Emmanuel Guerrieri de Mirafiori

1851–1894

Born: 4 Oct 1851, Alessandria
Country of birth: Italy
Died: 1894, Sommariva Perno

facts: 11
sources: 1
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Facts and their sources

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Birth4 Oct 1851, AlessandriaProbableDisputed2 competing claims1 source
Death1894, Sommariva PernoProbableDisputed2 competing claims1 source
ParentVictor Emmanuel II of ItalyConfirmed1 source
ParentRosa VercellanaConfirmed1 source

A life in time

4 Oct 1851
Born · Alessandria
Birth, Alessandria
1894
Died · Sommariva Perno
Death, Sommariva Perno

What was it like?

The world around Alessandria, 1851: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

When Emmanuel was born in 1851, Alessandria belonged to the Kingdom of Italy, ruled by Victor Emmanuel II of Italy.

Who ruled

Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
Monarch of Italy, 1861–1878 · Kingdom of Italy
Otto I the Great
Monarch of Italy, 951 · Kingdom of Italy

Born around the same time

Benedict XV
1854 · Pope of the Catholic Church from 1914 to 1922
Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza
1852 · Italian explorer
Robert Louis Stevenson
1850 · Scottish novelist and poet (1850–1894)
Mihai Eminescu
1850 · Romanian poet, novelist and journalist (1850-1889)
Leoš Janáček
1854 · Czech composer (1854–1928)
W. G. Grace
1848 · English amateur cricketer (1848-1915)

Fashion

Folk costumes signaled social status

Folk costumes in rural Italy served as detailed social markers, where the quality of dye, the number of buttons, or even the type of metal in a finger ring signaled a wearer's wealth and marital status. These traditional outfits, often featuring unique local embroidery and lace, were brought out specifically for harvest festivals and religious processions.

Respectful dress for feast days

For working families, a clean white shirt or a well-preserved jacket kept by attentive wives was considered essential for church or feast days to show respect to God and demonstrate civility. Ordinary laborers often spent their weekdays in worn clothing, but would carefully maintain these finer garments specifically for such holy occasions.

Music

Pifferari musicians perform for the Madonna

As Christmas approached, wandering musicians known as pifferari traveled from the mountains to Rome, playing bagpipes and oboe-like pifferi to perform devotional concerts before images of the Madonna.

Around 1825–1849

Essential instruments for daily life

Castanets and tambourines were essential instruments for dancers, frequently accompanied by violins and guitars. Guitars were especially favored for nocturnal serenades, open-air concerts, and romantic declarations.

Getting around

Around 1825–1849

Climbing Mount Etna by horse and carriage

To climb Mount Etna, travelers would depart Catania by carriage for Nicolosi, then ride horses to the Casa degli inglesi, arriving at midnight. From there, they trekked 1.5 hours before dawn to reach the summit to witness the sunrise.

Around 1825–1849

Travel by mule and lettiga in Sicily

In Sicily, travel was often done by mule or in a lettiga, a carriage-like box without wheels carried by two mules that moved at about three miles per hour. This unconventional vehicle was notoriously noisy due to bells and prone to swaying on uneven ground.

Daily life

Around 1840–1849

Daily routine in boarding schools

In private boarding schools run by Pious Schools in the 1840s, students typically followed a strict routine that included eight to nine hours of sleep, five hours of lessons, and two hours of spiritual exercises daily.

Cost of meals and daily dreams

In some areas, public soup kitchens served meals for a modest fee of 11 centesimi per portion. Meanwhile, the urban poor in cities like Naples sometimes dreamed of basic comforts they lacked, such as a clean house with fresh air, white bedsheets, and regular meals of meat and pasta.

Food

Frugal flavor for polenta

For peasant families, one salted herring was considered sufficient to flavor a large serving of polenta for at least three people.

Around 1825–1849

Chestnuts as a main dish

Poor Neapolitans purchased nine boiled chestnuts for one soldo and used the reddish cooking juice to soak their bread as a main meal.

Prices and wages

Coffee and diet of the poor

In the mid-19th century, luxury items like a cup of coffee cost 2 grana, a price that laborers often paid daily as a digestive despite their poverty. At the same time, many workers lived as mangiafoglie, eating pasta only occasionally because it was expensive relative to their daily wages.

Around 1825–1849

Coffee and social status symbols

A cup of coffee, which cost 2 grana, transitioned from a natural pleasure to an increasingly indispensable luxury for ordinary people like shoemakers. Eating white bread was a significant social marker, as some laborers could only afford the common "mangiafoglie" diet of vegetables.

Work

Eight-Hour Workday in Pazzano Mines

In the Pazzano iron mines, a regulation established in 1845 set a working day of eight hours, which was notably shorter than the 10 to 16 hours common elsewhere in the Kingdom.

Around 1860–1868

Women's Straw Braiding Wages

Women in Tuscany who braided straw for hats earned four or five sous per day for their meticulous, labor-intensive work.

During their lifetime

1888
First National Healthcare Law Enacted
Following a cholera pandemic that killed approximately 50,000 people, the government enacted Italy's first national healthcare law in 1888.
1888
Introduction of Emigration Regulations
The 1888 Emigration Act established the first formal regulations for citizens leaving the country as transatlantic emigration climbed to nearly 205,000 that year.

Family

Parents

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.