did commercial and credit networks flow through Florence (and Livorno for that matter), but they were at the very basis of the export of hats and plaits of straw to Europe and the USA, along with – and above all – sales to the flux of foreign travellers to Italy for whom the city of Dante and Michelangelo was an obligatory goal from the times of the Grand Tour.58 Studies on commerce, fashion and tourism often move in separate fields and have difficulty in forming a dialogue. However, the global history of the manufacture of straw could be better understood precisely by adopting an interdisciplinary and transnational prospective. It has not been reflected upon enough, for example, the fact that foreigners residing or visiting Florence during the ‘long 19th

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century’ originated mostly from those countries that were the greatest importers of Florentine straw hats; being at the same time the principle producers and consumers  of a touristic image of the city, they would influence the desirability or the saleability of Italian manufacture products abroad. As a starting point in addressing a complex question, it would be useful to try to understand if and how the description of straw hats and/or female workers of straw entered the diaries or narratives of foreign travellers to Florence. From a preliminary survey from a corpus of French, English and German writings compiled from the 1840s to the 1860s, the manufacture of straw seems to be a rather recurring element, be it in negative or positive descriptions of the city. Much more prevalent are the positive associations of Florence and straw, evaluated as a symbol of handicraft-­commercial vitality – as already cited from the travel narrative of Alexandre Dumas – and of an industriousness (especially in women) that solidified in the eyes of the foreigner grace, the diffusion of well-­being and social peace. Finding himself in Florence for reasons of study, the twenty-­seven-year-­old Theodor Mommsen wrote in his diary on 25 May 1845: It was a holiday, I’m not sure which one, but in Florence it is an entire party of flowers; gardens and streets were suffused with roses and the rich and the poor carried great bouquets, of red roses for the most part. People here, it appears that they are all well-­off; of badly dressed people I have encountered few. The great straw hats in particular, whose broad brim flaps continuously up and down, are so fine as we see them only worn by refined people, they are very well-­off and to us northerners, they always give the impression that these people do fine.59

On the other hand, in the later travel notes of the Goncourt brothers (1855–56) who originated from an urban society more effervescent and worldly than the Nordic Kiel where Mommsen had just finished his university studies in law, straw hats became a sign of a more rural, brute and repulsive character of the city. The buildings were black and sad, the streets malodorous, the Arno river was the colour of a caffè latte and all the women had on their heads were hats of straw.60 In the travel narratives of foreigners originating from countries of industry as well as in some paintings of Italy in the nineteenth century, plaits and hats of straw serve rather to underline the dignity, decorum and even the patriot spirit of the Tuscan people.61 Returning to Turin from Florence, where she had first visited the Italian Industrial Exhibition, the wife of the ambassador of the United States in Italy, Caroline Crane Marsh, relating her full involvement in the cause for women’s education, brings about her encounter with a very young plaiter: In telling her story, she had gone up the steps of the carriage (pulled at this moment by oxen) to show us the straw that she was plaiting and she responding in such a coherent and intelligent manner to our question about the quantity of straw that she could plait a day and the pay that she received. It seems she could manage to earn a little more than five pieces a day, but this included the purchase of the

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material. She showed me with great alacrity how she would plait the straw and when we told her that we were Americans and that in America even poor people eat meat every day (she had told us shortly before that she never ate it), she responded promptly: ‘Yes, but the poor people in American have a lot of work and are better paid than we are here.’ This girl must have been eleven or twelve years old, and she spoke the finest Italian without that guttural sound of the Florentines and their ways of revealing an attractive self-­assurance while at the same time being very modest. While she wished us: ‘Safe travels’ with her radiant face, we said to ourselves: ‘This splendid woman could get out of it if she lived in favourable circumstances.’ I kept with me her straw plait.62

Reaching Florence the eve before the expedition of the Garibaldi’s Thousand, the writer Louis Colet described thus the special reception for King Vittorio Emanuele II from the city: I saw the people surround the king, touch him with respect like an idol that is adored and brings good luck; they threw flowers, kisses, smiles, and simple and touching words at him, such as only the Italians know how to find. The women, ready at their balconies, threw bouquets of flowers towards him; on the square, the gracious farmer women, wearing the broad straw hats that they knew how to plait with such art and whose soft brims rustled like wings at their shoulders, clapped their hands crying in unison: ‘Long live the king!’ I heard one of these country girls say to one of their companions: ‘My dear, today we have a king! A king is more than a Grand Duke.’63

The weaving between straw hats and flowers, which we have already found under the Loggia of the Mercato Nuovo, appears to be a long-­term, recurring element in the construction of the tourist imagination of the city in the world. Often in the male imagination, the vision of Florentine straw hats is founded on the seductions of the ‘city of flowers’, making of a head covering that flows and sways a symbol of the sensuality of the peasant women of the city, and thus of a pleasant life where the traveller – far from home – could let himself go (or at least dream of doing so).64 Anticipating some extracts on Beppa the flower-­woman, released years after from the colourful and irreverent pen of Collodi, De Musset wrote in his travel notes from his carriage: I declare that all Florentine women are 18 years old, have sweet eyes, mouths with raised angles, beautiful teeth and a fine and elegant outline. Their large round straw hats that sway, while they walk with ribbons that flutter at their back, their naked arms, a fan in their right hand and a bouquet in their left . . . compose a spicy ensemble . . . that the most practical men know how to appreciate.65

Assuming this perspective, the hard and invisible work of young plaiters, who struggled with hunger daily, becomes the subject of dreams and writings on the bewitching beauty of Florence.

Notes Introduction: Florence, Capital of the Kingdom of Italy   1 See, in particular, all works by Sandro Rogari, quoted in the following.   2 The most recent historiographical discussion on the Agreement is La Convenzione di Settembre. 15 Settembre 1864. Alle origini di Firenze Capitale, ed. S. Rogari (Firenze: Polistampa, 2015).   3 J. Y. Frétigné, ‘Napoleon iii, les catholiques et la convention de septembre 1864’, in La Convenzione di Settembre, 31–54.   4 A. Gottsmann, ‘La Convenzione di Settembre nel carteggio delle cancellerie europee’, in La Convenzione di Settembre, 55–78.   5 F. Bertini, ‘Il dibattito sulla Convenzione nel Parlamento di fronte al Paese’, in La Convenzione di Settembre, 129–62.   6 On Giuseppe Ferrari, see Giuseppe Ferrari e il nuovo stato italiano, ed. S. Rota Ghibaudi and R. Ghiringhelli (Milano: Cisalpino, 1992); G. Monsagrati, ‘A proposito di Giuseppe Ferrari’, Rassegna storica del Risorgimento, 67 (1980), 259–96; C. M. Lovett, Giuseppe Ferrari and the Italian Revolution (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011).   7 G. Ferrari, Il governo a Firenze (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1865), 70.   8 Ibid.   9 See P. S. Mancini, Della nazionalità come fondamento del diritto delle genti prelezione al corso di diritto internazionale e marittimo pronunciata nella R. Università di Torino dal professore Pasquale Stanislao Mancini nel dì 22 gennaio 1851 (Torino: Eredi Botta, 1851). 10 Ibid., 37. 11 G. Capponi, Storia della Repubblica di Firenze (Firenze: Barbèra, 1875), vol. 2, 196. 12 With unification, the Gonfalonieri of Italian cities were chosen by the king. For the case of Florence, see P. Causarano, ‘Firenze’, in I sindaci del re, 1859–1889, ed. E. Colombo (Bologna: il Mulino, 2010), 119–44. 13 R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny sindaco di Firenze capitale e ministro delle Finanze (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1975). 14 Le Bandiere di Dante. L’inaugurazione del monumento a Dante in Firenze Capitale, ed. L. Cirri, S. Casprini and A. Savorelli (Firenze: Il Campano, 2014). 15 G. Capponi, ‘Fatti relativi alla storia della nostra lingua’, Nuova Antologia, 9, no. 8 (1869), 682. 16 F. Conti, ‘The Religion of the Homeland. The Cult of “Martyrs of Freedom” in Nineteenth-­century Italy’, Journal of Modern European History, 13, no. 3 (2014), 115–35. 17 U. Foscolo, Dei Sepolcri. Carme (Brescia: Nicolo Bettoni, 1807). 18 P. Artusi, Vita di Ugo Foscolo. Note al Carme dei Sepolcri (Firenze: Barbèra, 1878), 264–9. 19 Ibid., 210–9. 20 Ibid., 211.

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21 For a general outlook on the Italian question of language, see M. Motolese, ‘Il dibattito linguistico italiano’, in La lingua nella storia d’Italia, ed. L. Serianni (Milano: Scheiwiller, 2002), 151–75. 22 Reference is made to a verse of Alessandro Manzoni’s poem Marzo 1821. On the ideals of Manzoni, see A. Caspani, L’ Italia di Manzoni. «Una d’arme, di lingua e d’altare, di memorie, di sangue e di cor» (Castel Bolognese: Itaca, 2011). 23 I. Gambacorti, Verga a Firenze: nel laboratorio della ‘Storia di una capinera’ (Firenze: Le Lettere, 1994). 24 V. Tozzi, ‘La libertà religiosa in Italia e nella prospettiva europea’, Stato, Chiese e pluralismo confessionale, no. 35 (2014), 1–38. 25 F. Conti, La massoneria a Firenze: dall’età dei lumi al secondo Novecento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007). 26 Id., ‘Franc-­maçonnerie et mythe du Risorgimento’, Transalpina, 15 (2012), 65–81. 27 For a complete outlook on the scientific and cultural activity in Florence in the years when the city was capital of Italy, see Firenze capitale europea della cultura e della ricerca scientifica. La vigilia del 1865, ed. G. Manica (Firenze: Polistampa, 2014). 28 O. Ottonelli, ‘Albori di socialismo tra i democratici Fiorentini: Niccolò Lo Savio e Il Proletario’, Il Pensiero Economico Italiano, 21, no. 1 (2013), 177–94. 29 1865. Questioni nazionali e questioni locali nell’anno di Firenze capitale, ed. S. Rogari (Firenze: Polistampa, 2016). 30 A. Breschi, Amata città: un progetto per la Firenze che vorrei (Firenze: Alinea, 2010), 224. 31 F. Della Peruta, ‘Le opere pie dall’Unità alla legge Crispi’, Il Risorgimento, no. 2–3 (1991), 173–213. 32 C. Lorenzini, ‘Occhi e nasi’, in Carlo Collodi. Opere, ed. D. Marcheschi (Milano: Mondadori, 1995), 309. 33 Z. Ciuffoletti, ‘La vita politica e amministrativa: l’Ottocento’, in Firenze 1815–1945 un bilancio storiografico, ed. G. Mori and P. Roggi (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1990), 114. 34 M. F. Zimmermann, Industrialisierung der Phantasie: der Aufbau des modernen Italien und das Mediensystem der Künste, 1875–1900 (München-Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2006). 35 G. Toth de, ‘Statolatria’, Fanfulla, 19–20 May 1885. 36 P. Battilani, ‘Decentramento o accentramento: obiettivi e limiti del sistema amministrativo locale scelto con l’Unità del paese’, Rivista di storia economica, no. 3 (2001), 313–58. 37 M. S. Piretti, ‘Accentramento, decentramento, federalismo. Strategia per l’Italia unita. Interventi di Raffaele Romanelli, Umberto Allegretti, Maurizio Griffo, Brunetta Baldi, Ilvo Diamanti’, Contemporanea, no. 1 (2011), 101–36. 38 See A. Vittoria, Il Welfare oltre lo Stato. Profili di storia dello Stato sociale in Italia, tra istituzioni e democrazia (Torino: Giappichelli, 2015). 39 C. Lorenzini, ‘Palinodia d’un codino’, Fanfulla, 18 December 1874. 40 A. Mari, La questione di Firenze (Firenze: Tipografia Niccolai, 1878). 41 Ibid., 217. 42 Ibid., 224–5. 43 A. Mari, La questione di Firenze, 35. 44 E. Tempestini, Il mercato vecchio (Firenze: Franco Cesati, 1997). 45 G. Valance, Haussmann le grand (Paris: Flammarion, 2000). 46 C. Cresti, Firenze, capitale mancata: architettura e città dal piano Poggi a oggi (Milano: Electa, 1995).

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47 See Strenna dell’Esposizione Nazionale di Firenze (Firenze: Cellini, 1861); P. F. Listri, Firenze espone. La grande avventura fiorentina del 1861 con uno sguardo sul ventesimo secolo (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1992). 48 M. C. Buscioni, Esposizione e ‘stile nazionale’, 1861–1925 (Firenze: Alinea, 1990), 33–44. 49 Z. Ciuffoletti, ‘Firenze dalla prima Esposizione nazionale di agricoltura, industria, arte e commercio alla prima Esposizione nazionale dei lavori femminili (1861 e 1871)’, in Le artigiane della moda e la creatività femminile, ed. Z. Ciuffoletti (Firenze: Aska, 2014), 9–15. 50 B. Cinelli, ‘Firenze 1861: anomalie di una esposizione’, Ricerche di Storia dell’arte, no. 18 (1982), 21–36. 51 P. Coccoluto Ferrigni, Viaggio attraverso l’Esposizione italiana del 1861 (Firenze: Bettini, 1861), 68–9. 52 Commissione reale and Comitato esecutivo, La esposizione italiana del 1861, giornale con 190 incisioni e con gli atti ufficiali della Commissione (Firenze: Bettini, 1862), 59. 53 Z. Ciuffoletti, ‘Firenze dalla prima Esposizione nazionale’, 12. 54 P. F. Listri, Firenze espone, 86–8. 55 P. Coccoluto Ferrigni, Viaggio, 251. 56 P. F. Listri, Firenze espone, 85–6. 57 See S. Rogari, Ruralismo e anti-­industrialismo di fine secolo: neofisiocrazia e movimento cooperativo cattolico (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1984); R. Melchionda, Firenze industriale nei suoi incerti albori (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1988), 4–15. 58 U. Peruzzi, Relazione del sindaco Ubaldino Peruzzi al Consiglio comunale di Firenze (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1870), 30. 59 C. Lorenzini, ‘Le avventure di Pinocchio’, in Carlo Collodi. Opere, 367. 60 Ibid., 374. 61 C. Lorenzini, ‘Il birichino di Firenze’, Fanfulla, 30 September 1870. 62 C. Lorenzini, ‘Le avventure di Pinocchio’, 401. 63 A. Mari, La questione di Firenze, 109. 64 S. Giannetti and V. Giannetti, Le Cure. Il quartiere di Firenze dove il presente convive con il passato (Firenze: Pontecorboli, 2013). 65 U. Peruzzi, Relazione del sindaco Ubaldino Peruzzi, 31. 66 Comitato dell’inchiesta industriale, Atti del Comitato dell’inchiesta industriale. Riassunti delle deposizioni orali e scritte (Firenze: Stamperia reale, 1874). 67 See S. Fagioli, Vilfredo Pareto nella Toscana del secondo Ottocento (Firenze: Polistampa, 2015); G. Busino, Vilfredo Pareto e l’industria del ferro nel Valdarno (Milano: Banca Commerciale Italiana, 1977). 68 R. Melchionda, Firenze industriale, 185–6. 69 P. Pecorari, Il protezionismo imperfetto: Luigi Luzzati e la tariffa doganale del 1878 (Venezia: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1989). 70 R. Melchionda, Firenze industriale, 1–40. 71 C. Azzi, Firenze e il suo avvenire (Firenze: Barbèra, 1872), 5. 72 Ibid., 6–12. 73 Ibid., 14–24. 74 Ibid., 25. 75 P. Giorgieri, Firenze il progetto urbanistico. Scritti e contributi 1975–2010. Problematiche di architettura e urbanistica (Firenze: Alinea, 2010). 76 C. Azzi, Firenze e il suo avvenire, 34.

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1  A New Capital for Italy: Politics and Culture   1 D. Mack Smith, Vittorio Emanuele II (Bari: Laterza, 1972).   2 M. D’Azeglio, I miei ricordi (Torino: Einaudi, [1891] 1971), 5.   3 La convenzione di settembre. 15 settembre 1864. Alle origini di Firenze capitale, ed. S. Rogari (Firenze: Polistampa, 2015).   4 See G. Massari, La vita ed il Regno di Vittorio Emanuele II di Savoia primo Re d’Italia (Milano: Fratelli Treves, 1878), vol. 2, 226 ff.   5 On Bettino Ricasoli and his political career, see Bettino Ricasoli. Discorsi Parlamentari (1861–1879), ed. A. Breccia (Firenze: Polistampa, 2012).   6 Bettino Ricasoli to Marco Minghetti, 13 September 1864, in Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, ed. G. Paolini (Roma: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 2011), vol. 21, t. 1, 457.   7 Ibid.   8 Bettino Ricasoli to Vincenzo Ricasoli, 14 September 1864, in Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, vol. 21, t. 1, 459.   9 In Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, vol. 21, t. 1, 483. 10 P. Roselli et al., Nascita di una capitale. Firenze, settembre 1864–giugno 1865 (Firenze: Alinea, 1985). 11 U. Pesci, Firenze capitale (1865–1870). Dagli appunti di un ex-­cronista (Firenze: R. Bemporad & Figlio, 1904), 64–5. 12 Le passioni del Re. Paesi, cavalli e altro a Firenze al tempo dei Savoia, ed. M. Branca and A. Caputo (Firenze: Polistampa, 2011). 13 See Il gran ballo di Firenze capitale: 1865–1870 (Firenze: Montemayor, 2015). 14 Firenze capitale 1865–2015. I doni e le collezioni del Re, ed. S. Condemi (Livorno: Sillabe, 2015). 15 F. Cognasso, Le lettere di Vittorio Emanuele II (Torino: Deputazione Subalpina di storia patria, 1966), vol. 9, t. 2, 1194. 16 F. Cognasso, Le lettere di Vittorio Emanuele II, 1395. 17 Particularly interesting is Guida pratica popolare di Firenze ad uso specialmente degli impiegati, negozianti, della madri di famiglia, e di tutti coloro i quali stanno per trasferirsi (Torino: Tipografia letteraria, 1865). 18 G. Spadolini, Firenze capitale. Gli anni di Ricasoli (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1979), 19. 19 See 1865. Questioni nazionali e questioni locali nell’anno di Firenze capitale, ed. S. Rogari (Firenze: Polistampa, 2016). 20 S. Camerani, Firenze dopo porta Pia (Firenze: Olschki, 1977). 21 N. Tommaseo, Cronichetta del 1865–66 (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1940). 22 R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny sindaco di Firenze capitale e ministro delle Finanze (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1975). 23 See D. Mack Smith, Vittorio Emanuele II, 285. 24 Reference works on culture in Florence as capital of Italy are S. Camerani, Panorama di Firenze capitale (Firenze: Il Fauno, 1971); S. Camerani, Cronache di Firenze capitale (Firenze: Olschki, 1971); Il viaggio della capitale: Torino, Firenze e Roma dopo l’unità d’Italia, ed. A. Brilli (Torino: UTET, 2010); M. L. Orlandini, Al tempo di Firenze capitale (Firenze: Il Pozzo di Micene, 2013); P. F. Listri, Segreti e vita quotidiana di Firenze capitale, 1865–1870 (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2014); Z. Ciuffoletti, La città capitale: Firenze prima, durante e dopo (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2014). 25 E. de Amicis, Ultime pagine di Edmondo de Amicis (Milano: Treves, 1908), 21–65. 26 Quoted in C. Ceccuti, ‘Il salotto di Emilia Peruzzi’, in Ubaldino Peruzzi un protagonista di Firenze capitale, ed. P. Bagnoli (Firenze: Festina Lente, 1994), 18.

Notes 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

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E. de Amicis, Ultime pagine di Edmondo de Amicis, 72. Ibid., 15. See C. Ceccuti, ‘Il salotto di Emilia Peruzzi’, 20. U. Rogari, Due regine dei salotti nella Firenze capitale: Emilia Peruzzi e Maria Rattazzi fra politica, cultura, mondanità (Palermo: Sandron, 1992). G. Artom Treves, Anglo-Fiorentini di cento anni fa (Firenze: Sansoni, 1953), 9. C. Trivulzio di Belgiojoso, ‘Della presente condizione delle donne e del loro avvenire’, Nuova Antologia, 1, no. 1 (1866), 96–113. A. Manzoni, ‘Dell’unità della lingua e dei mezzi per diffonderla’, Nuova Antologia, 3, no. 3 (1868), 425–41. Firenze capitale europea della cultura e della ricerca scientifica. La vigilia del 1865, ed. G. Manica (Firenze: Polistampa, 2014). E. De Amicis, Le tre capitali: Torino, Firenze, Roma (Catania: Giannotta, 1898). Ibid., 97–8.

2  A Capital of Culture   1 G. Spadolini, Firenze capitale (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1967). Then id., Firenze capitale. Gli anni di Ricasoli (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1979).   2 M. D’Azeglio, Niccolò de’ Lapi, ovvero i Palleschi e i Piagnoni (Milano: Tipografia Ferrario, 1841 and 1866).   3 A. Manzoni, Dell’unità della lingua e dei mezzi di diffonderla [relaz. ms. del 1868: Varia 30, Biblioteca Reale di Torino] (Castel Guelfo di Bologna: Imago/Società Dante Alighieri, 2011).   4 P. Fanfani, Vocabolario dell’uso toscano, 2 voll. (Firenze: Barbèra, 1863). Now P. Fanfani, Vocabolario dell’uso toscano (Firenze: Le Lettere, 1976).   5 Novo vocabolario della lingua italiana secondo l’uso di Firenze, ordinata dal Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione e compilato sotto la direzione del signor Emilio Broglio (Firenze: Cellini, 1897), vol. 1.   6 N. Tommaseo, Nuovo dizionario de’ sinonimi della lingua italiana (Firenze: Pezzati, 1830).   7 Ibid.   8 G. Luti, Momenti della cultura fiorentina tra Ottocento e Novecento (Firenze: Le Lettere, 1987), 17.   9 N. Tommaseo and B. Bellini, Dizionario della lingua italiana, 8 voll. (Torino: Pomba, 1861–74). Now N. Tommaseo and B. Bellini, Dizionario della lingua italiana (Milano: Rizzoli, 1977). 10 Editori a Firenze nel secondo Ottocento, ed. I. Porciani (Firenze: Olschki, 1983). 11 G. Tortorelli, ‘Non bramo altr’esca’. Studi sulla casa editrice Barbèra (Bologna: Pendragon, 2013). 12 G. Barbèra, Memorie di un editore 1818–1880 (Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1883). Now G. Barbèra, Memorie di un editore 1818–1880 (Brindisi: Trabant, 2013). 13 M. Schiff, Lezioni di fisiologia sperimentale sul sistema nervoso encefalico date dal Prof. Maurizio Schiff nel R. Museo di Firenze nell’anno 1864–65 e compilate per cura del Prof. Pietro Marchi (Firenze: Cammelli, 1865; 2nd ed. 1873). 14 C. O. Gori, ‘Un garibaldino che divenne direttore de La Nazione. La storia del deputato pistoiese Giuseppe Civinini’, Microstoria, no. 10 (2000). 15 G. Civinini, Le conversazioni del giovedì e altri scritti politici e letterari (Pistoia: Niccolai, 1885).

280

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16 I. Porciani, L’Archivio storico italiano: organizzazione della ricerca ed egemonia moderata nel Risorgimento (Firenze: Olschki, 1979). 17 S. Bartolozzi Batignani, ‘Il pensiero economico: l’Ottocento (i)’, in Firenze 1815–1945. Un bilancio storiografico, ed. G. Mori and P. Roggi (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1990), 269. 18 E. Cecchinato, ‘Oliva, Antonio’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, 2013), vol. 79. 19 G. Gentile, Gino Capponi e la cultura toscana nel sec. XIX (Firenze: Sansoni, 1922). Now G. Gentile, Gino Capponi e la cultura toscana nel sec. XIX, opere, vol. 17 (Firenze: Sansoni, 1964). 20 S. Cingari, Un’ideologia per il ceto dirigente dell’Italia Unita. Pensiero e politica al Liceo Dante di Firenze, 1853–1945 (Firenze: Olschki, 2012), 8, 33 and 46. 21 L. Lotti, ‘L’Ateneo fiorentino dopo l’Unità d’Italia: dall’Istituto di Studi Superiori all’Università degli studi’, in Storia dell’Ateneo fiorentino. Contributi di studio, ed. L. Lotti, C. Leonardi and C. Ceccuti (Firenze: F.&F., 1986), vol. 1, 22. 22 G. Spadolini, Il ‘Cesare Alfieri’ nella storia d’Italia (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1975), 3. 23 G. Spadolini, Firenze capitale. Con documenti inediti e un’appendice di saggi su Firenze nell’unità (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1967), 176. 24 Z. Ciuffoletti, ‘Guasti, Cesare’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, 2003), vol. 60. 25 F. Conti, Firenze Massonica. Il libro matricolare della Loggia Concordia, 1861–1921 (Firenze: Polistampa, 2012). 26 L. Pezzica, ‘Introduzione’, in M. A. Bakunin, Viaggio in Italia (Milano: Elèuthera, 2013). 27 M. Hall, ‘Restoring the Countryside: George Perkins Marsh and the Italian Land Ethic (1861–1882)’, Environment and History, 4, no. 1 (1998), 91–103. 28 S. Di Marco, Frederick Stibbert. Vita di un collezionista (Torino: Allemandi, 2009). 29 F. Borsi, La capitale a Firenze e l’opera di Giuseppe Poggi (Roma: Colombo, 1970). 30 G. Dupré, Pensieri sull’arte e ricordi autobiografici (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1879). 31 E. Spalletti, ‘Duprè, Giovanni’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, 1993), vol. 42. 32 R. Bonnefoit, ‘I due Savonarola: la contesa su un monumento per Girolamo Savonarola a Firenze’, Antologia Vieusseux, 4, no. 11–12 (1998), 109–32. 33 C. Paolini, Monumenti celebrativi nella Firenze postunitaria (Firenze: Polistampa, 2015), 55–7. See also C. Paolini and G. Serra, ‘Monumento a Girolamo Savonarola, di Enrico Pazzi e Olinto Rimediotti’, in Repertorio delle architetture civili di Firenze, ed. C. Paolini, 2015 (www.palazzospinelli.org/architetture/scheda.asp?ID=2665 – accessed 10 August 2016). 34 Diego Martelli, l’amico dei macchiaioli e degli impressionisti, ed. P. Dini and F. Dini (Firenze: Il Torchio 1996), 14. 35 B. Croce, ‘La teoria dell’arte come pura visibilità’, in id., Nuovi saggi di estetica (Bari: Laterza, 1920), 223–31. 36 L. Sacconi, ‘Ugo Schiff: ottimo chimico, pessimo carattere’, Atti e memorie dell’Accademia fiorentina di scienze morali ‘La Colombaria’, 59, no. 45 (1994), 217–30. 37 E. Garin, ‘La cultura a Firenze al tempo di Ugo Schiff ’, Atti e memorie dell’Accademia fiorentina di scienze morali ‘La Colombaria’, 59, no. 45 (1994), 201–16. 38 M. Schiff, Lezioni di fisiologia sperimentale. 39 G. Landucci, Darwinismo a Firenze, tra scienza e ideologia: 1860–1900 (Firenze: Olschki, 1977). 40 G. Cipriani, Medicina e Farmacia a Firenze nella seconda metà dell’Ottocento (http:// docplayer.it/6296285-Medicina-­e-farmacia-­a-firenze-­nella-seconda-­meta-dell-­ ottocento.html accessed 20 August 2016).

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3  Bettino Ricasoli: Economic Policy or House Management?   1 During the eighth and ninth decades of the nineteenth century, Vilfredo Pareto lived in Florence due to his employment at the ironworks in San Giovanni Valdarno. During those years he was actively involved in the city’s cultural life. He participated in the social gatherings at Villa Peruzzi, he animated the activities of the Academy of the Georgofili (he had already delivered his first speech there in 1872) and took part in the foundation of the Adam Smith Society (an economic and liberal-oriented society founded in 1874). It was a period which a large part of historiography considered crucial for the education of someone, who years later, would have become one of the top theoretical economists in the history of economic thought.   2 V. Pareto, Manuale di economia politica con una introduzione alla scienza sociale (Milano: Società Editrice Libraria, 1906), 35.   3 Adone Zoli was Budget Minister during the first Segni Government (1955–1957), in place of Ezio Vanoni, who died on 16 February 1956; then he was Prime Minister from 19 May 1957 until 1 July 1958. He confessed to the Chamber of Deputies: ‘One day I unexpectedly became Budget Minister. Thus I formed, as an incompetent man, a modest experience . . . I succeeded talented and qualified Ministers . . . Allow me to say, onorevole Mariotti [who interrupted him shouting: ‘Excessive modesty!’]; allow me to say, I have never thought of becoming Budget Minister and much less Prime Minister’ (A. Zoli, ‘Speech of 1 July 1958, on the occasion of the debate on the law draft State of Prevision of the Spending of the Budget Minister’, in id., Discorsi parlamentari (Roma: Senato della Repubblica, 1989), 1035.)   4 See Encyclopedie ou dictionnarie raisonné de sciences, des arts et des métiers (Paris: Briasson, David, Le Breton, Durand, 1755), t. 5, 337. This entry is also known as ‘Discourse on Political Economy’, because of the title that was given to the text in 1758 by Jacob Vernes, who published the essay separately (Genève, Duvillard). It can be found also in J. J. Rousseau, ‘Économie politique. Article extrait de l’Encyclopédie   pour laquelle il avoit été composé’, in id., Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Dalibon, 1824), t. 12, 3–72.   5 The ‘Italian Classical Economists’ [‘Economisti classici italiani’] was a monumental collection of works divided in two parts: the ‘old’ one comprised of seven volumes released between 1803 and 1804 and the ‘modern’ one, including forty-­three   volumes released between 1803 and 1805. All volumes were published in Milan by Destefanis.   6 Francesco Ferrara was a statistician native to Palermo, who was exiled to Turin, where he was appointed by Cavour to hold the chair of political economy. He edited the first two series of the ‘Economist’s Library’ [‘Biblioteca dell’Economista’] (thirteen volumes for each series, published between 1850 and 1870 in Turin by i tipi di Pomba/Utet). Ferrara did not much appreciate Italian economists except for Ortes – he accused them of not having reached an adequate scientific level and in each series he confined almost all of them into only one volume (the third one of series I and the second one of series II).   7 The Adam Smith Society was a liberal-­inspired association, established in Florence in 1874, by Francesco Ferrara. The society which sponsored also the birth of a journal, The Economist (L’Economista), counted among its founding members personalities like Boccardo, Ciccone, Messedaglia, Protonari, Scialoja, Torrigiani, Minghetti and Sella.   8 As is well known, according to Smith, the entrepreneur’s hedonistic interest, despite looking like a vice for traditional morality, actually produced social well-­being because of the existence of a providential ‘invisible hand’.

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  9 The former was an Anglican Minister and professor of economics; the latter a skilful stockbroker and Member of Parliament. 10 He was a patriot who died in England as an exile and the first Italian intellectual to deal ‘professionally’ with the history of economic thought. 11 Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to Luigi Salvatorelli, 11 August 1861 (Lettere e documenti del barone Bettino Ricasoli, ed. M. Tabarrini e A. Gotti, Firenze: Le Monnier, 1891, vol. 6, 92; from now on LDBR). 12 ‘L’Italie devienne une dans ses confins pour se vouer au développement de ses ressources’ (Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to Conte di Barral, 15 July 1861, in LDBR, vol. 6, 53). 13 Discorsi dei Ministri Ricasoli Bettino, Miglietti, Della Rovere, Peruzzi, Menabrea, e Cordova sulla questione romana e sulle condizioni delle province romane (Torino: Botta, 1861), 11. 14 Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to Vincenzo Ricasoli, 12 June 1862 (in LDBR, vol. 6, 15). 15 Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to Costantino Nigra, 25 December 1861 (in LDBR, vol. 6, 256). 16 Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to Emanuele d’Azeglio, 27 November 1861 (in LDBR, vol. 6, 243). 17 Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to S. M. il Re Vittorio Emanuele, 28 February 1862 (in LDBR, vol. 6, 416–8). 18 The transfer was ratified by what is known as the ‘September Agreement’, signed at Fontainebleau by Costantino Nigra (Italian Ambassador in Paris), Gioacchino Napoleone Pepoli (Italian Ambassador in St Petersburg) and Édouard Drouyn de Lhuys (French Foreign Minister). The transfer of the capital from Turin to Florence was imposed by France as a guarantee of the final surrender of the Kingdom of Italy   to any wish to make Rome the capital. 19 G. Spadolini, Firenze capitale: gli anni di Ricasoli (Firenze: L Monnier, 1979), 309. 20 Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to Carolo Boncompagni, 5 September 1866 (in LDBR, vol. 8, 163). 21 Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to F. Macknight, 26 October 1866 (in LDBR, vol. 8, 307). 22 ‘Il faudra maintenant profiter de la paix pour régler les finances et l’administration qui laissent énormément à désirer. Il faudra rétablir l’économie et l’état déplorable de nôtre pauvre industrie’ (message from Costantino Nigra to Napoleon III, 23 August 1866, in LDBR, vol. 8, 123). 23 Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to F. Macknight, 16 October 1866 (in LDBR, vol. 8, 284–5). 24 Letter from Bettino Ricasoli to Vincenzo Ricasoli, 21 August 1866 (in LDBR, vol. 8, 118–20).

4  Bettino Ricasoli and the Sunset of Moderate Hegemony   1 See S. Rogari, ‘Questione romana, questione nazionale e questione militare nel trasferimento della capitale a Firenze’, in La Convenzione di Settembre. 15 settembre 1864. Alle origini di Firenze Capitale, ed. S. Rogari (Firenze: Polistampa, 2015), 19.   2 Discorsi parlamentari del conte Camillo di Cavour raccolti e pubblicati per ordine della Camera dei deputati (Roma: Botta, 1872), 318.   3 See A. Aquarone, ‘La visione dello Stato’, in Ricasoli e il suo tempo, ed. G. Spadolini (Firenze: Olschki, 1980), 60–9.   4 See the letter sent by Bettino Ricasoli to Alfonso La Marmora on 12 February 1862, in Carteggi di Alfonso La Marmora, ed. A. Colombo, A. Corbelli and E. Passamonti (Torino: Chiantore, 1928).

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  5 B. Ricasoli, ‘Relazione sopra i miglioramenti agrarii e morali della fattoria di Brolio’ letta all’Accademia dei Georgofili il 5 maggio 1844, in Lettere e documenti del barone Bettino Ricasoli, I, ed. M. Tabarrini and A. Gotti (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1898), 497–8.   6 Bettino Ricasoli to Alfonso La Marmora, 25 April 1862, in Carteggi di Alfonso La Marmora, 157–60.   7 On the entrepreneurial activity of Bettino Ricasoli, see G. Biagioli, Il modello del proprietario imprenditore nella Toscana dell’Ottocento: Bettino Ricasoli. Il patrimonio, le fattorie (Firenze: Olschki, 2000); Bettino Ricasoli. Imprenditore agricolo e pioniere del Risorgimento vitivinicolo italiano, ed. C. Satto (Firenze: Aska, 2010).   8 Bettino Ricasoli to his brother Vincenzo, Brolio, 14 September 1864, in Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, ed. G. Paolini, vol. XXI, t. 1 (Roma: Istituto storico per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 2011), 457–9.   9 Bettino Ricasoli to Celestino Bianchi, Brolio, 23 September 1864, in Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, vol. XXI, t. 1, 491–2. 10 Bettino Ricasoli to his brother Vincenzo, Brolio, 23 September 1864, in Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, vol. XXI, t. 1, 493. 11 Lettere di Gino Capponi e di altri a lui, ed. A. Carraresi, IV (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1885), 44. 12 See F. Landi, Bettino Ricasoli. Il Barone di Ferro in Toscana (Firenze: Lucio Pugliese Editore, 1988), 192. 13 G. Spadolini, Firenze Capitale. Gli anni di Ricasoli (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1979), 299. 14 On the position of Bettino Ricasoli in regard to the Law of the Guarentigie, see the letters sent in September 1870 by Ricasoli to Celestino Bianchi, Francesco Protonotari and Francesco Borgatti, in Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, vol. XXVII, ed. S. Camerani (Roma: Istituto storico per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 1974), 130–2, 135–7, 153–5. Also essential is the letter sent on 1 January 1871, also to Francesco Borgatti, ibid., 296–8. 15 See U. Levra, ‘L’apice dello scontro tra Torino e Firenze: piemontesismo e antipiemontesismo’, in La Convenzione di Settembre, 199–217. 16 A. Breccia, Bettino Ricasoli. Discorsi parlamentari (1861–1879) (Firenze: Polistampa, 2012), 177–82. 17 G. Spadolini, Firenze capitale (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1967), 277. 18 See R. Romanelli, L’Italia liberale (1861–1900) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1979), 104–5. 19 G. Spadolini, Firenze capitale, 59. 20 M. Pantaleoni, ‘In occasione della morte di Vilfredo Pareto’, in Giornale degli Economisti, vol. 1 (1924), 1–19. 21 F. Cammarano, Storia politica dell’Italia liberale (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1999), 69. 22 G. Spadolini, Firenze capitale, 125. 23 Bettino Ricasoli to Giovan Battista Giorgini, Brolio, 25 October 1865, in Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, ed. B. Taverni, vol. XXI, t. 3 (Roma: Istituto Storico per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 2015), 292–3. 24 Ibid., 57. 25 G. Spadolini, Firenze capitale, 78. 26 See L. L. Ginori, Mario Covoni Girolami, Ricordi e memorie di un personaggio fiorentino (Firenze: Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, 1981), 352. 27 See A. Mari, La questione di Firenze, 102–3. 28 Ibid., 100. 29 Ibid., 181. On the ‘question of Florence’, see P. Bastogi, La questione di Firenze (Firenze: Successori Le Monnier, 1879) and S. Fei, Nascita e sviluppo di Firenze città borghese (Firenze: Giorgi e Gambi, 1871).

284 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

43 44

Notes B. Croce, Storia d’Italia dal 1871 al 1915, 17. Ibid., 82. Ibid., 28. A. Mari, La questione di Firenze, 39. Bettino Ricasoli to the prince Wizniewski, 24 March 1871, in Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, vol. XXVII, 331–3. B. Croce, Storia d’Italia dal 1871 al 1915, 67. F. Cammarano, Storia dell’Italia liberale. 1861–1901, 103. R. Romanelli, L’Italia liberale (1861–1900), 194. See A. Berselli, Il governo della Destra. Italia legale e Italia reale dopo l’Unità (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1997), 798. Bettino Ricasoli to Celestino Bianchi, Brolio, 12 March 1876, in Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, ed. G. Camerani and C. Rotondi, vol. XXVIII (Roma: Istituto storico per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 1978), 546–9. B. Croce, Storia d’Italia dal 1871 al 1915, 23. Bettino Ricasoli to Celestino Bianchi, Abbadia, 19 March 1876, in Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, ed. G. Camerani and C. Rotondi, vol. XIX (Roma: Istituto storico per l’età moderna e contemporanea, 1980), 3–5. A similar experiment had been attempted by Bettino Ricasoli in forming his second government (June 1866–April 1867). See A. Aquarone, ‘Dalle elezioni del 1865 alla costituzione del ministero Ricasoli: incertezze e contrasti nella classe politica italiana’, in id., Alla ricerca dell’Italia liberale (Napoli: Guida, 1972), 195–243. Bettino Ricasoli to Ubaldino Peruzzi, Roma, 18 March 1876, in Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, vol. XXVIII, 565. B. Croce, Storia d’Italia dal 1871 al 1915, 17.

5  Activist Literary Culture in Florence (1865–71)   1 I debated this theme more in detail in my book, G. Tellini, Letteratura a Firenze. Dall’Unità alla Grande Guerra (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2010).   2 F. de Sanctis, Storia della letteratura italiana (Torino: Einaudi, 1958), vol. 2, 974.   3 G. I. Ascoli, ‘Proemio all’Archivio Glottologico Italiano’, in C. Grassi, Scritti sulla questione della lingua (Milano: Silva, [1873] 1967), 3–45.   4 C. Dionisotti, ‘Varia fortuna di Dante’, in Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana (Torino: Einaudi, 1967), 226.   5 Ibid., 227.   6 For the dissimilarities between Dante and Petrarca in Italian literature, see   C. Dionisotti, ‘Per un taccuino di Pavese’, in id., Ricordi della scuola italiana (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1998), 514; id., ‘Dante e il Rinascimento’, in id., Scritti di storia della letteratura italiana, 1963–1971 (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2009), vol. 2, 213–8.   7 De Sanctis defines the concept of ‘shape’ which would be the cornerstone for his work Storia in his bad review of Cantù’s work: ‘[Cantù’s] basic criterion of judgement are the contents, because they could be true or false, important or frivolous, moral or immoral, useful or detrimental; he concludes from these elements his criterion and judgements, considering the literary section as something stuck he can remove or add’ (F. De Sanctis, ‘Una «Storia della letteratura italiana» di Cesare Cantù’, in id., Saggi critici (Bari: Laterza, [1865] 1965), vol. 2, 198–216.

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  8 The young philologists Bonaventura Zumbini and Francesco Montefedrini, Settembrini’s censors, are on the side of science. They are austere, strict, stern,   and ‘welcome’ (as De Sanctis writes), but their licit ‘arrows’ missed the target,   because they were pointed on Settembrini’s ‘book of magic’, Lezioni di letteratura italiana, which is an ‘artwork’. De Sanctis was not interested in defending emotions opposed to science, neither the past in conflict with the present time, but he was rather interested in the right and necessary respect for history’s dynamics: ‘Ah, Zumbini! . . . Come with me to thank Settembrini for donating to Italy this so beautiful book on behalf of the old and the new generations, a book in which everything most Italian thought and listened for a long time is represented with the soul of an artist and the heart of a patriot’ (F. De Sanctis, ‘Settembrini e i suoi critici’, in id., Saggi critici, vol. 2, 316–17). De Sanctis here proved an excellent ethical-­intellectual firmness before publishing his masterpiece, but he knew that he was son of another epoch and because of this, despite being an anxious prophet of modernity, he was frightened by the self-­assuredness of the new, by the indiscreet, impatient and aggressive self-­confidence of the young newbies. This did not make him less defensive and it is proved by his essays on the newest release of Florentine publishers as L’uomo del Guicciardini (October 1869), which defends the ten volumes of Guicciardini’s Opere inedite edited by Giuseppe Canestrini, for Barbèra, between 1857 and 1867; or as Un dramma claustrale (March 1870), which defends the three volumes (1853, 1860, 1868) of Manoscritti palatine di Firenze ordinate ed esposti edited by Francesco Palermo. In both these cases we are in front of an authentic homage, addressed to the erudite fervour of the historic school. The works about Guicciardini, Metastasio, Parini and Foscolo are tightly linked with the Storia della letteratura italiana, written in Florentine style, a book which acutely registered the end and the defeat of the ancient culture: ‘The sense of real is growing, and the positive sciences take control, banishing every ideal and systematic construction’ (F. De Sanctis, Saggi critici, vol. 2, 972). The final balance is done with a quote from Dante and with the wish for the return of ‘Machiavelli’s and Galileo’s spirits’. De Sanctis wanted Italy to learn from this lesson of realism in order to ‘find itself, with clear sight, free from every cover and shell, looking for concreteness’ (ibid., 974).   9 See C. Dionisotti, ‘Appendice storica alla «Colonna Infame»’, in id., Appunti sui moderni. Foscolo, Leopardi, Manzoni e altri (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1988), 299–315. 10 For about a year, Tommaseo resided in a small furnished apartment (that his friend Viesseux found for him), near San Marco square, from where he went every morning to Mass in Girolamo Savonarola’s Church. The apartment was located in Via San Zanobi, which was part of a district relevant to modern literature: in 1883 Emilio Cecchi was born there; at the beginning of the twentieth century, Mario Praz lived in the building almost opposite De Cecchi’s one, staying for several years in his grandparents’ home. Mario Praz himself recalled returning to Via San Zanobi in later years to see the plaque in memory of Tommaseo’s stay (M. Praz, ‘Via San Zanobi’, in id., Fiori Freschi, Milano: Garzanti, 1982, 387–90). 11 N. Tommaseo, Cronichetta del Sessantasei (Torino: Einaudi, 1939); a later edition is definitely more trustworthy: N. Tommaseo, Cronichetta del 1865–66 (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1940). 12 The novel is included in the second edition of the drafts of La vita militare (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1868 and 1869) and in the sylloge Racconti Militari (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1869), ‘book to use in military schools’, published by Le Monnier. About the reports on cholera by De Amicis and some of Verga’s texts on the same theme, see G. Tellini, ‘Eziologia del colera’, in id., L’invenzione della realtà (Pisa: Nistri-Lischi, 1993), 256–98.

286

Notes

13 C. E. Gadda, ‘Manzoni diviso in tre dal bisturi di Moravia’, in id., Il tempo e le opere. Saggi, note e divagazioni (Milano: Adelphi 1982), 38. 14 See M. Pratesi, L’eredità (Milano: Bompiani, 1942). 15 A. Palazzeschi, ‘Sorelle Materassi’, in id., Tutti i romanzi (Milano: Mondadori, 2004), vol. 1, 1569–736. 16 Id., Tutti i romanzi, vol. 1, 513. 17 Giovanni Verga to his brother Mario, 7 May 1869 (in G. Verga, Lettere sparse, Roma: Bulzoni, 1979, 10–11; see also id., Lettere alla famiglia, 1851–1881, Roma-Acireale: Bonanno, 2011, 93–4). 18 N. Tommaseo, ‘A’ lettori’, in C. Percoto, Racconti (Firence: Le Monnier, 1858), now in C. Percoto, Racconti (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1972), 28–9. 19 In June 1889, in the preface to the third edition of Giacinta (1879, 1886, 1889), Capuana looked back to his novitiate in 1875 when he had just finished reading Balzac, Flaubert and Zola and he could not see around him anything but scarce and inadequate attempts to renew the Italian novel. For him to renew the novel meant to win the ‘terrible fear’ which prevented the other writers from representing the contemporary life, after the splendour of the historical novel. Because of this, he honoured Tommaseo and his Fede e bellezza, received in 1840 by ‘the same prude negative reviewers, deafening him by screaming all over because of the perceived scandal. What a pity!’ (L. Capuana, ‘Prefazione dell’autore. A Neera’ [Rome, 24 June 1889], in id., Giacinta, Milano: Mursia, 1980, 9). He was not properly the precursor of the naturalistic school, but a precursor of it in the sense of being an acute observer of his contemporary reality and having rejected the traditional scheme based on the point of view of the omniscient narrator. In 1889, Capuana regrets not having followed the example of Tommaseo at the right moment in 1875, when it would have been useful for him while starting to write Giacinta, work that he planned to be the ‘first taste of the Italian contemporary novel’ (ibid., 14). 20 See I. Gambacorti, Verga a Firenze. Nel laboratorio della «Storia di una capinera» (Firenze: Le Lettere, 1994), 173; C. Pestelli, ‘Review’, Studi Italiani, 14, no. 2 (1995), 206–14; I. Moretti, I soggiorni fiorentini di G. Verga, 1865–1879 (Roma: Bulzoni, 2013). 21 See G. Tellini, ‘Il monologo della “povera capinera” ’, in id., L’invenzione della realtà, 172–85. 22 M. Parenti, ‘Il padrino della “capinera” ’, in id., Ancora Ottocento sconosciuto o quasi (Firenze: Sansoni, 1961), 221–7. 23 The letter has been published in G. Donna, ‘Verga e Dell’Ongaro’, Meridiano di Roma, 27 March 1938; now in N. Cappellani, Vita di Giovanni Verga (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1940), 89–91. 24 See U. Pesci, Firenze Capitale, 1865–1870 (Firenze: Bemporad, 1904), 374–5; E. Spalletti, ‘Signorini critico d’arte: lo “Zibaldone” della Galleria d’arte moderna di Palazzo Pitti’, in Telemaco Signorini. Una retrospettiva (Firenze: Artificio, 1997), 240. 25 G. Verga, ‘Storia di una capinera’, in id., Opere (Milano: Mursia, 1988), 78. 26 F. De Roberto, ‘Storia della “Storia di una capinera” ’, La Lettura, 22, no. 21 (1922), 721–32.

6  Science and Florence’s Ruling Class   1 An essential read are the memoirs written by Hugo Schiff on his fifteen years of teaching experience at the Istituto di Studi Superiori: U. Schiff, Quindici anni di vita universitaria dello Istituto di studi superiori in Firenze. Ricordi storici e didattici (Bologna: Gamberini e Parmeggiani, 1890). Other pivotal references are E. Garin,

Notes

  2

  3   4   5   6   7   8   9 10

287

L’Istituto di Studi Superiori cent’anni dopo (Firenze: Il cenacolo, 1960); G. Landucci, Darwinismo a Firenze. Tra scienza e ideologia 1860–1900 (Firenze: Olschki, 1977); B. Chiarelli, ‘L’Istituto di Studi superiori. Paolo Mantegazza e l’antropologia a Firenze’, in Paolo Mantegazza e l’Evoluzionismo in Italia, ed. C. Chiarelli and W. Pasini (Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2010), 15–34; S. Rogari, ‘Gli anni dell’istituto superiore di studi pratici e di perfezionamento’, in L’Università degli Studi di Firenze fra istituzioni e cultura nel decennale della scomparsa di Giovanni Spadolini, ed. S. Rogari and C. Ceccuti (Firenze: Florence University Press, 2005), 13–17; G. Cipriani, Medicina e Farmacia a Firenze nella seconda metà dell’Ottocento, http://docplayer.it/6296285Medicina-­e-farmacia-­a-firenze-­nella-seconda-­meta-dell-­ottocento.html (accessed 21 September 2016); Firenze capitale europea della cultura e della ricerca scientifica. La vigilia del 1865, ed. G. Manica (Firenze: Polistampa, 2014). Useful archival sources comprise the Archive of the University of Florence (Historical Section 1862–1960); the Moritz Schiff Archive in the Faculty of Letters library; the extensive amount of scientific and private correspondence of Hugo Schiff in many languages, held at the Department of Chemistry; the correspondence of Raffaello Lambruschini, stored at the Central National Library of Florence; the correspondence of Adolfo Targioni Tozzetti, in the homonymous fund at the library of animal biology at the Specola Museum; and, the documents of Filippo Parlatore at the Specola and at the municipal library of Palermo. O. Andreucci, Dell’Istituto superiore di studii pratici e di perfezionamento in Firenze (Firenze: Cellini alla Galileiana, 1870). E. Bellone, ‘Le radici del sapere contemporaneo’, in Storia della scienza, VII, L’Ottocento (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2003). C. G. Lacaita, ‘La svolta unitaria e l’istruzione secondaria’, in L’istruzione secondaria nell’Italia unita. 1861–1901, ed. C. G. Lacaita and M. Fugazza (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2013), 19. La Civiltà Cattolica, s. 4, 9 (1860), 228. F. Parlatore, ‘Studi organografici sui fiori e sui frutti delle conifere’, Annali del Reale Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale di Firenze, 1 (1865), 155–81. I. Cocchi, ‘Studi paleontologici del cav. Prof. Igino Cocchi’, Annali del Reale Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale di Firenze, 1 (1865), 66. T. Salvadori, ‘Nota bibliografica intorno a E. Benvenuti’, Rivista italiana di ornitologia, no. 1–2 (1914), 28. ‘One of the most important consequences of these studies is that light, heat, electricity and sound are not real entities for us, but simple actions and minute movements of the matter transmitted to our brain by nerves. . . . Here our knowledge ends. The mysterious influence of matter on the spirit will probably remain forever unknown. But considering that among living beings there surely are thousands on the head of a needle whose life lasts only an instant but nonetheless feels complete to them . . ., we perceive the limits of our physical abilities and understand that man only occupies a single position in the infinite gradation of perceptions. Here lies, perhaps, one of the main reasons why man, as we observed in the beginning, in researching for the truth has often erred from it, because he tried to extend experimental laws beyond the limits of his perceptions, imagining complicated systems and resorting to mysterious principles.’ L. Magrini, Sul continuo tremito vibratorio di tutte le particelle della materia ponderabile e imponderabile. Prelezione al corso di Fisica sperimentale letta il giorno 3 dicembre 1863 all’Istituto di Studi superiori e di perfezionamento in Firenze (Firenze: Cellini, 1864), 21.

288 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Notes C. G. Lacaita, ‘La svolta unitaria e l’istruzione secondaria’, 26. Ibid. Ibid., 108. C. Matteucci, ‘L’instruction publique en Italie’, Revue des deux mondes. Recueil de la politique, de l’administration et des moeurs, 33 (1863), 726–7. ‘Italy’, Medical Times and Gazette, 11 April 1863. C. Tommasi, ‘Prolusione al corso di Istologia patologica, letta dal prof. Corrado Tommasi il giorno 2 luglio 1864, nello Spedale di Santa Maria Nuova’, La Nazione, 4 July 1864. See also S. Goretti, Corrado Tommasi-Crudeli (1834–1900). Un garibaldino conservatore della Terza Italia (Pieve Santo Stefano: Comune di Pieve Santo Stefano, 1995), 66. G. Galileo, Prose scelte a mostrare il metodo di lui, fn. 1, 26. On the debate, see F. Bertini, ‘La sezione di Scienze naturali’, in Firenze capitale europea. Only two volumes were published. The first one, titled ‘Reports’, contained various studies of professors holding newly instituted chairs: the chemist Giuseppe Gazzeri, the botanist Ottaviano Targioni Tozzetti and the palaeontologist Filippo Nesti. The second volume, published in 1810, was dedicated to the astronomic observatory of the Museum, its equipment and its most interesting discoveries. A. Righini, ‘Donati Giovan Battista’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1992), vol. 41. Come nacque l’Officina Galileo. Gli anni 1861–1870, ed. A. Meschiari (Firenze: Tassinari, 2005). G. B. Donati, ‘Intorno alle strie degli spettri stellari’, Il Nuovo Cimento, 15 (1862), 296–302; republished in Annali del Reale Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale di Firenze, s. 3, 1 (1865), 1–61; then in id., Memorie astronomiche del prof. Giovan Battista Donati estratte dagli Annali del R. Museo fiorentino (Firenze: Cellini, 1862), 5. G. B. Donati, ‘Intorno alle strie degli spettri stellari’, 20. F. Parlatore, ‘Studi organografici sui fiori e sui frutti delle conifere’, Annali del Reale Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale di Firenze, 1 (1865), 155–81. T. Caruel, ‘Studi sulla polpa che avvolge i semi del professor Teodoro Caruel’, Annali del Reale Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale di Firenze, 1 (1866), 185–98. T. Salvadori, ‘Nota bibliografica intorno a E. Benvenuti’, Rivista italiana di ornitologia, no. 1–2 (1914), 28. L. Magrini, ‘Risultato di nuove ricerche sperimentali su l’elettromagnetismo e il diamagnetismo eseguiti nell’aula delle lezioni di fisica presso questo reale museo’, Annali del Reale Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale di Firenze, s. 3, 1 (1865), 235–9. O. Andreucci, Dell’Istituto superiore. C. G. Lacaita, ‘La svolta unitaria e l’istruzione secondaria’, 26. Il tecnico enciclopedico. Organo Ufficiale dell’Istituto Filotecnico Italiano (Firenze: Istituto Filotecnico Nazionale, 1868). L. Battista, Il combustibile italiano e il professore Carlo Cassola lettera di Luigi Battista al commendatore Vincenzo Caratti (Firenze: Regia tipografia, 1868), 11–13. Ibid., 18. M. Pruner Bey, ‘Sur un crâne humain trouvé dans le postpliocéne de la vallée d’Arno’, Bulletins de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris, s. 2, 2 (1867), 672–5. I. Cocchi, Studj paleoetnologici: l’uomo fossile nell’Italia centrale (Milano: Bernardoni, 1867). O. Andreucci, Dell’Istituto superiore.

Notes

289

36 O. Andreucci, Dell’Istituto superiore. 37 G. Ferrari, La Mente di Pietro Giannone. Lezioni di Giuseppe Ferrari all’Istituto Superiore di Milano (Milano: Tipografia del Libero Pensiero, 1868). 38 A. Herzen, ‘Studio fisiologico della volontà’, Annali universali di medicina, 203 (1868), 58. 39 Ibid., 103. 40 ‘Bollettino Bibliografico’, Nuova Antologia (1868), 206–7. 41 F. Bertini, ‘La sezione di Scienze naturali’, in Firenze capitale europea. 42 N. Tommaseo, L’uomo e la scimmia: lettere dieci (Milano: Agnelli, 1869). 43 See A. Gaudio, ‘La storiografia su Lambruschini: un educatore o un classico della pedagogia nazionale’, in Autorità e libertà. Tra coscienza personale, vita civile e processi educativi. Studi in onore di Luciano Pazzaglia, ed. L. Caimi (Milano: Vita Pensiero, 2011), 145–58; P. Carlucci, Il giovane Sonnino fra cultura e politica 1847–1886 (Roma: Archivio Guido Izzi, 2002), 85 and ff. 44 E. Ragionieri, ‘I moderati toscani e la classe dirigente italiana negli anni di Firenze capitale’, in id., Politica e amministrazione nella storia dell’Italia unita (Bari: Laterza, 1967); A. Salvestrini, I moderati toscani e la classe dirigente italiana, 1859–1876 (Firenze: Olschki, 1976). 45 R. P. Coppini, ‘Il Risorgimento’, in La Toscana dai Lorena al fascismo. Mezzo secolo di storiografia nel cinquantenario della ‘Rassegna storica toscana’, ed. F. Conti and R. P. Coppini (Firenze: Polistampa, 2009), 63–71. 46 The most recent studies on the ruling class of the Tuscan moderates are: S. Soldani, ‘I moderati toscani dalla Restaurazione alla caduta della Destra storica’, in id., Lezioni di storia toscana (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1981), 40–91; R. Nieri, ‘Note sulla crisi del moderatismo toscano’, in Ubaldino Peruzzi, un protagonista di Firenze capitale, ed. P. Bagnoli (Firenze: Festina Lente, 1994), 155–60. 47 See U. Carpi, Letteratura e società nella Toscana del Risorgimento. Gli intellettuali dell’«Antologia» (Bari: De Donato, 1974); S. Timpanaro, Sui moderati toscani e su certo neomoderatismo, in Antileopardiani e neomoderati nella sinistra italiana (Pisa: Ets, 1985). 48 This issue in particular has been studied in depth by Giorgio Mori, Mario Mirri, Carlo Pazzagli and Giuliana Bagnoli. See G. Mori, ‘La mezzadria in Toscana alla fine del XIX secolo’, Movimento Operaio, 7, no. 3–4 (1955), 479–510; id., ‘Dall’unità alla guerra: aggregazione e disgregazione di un’area regionale tendenze intellettuali e spinte politiche alla vigilia dell’Unità’, in Storia d’Italia. La Toscana, ed. G. Mori (Torino: Einaudi, 1986), 81–8 and 110–25; M. Mirri, ‘Proprietari e contadini toscani nelle riforme leopoldine’, Movimento Operaio, 7, no. 2 (1955), 172–229; id., ‘Mercato regionale e internazionale e mercato nazionale capitalistico come condizione dell’evoluzione interna della mezzadria in Toscana’, in Agricoltura e sviluppo del capitalismo (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1970), 393–427; C. Pazzagli, L’agricoltura toscana nella prima metà dell’800. Tecniche di produzione e rapporti mezzadrili (Firenze: Olschki, 1973); G. Biagioli, L’agricoltura e la popolazione in Toscana all’inizio dell’Ottocento. Un’indagine sul catasto particellare (Pisa: Pacini, 1975). 49 R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Luigi Guglielmo Cambray-Digny sindaco di Firenze capitale e ministro delle Finanze (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1975); id., ‘L’aristocrazia fondiario-­finanziaria nella Toscana dell’Ottocento. Note per una   ricerca’, Bollettino Storico Pisano, 7 (1983), 43–90; A. Volpi, Banchieri e mercato finanziario in Toscana, 1801–1860 (Firenze: Olschki, 1997). 50 A. Herzen, Analisi fisiologica del libero arbitrio umano (Firenze: Bettini, 1870), 177.

290

Notes

51 M. Schiff, Sulla Misura della Sensazione e del Movimento, lettura fatta a Firenze nel Museo di Storia naturale il 18 aprile 1869 (Firenze: Bettini, 1869), 65. 52 Ibid., 67. 53 Ibid., 74. 54 S. F. De Dominicis, Il materialismo fisiologico del Prof. Schiff (Pisa: Nistri, 1869), 5. 55 G. M. Bertini, Schiarimenti sulla controversia fra lo spiritualismo e il materialismo (Torino: Stamperia Reale, 1870). 56 O. Andreucci, Dell’Istituto superiore. 57 G. Vimercati, ‘Osservatorio Astronomico di Firenze’, Rivista scientifico-­industriale, 1 (1869), 125. 58 A. Herzen, Analisi fisiologica. 59 L. Ferri, ‘Il materialismo e la scienza moderna. Parte prima’, Nuova Antologia, 15, no. 10 (1870), 248–85; L. Ferri, ‘Il materialismo e la scienza moderna. Parte seconda e ultima’, Nuova Antologia, 15, no. 12 (1870), 759–86. 60 A. Herzen, ‘Polemica contro lo spiritualismo’, Rivista europea, 2, 2, no. 1 (1871), 201–24.

7  The Istituto Tecnico di Firenze and Universal Exhibitions   1 Paolo Brenni wrote the first section of this chapter, Laura Faustini and Elena Mechi the second one.   2 For the history of the Istituto Tecnico and its collections, see Annuario dell’I. e R. Istituto Tecnico Toscano e della I. e R. Accademia Toscana d’Arti e Manifatture (1857); F. Corridi, L’Istituto Tecnico toscano. Opuscoli storici e scientifici (Firenze: s. l., 1860), vol. 1; id., Ricordi di fatti contemporanei (Firenze: Murate, 1864); Scienza e tecnica. Saggio delle collezioni scientifiche dell’Istituto tecnico Gaetano Salvemini (già Galileo), ed. P. Galluzzi (Firenze: IMSS, 1977); R. Bacci and M. Zampoli, L’Istituto Tecnico di Firenze (Firenze: s. n., 1977); A. Gallo Martucci, Il Conservatorio d’Arti e Mestieri, Terza classe dell’Accademia delle Belle Arti di Firenze, 1811–1850 (Firenze: MCS, 1988); Le meraviglie dell’ingegno, ed. F. Gravina (Firenze: Ponte alle Grazie, 1990); G. Gori, ‘The Accademia delle Belle Arti and the Istituto Tecnico Toscano 1809–1959’, in L’acustica e i suoi strumenti. Le collezioni dell’Istituto Tecnico Toscano, ed. A. Giatti and M. Miniati (Firenze: Giunti, 2001), 11–30; Firenze Scienza. Le collezioni, i luoghi e i personaggi dell’Ottocento, ed. M. Miniati (Firenze: Polistampa, 2009); S. Soldani, ‘Ingegneri e studi di ingegneria nella Firenze di metà Ottocento’, in Alle radici della moderna ingegneria, ed. F. Angotti, G. Pelosi and S. Soldani (Firenze: FUP, 2010); P. Brenni, ‘The physics cabinet of the Istituto Tecnico Toscano’, in Cabinets of Experimental Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Europe, ed. J. Bennet and S. Talas (Boston: Brill, 2013). Other information can be found in the Atti della Accademia Toscana di Arti e Manifatture (1859–64).   3 See F. Corridi, Ricordi di fatti contemporanei.   4 Universal exhibitions generated an enormous amount of literature: official reports, technical descriptions, catalogues, guides, dedicated journals, etc. Furthermore, in recent years, historians paid increasing attention to universal and international exhibitions and have produced a large number of researches, books and articles on this topic. Therefore, we mention here only a few recent and important titles: P. Ory, Les exposition universelles de Paris (Paris: Ramsay, 1982); A. Baculo, S. Gallo and M. Mangone, Le grandi esposizioni nel mondo, 1851–1900 (Napoli: Liguori, 1988); L. Aimone and C. Olmo, Le esposizioni universali 1851–1900 (Torino: Allemandi, 1991); B. Schroeder-Gudehus and A. Rasmussen, Les fastes du progrès. Le guide des

Notes

  5   6   7   8   9 10

11

12 13 14

15

16

291

Expositions universelles 1851–1992 (Paris: Flammarion, 1992); R. Rydell, The Book of Fairs: A Guide to World Fair Historiography (Chicago: Rydell, 1992); M. Gaillard, Paris. Les exposition universelles de 1855 à 1937 (Paris: Presses franciliennes, 2003); A. C. T. Geppert, M. Baioni, ‘Esposizioni in Europa tra Otto e Novecento’, Memoria e Ricerca, no. 17 (2004); Les expositions universelles en France au XIXe siècle Techinques, Publics, Patrimonie, ed. A. L. Carré et al. (Paris: CNRS, 2012); ‘Esposizioni Universali in Europa. Attori, pubblici, memorie tra metropoli e colonie’, ed. G. L. Fontana and A. Pellegrino, Ricerche Storiche, 45, no. 1–2 (2015). A large collection of original documents, books, reports and catalogues of the universal exhibitions is available on line: http://cnum.cnam.fr/thematiques/fr/1.expositions_universelles/cata_auteurs.php (accessed 10 July 2016). See F. Corridi, Ricordi di fatti contemporanei. See Dei prodotti di varie arti ed industrie inviati all’Esposizione Universale del 1867 in Parigi. Relazione della sottocommissione industriale di Firenze (Firenze: Barbèra, 1867). We do not know if these instruments just belonged to the topographic collection of the institute or if they were made in its workshop. But the latter possibility seems unlikely because at the time the workshop was used very little. Because this exhibition celebrated the Revolution, several nations refused to officially participate. See A. Pippi, L’Istituto tecnico di Firenze. La sua storia i suoi gabinetti (Firenze: Landi, 1900). An updated edition of the volume appeared in 1910. Most of the scientific instruments acquired in London or Paris are today displayed in the restored physics cabinet. See A. Giatti, S. Lotti, Le stanze della scienza. Le collezioni dell’Istituto Tecnico Toscano a Firenze (Firenze: Scienza e tecnica, 2006); P. Brenni, Il Gabinetto di Fisica dell’Istituto Tecnico Toscano. Guida alla visita (Firenze: Polistampa, 2009). Of all the documents that once belonged to the Archive of the Istituto Tecnico di Firenze, only few remain and are preserved in the Library of the Museo FirST – Firenze Scienza e Tecnica (Biblioteca Museo FiRST: BMFFi from now on). They include: inventories of cabinets, ‘personal states’ of teachers, lists of alumni and loose sheets. We thank Dr Ellida Talluri of the Camera di Commercio, who accepted our request for the restoration of a badly damaged file, allowing us to access the information contained in the documents. We thank Dr Massimo Misiti of the Provincia of Florence who helped us in the search of documents. Dei prodotti di varie arti ed industrie inviati all’Esposizione universale del 1867 in Parigi: relazione della Sottocommissione industriale di Firenze (Firenze: Barbèra, 1867). Esposizione Universale del 1867 a Parigi, Regno d’Italia, Atti Ufficiali della R. Commissione Italiana (Firenze: Barbèra, 1867). In the Archives of the Chamber of Commerce (from now on ACCFi) there are many folders of documents related to the various universal expositions including that of 1867. Papers relating to this exposition can be grouped into: Meetings, Receipts of exhibitors admission, Lists of exhibitors, Lists of winners and Notes of return to Florence of the materials on display in Paris. Information pertaining to the Technical Institute of Florence is distributed among these homogeneous groups of documents. ‘Saranno inviati a spese della Provincia di Firenze alla prossima Esposizione di Parigi i Capifabbrica o 12 Maestri d’Arte, dalle seguenti industrie: Produzione dei Cuoiami; Verniciatura dei Cuoiami; Filatura del Cotone; Tessitura ed altre lavorazioni del

292

17 18

19 20 21 22

23

24

25

Notes Cotone, del Lino, e della Canape; Lanificio; Setificio; Vetrerie; Arte Ceramica; Industrie Metalliche; Orologeria.’ Archivio Storico Provincia di Firenze (from now on ASPFi), Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3, Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze, Adunanza del dì . . . novembre 1866. A. Pellegrino, Macchine come fate. Gli operai alle esposizioni universali, 1851–1911 (Milano: Angelo Guerini e Associati, 2011). ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N. 3 Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze adunanza del dì . . . novembre 1866. About the habit of writing reports upon return from the exhibitions and their sociological meaning, we refer the reader to the cited book by Anna Pellegrino (2011). ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3, Lettera del Presidente Chiavarina al Presidente del Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze, 27 November 1866. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3, Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze, Adunanza del dì 28 novembre 1866. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze, Sessione Straordinaria, Adunanza del dì 1 dicembre 1866. Born to an ancient Sienese family of recent ennoblement, Angelo Vegni was one of the foremost metal engineers of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. He was a philanthropist and a patron of the arts; despite having no children he devoted himself to helping young and promising talents in their studies and in their educational trips with the aim of bringing to Italy the most useful methods and the best discoveries of science and arts. ‘Il Vegni non si limitò solo a sostenere economicamente gli studi di questi giovani,   ma considerandoli come appartenenti alla sua famiglia, ne sorresse anche la carriera con onorevoli impieghi nelle industrie da lui tenute e controllate.’ (G. Santiccioli and G. Tremori, Angelo Vegni. L’uomo, lo scienziato, il mecenate filantropo, Arezzo: Arti tipografiche Toscane, 2011, 24–6, 99 and 106). ‘E perché non voglio limitarmi a sterili voti ed a semplici e non richiesti consigli prego S. V. ad annunziare a cotesto amorevole consesso essere io pronto a sopportare per tre anni consecutivi la spesa dell’insegnamento somministrato dalla Scuola Centrale (circa 800 Franchi all’anno) ad uno dei nostri giovani che ivi sia mandato a compiere la sua educazione: a condizione però che il sussidio da me offerto sia conferito mediante concorso ne’ modi da determinarsi, onde, eliminato ogni dubbio di favoritismo, il solo merito sia titolo di premio.’ (ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3, Lettera del Prof. Angelo Vegni al Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze). The rules for the selection of young men to be sent to the Imperial Central School of   Arts and Crafts in Paris was approved by the Consiglio Provinciale in the meeting of 14 June 1867 and was made public two days later. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3, Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze, Adunanza del dì   24 dicembre 1866. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3, Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze, Adunanza del dì 14 giugno 1867. Applicants were required to be no younger than 17 years of age, to produce a certificate of vaccination and a good conduct certificate issued by the head of the school or institute where they had completed their final year of study or, in the lack thereof, by the Mayor of the city of residence. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3, Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze, Adunanza del dì 21 giugno 1867. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3, Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze, Adunanza del dì 21 giugno 1867, Segreteria della   Deputazione.

Notes

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26 ‘La Deputazione provinciale di Firenze avendo proceduto nella sua adunanza del 21 Giugno ultimo passato e giorni successivi alla scelta degli Esaminatori pel concorso da aprirsi il primo del prossimo futuro agosto fra quei giovani della Provincia che avessero aspirato al conseguimento dei sussidi stabiliti dal Prof. Cav. Angelo Vegni, e dalla Provincia medesima onde trasferirsi a Parigi per compiere ivi i loro studi nella Scuola Imperiale Centrale di Arti e Manifatture, nominò a tale ufficio i S[ignor]i Prof. re Filippo Pacini, Prof.re Giovanni Antonelli, Prof.re Giuseppe Peri, Prof.re Cav.re Emilio Bechi, Prof.re Niccolò Berretti, Eugenio Le Monnier e Prof.re Cav.re Angelo Vegni.’ (ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Delibera della Commissione Esaminatrice], 28 July 1867). 27 Their names are found in the state of service registries of the Institute’s staff, now preserved at the Library of the Museo FirST-Firenze Scienza e Tecnica. Their fields of teaching were: Applied Chemistry (Emilio Bechi), Descriptive Geometry and Drawing (Niccolò Berretti), French (Eugenio Le Monnier) and Pure and Applied Mathematics (Giuseppe Peri). (BMFFi, Stati di servizio del personale dell’Istituto). 28 Primary subjects: Drawing, Arithmetic, Elementary Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry, Analytical Geometry, Descriptive Geometry, Physics, Chemistry. Secondary subjects: Natural History, French. The board of examiners was divided into three groups of three teachers each; some teachers were in more than one group. Each commissioner could assign a maximum of 12 points for each of the 11 subjects: a candidate could thus receive up to 396 points. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Delibera della Commissione Esaminatrice], Firenze 28 July 1867. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera della Commissione Esaminatrice al Prefetto Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze], 7 August 1867. 29 Guido Dainelli, son of Leopoldo, was born in Empoli. ‘Nominato al posto che [segue] con detto R[egio] D[ecre]to ed al quale rinunziò per concorrere ai posti aperti dalla Provincia per la Scuola Centrale di Parigi, e che ottenne come dalla Delib[era] Pr[ovinciale]’ (BMFFi, 1866–1867. Ruolo generale degli scolari). ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera di Guido Dainelli al Prefetto della Provincia di Firenze Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale], 12 July 1867. Luigi Del Bene, son of Ferdinando, was born in Firenzuola. ‘Ottenne il posto alla scuola Centrale d’Arti Manif[atture] di Parigi, assegnato di concorso, come dealla Delib[era]della Deput[azione] Prov[inciale] del dì 9 agosto 1867.’ (BMFFi, 1866–1867. Ruolo generale degli scolari.) ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera di Luigi Del Bene al Prefetto della Provincia di Firenze Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale], 13 July 1867. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera di Paolo Ghinozzi al Prefetto della Provincia di Firenze Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale], 15 July 1867. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera della Commissione Esaminatrice al Prefetto Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze], 7 August 1867. F. Mariotti, Professioni, impieghi nuovi studi a cui si sono rivolti i giovani licenziati dall’Istituto Tecnico di Firenze dal 1859 a tutto il 1875 (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1877), 38–9 and 43. 30 BMFFi, Ruolo generale degli alunni diviso per sezioni e per anno di studio. Anno Accademico 1864–65. BMFFi, 1866–1867. Ruolo generale degli scolari. 31 The subjects included: Geometric Design, Arithmetic, Physics, Chemistry. The candidate could get receive a maximum of 228 points. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera della Commissione Esaminatrice al Prefetto Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze], 10 August 1867.

294

Notes

32 From his application, one learns that Luigi Cocchi sought to advance his skills in shoemaking. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera di Luigi Cocchi al Prefetto della Provincia di Firenze Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale], 19 July 1867. 33 From his application, one learns that Torello Torelli sought sought to advance his skills in making wood intarsia. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera di Torello Torelli al Prefetto della Provincia di Firenze Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale], 6 July 1867. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera della Commissione Esaminatrice al Prefetto Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze], 10 August 1867. 34 The request was presented at the assembly of the Deputazione Provinciale of Florence on 16 August 1867, and was approved by the Consiglio Provinciale in the special meeting of 4 September 1867. ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze, Sessione Straordinaria, Adunanza del dì 4 settembre 1867. 35 The former location of the Central School of Arts and Crafts in Paris is currently home to the Picasso Museum. According to Vegni, the school, among other institutes in Europe, gave an excellent theoretical and general education. On 31 August 1837, Vegni himself received his diploma as a mechanical engineer. The school maintained a deep fascination in the memories of Vegni. Throughout his life, he recalled his studies in Paris on many occasions (G. Santiccioli and G. Tremori, Angelo Vegni, 21–6 and 106). 36 ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera di Angelo Vegni to the Prefetto Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze], 30 October 1867. 37 ‘Che l’Istituto Tecnico fiorentino sia ridotto in stato di decadenza assoluta, che nella sua presente costituzione manchi del tutto allo scopo cui sarebbe diretto, che per renderlo adequato ai progressi della scienza e ai bisogni dell’insegnamento, richieda una sostanziale e costosa riforma, son fatti che la Deputazione istessa non ha messo in dubbio.’ (Atti del Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze. Sessioni ordinaria del 1866 e straordinaria del 1866–67, Firenze: Capponi, 1867, 273–5.) 38 ‘Come ebbi occasione di far notare altra volta, e prima che le fasi della prova si fossero completate, quei Giovani avevano esauriti i loro studi presso uno dei principali nostri Istituti Tecnici, dove avevano figurato fra i primi. Assoggettati in Firenze per volere della Provincia stessa ad uno esame speciale ne erano usciti con esito il più brillante. Ebbene, giunti a Parigi, e subodorato ciò che si esigeva per la semplice ammissione alla Scuola Centrale, sentirono la suppellettile della propria istruzione grandemente inferiore al bisogno, e si trovarono costretti a sottoporsi colà ad un nuovo corso preparatorio e non fu che dopo questo corso assiduamente protratto per un anno che si trovarono in forze bastanti per reggere con amore al cimento cui si presentarono dappoi.’ (ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera di Angelo Vegni al Prefetto Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze],   16 August 1868.) 39 ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera di Angelo Vegni al Prefetto Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze], 30 October 1867. 40 ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera del Reggente Prefetto Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale al Prof. Angelo Vegni], 4 February 1868. 41 ASPFi, Consiglio Provinciale di Firenze 1867–68, Filza 2, N.3 [Lettera di Angelo Vegni al Prefetto Presidente della Deputazione Provinciale di Firenze], 29 October 1868.

Notes

295

42 Some students of the Istituto Tecnico di Firenze were also tracked down by Santiccioli and Tremori in the archive of the Istituto Agrario of Capezzine in Cortona: Dainelli, Del Bene, Poggiali, Alessandri, Valeri, Berti, Stocchi, Leoni, Uguccioni, Bollesi, Parri, Canovetti, Rivolta, Galeotti, Treves, Bianchini, Ciampini, Vannuccini. Angelo Vegni was the one who from 1867 to 1878 promoted the Parisian school initiative from 1867 to 1878. Once they had finished their studies, many of them went on to have a brilliant career, to which Vegni was no stranger. He tried to help these young men by employing them in his industries or in businesses controlled by him. (G. Santiccioli and G. Tremori, Angelo Vegni, 24–6). 43 They were: Guido Guidotti, son of Enrico, born in Florence on 1 April 1850: ‘Prosegue gli studi a Parigi dove si recò nell’otto[bre] 1868’ (BMFFi, 1867–1868, Ruolo generale degli scolari); Tito Poggiali, son of Giuseppe, born in Pisa on 27 February 1851: ‘Abbandonati gli studi per aver concorso all’esame provinciale per un posto a Parigi che ha vinto’ (BMFFi, 1868–1869, Ruolo generale degli scolari); Augusto Leoni, son of Luigi, born in Florence on 10 March 1854: ‘Dispensato dal frequentare le lezioni per prepararsi al concorso di Parigi; deliberazione della Giunta, 16 novembre 1871 – presentatosi all’esame del suddetto concorso lo vinse ed ottenne il primo posto’ (BMFFi, 1871–1872, Ruolo generale degli scolari); Attilio Bellesi, son of Pietro, born in Florence on 25 February 1851: ‘Nel 1873 prese parte al concorso per Parigi, ottenne il primo posto’ (BMFFi, 1871–1872, Ruolo generale degli scolari; F. Mariotti, Professioni, 30); Dino Uguccioni, son of Luigi, born in Florence on 4 March 1854: ‘Dispensato dal frequentare il corso per prepararsi al concorso di Parigi, Decreto provinciale 12 marzo 1872; vinse il detto concorso ed ottenne il secondo posto’ (BMFFi, 1871–1872, Ruolo generale degli scolari); VannuccioVannuccini, son of Domenico, was born in San Sepolcro on 20 November 1853: ‘Nell’anno 1873 prese parte al concorso per la Scuola d’Arti e Manifattura di Parigi, e ottenne il terzo posto’ (BMFFi, 1871–1872, Ruolo generale degli scolari; F. Mariotti, Professioni, 57); Balilla Andreini, son of Luca, born in Pistoia on 18 March 1852: ‘Con Delibera Provinciale del 22 novembre 1872 dispensato dal frequentare le lezioni del corso (meccanica e costruzioni), per seguire quelle per esso necessarie a ben prepararsi al concorso per Parigi, a cui aspira. Nel caso di esito infelice di detto concorso, ammesso a dar l’esame di promozione nella sessione aut[unnale]’ (BMFFi, 1872–1873, Ruolo generale degli scolari; F. Mariotti, Professioni, 28); Telemaco Parri, son of Ulisse, born in Follonica 16 March, 1854: ‘Con Delibera Provinciale del 22 novembre 1872 dispensato dal frequentare le lezioni del corso (meccanica e costruzioni), per seguire quelle per esso necessarie a ben prepararsi al concorso per Parigi, cui aspira. Nel caso di esito infelice di detto concorso, ammesso a dar l’esame di promozione a novembre. Nel suddetto concorso ottenne il secondo posto’ (BMFFi, 1872–1873, Ruolo generale degli scolari); Ubaldo Raveggi, son of Giuliano, born in Florence on 26 May 1853: ‘Con Delibera Provinciale del 22 novembre 1872 dispensato dal frequentare le lezioni del corso (meccanica e costruzioni), per seguire quelle per esso necessarie a ben prepararsi al concorso per Parigi, a cui aspira. Renunziò per questo anno al concorso, e ritornò allo studio per l’esame di licenza’ (BMFFi, 1872–1873, Ruolo generale degli scolari; F. Mariotti, Professioni, 52); Cosimo Canovetti, son of Cesare, born in Florence on 13 February 1857: ‘Con Delibera Provinciale del 21 novembre 1873 fu dispensato dal frequentare le lezioni del corso (meccanica e costruzioni), per prepararsi al concorso per Parigi’ (BMFFi, 1873–1874, Ruolo generale degli scolari). 44 The statistics compiled by Filippo Mariotti for the years 1859–75 include the following students who had studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in Paris: Giulio

296

Notes

Alessandri, Attilio Bellesi, Italo Berti, Guido Dainelli, Luigi Del Bene, Guido Galeotti, Paolo Ghinozzi, Augusto Leoni, Pietro Parri, Carlo Rivolta, Dino Uguccioni, Lorenzo Valeri, VannuccioVannuccini (F. Mariotti, Professioni, 30–1, 38–9, 41–3, 53, 57). 45 F. Mariotti, Professioni, 11–12. 46 ‘Nel 1867, il Vegni, unendosi ad altri imprenditori, formò una Società, chiamata Società Anonima Stabilimento Metallurgico di Piombino che acquistò le Ferriere della Perseveranza in Piombino, vi pose direttore Guido Dainelli – giovane e stimato ingegnere uscito dalla Scuola Centrale di Parigi – e intraprese la lavorazione del ferro. Sotto la guida di questo giovane Ingegnere e con la supervisione dell’Ing. Vegni, furono apportate notevoli innovazioni tecnologiche, come l’introduzione del primo forno Martins – Siemens, che consentirono alle Ferriere di Piombino di raggiungere ottimi risultati produttivi, tanto da salire, per produttività e perfezione del lavoro, ai primi posti in Italia e rivaleggiare con le industrie estere’ (G. Santiccioli and G. Tremori, Angelo Vegni, 85). 47 F. Mariotti, Professioni, 38.

8  Popular Life in the Streets of Florence   1 Il lavoro e i Poveri nella Londra Vittoriana (London Labour and the London Poor), ed. H. Mayhew and M. Cotone (Roma: Gangemi Editore, 2012).   2 The Rificolona was a feast day dedicated to the birth of Mary, held on 7 September. Since the seventeenth century, peasants and commoners had travelled from the valleys and the hills surrounding Florence to the city, to celebrate a mass in the church of Santissima Annunziata and hold a very popular fair in the square in front of the same church and in the streets nearby. Peasants started their journey in the middle of the night to arrive in Florence for the celebration in the morning. They brought along all kinds of food and artefacts for the fair and also lanterns to illuminate the way until sunrise. Today the celebration is loved by children, who make their own lanterns to participate in the celebration.   3 S. Camerani, Cronache di Firenze Capitale, (Firenze: Olschki, 1971), 25.   4 Z. Ciuffoletti, Il Latini, 100 anni di storia e cultura, testo scritto per i 100 anni della storica trattoria Il Latini in Firenze.   5 Ibid.   6 G. Artom Treves, Anglo-­fiorentini di cento anni fa (Firenze: Sansoni, 1953).   7 See M. G. Proli, ‘Seymour Stocker Kirkup un pittore inglese a Firenze e il mito di Dante’, in Nuova Antologia, July–September 2016, vol. 617, 372–80.   8 S. Camerani, Cronache di Firenze Capitale, 22–3.   9 See A. Pellegrino, La città più artigiana d’Italia. Firenze 1861–1929 (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2012). 10 S. Camerani, Cronache di Firenze Capitale, 38. 11 Ibid., 68. 12 See ‘Società Anonima Edificatrice’, in Archivio Storico comunale di Firenze   www.ext.comune.fi.it/archiviostorico/index.html?pa=fondi/altri_fondi_m.html&sm=  fondi_m.html&fond=f_soc_anon_edif.html. 13 S. Camerani, Cronache di Firenze Capitale, 139. 14 See A. Pellegrino, ‘Firenze noir. Criminalità e marginalità a Firenze tra Otto e Novecento’, in Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea, 21, 1, 2011 (www.studistorici. com/2015/3/29/pellegrino_numero_21).

Notes

297

15 P. F. Listri, Segreti e vita quotidiana di Firenze Capitale 1865–1870 (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2015), 39–40. 16 See G. Bellincioni, Il problema del risanamento del quartiere di S. Frediano (Firenze: Ramella, 1916). 17 See F. Carrara, L. Sebregondi, U. Tramonti, Gli Istituti di beneficenza a Firenze. Storia e architettura (Firenze: Alinea, 1999). 18 See: V. Bosna, L’impegno educativo delle istituzioni assistenziali femminili: alcune realtà a confronto nel mezzogiorno, in Città e modelli assistenziali nell’Italia dell’Ottocento, ed. G. Da Molin (Bari: Cacucci Editore, 2013). 19 Ibid. 20 Z. Ciuffoletti, La città capitale Firenze prima, durante e dopo, 54. 21 See P. Guarnieri, ‘Guardare avanti: Firenze per la cura dei bambini’, in Una ‘nuova’ Sanità per Firenze capitale, ed. E. Ghidetti (Firenze: Polistampa, 2015). 22 S. Camerani, Cronache di Firenze Capitale, 39. 23 Ibid., 133. 24 G. L. Corradi, 1865–1871 Firenze gli anni della capitale (Pratovecchio-Stia: AGC Edizioni, 2015), 53–4. 25 S. Camerani, Cronache di Firenze Capitale, 174. 26 Ibid., 175.

9  A Stroll around Florence: Places of Power, Places of Leisure   1 I would like to thank the Opificio Toscano di Economia, Politica e Storia for the possibility to carry out this project. Special thanks to Professor Valentino Baldacci for the support and the suggestions he gave me.   2 A digital version of the map is available at http://aspassoperfirenzecapitale.it/luoghi.   3 The selection of the various categories, differentiated by colour on the digital version, were based on subdivisions that had been made in certain publications from that time, that were to serve as a guides to the city for ‘boors’ who came down from Turin, and for the many foreigners who visited Florence, like as La Nuova Capitale. Guida Pratica Popolare di Firenze (Torino: Tipografia Letteraria, 1865); Nuova guida della città di Firenze e suoi dintorni (Firenze: s. n., 1865); Firenze in tasca, ovvero una gita di piacere alla capitale, guida economico-­pratica (Sesto Fiorentino: Apice Libri, [1867] 2014); Guida di Firenze e suoi contorni. Con vedute e nuova pianta della città, aggiuntivi i cataloghi delle Gallerie pubbliche e private (Firenze: Bettini, 1868); Guida commerciale e pratica di Firenze (Firenze: Fioretti, 1868); Guida manuale di Firenze e suoi contorni (Firenze: Pineider, 1868).   4 In the digital map every Fact Sheet is accompanied by one or more images to show how the place was ‘then’ and how it is ‘today’, the latter images taken during a photo shoot specifically organized for this project. Some of the images of ‘then’ were taken from the archives: ARCHIDIS – Fondo disegni tecnici del Comune di Firenze, Mappe storiche del Comune di Firenze and from Impronte digitali. Collezioni digitali a cura del Sistema Bibliotecario di Ateneo dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze.   5 Specifically, we obtained information from the following maps: 1731 Map by F. Ruggieri; 1779 Map of Florence in Placido Landini Istoria dell’Oratorio di Santa Maria del Bigallo e della Venerabile Compagnia della Misericordia della Città di Firenze; 1837 Topographical map and general overview of Florence by Galantini, Angiolini and Rosaspina; 1865–1870 Map of Florence (Riparto delle Camere Legislative e dei Ministeri – Torino auto Lit. Rolla).

298   6   7   8   9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Notes La Nuova Capitale, 27. E. Montazio, Fisiologia di Via Calzaioli (Firenze: AZ, [1846] 1990), 47. Firenze d’oggi (Firenze: Ariani, 1896), 84. Ibid., 81. Ibid., 75. Ibid., 81. Ibid., 247. Ibid., 263. U. Pesci, Firenze Capitale, 1865–1870 (Firenze: Giunti, [1904] 1988), 334. Accademia dei Georgofili (Firenze: Polistampa, 2015), 8. Firenze in tasca, 14. Ibid.

10  An Economy Stuck at the Crossroads to Modernity   1 An accurate historiographic study on Florence between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is to be found in Firenze 1815–1945. Un bilancio storiografico, ed. G. Mori and P. Roggi (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1990).   2 This point is evident just leafing through the most recent works on this historical period: Z. Ciuffoletti, La città capitale. Firenze prima, durante e dopo (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2014); 1865. Questioni nazionali e questioni locali nell’anno di Firenze capitale, ed. S. Rogari (Firenze: Polistampa, 2016). On the famous city plan that redesigned Florence in the second half of the nineteenth century, see Una capitale e il suo architetto. Eventi politici e sociali, urbanistici e architettonici. Firenze e l’opera di Giuseppe Poggi, ed. L. Maccabruni and P. Marchi (Firenze: Polistampa, 2015).   3 R. P. Coppini, ‘Patrimoni familiari e società anonime (1861–1894)’, Annali della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi Torino (1976), 123–4.   4 A. Pellegrino, La città più artigiana d’Italia. Firenze 1861–1929 (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2012), 45.   5 The surroundings of San Frediano were polluted not only by the smoke produced by its manufacturing set-­ups, but also by the miasma produced by the garbage and animal carcasses collected there.   6 I. Tognarini et al., Arte e industria a Firenze. La fonderia del Pignone 1842–1954 (Milano: Electa, 1983).   7 A. Giuntini, Dalla Lyonnaise alla Fiorentinagas, 1839–1989 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1990).   8 R. Melchionda, Firenze industriale nei suoi incerti albori. Le origini dell’associazionismo imprenditoriale cento anni fa. Esplorazioni e materiali (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1988).   9 A. Pescarolo and G. Ravenni, Il proletariato invisibile. La manifattura della paglia nella Toscana mezzadrile 1820–1950 (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1991). 10 M. Laguzzi, ‘La Convenzione di settembre, le reazioni, la situazione socio-­economica della città’, in Una capitale e il suo architetto, 33. 11 As described in Relazione della Camera di commercio ed arti di Firenze sopra la statistica e l’andamento del commercio e delle arti del proprio distretto nell’anno 1864 (Firenze: Tofani, 1865). 12 On Ruskin’s judgement, see Mornings in Florence, translated for the first time as J. Ruskin, Mattinate fiorentine. Con spigolature da Val d’Arno (Firenze: Barbèra, 1908). 13 M. L. Bianca, I mercati nella storia di Firenze. Dal forum romano al centro alimentare polivalente (Firenze: Loggia de’ Lanzi, 1995).

Notes

299

14 See G. Campatelli, ‘Credito ed emissione in Toscana nel primo trentennio post-­ unitario’, Rassegna storica toscana, no. 1 (1997), 53–94; A. Volpi, Banchieri e mercato finanziario in Toscana, 1801–1860 (Firenze: Olschki, 1997). 15 See M. Poettinger in this same volume. 16 See F. Ventura, ‘Le trasformazioni urbanistiche della Firenze pre-­unitaria’, in Il disegno della città. L’urbanistica a Firenze nell’Ottocento e nel Novecento (Firenze: Alinea, 1986), 21–38; G. Corsani, ‘Il nuovo quartiere di città alle Cascine dell’Isola a Firenze (1847–1859)’, in Storia dell’Urbanistica. Toscana, I. Firenze nel periodo della Restaurazione (1814–1859): allargamenti stradali e nuovi quartieri, ed. G. Fanelli (Roma: Kappa, 1987), 19–65; F. Ventura, ‘Genesi e progetti di un ingrandimento di città nella prima metà dell’800: il nuovo quartiere presso il Forte da Basso a Firenze’, Storia Urbana, 33 (1985), 47–66. 17 G. Gozzini, Il segreto dell’elemosina. Poveri e carità legale a Firenze, 1800–1870 (Firenze: Olschki, 1993), 290. 18 ‘The house owners,’ wrote Lucio Capizucchi, ‘reason in Florence with the disdainful cynicism of the fat bourgeoisie in the century that dethroned landlords, introducing the reign of equality’ (L. Capizucchi, Firenze e i nuovi venuti. Considerazioni di Lucio Capizucchi, Firenze: Cavour, 1865, 21). 19 G. Belli and R. Innocenti, ‘Le trasformazioni urbanistiche entro la cerchia muraria fra l’età leopoldina e il periodo di Firenze capitale’, in Una capitale e il suo architetto, 101. 20 P. Redi, ‘Espansione e speculazione edilizia in Firenze capitale’, in La Toscana nell’Italia unita. A spetti e momenti di storia toscana 1861–1945, ed. G. Pansini (Firenze: Unione regionale delle province toscane, 1962), 464. 21 See In treno a Firenze. Stazioni e strade ferrate nella Toscana di Leopoldo II, ed. A. Bellinazzi and A. Giuntini (Firenze: Edizioni Polistampa, 1998); F. Quinterio, ‘La memoria degli ostacoli superati: la costruzione delle stazioni Leopolda e Maria Antonia a Firenze (1846–1848)’, in Architettura ferroviaria in Italia. Ottocento, ed. E. Godoli and M. Cozzi (Palermo: Dario Flaccovio, 2004), 151–67. 22 G. Poggi, Sui lavori per l’ingrandimento di Firenze (Firenze: Barbèra, 1882), 9. See also: F. Francolini, Delle opere pubbliche e private fatte dall’architetto prof. Giuseppe Poggi e da esso pubblicate colle stampe (Firenze: Carnesecchi e figli, 1888); L. Poggi, L’architetto Giuseppe Poggi. Rievocazione dell’ing. Leone Poggi alla società Leonardo da Vinci (Firenze: Chiari, 1928), 8. 23 A. Giuntini, ‘Le stazioni ferroviarie fiorentine. Il granduca Leopoldo, l’architetto   Poggi e una questione di lunga durata’, in Firenze capitale: città, infrastrutture e igiene, ed. M. Cozzi and F. Lensi (Firenze: Istituto Geografico Militare, 2015), 112–41. 24 M. Cozzi, ‘Architettura e ornato per una capitale. La Firenze di Giuseppe Poggi’, in Il disegno e le architettura della città eclettica, ed. L. Mozzoni and S. Santini (Napoli: Liguori, 2004), 379–404. In 1869, in Le Cascine park, the first bicycle appeared. 25 F. Tomasetti, ‘Trasporti pubblici nella città e nel territorio di Firenze, 1860–1915’, Storia Urbana, 7 (1979), 115–62. 26 Routes had a cost of 10 cents each and started in the morning at 8.00 am. They stopped at 10.00 pm. Coaches could transport up to twelve persons and were open   on the sides. ‘The form of the wood, the livery of the coachmen and the quality of   the horses and their housing caused admiration in everyone’ (La Nazione, 2 June 1865). 27 A. Giuntini, Dalla Lyonnaise alla Fiorentinagas, 1839–1989 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1990).

300

Notes

28 See R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny sindaco di Firenze capitale e ministro delle Finanze (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1975). 29 A. Giuntini, ‘Tutto alla fogna. Igiene ed infrastrutture urbane a Firenze fra Ottocento e Novecento’, Ricerche storiche, 3 (1998), 507–45; M. Cozzi, ‘Igiene e decoro della capitale’, in Firenze capitale: città, infrastrutture e igiene, 56–83. 30 A. Giuntini, Cinquant’anni puliti puliti. I rifiuti a Firenze dall’Ottocento alla Società Quadrifoglio (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2006).

11  Florentine, Italian and Foreign Entrepreneurs in the Urban Renewal of Florence   1 L. Capizucchi, Firenze ed i nuovi venuti. Considerazioni (Firenze: Tipografia Cavour, 1865), 6.   2 G. Belli and R. Innocenti, ‘Le trasformazioni urbanistiche entro la cerchia muraria fra l’età leopoldina e il periodo di Firenze capitale’, in Una capitale e il suo architetto. Eventi politici e sociali, urbanistici e architettonici. Firenze e l’opera di Giuseppe Poggi, ed. L. Maccabruni and P. Marchi (Firenze: Polistampa, 2015), 97.   3 O. Fantozzi Micali, ‘Il dibattito sul restauro architettonico a Firenze intorno al 1860’, in Nascita di una capitale. Firenze, settembre 1864-giugno 1865, ed. R. Roselli (Firenze: Alinea, 1985), 11–20. Under the terms of the agreement, French troops who controlled Rome in order to protect the Pope should have withdrawn from Rome within two years. In return, Italy was committed not to invade the Papal States and pledged to protect their borders and to transfer the Italian capital from Turin to Florence within six months, after having rejected the hypothesis to move to Naples (La Convenzione di settembre, 15 settembre 1864. Alle origini di Firenze capitale, proceedings of the conference: Florence, 13–14 November 2014, ed. S. Rogari, Firenze: Polistampa, 2015; M. Laguzzi, ‘La Convenzione di settembre, le reazioni, la situazione socio-­economica della città’, in Una capitale e il suo architetto, 29–46).   4 S. Fei, G. Gobbi Sica and P. Sica, Firenze. Profilo di storia urbana (Firenze: Alinea, 1995), 147, footnote 1.   5 U. Pesci, Firenze Capitale, 1865–1870 (Firenze: Bemporad, 1904), 455–8.   6 F. Gurrieri, Trasformazioni urbanistiche nella Firenze capitale, in 1865. Questioni nazionali e questioni locali nell’anno di Firenze capitale, ed. S. Rogari (Firenze: Polistampa, 2016), 237 and 241.   7 Indeed, the population grew from 118,109 in 1864 to 174,774 in 1865, reaching 194,001 in 1869 (L. Castelli, La popolazione e la mortalità del centennio 1791–1890. Studi e raffronti con la salute pubblica nel biennio 1891–92, Firenze: Stabilimento Tipografico Fiorentino, 1893, xi).   8 F. Carrara, A. Lorenzi and P. Sidoti, ‘Firenze capitale e la speculazione tollerata’, Necropoli, 1, no. 4–5 (1969), 66.   9 P. Sica, Storia dell’urbanistica (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1977), vol. ii, t. 1, ‘L’Ottocento’, 452. 10 F. Carrara, A. Lorenzi and P. Sidoti, ‘Firenze capitale e la speculazione tollerata’, 66, two footnotes must be added as indicated in the text. 11 Sica, P. (1977), 452. The data on the new constructions includes the added floors. 12 Guerzoni, G. (1871), ‘Firenze rinnovata’, Nuova antologia, (6), vol. XVI (IV), 784; Spilotros, E. (1985), Problemi politici, amministrativi e tecnici del trasferimento della capitale da Torino a Firenze in Nascita di una capitale. Firenze, settembre 1864 / guigno 1865, 113–43, Florence: Alinea.

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301

13 Shortly after, a decree established to allocate 1,200,000 lire for travel allowances of employees and furniture transport, 927,000 lire for allowances of Ministries’ employees and 272,000 lire for furniture and documents transport (C. Ceccuti, La penna e la spada. L’Unità d’Italia fra Torino e Firenze, Firenze: Polistampa, 2010, 227). 14 In Via della Mattonaia at nos. 34, 36, 38, 40 and 44, the Villa La Mattonaia, or Villa Casino Ginori, bears witness to what remains of the Ginori family’s delightful house. Isolated in an area still free of buildings, as has been said, it was also famous for the precious plants and fruit trees cultivated in the gardens behind it, giving it, although within the walls, a decidedly country look (L. Ginori Lisci, La Mattonaia, un casino di delizia del secolo XVIII, Firenze: L’arte della Stampa, 1955; C. Paolini, Architetture fiorentine. Case e palazzi nel quartiere di Santa Croce, Firenze: Paideia, 2009, 188–9, footnote 253). 15 In G. Corsani, ‘Il piano di Giuseppe Poggi nel contesto europeo: una nuova visione di Firenze’, in La Convenzione di settembre, 261; G. C. Romby, ‘ “… improvvisare etc una capitale per un grande Regno in una piccola città.” Il piano di Giuseppe Poggi per l’ingrandimento di Firenze’, in Una capitale e il suo architetto, 189–208. 16 G. Corsani, Il piano di Giuseppe Poggi, 264–6. In 1859, Poggi drew attention to the necessity of a general action plan for the city in order to avoid disorganized and uncoordinated acts of intervention (F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze e l’opera di G. Poggi, Roma: Colombo Editore, 1970, 84). 17 G. Guerzoni, ‘Firenze rinnovata’, Nuova Antologia, 6,16, no. 4 (1871), 787. 18 E. M. Agostini, Giuseppe Poggi. La costruzione del paesaggio (Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 2002), 37. 19 R. P. Coppini, ‘Patrimoni familiari e società anonime (1861–1894): il caso toscano’, Annali della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, 10 (1976), 137, and, on Servadio and the banks, 135–44; A. Polsi, Alle origini del capitalismo italiano. Stato, banche e banchieri dopo l’Unità (Torino: Einaudi, 1993), 119–20 and passim. Giuseppe, who also was one of the shareholders of Banca del Popolo (see infra), became the deputy director of the Banca Nazionale Toscana. Instead, Giacomo was one of the founders of the Banca ItaloGermanica (see infra) and established his own credit institution, the so-­called Banca di Credito Provinciale e Comunale, which had a capital of 10 million lire and its headquarters in Florence, and ceased operating in 1872. Giacomo, who was a financial expert and had close relationships with politicians, became deputy in 1865 and District Councillor from 1868. Thanks to this experience, he is considered the first banker to be aware of great opportunities offered by the transfer of the capital in Rome, where the Banca Italo-Germanica and its branches were deeply involved in building development (Banca del Popolo, Elenco generale degli azionisti a tutto il 31 Dicembre 1867, Firenze: Tipografia Popolare di Edoardo Ducci, 1868; Società Generale di Credito Provinciale e Comunale, Statuti, Firenze: Tipografia dell’Associazione, 1869; Consorzio per i Prestiti Comunali e Provinciali, Firenze: Tipografia dell’Associazione, 1869; A. Caracciolo, Roma capitale. Dal Risorgimento alla crisi dello Stato liberale, Roma: Rinascita, 1956, 40; La Provincia di Firenze e i suoi amministratori dal 1860 ad oggi, ed. S. Merendoni and G. Mugnaini, Firenze: Olschki, 1996, 110). 20 L. Capizucchi, Firenze ed i nuovi venuti, 29. 21 By way of comparison, consider that Mr Poggi received an annual salary of 9,800 lire, while the salary of a senior public official amounted to 5,000 (F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 100; S. Fei, G. Gobbi Sica and P. Sica, Firenze, 149, footnote 7; S. Fei, Nascita e sviluppo di Firenze città borghese, Firenze: G&G, 1971, 37, 40, 43–4 and 57). 22 G. Guerzoni, ‘Firenze rinnovata’, 782.

302

Notes

23 On the law for expropriating property for public use, see F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 80 ff., in particular 82, on the decentralizing of that faculty to the local authorities, which explains the extraordinary power assumed in the case of Florence by the planning group linked to the Municipality. 24 Their settlement in expropriated properties increased discontent in the historic centre. Apart from the unavailability of suitable buildings, this law had serious consequences on national artistic and cultural heritage as many buildings and monuments, being used for inappropriate purposes, were destroyed or severely damaged (‘Schede degli edifici destinati alle sedi del Governo, dei Ministeri e delle amministrazioni centrali dello Stato’, in Nascita di una capitale, 39–95, and, more generally, A. C. Jemolo, La questione della proprietà ecclesiastica nel Regno di Sardegna e nel Regno d’Italia, 1848–1888, Bologna: Il Mulino, 1974, 126 ff.). 25 For more information on his assets, see A. Moroni, Antica gente e subiti guadagni. Patrimoni aristocratici fiorentini nell’800 (Firenze: Olschki, 1997), 204–8, 342 and passim. Among the members of both branches of the family, there were successful entrepreneurs who intertwined industrial initiatives with political activity. Lorenzo Ginori Lisci, active in the famous Doccia porcelain manufactory (founded in 1735 by Carlo Ginori) and Gonfaloniere in Sesto, was a strong supporter of the annexation of Tuscany by Piedmont, ruled by the House of Savoy. He was elected deputy and then appointed as senator in 1864. As for the Ginori Conti branch of the family, Piero, following his marriage with Adriana de Larderel, was appointed by his father-­in-law to manage boric acid extraction plants in Val di Cecina. His name is linked to the company expansion and to investments in the electricity sector. From 1917 onwards, he was a member of the Tuscan Committee in support of the industrial mobilization for the First World War. He was appointed as deputy, senator and, in 1939, minister. 26 Morrocchi too was a shareholder in the Florence seat of the della Banca del Popolo (see infra) (Banca del Popolo, Elenco generale degli azionisti). 27 La Provincia di Firenze e i suoi amministratori, 108. 28 F. Carrara, A. Lorenzi and P. Sidoti, ‘Firenze capitale e la speculazione tollerata’, 69. 29 Ibid., 69–70. 30 Ibid., 70. 31 R. G. Salvadori, Gli ebrei di Firenze. Dalle origini ai giorni nostri (Firenze: Giuntina, 2000), 59 and 84; B. Armani, Il confine invisibile. L’élite ebraica di Firenze 1840–1914 (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2006), 199 and passim. 32 F. Bonelli and P. Craveri, ‘Breda Vincenzo Stefano’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1972), vol. 14, 100–6; E. Guaita, ‘Alle origini del capitalismo industriale italiano: la nascita della Terni’, Studi Storici, 11, no. 2 (1970), 293 ff. for his relations with Digny and with the power brokers of the time. 33 Mayor of Florence from 1865 to 1867, Senator of the Kingdom, he became Minister of Finance (October 1867–December 1869), and Vice President of the Senate (1871–73). He maintained relations with the Rothschilds in London, with Bastogi (see infra, no. 49) in Paris and with all of the currently influential financial and political figures. Considered ‘the most reckless and audacious manager of the public money’, he held a managerial role of the highest level on the national political scene, especially in the years 1867–69 (R. Romanelli, ‘Cambray-Digny Luigi Guglielmo de, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1974, vol. 17, 152–60; E. Ragionieri, ‘I moderati toscani e la classe dirigente italiana negli anni di Firenze capitale’, in id., Politica e amministrazione nella storia dell’Italia unita, Bari: Laterza, 1967, 141).

Notes

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34 F. Carrara, A. Lorenzi and P. Sidoti, ‘Firenze capitale e la speculazione tollerata’,   71 and 72. 35 In Ibid., 73. 36 In Ibid., 74. 37 In Ibid. 38 S. Fei, Nascita e sviluppo di Firenze città borghese, 41. 39 Under ‘Breda Vincenzo Stefano’ we find the Impresa Breda Costruzione strade e piazza alla Mattonaia and the Società Breda Servadio e Levi, with relevant note (G. Carapelli, ‘Regesto degli operatori’, in Firenze capitale: città, infrastrutture e igiene, ed. M. Cozzi and F. Lensi, Firenze: Istituto Geografico Militare, 2015, 185 and 231). 40 In F. Carrara, A. Lorenzi and P. Sidoti, ‘Firenze capitale e la speculazione   tollerata’, 75. 41 P. Sica, Storia dell’urbanistica, 451. 42 G. Carocci, Il Viale de’ Colli. Descrizione storico-­artistica (Firenze: Tipografia cooperativa, 1872), 6–7 and passim; E. M. Agostini, Giuseppe Poggi, 67 ff. 43 S. Fei, Nascita e sviluppo di Firenze città borghese, 36. 44 In U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 461. 45 Statuto della Banca del Popolo (Firenze: Tipografia Popolare di Edoardo Ducci, 1869), clause 3, in italics in the text. 46 G. Luzzatto, L’economia italiana dal 1861 al 1914 (Milano: Banca Commerciale Italiana, 1963), vol. 1, 64; Banca del Popolo, Elenco generale degli azionisti. For more information on the bank and its peculiarity with respect to other banche popolari, see A. Polsi, Alle origini del capitalismo italiano, 235, 238–9, 245 and 348–9. Financer Giacomo Servadio and the Banca Nazionale Toscana supported the management in Florence. 47 F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 70 and 72; R. P. Coppini, ‘L. G. Cambray-Digny tra affarismo e politica (1865–1869)’, Rassegna Storica del Risorgimento, 57, no. 2 (1970), 202. 48 It was a private railway company founded in 1862 by Pietro Bastogi, who was financer and entrepreneur, as well as Finance Minister of the Kingdom (E. Passerin D’Entrèves and L. Coppini, ‘Pietro Bastogi’, in La Società Italiana per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali nell’opera dei suoi presidenti (1861–1944), Bologna: Zanichelli, 1962, 1–165; L. Coppini and G. P. Nitti, ‘Bastogi Pietro’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1970, vol. 7, 176–80). 49 G. Luzzatto, L’economia italiana dal 1861 al 1914, 66. 50 U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 462. 51 R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny sindaco di Firenze capitale e ministro delle Finanze (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1975), 120 ff. 52 Ubaldino Peruzzi, Deputy (1860–90), Senator, was Minister of Public Works (1861– 62) and Minister of the Interior (1862–64). When Florence became capital, he devoted himself to municipal life and was mayor of the city until 1878. Both Municipal and District Councillor of Florence (in 1865–78 and 1865–91, respectively), he also acted as President of the District Council (see infra, no. 55). It has been noted how the biographical continuity between the mayors of Florence after Unification perfectly matched the substantial stability of class and status in the control of the city government. The mayors were not only an expression of the dominant moderate political circles, but were also present – as will be seen – in the companies, the institutions of civil tradition, and in charity, and were involved in banks, financial institutes, industrial enterprises, construction companies engaged in public works, etc.

304

53

54

55 56 57

58

59 60 61

Notes Moreover, Cambray-Digny and Peruzzi in particular are highly representative of the multiplicity of roles between centre and periphery, to the point that after them no moderate mayor of the city was to hold several national positions, except for parliamentary functions. R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 170; A. Paoletti, ‘Ubaldino Peruzzi e Luigi Guglielmo Cambray-Digny sullo sfondo di Firenze capitale’, in Ubaldino Peruzzi un protagonista di Firenze capitale, ed. P. Bagnoli (Impruneta: Edizioni Festina Lente), 241–8. Cambray-Digny was President of the Consiglio Compartimentale (as it was then called) from 1860, while Peruzzi – who entered the District Council in 1865 and remained there continuously until his death – succeeded him as President of the Province in October 1865, leaving the position to Cambray-Digny again from 1870 to 1877 (La Provincia di Firenze e i suoi amministratori, 89 and 95). R. P. Coppini, ‘L. G. Cambray-Digny tra affarismo e politica’, 193. Ibid., 192. For more information on the often short-­lived credit institutions founded in Florence between 1864 and 1874, see A. Polsi, Alle origini del capitalismo italiano, 348–51; with regards to the inextricable link between the construction industry and the banking sector in Florence, see R. P. Coppini, ‘Banche e speculazioni a Firenze nel primo ventennio unitario’, Quaderni Storici, 32, no. 2 (1976), 581–612. G. Luzzatto, ‘L’economia italiana nel primo decennio dell’Unità’, Rassegna Storica del Risorgimento, 44, no. 2–3 (1957), 272; G. Luzzatto, L’economia italiana dal 1861 al 1914, 64, which places the bank among main newly established ordinary credit institutions (thirteen between 1863 and 1866); P. Hertner, Il capitale tedesco in Italia dall’Unità alla prima guerra mondiale. Banche miste e sviluppo economico italiano (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1984), 72. Established in 1863, in 1865 it was authorized to modify its statute in order to adapt it to the necessity of undertaking public works (R. P. Coppini, ‘L. G. Cambray-Digny tra affarismo e politica’, 194). R. Romeo, Cavour e il suo tempo, 1854–1861 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1969), passim. The new bank – which represented an amalgamation between the British and Italian credit systems, giving rise to a real financial alliance with political backing – whose objectives as stated in the bylaws remained very generic, delegated to the directors   the task of seeking good opportunities for investment. The Anglo-Italian Bank   did not operate with public dept bonds, did not invest in the railway and did not participate in establishing industrial enterprises: ‘it dilapidated, instead, within a few years’ time, much of its capital in real-­estate affairs’, as confirmation of the fact that foreign capital did not always serve a productive function (P. Hertner, Il capitale tedesco in Italia, 72; G. Carletti, ‘Tra i Rothschild e Londra: una rete di relazioni regionali ei contati con la finanza internazionale negli anni ’60’, Rassegna Storica Toscana, 43, no. 1, 1997, 44–7). A real ‘business fever’ had appeared since the beginning in the Banca Italo-Germanica, founded in 1871 with a capital of 50 million lire entirely paid up, potentially the leading Italian bank, with central office first in Florence and then in Rome. Its initiatives ranged from the creation of new banks in Italy and abroad to the founding and financing of industrial enterprises, from speculation in the construction field to loans to states and public organs, including   one of 5 million lire to the Municipality of Florence. It failed only three years after   its founding due to risky investments, including speculation in real-­estate in the   new capital (G. Luzzatto, L’economia italiana dal 1861 al 1914, 98–103; P. Hertner,

Notes

62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69

70 71 72

305

Il capitale tedesco in Italia, 72–3). A list of the banks that failed in the early 1870s is in I. Sachs, L’Italie, ses finances et son dévéloppement économique depuis l’unification du royaume (1859–1884), d’après des documents officiels (Paris: Guillaumin, 1885), 706. C. Lacaita, An Italian Englishman. Sir James Lacaita, 1813–1895 (London: Richards, 1933). Alongside Ricasoli (director of the company), Giuseppe Devincenzi (former Minister and expert in railway affairs, director of the Italian committee) and Angelo Guarducci (a young banker who had worked in the Rothschild’s London branch, director of the bank in Florence) were: Luigi Torelli, with large-­scale interests in the railways and in contact with some of the most important international railway constructors; and Tommaso Corsi, lawyer and parliamentarian, a member of the circle that rotated around Bastogi (see infra footnote 74). Delegated by his group in 1859 to negotiate with Cavour the downfall of the Lorraine dynasty, Corsi was Minister of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce in the Cavour cabinet (July 1860–March 1861) (G. Carletti, ‘Tra i Rothschild e Londra’, 47–8). According to what he wrote to Lacaita, Ricasoli had entered the Anglo Italiana ‘to attract British capital, not because it was British but because it was new capital’. And in replying to Lacaita, who had invited him to purchase a good number of shares of the Land Company, Ricasoli stated that he would have done so ‘if instead of being a big land-­owner he had been a big capitalist’ (Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, ed. G. Paolini, Roma: Istituto Storico Italiano per l’Età Moderna e Contemporanea, 2011, vol. 21, t. 1, letter 246, Bettino Ricasoli to Giacomo Lacaita, 8 June 1864, 313, as well as letter 97, Bettino Ricasoli to his brother Vincenzo, 23 February 1864, 140–1). R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 119–20. In G. Poggi, Sui lavori per l’ingrandimento di Firenze. Relazione di Giuseppe Poggi, 1864–1877 (Firenze: Barbèra, 1882), 24, where the reasons that made their offer preferable are also explained. In R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 123. The effluent (or outlet) was inserted in the water control system and was designed to collect and convey the waters inside the city coming from rain and from public and private drains (G. Poggi, Sui lavori per l’ingrandimento di Firenze, 77–99 ff.). R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 123; La Provincia di Firenze e i suoi amministratori, 107. R. Romanelli, Cambray-Digny Luigi Gugliemo de, 155; R. P. Coppini, ‘L. G. CambrayDigny tra affarismo e politica’, 194–5, footnote 3 and 200–1. On foreign capital in Italy in the first five years of the kingdom, French above all (mainly in newly issued public debt securities that assured an interest of 7 per cent, but also in the installation and operation of public services, especially railways), then British and to a lesser degree Belgian and Swiss, see G. Luzzatto, ‘L’economia italiana nel primo decennio dell’Unità’, 269 ff. On French capital in part, see B. Gille, Les investissements français en Italie, 1815–1914 (Torino: ILTE, 1968). R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 120. He was also the author in 1876 of a Storia del libero scambio in Toscana (Firenze: Tipografia della Gazzetta d’Italia, 1876). See U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 453 and 462; V. Ansidei, Giacomo Montgomery Stuart (Firenze: Ricci, 1889). A. Giuntini, Soltanto per denaro. La vita gli affari la ricchezza di Emanuele Fenzi negoziante banchiere fiorentino nel Granducato di Toscana, 1784–1875 (Firenze: Polistampa, 2002). Starting in 1864 he was a member of the Consiglio Compartimentale (La Provincia di Firenze e i suoi amministratori, 106).

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73 See supra, no. 64. He became a member of the District Council in 1865 and was Vice President of the Province several times (La Provincia di Firenze e i suoi amministratori, 107). 74 F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 73. 75 A. Mari, Questione di Firenze. Note del deputato Adriano Mari sulla relazione della Commissione d’Inchiesta (Firenze: Paggi, 1879), 19. He was also elected District Councillor in 1865 (La Provincia di Firenze e i suoi amministratori, 107). 76 Id., Questione di Firenze. Allegati alle Note del deputato Adriano Mari sulla relazione della Commissione d’Inchiesta (Firenze: Paggi, 1879), 23. 77 R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 121. 78 Ibid., 123. On the water supply, which, in the fervour of implementing   works to enlarge the city, remained ‘the Cinderella of the city’s problems’,   see D. Ottati, L’acquedotto di Firenze dal 1860 ad oggi (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1983), 23 ff. 79 For the members of the Società per la Vendita dei Beni Demaniali del Regno d’Italia and its numerous and powerful Tuscan representatives, see R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 124–5. 80 Ibid., 125–7. 81 Initially SAE was one of the most successful cases of interweaving between the entrepreneurial and philanthropic spheres and remained for several years one of the few municipal enterprises to carry out low-­cost housing initiatives (R. P. Coppini, ‘Banche e speculazioni a Firenze’, 594–5; G. Belli and R. Innocenti, Le trasformazioni urbanistiche entro la cerchia muraria, 101). 82 M. Scardozzi, ‘Le società commerciali fiorentine tra la Restaurazione e l’Unità’, Quaderni Storici, n. s., 77, 26 no. 2 (1991), 470. 83 A. Volpi, ‘Le partecipazioni finanziarie di Ubaldino Peruzzi’, in Ubaldino Peruzzi un protagonista di Firenze capitale, 62. He also possessed shares in the Ferrovie Romane, which was assigned a ‘fiduciary contract’ for some work regarding the repositioning of the tracks for construction of the viaduct over Viale in Curva (see infra). 84 While the forensic profession had put Galeotti in contact with numerous businessmen, it was just in those years that he intensified his activity in the financial field, becoming the intermediary, advisor and friend of Cosimo and Luigi Ridolfi and above all of Pietro Bastogi, and finding himself ‘at the centre of that spider’s web made up of common interests and family ties that were intensifying in Tuscan society from the 1850s to the period of Florence as capital’ (R. P. Coppini, ‘Leopoldo Galeotti e il moderatismo toscano’, Rassegna Storica Toscana, 37, no. 2, 1991, 195; E. Sestan, ‘La Destra toscana’, Rassegna Storica Toscana, 37, no. 2–3–4, 1961, 227). 85 La Provincia di Firenze e i suoi amministratori, 106. When the Municipality subsequently redefined its role in assistance with a series of institutional and organizational changes, it established among other things the Ufficio Beneficenza which depended on the first Councillors’ Committee. Headed not by chance by Garzoni, its members included many other Florentine noblemen, such as Senator Count Ugolino Della Gherardesca, Marchese Lorenzo Strozzi Alamanni and Count Piero Guicciardini (G. Dal Molin, Storia dell’assistenza sociale a Firenze dall’Unità d’Italia alle regioni, 1861–1970, Padova: Centro Studi e Formazione Sociale Fondazione ‘Emanuela Zancan’, 2002, 85–6). 86 F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 79–80; R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 127–8. 87 Brevi cenni statistici sugli stabili e sulla popolazione delle case della Società Anonima Edificatrice. Anno 1868 (Firenze: a cura e spese del gerente, 1868), 4; Brevi cenni

Notes   88

  89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99

100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112

307

statistici sugli stabili e sulla popolazione delle case della Società Anonima Edificatrice fiorentina. Anno 1869 (Firenze: a cura e spese del gerente, 1870), 4. The assignment on the basis of occupation of those who lived in the SAE houses is ibid., 14–15, 16–17, respectively, although the items differ in part. From 1 May 1866 to 30 April 1867 the Barbano and Montebello buildings alone brought the company nearly 47,000 lire of income in rentals collected, compared to almost 19,000 lire of expenses incurred (Società Anonima Edificatrice, Bilancio al 30 aprile 1867, Firenze: Tipografia della Gazzetta di Firenze, 1867; U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 477). R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 128–9; G. Carletti, ‘Tra i Rothschild e Londra’, 48. U. Peruzzi, Relazione del sindaco Ubaldino Peruzzi al Consiglio Comunale nell’adunanza del 16 dicembre 1870 (Firenze: Tip Successori Le Monnier, 1870), 8. In R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 129. Lazzeri too was a shareholder of Banca del Popolo (Banca del Popolo, Elenco generale degli azionisti). U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 477; R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 130. Alessandri was elected Consigliere Compartimentale in 1861 (La Provincia di Firenze e i suoi amministratori, 103). A. Polsi, Alle origini del capitalismo italiano, 120. G. Carletti, ‘Tra i Rothschild e Londra’, 50. R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 132. Morelli too appears among the underwriters of the Banca del Popolo (Banca del Popolo, Elenco generale degli azionisti). R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 132–3 and footnotes 121–2 for notarial documents and prices of buildings and lots. On the ‘privileged’ expropriations of the nobility, see S. Fei, Nascita e sviluppo di Firenze, 75 ff. U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 464. Not even the state remained immune from the speculation fever. For the cession of the walls it demanded approximately 50 per cent more than the municipal bid, and for some lots on Poggio Imperiale that were needed to construct the Viale dei Colli, it demanded that the Municipality increase the offer – already increased by 50 per cent – to 60 per cent of the base price for the public auction (S. Fei, Nascita e sviluppo di Firenze, 63–4). For the various initiatives, see U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 465–6. Ibid., 466. F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 85; U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 467; G. Poggi, Sui lavori per l’ingrandimento di Firenze, 177–8; G. Carapelli, ‘Regesto degli operatori’, 199 and 232. S. Fei, G. Gobbi Sica and P. Sica, Firenze, 149, footnote 7. U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 468–9; G. Carapelli, ‘Regesto degli operatori’, 186. F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 85. U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 469; G. Carapelli, ‘Regesto degli operatori’, 208 and 231. G. Poggi, Sui lavori per l’ingrandimento di Firenze, 134. Ibid., 180, 192 ff. and 293. Ibid., 194 and 289. Ibid., 174–84, 226 and 289, and G. Carapelli, ‘Regesto degli operatori’, ad vocem. Sui lavori per l’ingrandimento di Firenze, 40; F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 86; G. Carapelli, ‘Regesto degli operatori’, 214. C. Cresti, Firenze, capitale mancata. Architettura e città dal piano Poggi a oggi (Milano: Electa, 1995), 97; G. Carapelli, ‘Regesto degli operatori’, 201–2. In 1864 he

308

113 114 115 116

117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

Notes had been elected Consigliere Compartimentale (La Provincia di Firenze e i suoi amministratori, 106). U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 470–2. Ibid., 472–5. A building development plan had been prepared by the Municipal Department of Art and approved by the Municipal Council in March 1866, but had not been implemented (C. Cresti, Firenze, capitale mancata, 94–7; U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 476). U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 476. As concerns Sonnino, of Jewish origin, the reference is probably to Isaach – one of the leading figures in regional finance, head of the Banca Toscana di Credito and censor of the Nazionale Toscana from 1866 to 1870, engaged in business with Peruzzi – rather than to his son Sidney (born in 1847), the future Minister of Finance and the Treasury (A. Volpi, Banchieri e mercato finanziario in Toscana, 1801–1860, Firenze: Olschki, 1997, 195, footnote 162; P. Carlucci, ‘L’ascesa sociale di un banchiere nell’Italia unita: per un profilo biografico di Isacco Sonnino, 1803–1878’, Annali della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, 29, 1995, 391–424; Lettere di Sidney Sonnino ad Emilia Peruzzi, 1872–1878, ed. P. Carlucci, Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore, 1998, xiii and 8). U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 477. Ibid., 478. On the Guppy, see G. Aliberti, Economia e società a Napoli dal Settecento al Novecento (Reggio Calabria: Editori meridionali riuniti, 1974), 228 ff. and passim. F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 95. G. Artom Treves, Anglo-­fiorentini di cento anni fa (Firenze: Sansoni, 1953), 87–9. U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 478 ff.; C. Cresti, Firenze, capitale mancata, 50–79. Antonio Gerini was elected District Councillor in 1885 (La Provincia di Firenze e i suoi amministratori, 106). P. Sica first used the expression ‘interrupted capital’ to refer to the moving of the Italian government from Florence to Rome, Storia dell’urbanistica, 454. On the urban transformation of Rome, the projects, the initiatives of banks and construction companies, see U. Pesci, I primi anni di Roma capitale, 1870–1878 (Roma: Officina Edizioni, 1907), 663 ff. Carteggi di Bettino Ricasoli, letter 355 (Bettino Ricasoli to Marco Minghetti, 13 September 1864), 457, and letter 356 (Bettino Ricasoli to his brother Vincenzo,   14 September 1864), 459. Ibid., letter 361 (Bettino Ricasoli to Ubaldino Peruzzi, 16 September 1864), 464. For many other illustrious personages who bought houses in Florence, see S. Fei, Nascita e sviluppo di Firenze, 50–1. F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 95; U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 506. U. Peruzzi, Relazione del sindaco Ubaldino Peruzzi. On the projects planned but not implemented, see U. Pesci, Firenze capitale, 483 ff. U. Peruzzi, Relazione del sindaco Ubaldino Peruzzi, 20 ff. S. Fei, G. Gobbi Sica and P. Sica, Firenze, 149, footnote 10. Already in 1870 a first decrease was recorded (from 194,001 inhabitants the year before to 182,714), a trend that continued in 1871 (167,093) and 1872 (166,464)   (L. Castelli, La popolazione e la mortalità del centennio 1791–1890, xi). P. Redi, ‘Espansione e speculazione edilizia in Firenze capitale’, in La Toscana nell’Italia unita. Aspetti e momenti di storia toscana 1861–1945, ed. G. Pansini et al. (Firenze: Unione Regionale delle Provincie Toscane, 1962), 455. F. Genala, ‘La questione di Firenze e il modo di risolverla’, Nuova Antologia, s. 2, 11, 21 (1878), 44–5.

Notes

309

134 P. Redi, ‘Espansione e speculazione edilizia in Firenze capitale’, 455–6 and 463. 135 A. Mari, La questione di Firenze trattata dal deputato Adriano Mari. Memoria e allegati (Firenze: Niccolai, 1878), 117–23. 136 In addition, the residents of the Pia Casa di Lavoro for beggars rose from 437 on 31 May 1867 to 617 on the same date in 1871 and to 900 on 21 May 1878, while the inmates of mental hospitals rose from 265 in 1867 to 372 ten years later, and this at a time of overall decline in the population (A. Mari, La questione di Firenze, 128, 145 and 149–52; F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 95). 137 G. Guerzoni, ‘Firenze rinnovata’, 785. 138 F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 95. 139 G. Poggi, Sui lavori per l’ingrandimento di Firenze, 99 ff. 140 G. Carocci, Il ghetto di Firenze e i suoi ricordi (Firenze: Galletti e Cocci, 1886); id., Firenze scomparsa. Ricordi storico-­artistici (Roma: Multigrafica Editrice, [1897] 1979), 91–106; C. Cresti and S. Fei, ‘Le vicende del “risanamento” di Mercato Vecchio a Firenze’, Storia Urbana, 1, no. 2 (1977), 99–126. 141 S. Fei, Firenze 1881–1898: la grande operazione urbanistica (Roma: Officina Edizioni, 1977), 34. 142 F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 106 ff. 143 R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 120–1. 144 S. Fei, G. Gobbi Sica and P. Sica, Firenze, 149, footnote 10; Z. Ciuffoletti, La città capitale. Firenze prima, durante e dopo (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2014), 43; E. Sestan, ‘La Destra toscana’, 233; F. Conti, ‘Palazzo Spini Feroni nell’Ottocento: da residenza aristocratica a luogo della sfera pubblica e del loisir’, in Un palazzo e la città, ed. S. Ricci and R. Spinelli (Milano: Skira, 2015), 202. With Laws 8 July 1878, No. 4437 and 26 June 1879, No. 4935, the Municipality was granted an extension in payment of   was authorized; to guarantee that it would be paid, the government took over the administration of customs duties. These measures provoked criticism and opposition, due to the fear that they would create a dangerous precedent (F. Volpi, Le finanze dei comuni e delle province del Regno d’Italia. 1860–1890, Torino: ILTE, 1962, 44). 145 See C. Cresti, Firenze, capitale mancata, 98–9 and 117 for the expenses estimated by the Commission appointed in 1882 by the Municipal Council and the costs of the operation. 146 G. Fanelli, Firenze. Architettura e città (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1973), 448 ff. 147 E. Detti, Firenze scomparsa (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1970), 61. 148 A. Salvestrini, I moderati toscani e la classe dirigente italiana, 1859–1876 (Firenze: Olschki, 1965), 305 ss.; Z. Ciuffoletti, ‘I moderati toscani, la caduta della Destra e la questione di Firenze (1870–1879)’, Rassegna Storica Toscana, 23, no. 1 (1977), 23–66; no. 2 (1977), 229–71. 149 G. Poggi, Sui lavori per l’ingrandimento di Firenze, 213. 150 On the attitude of the Florentines, see S. Camerani, ‘Addio, Firenze capitale’, Rassegna Storica Toscana, 16, no. 2 (1970), 167; id., ‘La storia’, in Panorama di Firenze capitale (Firenze: Il Fauno, 1971), 7 ff. 151 On the technicians and administrators, see F. Borsi, La Capitale a Firenze, 80; ‘Schede biografiche dei tecnici impegnati nei lavori per la capitale’, in Nascita di una capitale, 96–112. 152 The relationship between the Chamber of Commerce for the year 1864 and the most highly represented industries in the city is found in M. Laguzzi, La Convenzione di settembre, 44–5. 153 M. Cozzi, F. Nuti and L. Zangheri, Edilizia in Toscana. Dal Granducato allo Stato unitario, ed. M. Cozzi (Firenze: EDIFIR, 1992), 168.

310

Notes

154 A. Pellegrino, La città più artigiana d’Italia. Firenze 1861–1929 (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2012), 111. 155 R. Melchionda, Firenze industriale nei suoi incerti albori. Le origini dell’associazionismo imprenditoriale cento anni fa. Esplorazioni e materiali (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1988), 88.

12  Entrepreneurs and Enterprises in and around Florence   1 This is the case for all studies of reference on the Tuscan economy in the nineteenth century: Firenze 1815–1945: un bilancio storiografico, ed. G. Mori and P. Roggi (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1990); M. Lungonelli, ‘L’economia: l’Ottocento’, Firenze 1815–1945, 23–32; A. Giuntini, ‘Oltre la mezzadria’, in Storia della civiltà toscana. L’Ottocento, ed. L. Lotti (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1998), 217–34; A. Giuntini, ‘Trasporti e comunicazioni’, in Storia della civiltà toscana. L’Ottocento, 281–94; R. Ricci, ‘I numeri dell’industria’, in Storia della civiltà toscana. L’Ottocento, 235–80.   2 See F. H. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1921); J. A. Schumpeter, Theory of economic development (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1934); W. J. Baumol, ‘Entrepreneurship in Economic Theory’, The American Economic Review, 58, no. 2 (1968), 64–71.   3 An initial and sketchy effort to fill this historiographic void is to be found in C. Badon, ‘L’imprenditorialità a Firenze dal granducato alla Grande guerra (1852–1912): note da un campione prosopografico’, Rassegna storica toscana, 58, no. 2 (2012), 189–225.   4 C. Lorenzini, Pinocchio, the Story of a Puppet (London: J. M. Dent, 1914).   5 Ibid., 101–14.   6 V. Salvatore, ‘Krach’, Fanfulla, 23 February 1874.   7 Quadro delle società industriali, commerciali e finanziarie anonime ed in accomandita per azioni al portatore costituitesi nelle provincie che ora formano il Regno d’Italia dal 1845 al 1864 compilato per cura del ministero per l’agricoltura il commercio e l’industria (Torino: G. Faziola e C., 1865). See also S. Fei, Nascita e sviluppo di Firenze cittá borghese (Firenze: G&G, 1971), 199–202.   8 C. De Cesare, Il sindacato governativo, le società commerciali e gli istituti di credito nel Regno d’Italia (Firenze: Pellas, 1869).   9 Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio, ‘Notizie sulle condizioni industriali della Provincia di Firenze’, Annali di Statistica, 79 (1895), 1–136. 10 Data elaborated from C. de Cesare, Il sindacato governativo. 11 C. de Cesare, Il sindacato governativo, 185. 12 W. J. Baumol, ‘Entrepreneurship: productive, unproductive, and destructive’, Journal of Political Economy, 98, no. 5 (1990), 893–921. 13 Data elaborated from Quadro delle società industriali. 14 On this business form, its emergance and diffusion in the nineteenth century, see   M. Poettinger, ‘Forme d’impresa, socializzazione del capitale e innovazione nella Milano di metá Ottocento’, Rivista di Storia Economica, 27, no. 2 (2011), 171–223. 15 For a complete and syntethic analysis of the minerary sector in Tuscany, see A. Giuntini, ‘Oltre la mezzadria’, 219–21. 16 G. Mori, La Valdelsa dal 1848 al 1900: sviluppo economico, movimenti sociali e lotta politica (Torino: Feltrinelli, 1957), 80. 17 C. de Cesare, Il sindacato governativo, 90. 18 ‘Della Industria Manifatturiera in Italia. VI: Farine, Paste, Amido’, Rivista contemporanea nazionale italiana, 16 (1859), 68–73.

Notes

311

19 See C. Errico et al., I mulini del territorio livornese. L’evoluzione di una produzione dal sec. XIII al sec. XIX (Leghorn: Debatte Otello, 1998). 20 C. de Cesare, Il sindacato governativo, 89. 21 Without the capital pertaining to the National Bank. 22 C. de Cesare, Il sindacato governativo, 89–90. 23 Ibid. 24 On this phenomenon, see Società di Economia Politica Italiana, ‘Tornata del 19 Dicembre 1871’, Nuova Antologia di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 19 (1872), 243–50. 25 C. de Cesare, Il sindacato governativo, 90. 26 ‘I will explain it to you at once,’ said the Fox. ‘You must know that in the land of the Owls there is a sacred field that everybody calls the Field of Miracles. In this field you must dig a little hole, and you put into it, we will say, one gold sovereign. You then cover up the hole with a little earth; you must water it with two pails of water from the fountain, then sprinkle it with two pinches of salt, and when night comes you can go quietly to bed. In the meanwhile, during the night, the gold piece will grow and flower, and in the morning when you get up and return to the field, what do you find? You find a beautiful tree laden with as many gold sovereigns as a fine ear of corn has grains in the month of June.’ (C. Lorenzini, Pinocchio, the Story of a Puppet, London: J. M. Dent, 1914, 67.) 27 C. de Cesare, La politica, l’economia, e la morale dei moderni italiani: studi (Firenze: Pellas, 1869), 1. 28 C. Lorenzini, Un romanzo in vapore. Da Firenze a Livorno. Guida storico-­umoristica (Firenze: Giunti, 2010), 57. 29 Vincenzo Salvatore wrote most of the pieces of Fanfulla dedicated to economic matters. See, in particular, V. Salvatore, ‘Storia della Finanza Italiana’, Almanacco del Fanfulla, 4 (1874), 45–60. 30 V. Salvatore, ‘Krach’. 31 Ibid. 32 Carlo Bombrini (1804–82) was a Genoese banker. He co-­founded and directed the Banca di Genova from 1845 to 1849 and then the Banca Nazionale degli Stati Sardi, later Banca Nazionale del Regno d’Italia from 1849 to 1882. He set up the Società Ansaldo in 1853. He was also elected in the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy. 33 Domenico Balduino (1824–85) was a Genoese trader and banker. He was the first to attempt to operate an Italian investment bank like the French Crédit Mobilier. Based in Turin, the bank was initially financed by the Rothschilds, but hung on the verge of bankruptcy until Italian unification. In 1863, the bank changed its name to Società Generale del Credito Mobiliare and acquired the Pereire brothers as partners and investors. From then on, the bank became a forefront player in all important financial operations of the Kingdom of Italy, while also participating in many operations abroad. In 1866, after the exit of the Pereire brothers, Balduino obtained complete control over the bank. His domain lasted twenty years, until his death. 34 Pietro Bastogi (1808–99) was a banker from Livorno, already well established during the last decades of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. He became a major player in Italian finance and politics after Unity. As such, he was heavily implicated (along with Domenico Balduino) in the scandal of the Società Italiana per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali. In economics, Bastogi was a convinced liberal. He supported the establishment of the Società Adamo Smith with Francesco Ferrara and Ubaldino Peruzzi. The association was designed to diffuse liberalism in economics and political economy.

312 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

Notes V. Salvatore, ‘Affari di Borsa’, Fanfulla, 13 April 1875. Crispo, ‘Circolare agli uomini onesti’, Fanfulla, 6 February 1874. C. Lorenzini, Pinocchio, 112–4. On this trial, see Dibattimenti nella causa contro Cristiano Lobbia, deputato, prof. Antonio Martinati, Cristiano Giusto Caregnato, Giuseppe Novelli e Carlo Benelli imputati di simulazione di delitto (Firenze: Eredi Botta, 1869). C. Lorenzini, Pinocchio, 94. The Florentine Giovanni Niccoli, first director of the workshop, left the firm after one year of assignment to become director of the Casa del Lavoro di Firenze. See F. Foggi, ‘Immagini di fabbrica’, in La fonderia del Pignone 1842–1954 (Milano: Electa, 1983), 40. G. Trotta, Il Pignone a Firenze. Tra memoria e oblio (Firenze: Messaggerie Toscane, 1990). F. Foggi, ‘Immagini di fabbrica’, 37. Data regarding state contracts obtained by Pietro Benini is to be found in the Archivio Storico del Comune di Firenze (ASCF): b.4748, 1868/ b.4754,1869/ b.4764, 1871/ b.4772, 1872/ b.1414, 1873. See M. Dezzi Bardeschi, ‘1835: l’architettura del ferro a Firenze, Pasquale Benini e lo “spirito d’intrapresa” ’, in La fonderia del Pignone 1842–1954, 105–10. F. Foggi, ‘Immagini di fabbrica’, 41–2. S. Buti, La Manifattura Ginori: trasformazioni produttive e condizione operaia, 1860–1915 (Firenze: Olschki, 1990), 29–31. Ibid., 38–41. G. Baglioni, ‘Una borghesia in formazione: gli imprenditori italiani nell’inchiesta industriale del 1870–1874’, Studi di Sociologia, 10, no. 2–3 (1972), 185–218. A. Giuntini, Dalla Lyonnaise alla Fiorentinagas, 1839–1989 (Bari: Laterza, 1990). C. Lorenzini, Pinocchio, 127.

13  Food Availability and Consumption Patterns in Florence and Tuscany after Italy’s Unification   1 English translation by Giovanni Agnoloni.   2 P. Meldini, ‘L’emergere delle cucine regionali: l’Italia’, in Storia dell’alimentazione, ed. J.-L. Flandrin and M. Montanari (Bari: Laterza, 1996), 658–64; Z. Ciuffoletti and   P. Nanni, ‘Le origini della dieta mediterranea e la tradizione alimentare contadina’,   in Storia dell’agricoltura Italiana, III, L’età contemporanea, 1, Dalle ‘rivoluzioni agronomiche’ alle trasformazioni del Novecento, ed. R. Cianferoni, Z. Ciuffoletti and L. Rombai (Firenze: Polistampa, 2002), 463–80.   3 P. Meldini, ‘La cucina dell’età giolittiana’, in La cucina dell’età giolittiana (Rimini-Firenze: Guaraldi, 1977), xxii.   4 G. Vecchi and M. Coppola, ‘Nutrizione e povertà in Italia, 1861–1911’, Rivista di Storia Economica, no. 19 (2003), 383.   5 C. Helstosky, Garlic and Oil: Food and Politics in Italy (Oxford-New York: Berg, 2004), 21.   6 C. Pazzagli, ‘La vita sociale’, in Firenze 1815–1945, un bilancio storiografico, ed. P. Roggi and G. Mori (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1990), 56.   7 C. Barberis, ‘L’autoconsumo in Italia’, in Storia d’Italia. Annali, 6. Economia naturale, economia monetaria, ed. R. Romano and U. Tucci (Torino: Einaudi, 1983), 743–74; G. Federico, ‘Azienda contadina e autoconsumo fra antropologia ed econometria: considerazioni metodologiche’, Rivista di Storia Economica, no. 1 (1984), 78–124;

Notes

  8   9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21

22 23 24

313

G. Federico, ‘Autoconsumo e mercantilizzazione: spunti per una discussione’, Società e Storia, 8, no. 7 (1985), 197–212. A. Capatti, A. De Bernardi and A. Varni, ‘Introduzione’, in Storia d’Italia. Annali, 13. L’alimentazione, ed. A. Capatti, A. De Bernardi and A. Varni (Torino: Einaudi, 1998), xli. Ibid. G. Vecchi and M. Coppola, ‘Nutrizione e povertà in Italia’, 384. F. Della Peruta, ‘Aspetti della società italiana nell’Italia della Restaurazione’, Studi storici, no. 2 (1976), 27–68, 31. See also G. Memmo, ‘Sull’alimentazione in varie condizioni individuali e sociali’, Annali dell’Istituto di Igiene Sperimentale della R. Univ. di Roma, 6, no. 3 (1894), 303. S. Somogyi, ‘L’alimentazione nell’Italia unita’, in Storia d’Italia. I Documenti, vol. 5.1, ed. R. Romano and C. Vivanti (Torino: Einaudi, 1973), 843. C. Helstosky, Garlic and Oil, 21. G. Vecchi, Il benessere dell’Italia liberale, 86. Ibid. L. Campiglio, ‘Legge di Engel e teoria del consumatore: un tentativo di integrazione’, Rivista internazionale di scienze sociali, 92, no. 1 (1984), 91–113. D. Casanova, ‘I consumi in Italia all’indomani dell’Unità (1861–1911)’ in Consumo e crisi economica. Risvolti esistenziali e prospettive educative, ed. M. G. Simone (Napoli: Guida, 2012), 216. G. Vecchi, Il benessere dell’Italia liberale, 76. G. Vecchi and M. Coppola, ‘Nutrizione e povertà in Italia’, 389. A. Niceforo, ‘Dati statistici sull’alimentazione della popolazione Italiana’, in Documenti per lo studio dell’alimentazione della popolazione Italiana nell’ultimo cinquantennio, ed. F. Bottazzi, A. Niceforo and G. Quagliarello (Napoli: Novene, 1933); S. Somogyi, ‘Cento anni di bilanci familiari in Italia (1857–1956)’, Annali dell’Istituto Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, no. 2 (1959), 121–263; G. Vecchi, ‘I bilanci familiari in Italia: 1860–1960’, Rivista di Storia Economica, no. 1 (1994), 9–95. N. Rossi, G. Toniolo and G. Vecchi, ‘Is the Kuznets curve still alive? Evidence from Italian household budgets, 1881–1961’, Journal of Economic History, no. 61 (2001), 904–25; Vecchi, Il benessere dell’Italia liberale; G. Vecchi and M. Coppola, ‘Nutrizione e povertà in Italia’. G. Vecchi, Il benessere dell’Italia liberale, 12. Data taken and re-­elaborated from ‘Appendix’, ibid., Tables A.1–A.4. There are no currently available essays or specific researches on the Martini and Edlmann families. It is common sense to assume that the former originally came from Florence’s countryside: at least from the fifteenth century, they had constantly expanded the family’s real-estate by purchasing land and properties in Ronta, Moscheta (Florence), Cerbaia (Prato), Campagnatico (Grosseto), Fiesole and Florence. The main family business was agriculture, in the form of sharecropping, carried on in the various farms they owned. Although they were specially attached to Mugello, over the centuries the core of their interests progressively shifted first towards Florence, and then towards Fiesole. Around the 1860s, Giuseppe Martini married Elena Edlmann, native of Genoa. Some members of the Edlmann family had been residing in Florence at least since the 1850s: in particular, Anna Padovani, Francesco Saverio Edlmann’s second wife, who rather lived in Genoa. Giuseppe and Elena had no children and, when she died, by will the stepbrother Paolo Edlmann inherited all properties, including the family archive, now named Martini-Edlmann. S. Fagioli, Fondo Martini-

314

25

26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41

Notes Edlmann, IT Edl FME-Descrizione ISAD(G) (General International Standard Archival Description), 2013. Fondo Martini-Edlmann (hereinafter, FME), FME-REG028, pages not numbered. The individual expenditure items have been summarized in the main entries of Table 13.5. More specifically: ‘food’ includes the original item vitto; ‘wages’ includes salari; ‘rent and other housing expenses’ includes pigioni, mobili restauri miglioramenti, stabile città, Fiesole campagna, Cerbaja; ‘heating’ includes fuoco; ‘transport’ includes carrozze e posta; ‘clothing’ includes vestire di Paolo, vestire mio, biancheria, lavanderia; ‘leisure’ includes divertimenti e contanti Paolo, straordinari (Paolo e lei), viaggi e gite, caccia, teatro; ‘taxes and duties’ includes tasse e dazi assicurazione incendi; ‘miscellaneous and extraordinary expenses’ comprises a series of items not otherwise classifiable, such as medications, education, legal fees, cash, extraordinary expenditures, mass-­related expenditures, Spillatico (pin-­money), babies and unborn babies, gratuities, [expenses for] Franco. FME, Unitemized notebook, 1880–1884, related to the consumption of the wine produced in the family’s vineyards. C. Pazzagli, ‘La vita sociale’, 60. E. Raseri, ‘Alimenti e bevande prevalenti nell’alimentazione dei poveri e in quella dei ricchi’, in Annali di Statistica, s. 2, no. 8 (1879), 37–96. Raseri illustrates the process of data collection: ‘When questioned on what was the prevalent diet for the rich and poor, the doctors of the various municipalities could not offer specific indications as to the quantity of substances ordinarily consumed for nutritional purposes, but just mentioned which substances appeared more frequently on the tables’ (ibid., 39). C. Lombroso, Sulle condizioni economico-­igieniche dei contadini dell’alta e media Italia (Milano: Giuseppe Bernardoni, 1877). Other data on the consumption of some food categories, also in a European comparative perspective, may be found in H. J. Teuteberg and J.-L. Flandrin, ‘Trasformazioni del consumo alimentare’, in Storia dell’alimentazione, 567–83. F. Apergi and C. Bianco, La ricca cena. Famiglia mezzadrile e pratiche alimentari a Vicchio di Mugello (Firenze: Centro Editoriale Toscano, 1991), 14. By ‘podere’ we mean a parcel of land subdivided into fields of different sizes, separated by two lines of trees – mulberry or fruit trees, between which rainwater drainage channels were created – cultivated in a varied and non-­intensive manner. F. Taddei, ‘Il cibo nell’Italia mezzadrile fra Otto e Novecento’, in Storia d’Italia. Annali, 13. L’alimentazione, 28. F. Apergi and C. Bianco, La ricca cena, 65. F. Taddei, ‘Il cibo nell’Italia mezzadrile fra Otto e Novecento’, 32. F. Apergi and C. Bianco, La ricca cena, 109. After Stefano Jacini, who directed the Commission starting from 1881. ‘Condizioni fisiche, igieniche e sanitarie dei lavoratori della terra’, in Atti della Giunta per la Inchiesta Agraria e sulle condizioni della classe agricola. Vol. III. La Toscana agricola, vol. 3 (Roma: Forzani e C., 1881), 499–511. Z. Ciuffoletti, ‘Cultura e tradizione alimentare tra Ottocento e Novecento. Il patrimonio enogastronomico toscano come modello per la nuova Italia’, in Desinari nostrali. Storia dell’alimentazione a Firenze e in Toscana, ed. Z. Ciuffoletti and G. Pinto (Firenze: Polistampa, 2005), 173. Z. Ciuffoletti and P. Nanni, ‘Le origini della dieta mediterranea e la tradizione alimentare contadina’, in Storia dell’agricoltura Italiana. III/1, L’età contemporanea.

Notes

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

315

Dalle ‘rivoluzioni agronomiche’ alle trasformazioni del Novecento, ed. R. Cianferoni, Z. Ciuffoletti and L. Rombai (Firenze: Polistampa, 2002), 473. C. M. Mazzini, ‘L’alimentazione dei contadini nel pistoiese’, in La Toscana agricola. Condizioni dell’agricoltura e degli agricoltori nelle provincie di Firenze, Arezzo, Siena, Lucca, Pisa e Livorno (Firenze: Telemaco Giani, 1882), 356–61. Ibid., 357. F. Taddei, ‘Pane e olio: l’alimentazione dei mezzadri in Toscana’, Risorgimento, no. 2 (1992), 269. Apergi and Bianco, La ricca cena, 43–55. P. Nanni, ‘Città e campagna nella cultura alimentare tra otto e novecento’, in Desinari nostrali, 199. M. L. Betri, ‘L’alimentazione popolare nell’Italia dell’Ottocento’, in Storia d’Italia. Annali, 13. L’alimentazione, 18. ‘Toscana’, in Risultati dell’inchiesta sulle condizioni igieniche e sanitarie nei comuni del Regno. Parte prima. Notizie relative ai comuni capoluoghi di provincia (Roma: Direzione generale della Statistica, 1886), 76–95. Z. Ciuffoletti, ‘Cultura e tradizione alimentare tra Ottocento e Novecento’, 172–3. Ibid. P. Nanni, ‘Città e campagna nella cultura alimentare’, 201. J.-R. Pitta, ‘Nascita e diffusione dei ristoranti’, in Storia dell’alimentazione, 601–9. G. Conti, Firenze vecchia: storia, cronaca aneddotica, costumi. 1799–1859 (Firenze: Bemporad & Figlio, 1899), 419. C. Lorenzini, Occhi e nasi: Ricordi dal vero, 5th popular edition, with the addition of an unpublished sketch (Firenze: R. Bemporad & Figlio, 1910), 221; G. Carducci, ‘Le Risorse di San Miniato al Tedesco’, in Confessioni e battaglie (Roma: Sommaruga, 1883), part iii. G. Gandi, Antiche e caratteristiche trattorie fiorentine (Firenze: Tipografia Enrico Rossi, 1929), quoted also by P. Nanni, ‘Città e campagna nella cultura alimentare’, 205. S. J. Woolf, ‘Come e che cosa mangiavano i fiorentini cent’anni fa? Sulle tracce dell’alimentazione popolare’, Ricerche storiche, 28, no. 3 (1998), 489–91. E. Raseri, ‘Alimenti e bevande prevalenti nell’alimentazione’, 85. P. Nanni, ‘Città e campagna nella cultura alimentare’, 199. Ibid. S. J. Woolf, ‘Come e che cosa mangiavano i fiorentini’, 492. ‘Cronaca della beneficenza. Le cucine economiche in Italia’, Rivista della Beneficenza pubblica e delle Istituzioni di Previdenza, 13 (1885), 88. Ibid. C. Goldmann and C. Ferraris, ‘Relazione sulle cucine economiche popolari in Italia’,   in Relazione sulle cucine economiche popolari in Italia (Milano: Tipografia degli operai, 1889), 5. G. S. Frosali, Resoconto storico retrospettivo della cucina economica Elena Demidoff (Firenze: Giuseppe Civelli, 1884). S. Fera, L’opera filantropica ‘Il pane quotidiano’ in Firenze. Anno I. Relazione presentata alla prima assemblea generale dei soci il 24 gennaio 1899 (Firenze: Materassi, Pia Casa di Lavoro, 1899). S. Somogyi, ‘Cento anni di bilanci familiari’, 129. S. J. Woolf, ‘Come e che cosa mangiavano i fiorentini’, 494. Ibid., 495. Data from the ‘Archivio Storico del Comune di Firenze’ (‘Florence Municipality’s Historical Archive – hereinafter, ASCF), Archivio dell’Ospedale di San Giovanni di Dio, 545 (food expenditure from 1 January 1873 to 31 August 1876), passim.

316

Notes

69 U. Pesci, Firenze Capitale (1865–1870). Dagli appunti di un ex-­cronista (Firenze: R. Bemporad & Figlio, 1904), 358. 70 Ibid., 354. 71 Ibid.; Florence and its environs (Milano: Fratelli Treves, 1902), 1–3. 72 Ibid., 358. 73 P. Albertoni and I. Novi, ‘Sul bilancio nutritivo di una famiglia borghese Italiana’,   Memorie della R. Accademia delle Scienze dell’Istituto di Bologna, 5, no. 6 (1896), 416. 74 FME, FME-REG004 (1854)-FME-REG031 (1882), documents not numbered. 75 J.-L. Flandrin, ‘Il XIX e il XX secolo. Introduzione’, in Storia dell’alimentazione, 564.

14  Banks and Capitalists in Florence in the Decades after Unification   1 This chapter is the result of the joint efforts of the two authors. However, the first section can be attributed to Marco Cini, and the second to Simone Fagioli.   2 A. Polsi, Alle origini del capitalismo italiano. Stato, banche e banchieri dopo l’Unità (Torino: Einaudi, 1993).   3 A review of Tuscan banking historiography can be found in A. Volpi, ‘La storiografia sulle tematiche bancarie e finanziarie: primi appunti’, in La Toscana dai Lorena al fascismo. Mezzo secolo di storiografia nel cinquantenario della ‘Rassegna storica toscana’, ed. F. Conti and R. P. Coppini (Firenze: Polistampa, 2009), 163–90. See also I. Napoli, Banche ed assicurazioni nella Toscana del XIX secolo. Guida alle fonti (Firenze: Fondazione Spadolini-Nuova Antologia, Le Monnier, 2004).   4 R. P. Coppini, ‘Banche e speculazioni a Firenze nel primo ventennio unitario’, Quaderni storici, 32 (1976), 581–612.   5 In this regard, see P. Pecorari, La fabbrica dei soldi. Istituti di emissione e questione bancaria in Italia, 1861–1913 (Bologna: Patron, 1994).   6 As regards BNT’s origins, see M. Cini, Finanza pubblica, debito e moneta nel Granducato di Toscana, 1815–1859 (Pisa: ETS, 2011), 257–69. A detailed description of the legal structure and tasks performed by the bank can be found   in G. Mantellini, La Banca Toscana descritta (Firenze: Tipografia delle Murate, 1860).   7 To this end, see F. Scoti, Osservazioni sul rapporto letto nell’adunanza Generale degli Azionisti della Banca Nazionale tenuta in Torino il 7 ottobre 1863 intorno al progetto di Statuto per la Banca d’Italia presentato al Senato dal MAIC (Firenze: Barbèra, 1863), 19.   8 During the same period, the number of Banca Nazionale branches increased from fifty to sixty-­six; Banco di Napoli’s branches increased from two to twelve and Banco di Sicilia’s from two to seven.   9 In my reconstruction of the series of discounts and advances, I have opted to refer to figures already used by Di Nardi (G. Di Nardi, Le banche di emissione in Italia nel secolo XIX, Torino: UTET, 1953) rather than those formulated by De Mattia (R. De Mattia, I bilanci degli istituti di emissione italiani 1845–1936, Roma: Banca d’Italia, 1967) because, as regards BNT, the end-­of-month totals for discounts and advances are aggregated in some cases in the latter work, and as regards advances, no figures are shown for the period immediately following unification. In any case, no excessive differences can be noted upon comparing the two series and the trend is definitely confirmed. 10 Relazione della Commissione d’inchiesta sul corso forzoso dei biglietti di banca (Roma: Camera dei Deputati, 1869), vol. 1, 58. As regards the Livorno office, half of the bills submitted for discounting came from bankers and half from merchants and industrialists.

Notes

317

11 In this regard, see A. Gigliobianco, ‘Tra concorrenza e collaborazione: considerazioni sulla natura dei rapporti fra “banca centrale” e sistema bancario nell’esperienza italiana (1844–1918)’, in Ricerche per la storia della Banca d’Italia, ed. F. Cotula (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1990), vol. 1, 297–302. 12 Concerning the mixing among Florentine circles linked to Ferrovie Romane and BNT, see R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny sindaco di Firenze capitale e ministro delle finanze (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1975), 167–70. 13 R. P. Coppini, ‘Patrimoni familiari e società anonime (1861–1894): il caso toscano’, Annali della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, 9 (1976), 136, and M. Poettinger, Imprenditori in Toscana al tempo di Firenze Capitale, 2015 (available for consultation at www. academia.edu). 14 The Servadio family were the managers of Banca del Popolo di Firenze, founded in 1865. As regards their financial investments, see R. P. Coppini, Patrimoni familiari e società anonime (1861–1894), 135–44; for Carlo Fenzi, see A. Giuntini, Soltanto per denaro. La vita, gli affari, la ricchezza di Emanuele Fenzi negoziante banchiere fiorentino nel Granducato di Toscana, 1784–1875 (Firenze: Polistampa, 2002), 158–87. 15 An analysis of the effects generated by this crisis on the national banking system can be found in G. Conti, ‘Il crac del 1873’, in Crisi e scandali bancari nella storia d’Italia, ed. P. Pecorari (Venezia: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 2006), 29–66. 16 A large number of Tuscans connected to BNT (see Banca Nazionale, Adunanza degli azionisti, Genova: Pellas, 1866–67) formed part of the first Board of BN’s Florence office (1866–67). 17 A detailed overview of the projects submitted during this period to establish a single issuing bank can be found in S. Cardarelli, ‘La questione bancaria in Italia dal 1860 al 1892’, in Ricerche per la storia della Banca d’Italia, 105–80. 18 Carlo Fenzi and Bellino Briganti-Bellini presented a draft law to the Chamber of Deputies on 19 July 1867 (the document is available for consultation in the web section of the Chamber of Deputies’ Historical Archive); Digny, in his capacity as Finance Minister, presented a detailed draft law on 24 May 1869 (the wording of the bill can be found in Gli istituti di emissione in Italia. I tentativi di unificazione, 1843–1892, ed. R. De Mattia, Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1990, 340–55). 19 As regards the effects of the Inconvertible Paper Standard on BNT’s circulation, see the study by G. Gianfreda and N. Janson, ‘Le banche di emissione in Italia tra il 1861 e il 1893: un caso di concorrenza?’, Rivista di politica economica, no. 1 (2001), 15–73. 20 BNT, Bilancio del 1875 (Firenze: Barbèra, 1876), 9. 21 G. Di Nardi, Le banche di emissione in Italia nel secolo XIX, 212. 22 Relazione al Consiglio superiore, 2 (the report, dated 3 May 1875, is housed in the Risorgimento library and archives in Florence, Carte Fenzi, filza 98, ins. 5). 23 Ibid. 24 Rappresentanza approvata dal Consiglio Superiore, nell’Adunanza del 15 gennaio 1877, indirizzata ai Ministri delle Finanze e dell’Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio il 27 detto (Annex No. 1 to BNT, Relazione del Direttore Generale all’Assemblea generale straordinaria degli Azionisti del 14 agosto 1877, Firenze: Barbèra, 1877, 31–2). 25 Ibid., 33–4. 26 The exchange of notes increased rapidly from 1869 onwards. This can be attributed to Tuscany’s progressive expansion of commercial relations with the rest of Italy. While the sharp rise seen from 1872 to 1873 was linked to intensification of the speculative climate of that time, subsequently dampened by the banking crisis of 1873. Indeed,

318

27

28

29

30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38

Notes there was a progressive drop in the request for exchange of notes over the following years while still remaining at a high level. Ferrovia Marmifera di Carrar’s involvement was prior to Digny taking up the position as director of BNT. Nevertheless, Digny took advantage of this to increase the amount of private securities to be used for exchange in place of inconvertible notes (see Relazione al Consiglio superiore, 5). This is why, at the beginning of the 1870s, BNT undertook the liabilities of the railway concessionaire, Adriano Righi. Righi’s unreliability regarding management of the Ferrovia Marmifera contract forced BNT to take over direct management of the project. As at 1880, this cost the bank losses totalling 5.49 million lire and over 4 million lire of fixed assets (G. Campatelli, ‘Credito ed emissione in Toscana nel primo trentennio post-­unitario’, Rassegna Storica Toscana, 1, 1997, 82). Fazzari purchased the metal plants and Mongiana woodlands from the state with the support of BNT, accumulating a debt of over 3 million lire with the latter. In 1875, BNT set up a company with Credito Mobiliare which took over the Mongiana estate, acquiring thirteen-­twentieths of it. In 1884, after years of bad management, the Florentine bank transferred its rights over Mongiana to Fazzari, suffering a loss of 3,405,530 lire (ibid., 83–9). BNT, Bilancio del 1875 (Firenze: Barbèra, 1876), 14. In 1877, the receivables due to the bank and generated by transactions needed to provide for mutual exchange of notes in 1873 were: 1) Ferrovia Marmifera, 7,800,000 lire; 2) Mongiana-Fazzari, 3,082,000 lire; 3) receivable from Banca di Credito Romano, 666,100 lire. Total 10,635,100 lire (BNT, Relazione del Direttore Generale all’Assemblea generale straordinaria degli Azionisti del 14 agosto 1877, 18–19). See S. Cardarelli, ‘Il tramonto del free banking in Italia. I tentativi di riforma bancaria di Majorana Calatabiano (1877–1879)’, in Banca d’Italia. Quaderni dell’Ufficio Ricerche Storiche, 14 (2006). The project sent by Cambray-Digny to the Minister Maiorana Calatabiano on 18 May 1877 is housed in the Risorgimento Library and Archives in Florence, Carte Fenzi, filza 98, ins. 5. Quoted in G. Di Nardi, Le banche di emissione in Italia nel secolo XIX, 296. Average of April and December 1866. See A. Giuntini, Soltanto per denaro. As regards their financial role, see A. Volpi, ‘Note sulla formazione del mercato finanziario toscano: il ruolo dei Fenzi’, Rassegna Storica Toscana, 1 (1992), 19–41, and 2 (1992), 217–52. See Il Fondo Turri. Industria e imprenditoria sulla Montagna pistoiese nella seconda metà dell’Ottocento, ed. S. Fagioli (Pistoia: Etruria, 2007). All the documents used in this chapter are unpublished. Fondo Turri is a registered name. As regards the conclusive changes of Banco Fenzi, see A. Giuntini, Soltanto per denaro, 155–91. Concerning bankruptcy, also caused by a major theft of 2 million lire by a bank cashier in the 1880s, Vilfredo Pareto was also involved: ‘Sono rimasto nel fallimento Fenzi per 5000 Lire. Una parte mi saranno mangiate dalla Banca Toscana, mercé l’aiuto del Governo! E per me meno male; ero povero prima, e sarò povero dopo. Ma c’è gente che vi aveva tutto il suo patrimonio, e che cadono in miseria’ (Letter to M. Pantaleoni, Fiesole, 14 August 1892, in V. Pareto, Lettere a Maffeo Pantaleoni, 1890–1923, Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1960, vol. 1, 273). For a general overview, see M. Cini, Finanza pubblica. A detailed analysis of relations between the aristocracy, finance and industry in Tuscany can be found in R. P. Coppini, ‘Aristocrazia e finanza in Toscana nel xix

Notes

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48 49

50 51 52

53 54 55 56 57 58

319

secolo’, in Les noblesses européennes au xixe siècle. Actes du colloque de Rome, 21–23 novembre 1985 (Roma, École Française de Rome, 1988), 297–332. The work by M. Cini, Culture economiche e modelli di sviluppo nella Toscana del primo Ottocento (Pisa: Dedizioni, 2008) is important for providing more in-­depth information about the theoretical models forming the base of the new Tuscan economy, even if Schmitz & Capezzuoli do not fit into these, and not only chronologically. For a concise and effective overview of the banking and financial situation in Tuscany, see A. Volpi, ‘Aspetti del mercato finanziario toscano nell’Ottocento’, in Il Fondo Turri, 39–48. A. Giuntini, Soltanto per denaro, 191. See A. Confalonieri, Banca e industria in Italia. I. Le premesse: dall’abolizione del corso forzoso alla caduta del Credito Mobiliare (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1979, especially 9–94). Cipriano Turri, Florence, 1847–1907, son of Giulio and Ester Bardi, an important figure inside the Banco from at least the 1870s. The most important were with Ubaldino Peruzzi. A. Giuntini, Soltanto per denaro, 190. Ferdinando Turri, Florence, 1849–Limestre, 1933. In this sense, a close intertwining of personal and corporate interests must be highlighted, even if a conventional model, which cannot be easily unravelled in several instances in the documents. Indeed, the bank could operate under its own name, in the name of its shareholders or with subsidiary companies such as Felice Ponsard & C., which produced brass pins and semi-­finished copper products in Limestre from 1881 onwards, fully controlled by Turri and Banco Schmitz & Turri with Ponsard as a front-­man. See R. P. Coppini, ‘Aristocrazia e finanza’, 298. The C comprised Cipriano and Schmitz & Turri. See Società Metallurgica Italiana, Realizzazione della bonifica agraria di Limestre per l’alimentazione delle maestranze (Milano: Alfieri e Lacroix, 1942). Nowadays, most of the former Turri estates comprise the Oasi Dynamo, controlled by the philanthropic foundation Dynamo Camp, based in Limestre where the Turri factories were located up to 1899. [G. Formigli], Guida per la città di Firenze e suoi contorni. Nuova edizione corretta e accresciuta (Firenze: G. Formigli, 1845). The first edition was from 1838. C. Lorenzini, Un romanzo in vapore. Da Firenze a Livorno. Guida storico-­umoristica (Firenze: Mariani, 1856). There were thirteen banks in Florence, eleven in Livorno and none in Pisa. Guida civile amministrativa commerciale della città di Firenze (Firenze: Tofani, 1862), 319–20, Banchieri. In the same guide we can find mention of Carlo Schmitz as a representative of the Chamber of Commerce and director of Strade Ferrate Livornesi, while Carlo Capezzuoli was on the Supervisory Committee of Casino di Firenze. Guida di Firenze e suoi contorni. Con vedute e nuova pianta della città (Firenze: Bettini, 1862), 18; fourth edition, the first is from the 1840s. Guida di Firenze commerciale industriale-­finanziaria-amministrativa per l’anno 1866, Anno I (Firenze: Fabbrini, 1866), 307. Ibid., 404, at the address Via del Proconsolo 10. R. P. Coppini, ‘Patrimoni familiari e società anonime (1861–1894): il caso toscano’, Annali della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, 9 (1976), 129–86, which provides graphs of equity investments for Casa Piero Bastogi, Casa Fenzi & C., Fratelli Servadio. E. D. Becattini, Firenze Bancaria (Firenze: Tipografia Domenicana, 1913). FT, BB 4 [Schmitz & Turri].

320

Notes

59 Giulio Turri, son of Cristoforo (1790–1860) and Cecilia Negri (1793–1839) was born in Isera (now Trento province) on 13 August 1813 and died in Florence on 13 March 1900, where he moved to during the early 1840s. In 1843, he married Ester Bardi. In the issue of 14–15 March 1900, La Nazione published an obituary upon Giulio’s death without running an article, as it had done for Carlo Schmitz, a clear sign of a season that had come to an end. 60 FT, BB 4 [Schmitz & Turri]. 61 ‘We do not know much about Bardi, but we know of the composition of his family – which did not include any high-­sounding name – and that of his assets at the moment of his death in 1878 when he lived in Borgo degli Albizi (near the Palazzo Borghese) and was the owner of a shop in Via dei Servi, near the Duomo. So he left a good fortune, more than 500,000 Lire, mainly comprising movables – as was typical of the commercial-­financial bourgeoisie – above all shares and credit. Indeed, the major asset was credit from Schmitz & Turri, a company included in the 1876 guide to Florence, with three cloth factories’ (R. Romanelli, ‘Il casino, l’accademia, e il circolo. Forme e tendenze dell’associazionismo d’élite nella Firenze dell’Ottocento’, in Fra storia e storiografia. Scritti in onore di Pasquale Villani, ed. P. Macry and A. Massafra, Bologna: Il Mulino, 1994, 825). 62 See S. Fagioli, ‘La ferrovia Pracchia-La Lima nei documenti del Fondo Turri   (1880–1898)’, in Il Fondo Turri, 63–78. 63 See A. Giuntini, Leopoldo e il treno. 64 See S. Fagioli, La ferrovia Pracchia-La Lima, 68. 65 Annali di giurisprudenza, 1857. Anno decimo nono. Raccolta di decisioni della corte suprema di cassazione delle corti regie di Firenze e di Lucca e dei tribunali di prima istanza per opera di una società di giureconsulti toscani (Firenze: Niccolai, 1857), 1143. 66 A. Targioni Tozzetti, Relazione ed analisi chimica dell’acqua proveniente dalla polla delle Tamerici a Monte-Catini (Firenze: Società Tipografica, 1843). The report is dated ‘Florence, 31 March 1843’. 67 Annali, 1143. 68 See L. Morieni, Notizie sulle acque minerali del Regno d’Italia e dei paesi limitrofi (Milano: Vallardi, 1870), 336. 69 A. Targioni Tozzetti, Relazione ed analisi chimica, 13–14. 70 A. Giuntini, Soltanto per denaro, 120. 71 Ibid., 119–20. 72 D. Manetti, ‘Politique économique, travail du fer et fournitures de matériel de guerre dans le grand-­duché de Toscane (1814–1848)’, Histoire, économie et société, 30, no. 3 (2011), 79–80. 73 G. Servadio, Gioachino Rossini. Una vita (Milano: Feltrinelli, 2015). See also F. Schlitzer, Mobili e immobili di Rossini a Firenze. Lettere inedite a un avvocato (Firenze: Lapicciarella, 1962). 74 The note dated Paris, 14 July 1868 (Rossini was to die on 3 November of the following year), was sold at auction at Sotheby’s in London in June 2013 for 2,500 lire. 75 Signed letter to Carlo Capezzuoli from Passy de Paris, 24 August 1864, Morgan Library & Museum, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. 76 In Supplemento alla Gazzetta di Firenze, no. 22 (1856), 1, Carlo Capezzuoli is listed as ‘Agent for the bankruptcy of Mrs. Celeste Piglini ne’ Batini’ and is responsible for sale at public auction of ‘some objects and furnishings’. 77 Felice Schmitz, son of Adolfo and nephew of Carlo who subsequently adopted him upon his brother’s death. His sister, Lucia married Cristiano Appelius (1810–79),

Notes

78 79 80 81

82

83 84 85

86 87 88 89

90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

321

Prussian consul in Livorno: their son Enrico was the general manager of Banca Toscana and one of the supporters of Banca d’Italia. FT, BB 4 [Schmitz & Turri]. In 1881, Schmitz & Turri ended the year with major gains to the extent that a profit of 35,000 lire per person was distributed to the three shareholders and Cipriano Turri. FT, BB 4 [Schmitz & Turri]. Banca Industriale Toscana was founded in 1872 by Ubaldino Peruzzi, Carlo Fenzi, Pietro Torrigiani and Luigi Guglielmo di Cambray-Digny, with the ‘aim of directly and indirectly promoting and encouraging the development of industries and trade in Tuscany’s provinces’ (R. P. Coppini, L’opera politica di Cambray-Digny, 184–5). Giulio Turri was on the board of directors. See G. Busino, Vilfredo Pareto e l’industria del ferro in Valdarno. Contributo alla storia dell’imprenditorialità italiana (Milano: Banca Commerciale Italiana, 1977); I. Biagianti, Sviluppo industriale e lotte sindacali nel Valdarno superiore, 1860–1922 (Firenze: Olschki, 1984); G. Sacchetti, Ligniti per la patria. Collaborazione, conflittualità, compromesso. Le relazioni sindacali nelle miniere del Valdarno superiore, 1915–1958 (Roma: Ediesse, 2002); S. Fagioli, Vilfredo Pareto nella Toscana del secondo Ottocento (Firenze: Polistampa, 2015). Company for exploitation of the iron and sulphur mines in Massa Marittima (GR). The company’s offices were at the premises of Schmitz & Turri at Via del Proconsolo n. 10. In 1899, the mines and plants were sold to Montecatini. A. Volpi, ‘Le partecipazioni finanziarie di Ubaldino Peruzzi’, in Ubaldino Peruzzi un protagonista di Firenze Capitale, ed. P. Bagnoli (Firenze: Festina Lante, 1994), 66. Discounting of bills with two signatures represented a simplified form of credit, with the bill of exchange as the easily transferable title. In the state of Piedmont, bills of exchange were presented with three signatures and this entailed a bank guarantee, see A. Polsi, Alle origini del capitalismo italiano. Stato, banche e banchieri dopo l’Unità (Torino: Einaudi, 1993), 4–5. Statuti della Società anonima intitolata Cassa di Sconto di Firenze (Firenze: S. Antonino, 1867), 12. In 1911 the Cassa di Sconto, with its Chairman Felice Schmitz, nephew of Carlo and shareholder of Schmitz & Turri from 1880, was taken over by Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze. FT, BB 3 [Schmitz & Turri], reprocessed. See A. Polsi, Alle origini del capitalismo italiano, 348–50. As regards the expansion and problems of the banking system in the second half of the 1800s, see A. Cova, ‘Difficoltà dell’economia e fallimenti di banche nell’Italia “agricola” di fine Ottocento’, in Le crisi bancarie in Italia nell’Ottocento e nel novecento: cause e svolgimenti, ed. A. Cova (Milano: Associazione per lo sviluppo degli studi di Banca e Borsa, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2014), 10–54. A. Polsi, Alle origini del capitalismo italiano, 334–57. See processing of these figures at a national and Tuscan level in Table 14.1. FT, BB. Two-­thirds of the equity investment were held by Schmitz and one-­third by Turri. FT, BB. Ibid. Ibid. Ubaldino Peruzzi’s bank account is unchanged over time. See Statuto della Società del Lanificio di Stia (Firenze: Brazzini, 1851).

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  98 F. Grispigni and L. Trevellini, ‘Il lanificio Schmitz a S. Marcello e l’industria dei panni in Italia’, Strenna della scienza del popolo pel 1869 (1868), 138–50.   99 Ibid., 147. 100 Banca Generale was founded in Rome in 1871 by a mixed group of investors and Milanese bankers revolving around Banca Veneta, bankers from Venice, Trieste, Austria and England and Roman landowners. It invested in the construction, industrial and railway sectors. Its main sector was the steel industry from 1881 onwards. It was wound up in 1894. Antonio Allievi was the bank manager. 101 The bank was set up during the years when Florence was capital with the aim of collecting primarily the savings of workers, and also providing welfare assistance but, as can be seen, it also invested in industrial projects. 102 G. Busino, Vilfredo Pareto e l’industria del ferro in Valdarno. 103 Founded in 1872, it had a short life and was wound up in 1875. It was one of Ubaldino Peruzzi’s projects. 104 As regards Banca Generale and Società delle Ferriere as an instrument of industrial investment, see A. Confalonieri, Banca e industria, 273–303. 105 See S. Fagioli, Vilfredo Pareto nella Toscana del secondo Ottocento. 106 There is a vast amount of documentation regarding this company found in   Fondo Turri, with hundreds of documents that make it possible to trace its entire existence. 107 As regards Felice Ponsard & C., Roberto Melchionda attributes a link with Ponsard & Gigli operating in Florence Rifredi between 1875 and 1877 for the production of iron-­manganese, but there were no links between the two companies given that the manager for the former was Auguste Ponsard, see R. Melchionda, Firenze industriale nei suoi incerti albori. Le origini dell’associazionismo imprenditoriale cento anni fa. Esplorazioni e Materiali (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1988), 260–1. 108 The Magona plants in the Pistoia mountains were purchased in 1836 by the Fenzi family; however, they did not recover the investment and transferred ownership to Società Anonima per l’Industria del ferro in 1872. 109 See G. Guanci, La Briglia in Val di Bisenzio. Tre secoli di storia tra carta, rame e lana (Firenze: Morgana, 2003). 110 See F. Fabbri, Il movimento cooperativo nella storia d’Italia 1854–1975 (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1979), 434; Fratellanza artigiana d’Italia, Statuto della Banca del comune artigiano di Firenze (Firenze: Grazzini, Giannini & C., 1866); Banca del comune artigiano di Firenze, Discorso letto nell’Adunanza generale del dì 27 Ottobre 1867 da Oreste Casaglia, presidente del consiglio d’amministrazione. Deliberazioni dell’assemblea (Firenze: Tipografia della Gazzetta di Firenze, 1867). 111 FT, various. 112 Continuation of Società per l’Industria del Ferro, even if with different owners. Schmitz & Turri was not part of it. 113 Through the fiduciary Mario Michela, Cipriano Turri purchased 600 shares of   a value of 250 lire each (a total of 150,000). The company’s capital was 10 million   lire, split into 40,000 shares. Turri and Michela were the only shareholders in the capacity of natural persons, the rest of the capital was split among Italian, Swiss and French companies. Volta was later purchased by Montecatini. Many documents regarding this project can be found in Fondo Turri. See also M. Benegiano, BussiPiano d’Orta. Profilo storico di un importante complesso elettrochimico (Chieti: Bluefactory, 2007). 114 The sale of the Limestre and Mammiano plants was made official on 28 June 1899.

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115 ‘In the event of one of the shareholder’s deaths, the company shall be wound-­up by the surviving shareholders’, art. 9, FT [Schmitz & Turri]. 116 Gazzetta ufficiale del Regno d’Italia, Foglio delle inserzioni, no. 164, 11 July 1914, 1511. In 1866 in the Monte Pilli area, Peruzzi started up some quarries and   furnaces for lime mortar and cement production. The plants grew to ten in number and had thirty workers. Upon Ubaldino’s death, the plants were closed and were only opened again after the Second World War, continuing to be operational through to the 1960s. Vilfredo Pareto also took an interest in these furnaces, see Letter to Ubaldino Peruzzi dated 7 September 1875, where he provided technical and economic information regarding the plants’ good performance (V. Pareto, Lettere ai Peruzzi, 1872–1900, ed. T. Giacalone-Monaco, Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1967). 117 The furnace had been rented in past years by Vilfredo Pareto, always for the purpose of encouraging the Peruzzis: ‘In order to please my friends the Peruzzis, I had rented the Monte Pilli cement furnace. I was in business with a certain Domizio Monetti. In truth, I put up the capital and left him to it; he was a very skilled man and knew how to conduct business well. After losing, we stopped because we could not sell given the lack of protection’ (Letter to M. Pantaleoni, 26 January 1892, in V. Pareto, Lettere a Maffeo Pantaleoni, 1, 167). 118 Ibid. 119 In addition to Società per l’Industria del Ferro Carlo Schmitz and the trading house were leading shareholders in Società Anonima Borica Travalese, founded in 1861 (capital of 700,000 lire) with Peruzzi, Orazio and Alfredo Hall, Pietro Igino Coppi, Giovanni Pappudoff and Giorgio Maurogordato, all related to Schmitz & Capezzuoli. The company, wound-­up by Giulio Turri and Pietro Igino Coppi in 1875, produced borax, exploiting the lagoons near Montieri (SI). 120 Gazzetta ufficiale del Regno d’Italia, 1511.

15  Straw Hats: The Invisible Work of Women behind the International Image of Florence   1 C. R. Weld, Florence, the New Capital of Italy (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1867), 398.   2 On women’s labour (mostly of girls between sixteen and twenty-­four years of age) in the manufacture of tobacco in the neighbourhood of San Frediano, see F. P. Bortolotti, ‘Vita di fabbrica e attività politica delle sigaraie fiorentine dal 1874 al 1893’, Movimento operaio e socialista in Liguria, 4 (1960), 3–21. The manufacture of porcelain founded in 1737 by the Marquis Carlo Ginori in Sesto, a town in the Florentine belt, in 1869 employed nearly 400 workers of whom 20–25 per cent were women: S. Buti, La manifattura Ginori: trasformazioni produttive e condizione operaia, 1860–1915 (Firenze: Olschki, 1990), 112.   3 C. R. Weld, Florence, 398.   4 A. Baudrimont, Dictionnaire de l’industrie manufacturière, commerciale et agricole (Paris: Bailliére, 1835), 219.   5 Relazione della Camera di Commercio ed arti di Firenze sopra la statistica e l’andamento del commercio e delle arti del proprio distretto nell’anno 1864 (Firenze: Tofani, 1865), 64–8.   6 See C. Fancelli, Sul fondatore dell’industria della paglia in Toscana (Firenze: Bencini, 1871); M. Pacini, Tra acque e strade. Lasta a Signa da Pietro Leopoldo al Regno d’Italia

324

  7

  8   9

10

11

12 13

14 15

16

17

Notes (Firenze, Olschki, 2001), 61–79; A. Benelli Ganugi, La manifattura della paglia e l’estrazione della materia greggia attraverso i documenti degli Accademici dei Georgofili nell’800 (Firenze: Polistampa, 2006), 113–9. For some case studies, see the Museum of the Hat in Montappone (province of Fermo) at www.ilcappellodipaglia.it/pagine/lastoria.cfm and Fastughi, sporte, capei: Marostica e i territori della lavorazione della paglia, ed. M. A. Cuman (Venezia: La Serenessima, 2008). The study of the inventories and given dowries could provide points of analysis of the economic and social value attributed to the possession of straw hats in the various social strata throughout the course of the nineteenth century. From the homonymous films of René Clair (1928) and Maurice Cammage (1941) to the German cinematographic version (Der Florentiner Hut, directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1939) and the Russian (Соломеннаяшляпка by Leonid Kvinikhidze, 1974), to the adaptation for the opera by Nino Rota (1945). See, in the title for example, the Girl with a Straw Hat (1835) by the Austrian painter Friedirich von Amerling (1803–1887) and Near the Lake (c. 1880) by Pierre Auguste Renoir. I would like to thank Alessandra Pescarolo for pointing these out to me. A source of interest and still to be explored is that of the family albums conserved in Florence at the Alinari Photography Archives. Commissioned also by foreigners travelling in Italy, these photo albums could provide points about the social diffusion and the use of the straw hat in the representation of the family. See the entry Industria della paglia edited by D. Kuhn in Dizionario storico della Svizzera: www.hls-­dhs-dss.ch/textes/i/I13968.php. About Luton in the county of Bedfordshire, see S. Bunker, Strawopolis: Luton transformed 1840–1876 (Bedford: Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, 1999); K. Carmichael, D. McOmish   and D. Grech, The Hat Industry of Luton and its Buildings (Swindon: English Heritage, 2013). On transnational commercial networks of Wyse & sons company, see ‘Thomas Vyse, straw hat manufacturer’: https://londonstreetviews.wordpress. com//?s=vyse&search=Go. See J. Bruckmann, La paglia di Fiesole (Firenze: Regione Toscana, 1987); O. Rucellai, La paglia intrecci svizzeri a Firenze (Firenze: Polistampa, 2001), 89–102. See the ties forged in the 1850s between the Bruggisser and Conti families of Florence,   and later, between the Bürgisser and the Cinelli of Signa (ibid., 78). See A. Pescarolo and G. B. Ravenni, Il proletariato invisibile. La manifattura della paglia nella Toscana mezzadrile, 1820–1950 (Milano: Angeli, 1991). Through the course of the 1850s, export of raw straw had diminished, while that of plaits and straw hats had increased; see G. Mori, ‘Dall’Unità alla guerra: aggregazione e disgregazione di un’area regionale’, in Storia d’Italia. Le Regioni dall’Unità a oggi, La Toscana, ed. G. Mori (Torino: Einaudi, 1986), 26–7. P. Malanima, ‘Un sistema in trasformazione’, in Storia della civiltà toscana, IV: L’età dei Lumi, ed. F. Diaz (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1999), 315–56. On the development in the area of Santa Croce of the leather industry at the hands of different figures involved until then in the traffic of leather between Florence and Livorno, see C. Torti, ‘L’economia   in Toscana tra Settecento e Ottocento’, in Nel segno di Saturno. Origini e sviluppo dell’attività conciaria a Santa Croce sull’Arno, ed. F. Foggi (Firenze: Parretti, 1985), 35–58. For a reconstruction of the role of Jewish shop owner-­entrepreneurs and bankers in Florence before and after Unification, see B. Armani, Il confine invisibile. L’élite ebraica di Firenze 1840–1914 (Milano: Angeli, 2006).

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18 See M. Scardozzi, ‘Le società commerciali fiorentine tra la Restaurazione e l’Unità’, Quaderni storici, 77 (1991), 451–90; id., ‘Mestiere e famiglia a Firenze: un sondaggio sul censimento del 1841’, Passato e presente, 34 (1995), 125–6; A. Pescarolo, ‘Alle origini dei distretti. La manifattura diffusa e il lavoro delle donne’, in La Toscana nella costruzione dello stato nazionale dallo Statuto toscano alla Costituzione della Repubblica 1848–1948, ed. M. Cervelli and C. De Venuto (Firenze: Olschki, 2013), 147–55. 19 In 1580, Michel de Montaigne travelling to Florence recounted having stumbled   upon in the area of Castello a procession ‘with the standard in front and the   women under, and moreover, beautiful, with the straw hats that are made here and which are the best in the world’ (Viaggio in Italia, 1580–1581, Bologna: V. Bompiani, 1942, 251, cited in M. E. Tozzi Bellini, La manifattura della paglia nel Novecento. Da Signa e dalla Toscana nel mondo, Firenze: Polistampa, 2007, 19). For a testimonial of the dynamics of the work of women in the communities of straw in the province of Florence before Unification, see Notes of a Traveler on the Social and Political State of France, Prussia, Switzerland, Italy and Other Parts of Europe, during the Present Century by Samuel Laing Esq. (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1842). 20 A. Dumas, Impressions de Voyage. Une année à Florence, 1841 (Paris: Au Bureau du Siècle, 1851), 373. 21 The study of A. Pellegrino on the presence of women in the Fratellanza Artigiana d’Italia, the association born in Florence by democratic initiative in 1861, observes a strong increase in subscriptions of plait-­workers in the course of the 1860s, next to those of the women tailors, seamstresses, cigar and hat makers that constituted the majority of the components of the female college to the foundation (Patria e Lavoro. La Fratellanza Artigiana d’Italia fra identità sociale e pedagogia nazionale, 1861–1932, Firenze: Polistampa 2012, 224–6). 22 In particular, domestic services in growth not only at home but also in hotels; see M. Casalini, Servitù, nobili e borghesi nella Firenze dell’Ottocento (Firenze: Olschki, 1997). 23 In the Guida civile amministrativa commerciale della città di Firenze (Firenze: Tofani, 1862), outside the Prato gate at S. Iacopino were located the manufacturers of straw hats Giovan Giacomo Kubly, the Maragliano brothers, and Vyse and Sons (351). In the same area, other contemporary sources also indicated the presence of the firms of Cesare Conti and Giovacchino Finzi and sons. On the organizational and business transformations in the decades between 1850 and 1880, see A. Pescarolo, G. B. Ravenni, Il proletariato invisibile, 68–74. 24 M. Scardozzi, Mestiere e famiglia a Firenze, 134–7. 25 On this source, see M. Laguzzi, ‘La Convenzione di Settembre, le reazioni, la situazione socio-­economica della città’, in Una capitale e il suo architetto. Eventi politici e sociali, urbanistici e architettonici. Firenze e l’opera di Giuseppe Poggi, ed. L. Maccabruni and P. Marchi (Firenze: Polistampa, 2015), 31–5 and 43–5. 26 State Archives of Florence (ASF), Prefect of Florence, Affari ordinari, 1867, n. 168. 27 On the character of the Oltrarno as an industrial neighborhood, see Il Pignone a Firenze. Tra memoria e oblio, ed. G. Trotta (Firenze: Messaggerie Toscane, 1990). 28 In the Report of the Statistics Commission of the Town of Carmignano, further details came to light: ‘The manufacturing of straw hats in which work approximately 4,000 individuals, in particular women and young boys for the most part without alternatives consume 200,000 kilograms of plaited straw a year from the marzuolo grain coming from the province of Florence and Siena worth 400,000 Lire. They obtain from it 650,000 hats worth an average of 682,500 Lire; in addition to the

326

29 30 31 32 33

34 35

36

37

38 39

40

Notes number of 250,000 plaits of various models for 350,000 Lire. These products are retrieved by approximately 100 delivery men (fattorini) and were sold on the markets of Florence and Prato’ (ASF, Prefect of Florence, Affari ordinari, 1867, n. 168, Carmignano, 23 February 1867). The supply was owned by Rinaldo Malenotti di Vicchio: ibid., 23 March 1863. Ibid., Montopoli (PI), 9 December 1862. For a long-­term reflection on the evolution of the Tuscan manufacturing system, see A. Pescarolo, Alle origini dei distretti, 141–59. For the broad picture, see the volume by Anna Pellegrino is referred to (La città più artigiana d’Italia. Firenze 1861–1929, Milano: FrancoAngeli, 2012) which, however, does not analyse the straw sector specifically. Antonio Gamberucci, Giuseppe Nannucci, Filippo Lucarini, Ferdinando Orsucci, Giuseppe Porcinai, Antonio Gramigni, Disma Orsucci in Porta rossa; Cesare Conti, Adelaide De Cesari in Por Santa Maria; Antonio Sernissi on Via Calzaioli; Giuseppe Lebeau, Agostino Masini on Via Vacchereccia; Antonio Gozzini on Via Sant’Egidio 24; Giovacchino Finzi on Via Nuova. The Population of Tuscany from 1810 to 1959, ed. P. Bandettini (Firenze: Chamber of Commerce Industry and Agriculture, Statistics Department of the University, 1961), 101. Manufacturers and dealers in straw hats, 26; Washers and Polishers of Straw Hats, 17: Relazione della Camera di Commercio ed Arti di Firenze sopra la statistica e l’andamento del commercio e delle arti del proprio distretto nell’anno 1865 (Firenze 1867), 32. Francesco Bettini, Via Ginori 15; Domenico Carpena, Via della Ninna 1; Cesare Conti, Via Por Santa Maria; De Cesaris, Via Por S. Maria; Del Nibbio, Santissimi Apostoli alley; borgo Santissimi Apostoli Teresa Fiani, Via degli Alfani; Giovacchino Finzi and Sons, Porta al Prato; Antonio Gozzini Via Sant’ Egidio; Kubly outside the Porta al Prato gate at San Iacopino; Maria Lazzeri, Via della Ninna 1; Giovanni Maggini, Via Cavour 27; the Maragliano Brothers outside the Porta al Prato gate at San Iacopino; Antonio Masi, Via Pellicceria 1; Agostino Masini, Via Serragli; Andrea Nannucci, Via Palazzuolo 59; Disma Orsucci, Via Porta Rossa 18; Francesco Orsucci, Via Porta Rossa; Poli eredi di P. G., San Iacopo alley; borgo San Iacopo Giuseppe Porcinai, Via Porta Rossa; Teresa Righini, Via Pellicceria 11; Oreste Sernesi, Via Calzaioli; Angelo Serravalli, Via Pietra Piana 36; Matilde Serravalli, Via Porta Rossa 8; Vyse and Sons outside the Porta al Prato gate; Vettori and Lucaccini [Lucarini?], Via Anguillara; Vettori e Lucaccini, Via Porta Rossa (328). Already present among the business owners of straw hats in the Guida di Firenze e suoi contorni (Firenze: Bettini, 1852, xxv) appears as the Great Warehouse of Fashions in the Guida artistica, commerciale e scientifica della città di Firenze e principali città della Toscana (by E. Bianchi, Firenze: Sborgi, 1875, 86). See M. L. Bianca, I mercati nella storia di Firenze: dal forum romano al centro alimentare polivalente (Firenze: Loggia de’ Lanzi, 1995). See the outline of the Loggia del Mercato nuovo at http://aspassoperfirenzecapitale.it/ loggia-­del-mercato-­nuovo. Before 1817, it is documented as a market of straw under the loggia of San Paolo in Santa Maria Novella square, from which it was removed in order to not disturb the schools nearby: F. Orlandi, Botteghe e bancarelle nella Firenze granducale (Firenze: SP44, 1995), 106. During the restoration work of the Loggia in 1838, the Straw Market was temporarily moved under the Orcagna Loggia (today de’ Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria): ibid., 102 and 124.

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41 See A. Pellegrino, La città più artigiana d’Italia, 225–71; A. Berti, La Firenze industriale di primo ‘900 at www.toscananovecento.it/custom_type/la-­firenze-industriale-­diprimo–900. 42 On the commodity evolution of this important business artery, see C. Paolini, Via de’ Tornabuoni: una storia per immagini (Firenze: Polistampa, 2014). 43 On the figure of ‘milliner’ that was diffused throughout the eighteenth century with the advent of the fashion of women’s hats, see the entry compiled by G. Vergani in The Dictionary of Fashion, ed. G. Vergani (Milano: Baldini & Castoldi, 1999), 833–4. On these themes it is useful the monographic number edited by M. Belfanti on ‘The Economy of Fashion in Italy 1850–1970’, Annali di Storia d’Impresa, 19 (2008). 44 C. Lorenzini, Occhi e nasi (Firenze: Bemporad, 1891), 204–5. 45 V. Pinchera, La moda in Italia e in Toscana. Dalle origini alla globalizzazione (Venezia: Marsilio, 2009), 84–6; A. Pellegrino, La città più artigiana d’Italia, 100–1. 46 ASF, Civil Tribunal of Florence, Transcriptions of Documents of Companies, 1866–69. 47 See the report Le attività produttive a Firenze nell’Ottocento presented by M. Scardozzi at the conference Il cappello di paglia di Firenze: una manifattura nota al ‘mondo intero’, The Academia of the Georgofili, Florence 15 October 2015, an event of the project A spasso per Firenze capitale, under the direction of Monika Poettinger and Piero Roggi. 48 ASF, Civil Tribunal of Florence, Transcriptions of Documents of Companies, n. 4, 26 January 1866. 49 Ibid., n. 104, 22 March 1867. On the activity of Cesare Volpini as a fashion almanacs publisher, see S. Franchini, M. Pacini and S. Soldani, Giornali di donne in Toscana. Un catalogo, molte storie, 1770–1945 (Firenze: Olschki, 2007), vol. 1, ad nomen. 50 Deputy and later also President of the Chamber of Commerce of Florence (1863–66), President of the Bank of Discounts and Silks, Honorary Scholar of the Tuscan Academy of Arts and Manufacture (Guida civile amministrativa commerciale della città di Firenze, Firenze: Tofani, 351). 51 Amalia Zecchini, widow Nistri and her daughter had put in 10,900 lire of company capital, while Antonio Borghigiani ended up being the store manager: ASF, Civil Tribunal of Florence, Transcriptions of Documents of Companies, n. 129, 21 September 1867. 52 Ibid., n. 75, 14 February 1867. 53 Ibid., n. 149, 10 December 1867. 54 In the already cited Guida artistica, commerciale e scientifica della città di Firenze of 1875 comes up again instead the denomination Ottavio Zocchi and Sons (manufacturers and export) on Via Pisana 12, 87. 55 Ibid., 86–7. 56 See O. Rucellai, La paglia intrecci svizzeri, 95–102. 57 The diary is conserved at the National Diary Archives of Pieve Santo Stefano (AR) and has been partially published in M. Baioni, Patria mia. Scritture private nell’Italia unita (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2011), 171–98. 58 For a quantification and a periodization of the presence of foreigners in Florence   of the nineteenth century, I refer to my studies on the members of the Gabinetto for Reading founded in 1819 by the merchant Giovan Pietro Vieusseux (‘Ospiti stranieri   a casa Vieusseux nella Firenze di metà Ottocento, Memoria e ricerca, 46, 2014, 45–60; ‘Viaggiatori-­lettori a Firenze prima e dopo l’Unità’, Antologia Vieusseux, 49–50, 2011, 59–84. 59 T. Mommsen, Viaggio in Italia 1844–1845, ed. A. Verrecchia (Torino: Fògola, 1980), 154.

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Notes

60 On the ‘Parisian-­ness’ of the Goncourt brothers, see the introduction of V. Sorbello in the Italian translation by E. and J. de Goncourt, Journal. Memorie di vita letteraria, 1851–1859 (Torino: Aragno, 2007), vol. 1, xiii-­x v. 61 See G. Signorini, ‘La Festa delle Bandiere’, 1847 (private collection) published in C. Sisi, ‘Nei dintorni di Palazzo Feroni, attraverso l’Ottocento’, in Un palazzo e la città, ed. S. Ricci and R. Spinelli (Milano: Skira, 2015), 144–5. 62 C. Crane Marsh, Un’americana alla corte dei Savoia: il diario dell’ambasciatrice degli Stati Uniti in Italia dal 1861 al 1865, ed. D. Lowenthal and L. Quartermaine (Torino: U. Allemandi & C., 2004), 35 (20 October 1861). 63 L. Colet, L’Italie des Italiens. Italie du centre (Paris: E. Dentu, 1862), vol. 2, 31. 64 See the lyrics of the song The Straw Hat of Florence, written by Odoardo Spadaro (1935) and then also played by Narciso Parigi. 65 C. Lorenzini, Un romanzo in vapore da Firenze a Livorno. Guida storica umoristica (Firenze: Mariani, 1856), 93–4; P. De Musset, En voiturin [1842], later collected in Voyage en Italie et en Sicilie Courses en voiturin (Paris: Charpentier, 1866), 283–4.

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Index ill indicates an illustration; n indicates an end-note numbered after the n (e.g. 288n.24/25 where 24 and 25 are successive notes) Accademia dei Georgofili, 45, 48, 59, 149, 277n.1 Accademia della Crusca, 27, 39, 40, 41–2, 47, 149 Accademia delle Belle Arti, 50, 53, 95, 149 Administrative Offices of the National Debt see Italian Revenue Agency agriculture, 92, 167, 188, 193–4, 199, 202, 203, 207, 210–12, 218 sharecropping, 92, 160, 202, 211, 212, 218–20, 222–3, 261 Alfieri, Carlo, 37, 47, 74 Alfieri, Cesare, 36, 37, 46–7 Alfieri, Vittorio, 38, 39, 46, 90 Amici, Giovan Battista, 84, 87, 94, 159 anglo-florentines, 49–50, 111, 175–7, 182, 261–2, 268 Archbishop’s See see Palazzo Arcivescovile architecture, 50, 53, 198 Arno river, 40, 114, 152, 169, 199, 210–11, 259, 263, 268 alterations, 170, 171, 176, 180 polluted, 116, 269 artisans, 48, 97, 109, 112, 117–20, 161, 198, 223 Austrian war, 32, 33, 34, 39, 64, 68, 70 Baccani, Gaetano, 50 Bakunin, Michail, 47, 48, 94 Balduino, Domenico, 174, 176, 177, 307n.33 bankruptcy of the municipality, 71, 184, 185, 188, 189, 198, 204, 241 banks/banking, 158, 161, 163–4, 174–5, 189–90, 194, 195, 197, 233–45, 301n.63 Anglo-Italian Bank, 175–7, 178, 179, 300–1n.61

Banca del Popolo, 174, 179, 182, 240, 253, 297n.19, 313n.14 Banca Nazionale nel Regno (BN), 195, 234–5, 237–40, 241–2 Banca Nazionale Toscana (BNT), 147, 163, 170, 175, 176, 177, 178, 195, 228, 233–42 Banco Fenzi, 233, 236ill, 243, 244, 253, 314n.36 Banco Schmitz & Turri, 233, 243–6, 248–51, 253–7 Schmitz & Capezzuoli, 243–52, 255 Bank of Italy, 190, 197 Inconvertible Paper Standard, 234–5, 237–9, 240, 314–15n.26 Barbèra, Gaspero, 42–3, 45, 77, 80, 160 Benini family, 159, 198–9, 202 Benvenuti, Enrico, 84, 88 Biblioteca Nazionale, 149 Bismarck, Otto von, 71 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 79, 82 Breda, Vincenzo Stefano, 173, 175, 176, 185 brigandage war, 23, 24, 62, 63 Broglio, Emilio, 40–1, 78 Brolio castle see Ricasoli, Bettino brothels, 150–1 Bufalini, Maurizio, 56, 86 cafés, Birreria Cornelio, 137 Bottegone, 136 Castelmur Perini, 136 Centrale/Paszkowski, 136 dei Risorti, 139, 228 del Genio, 137 d’Italia, 138 Ferruccio, 228

356

Index

Giacosa, 137, 228 Il Tivoli, 139 Maison Gilli, 139–40 Michelangiolo, 136, 137, 138 Parigi, 138, 228 Parlamento, 139 Pasticceria Doney, 137, 228 Rivoire, 139 Wital, 228 Cambray-Digny, Luigi, 74, 174ill, 177, 182, 183, 298n.33, 299–300n.52, 300n.54 as banker, 175–6, 238, 240 as Finance Minister, 27, 33, 113, 117 as Mayor of Florence, 173, 175, 176 Capponi, Gino, 26, 41, 45, 78, 91–2 quoted, 68, 91 Capuana, Luigi, 75, 77, 79, 80, 282n.19 Carabinieri, 25, 124, 128, 131 Caracciolo, Enrichetta, 80–1 Carducci, Giosuè, 42–3, 78, 225 Casino Borghesi see Palazzo Borghese Casino de’ Risorti see Palazzo Panciatichi Casino Mediceo di San Marco, 126 Cassola, Carlo, 88 Cavour, Camillo Benso di, 23, 24, 30, 33, 47, 62, 63, 67, 139, 175–6 Chamber of Commerce see Palazzo della Camera di Commercio Chambion, Enrico, 47–8 charity, 226–8 Circolo dell’Unione see Palazzo Corsi City Hall see Palazzo Spini Feroni Civil and Correctional Court see Palazzo degli Uffizi civil strife/unrest see riots Civinini, Giuseppe, 44 Cocchi, Igino, 84, 87, 88 Collodi (Carlo Lorenzini), 41, 75, 79, 81–2, 138, 196, 200, 225, 266 The Adventures of Pinocchio, 41, 79, 81, 188, 195–6, 197 quoted, 198, 202, 307n.26

Un romanzo in vapore, 245 quoted, 196 Complex of San Firenze, 125 Conti, Augusto, 43, 45, 74 Convento dei Padre della Missione, 128–9 Convento di Santa Croce, 126 Convent of the Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella, 124, 131 Convento San Pancrazio, 123 Corridi, Filippo, 95, 96, 98–9, 101 corruption, 32, 36, 44, 188, 190, 195–7, 203 Court of Appeals and Court of Assizes see Convento San Pancrazio Court of Auditors see Convento della Crocetta; Palazzo della Crocetta Crispi, Francesco, 44, 45, 69, 115 Croce, Benedetto, 71, 73 cuisine, 205, 224, 228–30 cultural life, 35, 39–57 Dall’Ongaro, Francesco, 79–80, 81 D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 42, 78, 114 Dante Alighieri, 75–7, 78, 79, 80, 82, 111, 142, 268 ‘Dante’ high school, 45–6, 55 The Divine Comedy, 39, 40 statue, 52, 76ill Darwinism, 48, 91–2 D’Azeglio, Massimo, 23, 38, 39, 40 De Amicis, Edmondo, 35, 36, 38, 75, 79, 139 quoted, 36, 38 De Candolle, Pyrame, 84, 98 De Cesare, Carlo, 190, 191, 194, 195, 196, 197, 203 quoted, 190–1, 192, 194–5, 196 de Larderel family, 192, 203 Del Soldato, Luigi, 250, 251, 253 department stores, 162–3 Depretis, Agostino, 37, 72, 73, 74, 240 De Sanctis, Francesco, 75–7, 78, 80, 289n.7 Storia, 75, 77 quoted, 75 Destra Storica, 68, 74 diplomatic missions, 132–6 Donati, Giovan Battista, 84, 87, 89–90, 94, 159–60 Dostoevskij, Fyodor, 81 Duprè, Giovanni, 50–2

Index economics, 59–61, 62–3, 70, 71, 73, 92, 157–68, 184–5, 187–204, 206–8 elections, 30–1, 48, 70, 72 exhibitions, 97–8, 200 Il Falchetto liquor shop, 153, 228 Falconieri, Carlo, 123, 124, 127, 131 family budgets, 209, 211–15 Fanfulla, 44, 45, 196–7 quoted, 197 Fenzi, Carlo, 70, 235, 237 Fenzi family, 145, 147, 177, 244, 246, 247, 248, 253, 257 see also under banks Ferrara, Francesco, 59, 60, 61, 66, 277n.6 finance, 71, 80, 158, 163–4, 175–9, 183–4, 188–91, 194–8, 203 fiorentinità, 109–10 food consumption, 205–31, 206ill Foscolo, Ugo, 39–40, 42, 76 Gabinetto Scientifico-Letterario G. P. Viesseux, 150 Galeotti, Leopoldo, 68, 70, 164, 178, 235, 302n.84 Galileo Galilei, 43, 45, 56, 83, 85, 86–7, 94, 96 Galli Tassi family, 125, 129 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 34, 55–6, 62, 67, 124, 139, 151, 270 followers, 31, 44, 45, 49–50, 86, 138 and Giuseppe Mazzini, 23, 24, 30–1, 62, 179 statue of bread, 111 Garzoni, Giuseppe, 164, 178, 302n.85 gas illumination, 125, 144, 188, 198, 202 production, 159, 161, 166–7, 176, 199 Gazzetta di Firenze, 31, 115, 161, 176 General Treasury see Monastery of the Badia Fiorentina Ginori family/Doccia factory, 172, 173, 187, 191, 192, 199–202, 201ill, 203 Giolitti, Giovanni, 38, 241–2 Giorgini, Giovan Battista, 41, 70 Guasti, Cesare, 41, 43, 47, 51 Herzen, Aleksandr, 47, 48, 54, 55, 90, 91–2, 94 quoted, 90–1

357

Hildebrand, Adolf von, 54 hotels, 151–3 House of Representatives see Salone dei Cinquecento housing, 159, 184, 207, 209, 212 bureaucracy/corruption, 173, 176–82, 185–6 emergency, 112–14, 116, 158, 164–5, 170–1 market crash, 183–4 Imbriani, Vittorio, 75, 79 industry, 95, 103, 106, 159–61, 189–90, 191, 193, 197–9, 202, 244 lack of, 97, 105, 110, 157, 158, 159, 160–1, 168, 211, 262 inns/bars, 153, 224–5 insurance, 163, 176, 189–90, 194–5, 202 Istituto di Studi Superiori, 75, 78, 83 Istituto Superiore di Studi Pratici e di Perfezionamento, 83–4, 85–6, 87, 88, 89, 91, 93, 94 Istituto Tecnico di Firenze, 95–7, 97–8, 99, 100–1, 101–6 Italian Revenue Agency, 122 Italy, Fontainebleu treaty/September Agreement, 24–6, 39, 47, 63, 64, 67–9, 169, 183, 278n.18 consequences, 31, 74 one language, 40–1 dictionaries, 27, 41 Risorgimento/unification, 23–4, 52, 203, 208, 233, 234, 243 consequences, 43, 63, 74, 75, 85, 159, 169, 188, 198, 245 La Marmora, Alfonso, 25, 30, 33, 34, 64, 71, 139 Lambruschini, Raffaello, 44, 45, 91–2, 93 Lanza, Giovanni, 33, 34, 71, 72 Lazzeri, Gelasio, 178–9, 181 Le Monnier, Felice, 37, 42, 77, 78, 80, 160, 193 Leonardo da Vinci, 54 Leopardi, Giacomo, 39, 40, 42, 76 Levi, Angelo Adolfo, 173 Liphart, Carl von, 53–4 literature, 75–82

358

Index

living conditions, 28–30, 35, 70–1 Lobbia, Cristiano, 197 London Great Exhibition of 1851, 97, 98, 99 Lorena family, 31, 114–15, 160 Lorenzini, Carlo see Collodi Lorenzini, Paolo, 200–2 Lottery Headquarters see Convent of the Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella Macchiaioli painters, 35, 52–3, 75, 136, 137, 138 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 65 Magrini, Luigi, 84–5, 88, 89, 283n.10 Mantegazza, Paolo, 55, 56 Manzoni, Alessandro, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 76, 78, 79, 80 Marées, Hans von, 54 markets, 30, 109, 111, 113–14, 116, 155ill, 161–2 Marsh, George Perkins, 48–9, 136 Matas, Niccolò, 50, 51 Matteucci, Carlo, 56–7, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 89–90, 93 Mattonaia ‘orchards,’ 171, 172–3, 180 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 47 see also Garibaldi, Giuseppe Menabrea, Luigi Federico, 33, 34, 40, 45, 88, 93 merchant houses, 35, 110, 161 Michelagnoli, Tommaso, 159, 198–9 Michelangelo, 78, 126, 269 David, 52 Milan, 80, 116, 186, 199–200, 226, 265, 266 Minghetti, Marco, 24–6, 33, 34, 67, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74 mining, 98, 99, 191–2, 202, 203, 235, 248, 250, 254 Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce see Palazzo Galli Tassi; Palazzo Valori Ministry of Education see Complex of San Firenze Ministry of Finance see Casino Mediceo di San Marco; Convento di Santa Croce; Palazzino della Livia; Palazzo dell’ex Esposizione Italiana

Ministry of Foreign Affairs see Palazzo Vecchio Ministry of Justice and Religious Affairs see Palazzo Portinari Salviati Ministry of Public Works, 127–8 Ministry of the Interior see Palazzo Medici Riccardi Ministry of the Royal Family see Palazzo Pitti Ministry of War see Palace of the Military Headquarters for the Land Army Moleschott, Jakob, 86, 91 Monastery of the Badia Fiorentina, 124 Naples, 24–5, 27, 67, 68 Napoleon III, 24, 34, 36, 63, 65, 67–8, 100, 145, 169 Navy Ministry see Convento dei Padre della Missione Nazione, 50, 74, 80, 115, 123, 160 flourishing, 36–7, 43–4 journalists/columnists, 38, 43–4, 53, 77, 80, 87, 91, 114 newspapers, 37, 44–5, 47, 48, 53, 68–9, 80, 110 reportage, 25, 26, 35–6, 113–14, 116 Nicotera, Giovanni, 72, 73, 74 Nigra, Costantino, 24, 278n.18 quoted, 65 Nuova Antologia, 37, 44–5, 76–7, 79, 91 Oblieght, Emanuele, 44 Offices of the Council see Palazzo Vecchio Offices of the House of Representatives and Senate see Palazzo/Loggia degli Uffizi Officine Galileo, 87, 159–60 Pacini, Filippo, 56 Paggi family, 43 painting, 52–4 Palace of the Military Headquarters for the Land Army, 128 Palazzeschi, Aldo, 79 Palazzina della Livia, 126 Palazzo Arcivescovile, 154 Palazzo Bartolommei, 146

Index Palazzo Borghese, 145–6 Palazzo Corsi, 146 Palazzo degli Uffizi (Senate), 32, 38, 47, 54, 107ill, 161 Loggia degli Uffizi, 129, 149 Palazzo della Camera di Commercio, 122 Palazzo della Crocetta, 123 Palazzo delle Cento Finestre, 129 Palazzo dell’ex Esposizione Italiana, 126 Palazzo Favard, 147 Palazzo Fenzi, 147 Palazzo Galli Tassi (Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce), 125, 189–90, 206, 240 Palazzo Gianfigliazzi, 147 Palazzo Guadagni, 147 Palazzo Hooghvorst see Palazzo Gianfigliazzi Palazzo Incontri Piccolellis, 148 Palazzo Medici Riccardi, 127, 129, 132 Palazzo Nonfinito, 131 Palazzo Panciatichi, 146 Palazzo Peruzzi, 148 Palazzo Pitti/Royal Palace, 26, 27, 27ill, 128, 130, 166 Villa La Petraia, 154 Palazzo Portinari Salviati, 127 Palazzo Spini Feroni, 122–3, 138, 185 Palazzo Strozzi, 113, 137, 150, 228 Palazzo Valori, 125 Palazzo Vecchio (Parliament), 21ill, 30–8, 52, 64, 65ill, 124, 127, 129 legislation, 31–2 papacy, 32, 39, 52, 66, 71 Papal States, 62, 63, 66, 67, 71 Pareto, Vilfredo, 59, 277n.1 Paris, Universal Exposition of 1867, 95, 99–100, 100ill, 101–6, 102ill, 201ill, 288n.24/25 Universal Exposition of 1900, 100–1 Parlatore, Filippo, 84, 88 Pazzi, Enrico, 51–2 Percoto, Caterina, 79–80 Peruzzi, Emilia, 35–6, 110, 148, 257 Salon Peruzzi, 35–6, 38, 145, 148 Peruzzi, Ubaldino, 30, 35, 63, 110, 179, 182, 253, 256, 299–300n.52

359

as banker/financier, 176, 177, 178, 235, 251, 253, 256, 319n.116/117 electoral humiliation/dismissal, 30, 33, 70, 74 as government minister, 25, 26, 30, 62, 67, 69 as Mayor of Florence, 71, 74, 175, 183 as parliamentarian, 72, 73, 74, 117 as President of the Province, 300n.54 as Prime Minister, 110 Petrarca, Francesco, 43, 77, 78 Piccini, Giulio, 114 Piedmont/Piedmontese, 23, 27, 31, 33, 34, 37, 46, 69, 88 influx into Florence, 38, 111, 116, 158–9, 164, 170, 178, 200, 228 buzzurri, 27–30, 34, 70, 161–2, 198 merchants, 35, 112 Turin, 28, 35, 116, 158, 170ill, 186, 226, 266 as capital city, 24–6, 33, 34, 68, 69–70, 71 Piazza Castello unrest, 25–6, 33, 69–70 Pignone foundry, 159, 187, 188ill, 198–9, 202, 203, 263 Pio IX, Pope, 24, 25, 52, 62, 63, 65–6, 67, 68 Poggi, Giuseppe, 49, 52, 129, 132, 145, 147, 148, 182, 185 quoted, 185 and redevelopment of Florence, 43–4, 50, 113, 162, 165–6, 175, 180, 183, 184, 198 and Vittorio Emanuele II, 26–7, 171, 174 Police Headquarters see Palazzo Medici Riccardi porcelain/majolica/ceramics, exhibits, 49, 97 production, 187, 191, 193, 199–202, 203, 259, 263 shops, 35, 112, 117 Porta Romana, 26–7 poverty/the poor, 110, 115, 205–8, 212, 215, 216, 223–4, 224ill, 269–70 concentrated areas, 112, 113–15, 116, 144, 158, 162, 164–5, 178, 182, 198 rural, 218–23, 231 and taxes, 32

360

Index

Pratesi, Mario, 44, 79 Prefecture see Palazzo delle Cento Finestre public health/nutrition, 205–9, 211 publishing, 42–5, 78–9, 80, 96 railways, 72–3, 173, 187–8, 191, 197, 202, 203, 233, 244, 248 companies, 72, 163, 176, 189–90, 195, 235, 246 Ferrovia Marmifera di Carrara, 240–1, 248, 314n.27 Strade Ferrate Meridionale, 72, 174, 176, 177, 195 Strade Ferrate Romane, 72, 181,   195 Florence-to-Livorno line, 147 Florence-to-Pisa line, 126 nationalization plan, 72–3 stations, 126, 165–6, 169, 263 viaduct, 176, 181 workshop, 159 Rattazzi, Maria Letizia, 35, 36, 145, 147 Rattazzi, Urbano, 24, 27, 33, 34, 56, 67,   147 Ricasoli, Bettino, 59–74 as an economist, 59–61, 62–3, 66,   175 biography, 60 Brolio castle/estate, 24, 60, 61, 62, 64, 66, 67, 72 electoral humiliation, 30, 66, 70 as grey eminence, 24–6, 30–1, 67 outside politics, 24, 36–7, 42, 43, 72, 74, 146, 177, 183 as prime minister (first time), 24, 33,   60, 62–3, 67, 110–11,   175–6 as prime minister (second time), 30–1, 33, 34, 60, 64–6, 70 quoted, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67–8, 69, 70, 71, 72–3, 73 on Florence as capital, 24–5, 64,   183 style, 30, 32–3, 34 as vintner, 62, 64 Ridolfi, Cosimo, 87, 89–90, 110–11, 139, 146 Ridolfi, Luigi, 117, 175, 176

riots/civil unrest, 158, 164, 205 see also under Piedmont Romagnosi, Domenico, 61, 66 Rome, absorbed into the Italian kingdom, 23, 25, 31, 32, 34, 71 as capital city, 32, 33, 44–5, 64, 67–8, 179, 183–5, 190, 204, 237 French withdrawal from, 24, 63, 68, 71, 278n.18 Rossini, Gioachino, 247 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 45, 59 Royal Post Office, 129 Royal Stables, 130, 130–1, 174 Ruskin, John, 109, 161 Salone dei Cinquecento, 124 Savonarola, Girolamo, 52, 78 Say, J. B., 60, 61 Schack, Adolf von, 53, 54 Schiff, Hugo (Ugo), 54–5, 94 Schiff, Moritz (Maurizio), 48, 54–5, 55, 86–7, 89, 90, 91–2, 93, 94 quoted, 93 Schmitz family, 243, 244, 246, 248, 252, 253, 255, 256, 316–17n.77 see also under banks Scialoja, Antonio, 33, 59, 66, 70 science, 54–7, 83–94 sculpture, 50–2 seasonality, 221–2, 259, 263 Sella, Quintino, 34, 38, 71 The Senate see Teatro Mediceo September Agreement see under Italy Servadio, Giacomo, 172, 173 Siciliani, Pietro, 46, 55, 56 Signorini, Telemaco, 53, 79, 81, 136, 138,   151 Spadolini, Giovanni, 39, 42, 47, 68, 69 quoted, 30 Spaventa, Silvio, 24, 35, 59, 67, 72 State Council see Palazzo Nonfinito Stibbert, Frederick, 47, 49–50 straw hats, 159, 160, 192, 199, 259–70, 260ill, 321–2n.28 in popular culture, 261, 320n.9/10

Index streetlife, 109–10, 113–14, 116, 161–2, 224, 265–6 Supreme Court of Appeals see Convent of the Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella Teatro Mediceo, 131 Telegraph Station and Offices see Palazzo Medici Riccardi textiles, 97, 160, 192, 250, 252–3, 259, 262–3, 264, 266 theatres, Alfieri, 141 Arena Goldoni, 140 Arena Nazionale, 140, 140–1 della Pergola, 140, 141, 143–4 delle Logge del Grano o Salvini, 140, 141–2 de Piazza Vecchia, 144 Niccolini, 142 Nuovo, 143 Pagliano/Teatro Verdi, 121, 140, 143 Politeama Fiorentino, 140, 144–5 Principe Umberto, 140, 145 Rossini, 145 Teatro Goldoni, 140, 141 Teatro Nazionale, 142 Tommaseo, Niccolò, 41, 42–3, 44, 51, 75, 77–8, 80, 82, 91, 281n.10 Tommaseo/Bellini dictionary, 41–2,   78 tourism, 152, 167 transport, 165, 166, 209 Turin see Piedmont Turri family, 244–5, 246, 248, 250, 253, 254, 255–6, 316n.59, 318n.113 see also under banks

361

urban renewal, 113, 165, 169–83 Vegni, Angelo, 103–4, 105, 106, 159–60, 288n.22 Venice absorbed into Italian kingdom, 23, 31, 34 Verga, Giovanni, 75, 77, 79–80, 82 quoted, 79 Storia di una capinera, 79, 80, 81 Villa Favard Rovezzano, 148 Villa La Torre, 148 Vittorio Emanuele II, 23, 34, 41, 174, 183 accession, 23 and prime ministers, 25, 32–3, 34, 62, 63, 67, 74 public appearances, 52, 64ill, 87, 110–11, 144–5, 162, 270 quoted, 24, 27 ruling from Florence, 26–7, 27ill, 30, 38, 40, 70, 130, 154, 161,   171 ruling from Turin, 25, 69–70 see also Poggi, Giuseppe waste disposal, 116–17, 166–7,   171–2 wine, consumption, 209, 210, 215, 218,   219, 222–3, 225–6, 227, 229,   230 trade, 110, 112, 160, 167, 207,   228 vinello, 217–18, 221, 222 women workers, 259–70 Zocchi, Ottavia, 267