Pietro Gentilini, with his biscuit factory between Via Alessandria and Via Novara, was an important figure in the Trieste-Salario economy in the early years of the last century. The artisan workshop established in 1890 grew to an industrial dimension in just a few years.
From the family’s historical archive emerges this extraordinary photo of Pietro Setti that fixes in time and memory the banquet of the Society of Shopkeepers and Industrialists of Rome. We are in 1912. It is difficult to identify Pietro Gentilini, who may have been among the diners: he could be the first on the left at the table of honour placed horizontally at the end of the room. Or, the tenth person seated at the second table, with another diner standing behind him. Or perhaps, here at the first table in front of the windows, his smiling face peeking out from behind a little girl. The only female presence in the whole room.
Whatever the case, the image tells of an era. It immortalises a part of the ruling class of the time gathered in the “Society of Shopkeepers and Industrialists of Rome”. A sodality founded in 1892, which counted, at the time of the photo, over 5,000 members. The statutes read: ‘This society aims at the moral and material good of each member and at the development and increase of local industry and commerce. It takes an active part in all matters affecting the interests of city shopkeepers and works to ensure that shopkeepers and industrialists have a fair representation in the National Parliament and in the Councils of the Chamber of Commerce of the Province and the Municipality’.
At that banquet at the Council table sat the then president of the Society of Shopkeepers and Industrialists of Rome: Cavalier Aristide Staderini, owner of a printing and bookbinding business. But also inventor of an innovative – for the time – system for archiving documents in cardboard boxes. Supplies to ministries and the Regia Manifattura dei Tabacchi would make his fortune. The image is taken from the Typimedia Editore volume “Come Eravamo Trieste-Salario”.
(Daniele Magrini)
WATCH: How to buy the volume “Come Eravamo Trieste-Salario”.
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