Marie Armand Patrice de Mac Mahon

Marie Armand Patrice de Mac Mahon, known as Patrice de Mac Mahon , 2nd Duke of Magenta and 6th Marquis d'Éguilly in 1893, was a French soldier and aristocrat.

Traditional rustic mastruca vests for men

Ordinary male peasants in Sardinia often wore the mastruca, a rustic vest made from four sheep or goat skins, a traditional garment that dates back to Roman times.

Cagliari bread seller gala dress

The gala dress of Cagliari bread sellers, or panattara, featured a massive skirt of blue silk satin worn over one or two petticoats to create a bell-shaped volume. It was completed by a striking red cloth head cloak known as a mantilla, decorated with silver thread embroidery.

Songs at wool-carding gatherings

During social wool-carding gatherings, young men offered flowers to women accompanied by sung verses, with the women required to respond in kind.

The ballu tundu national dance

The ballu tundu, a circular chain dance, was the quintessential national dance of Sardinia, involving complex, secret hand pressures to coordinate movements.

Challenges of early travel

Before railways were built, travel was often restricted to mule tracks or rudimentary roads, such as a 6-mile trip to Osilo that could only be made on horseback and took 6 hours.

Maritime travel to Sardinia

Steamers connecting Genoa to Sardinia typically took 24 to 26 hours to reach Porto Torres, and passengers landing in Cagliari were not subject to custom-house or police visits.

Creative food preservation and tool recycling

Families preserved eggs for months by storing them in a mixture of four parts water and one part lime, leaving the storage pots permanently marked with white residue. Tools were also creatively repurposed, such as graters fashioned from old, unusable farm hoes pierced with a hot iron.

Modest homes and contaminated water supplies

In homes before electricity, families often lived in just a few square meters, using a ground floor room as a kitchen and an upstairs room for sleeping. Lacking public water pipes, residents relied on wells or public fountains, and their drinking water was often contaminated due to the absence of sewage systems.

Daily Meals Based on Soup and Bread

Ordinary families typically relied on a single daily meal, often a soup (minestra) made of vegetables, potatoes, lard, or salted pork, frequently served with bread. For many, meat was an exceptional treat reserved for Sundays, holidays, or celebrations like weddings.

Frugal Breakfasts and Coffee Substitutes

Before true coffee became widespread, many families drank an infusion made from roasted chickpeas, wheat, barley, or even acorns. Breakfast was very frugal, consisting of little more than a piece of bread and occasionally a small amount of jam.

Meat prices under the Second Empire

During the Second Empire, the price of a pound of meat increased from 49 to 68 centimes.

Rising cost of bread

Between 1850 and 1870, the cost of 2 kilograms of bread rose from 52 to 74 centimes.

Laborer wages and living conditions

Young laborers in chemical plants earned 1.50 lire for a ten-hour workday, often living in crowded, shared dormitory halls where multiple people slept in a single bed.

Part-time mining and peasant labor

Sardinian miners were often peasants who kept their agricultural jobs, with mining wages in the late 19th century reaching about 2.60 lire per day for miners.