ITALIANS

Website: https://anglo-italianfhs.org.uk (The Anglo-Italian Family History Society)

The British-Italian Society

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)

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

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 18^thC. 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 13^thC 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 16^thC 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)

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