ITALIANS
See Also: BREWING, DISAPPEARED OR RELOCATED Barclay & Perkins;
ENTERTAINMENT, DISAPPEARED Carlisle House; GALLERIES The Estorick Collection of
Modern Italian Art; ITALIAN FOOD; LANGUAGE & SLANG; PEOPLES & CULTURES;
THE
SUSPENDED BANKER
Website:
https://anglo-italianfhs.org.uk (The Anglo-Italian Family History Society)
The British-Italian Society
The
British-Italian Society
Website:
www.british-italian.org
Giordano Bruno
In 1583
Bruno visited Oxford. The experience
left him with an ardent hatred of the city's university.
Clerkenwell
In the
1830s skilled workers from northern Italy started to settle in Clerkenwell
because it was a district that was renowned for craftsmen. Subsequent, Italian immigration was from
throughout the peninsula.
Mazzini
was in large part responsible for turning Garibaldi into a symbol for the cause
of Italian unification. This was done by
mentioning him in the propaganda. In
1837 Giuseppe Mazzini made his home in Clerkenwell.
St
Peter's Italian Church on Clerkenwell Road opened in 1863. It was modelled on the basilica of San
Crisogono in Rome. Every year on the
Sunday following the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (16 July) Italians from
all over the U.K. gather for the street procession at the sagra (f te)
centred around the church. The
procession concludes the week-long Clerkenwell Festival. In the 1960s the Irish Roman Catholic
parishes in the East End had annual religious processions. The Italian procession is the only one to
survive.
In 2008
there was still a business in Clerkenwell that was descended from an organ
grinding manufacturing business.
Location:
136 Clerkenwell Road, EC1R 5DL (red, yellow)
5
Hatton Garden, EC1N 8AA. One of
Mazzini's London addresses. (purple, pink)
10
Laystall Street, EC1R 4PA. One of
Mazzini's London addresses. (blue, purple)
183
North Gower Street, WC1E 6BP. One of
Mazzini's London addresses. (blue, brown)
See
Also: DISTRICT CHANGE Clerkenwell; GANGLAND The Sabini Gang; TIMEPIECES
Website:
www.italianchurch.org.uk https://parish.rcdow.org.uk/italianchurch
The
Mazzini & Garribaldi Club
The
Mazzini & Garribaldi Club in Red Lion Street was set after up the Second
World War for the local Italian community as a social club. It was owned by a charity. With time, the majority Italian community
moved away from Clerkenwell. Those who
remained grew elderly. By 2008 there
were only a handful of members left. The
building was sold. The money raised was
distributed to community charities.
Location:
51 Red Lion Street, WC1R 4PF (blue, pink)
The
Squashed Fly Biscuit
Giuseppe
Garibaldi spent time in Clerkenwell during his first visit to London.
The
Garibaldi - or squashed fly biscuit - is a slim, oblong-shaped biscuit that
contains a high proportion of currents.
It was first manufactured by Peek Freans in 1861, having been created by
Jonathan Dodgson Carr (1806-1884).
There
is an alternative story about its creation in which the liberator created the
original one by mistake at a reception that he was attending. He is said to have accidentally sat upon an
Eccles cake.
See
Also: BISCUITS
Red
Shirts
The
soccer team Nottingham Forest adopted red shirts in tribute to Garibaldi.
Arsenal
wear red (and white) because their first kit was given to them by Nottingham
Forest.1
1. Juventus wear black and white stripes
in honour of Nottingham County.
Eighteenth-Century Transients
See
Also: ENTERTAINMENT, DISAPPEARED Carlisle House; SOHO Peoples &
Culture; WHISKY Blended Whiskies and Wine Merchants, Justerini & Brooks;
WINE Wine Merchants, Justerini & Brooks
Canaletto
The War
of Austrian Succession (1740-8) lessened the number of Britons who made the
Grand Tour to Italy. The painter Canaletto
responded to this development by moving to London in 1746. He stayed until 1755.
Location:
41 Beak Street, W1R 3LE (blue, red)
Ugo
Foscello
Ugo
Foscello was an Italian patriot who settled in London in the late 18thC. Through his influence the likes of Charles
James Fox became pro-Italian unity.
Artemesia Gentileschi
In the
late 1630s the painter Artemesia Gentileschi (1593-c.1656) worked in
London. Her father had been at the court
since 1626. She may have helped him
paint the ceilings of the Queen's House at Greenwich. He had been a friend of Caravaggio and had
probably been one of the few artists to learn the chiarusco technique through
direct observation. Charles I bought
some of her works.
Location:
The Queen's House, Greenwich Palace, Romney Road, SE10 9NF
Website:
www.rmg.co.uk/queens-house
The Italian Hospital
In 1884
Giovanni Battista Ortelli set up the Italian Hospital in Queen's Square to
furnish medical services for non-English speaking Italians. The institution closed in 1990 due to
financial pressures.
Location:
The Italian Hospital (1884), (41) Queen Square, WC1N 3AJ. The building is now a satellite of Great
Ormond Street Hospital. (orange, yellow)
See
Also: HOSPITALS
The Lombards
Lombard
Street has for centuries been one of the main financial centres of London. It is named after the merchants from northern
Italy bought English wool from the 13thC onwards. Their activities were facilitated by merchant
banking activities of their countrymen who transferred church money to Rome.
Members
of the Jewish community had acted as London's principal moneylenders. In 1275 they were expelled from England. Their role was filled by the Italians. King Edward I's financial needs were serviced
by the Frescobaldi and the Ricciardi families, while Edward III's were met by
the Bardis and the Peruzzis.
The
Crown's income was largely derived from the export of wool. Wool was does not store well. Therefore, the income from it was
seasonal. However, the Crown s
expenditures were continuous. Therefore,
loans were needed.
When
Edward III defaulted in 1339 he protected the Bardi and the Abruzzi. However, the Italians were vulnerable because
they had been leveraging their assets.
During the early 1340s he defaulted on them; English merchants furnished
funds subsequently. The Abruzzi partners
were placed in the Fleet Prison. In 1345
the Bardi suffered a collapse. They
continued to operate until 1392.
In the
16thC England's cloth making activities turned the country from
being an exporter of wool into being an importer of the commodity. The Lombard merchants trade was undermined
and thus the Lombard merchant bankers activities. Queen Elizabeth I expelled the latter,
purportedly for usurious practices.
Location:
Lombard Street, EC4N 7BJ (orange, red)
See
Also: GEOFFREY CHAUCER; SIR THOMAS GRESHAM The Cloth Trade; THE HOUSE OF
LORDS The Woolsack; MONEY The Florin; PEOPLES & CULTURES The Germans, The
Steelyard; DICK WHITTINGTON
Twentieth-Century Visitors
During
the second half of the 1920s Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896-1957), the Duke
of Palma, travelled extensively. He
liked English food, particularly the cheeses and the hams.
Livia
Svevo lived in Charlton for a decade.
In the
1950s Lorenza Mazzetti (1927-2020) studied at the Slade art school and was
associated with the Free Cinema movement.
Natalia
Ginzburg (n e Levi) was a noted Italian author. She was an admirer of writers such as Ivy
Compton-Burnett. She lived in London
during the years 1959-61.
Location:
67 Charlton Church Lane, Charlton, SE7 7AB
13
South Terrace, SW7 2TB. Ginzburg's home.
(purple, blue)
See
Also: LONDON Foreign Eyes
David
Backhouse 2024