Skip to content
VitrineRoyal Houses of Europe
Sign in

Giorgio Borbone

1900–1941

Born
1900, Milan
Country of birth
Kingdom of Italy, today Italy
Died
19 Mar 1941, Mount Trebeshinë
facts
6
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

  • Birth1900, MilanProbable1 source
  • Death19 Mar 1941, Mount TrebeshinëProbable1 source
  • ParentPrincess Elvira of BourbonConfirmed1 source

A life in time

  1. Born · Milan

    Birth, Milan

  2. Died · Mount Trebeshinë

    Death, Mount Trebeshinë

What was it like?

The world around Milan, 1900: 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 Giorgio was born in 1900, Milan belonged to the Kingdom of Italy, ruled by Otto I the Great.

Who ruled

  • Otto I the Great

    Monarch of Italy, 951 · Kingdom of Italy

Born the same year

  • Ignazio Silone

    Italian writer and politician (1900-1978)

  • Eduardo De Filippo

    Italian actor, director and playwright (1900–1984)

  • Luis Buñuel

    Spanish-Mexican filmmaker (1900–1983)

  • Spencer Tracy

    American actor (1900–1967)

  • Eyvind Johnson

    Swedish writer (1900–1976)

  • Teóphilo Bettencourt Pereira

    Brazilian footballer (1900-1988)

Fashion

Apron signals romantic interest

In mountain villages, women used their aprons as a silent language; moving the apron to the right side signaled a romantic interest in a young man.

Poor children often went barefoot

Because shoes were expensive, poor children in both rural and urban areas commonly went barefoot, even though middle-class children in cities wore fashionable European-style clothing.

Music

Christmas Music by Zampognari Musicians

At Christmastime, zampognari musicians traveled from the Abruzzi mountains to Naples, playing bagpipes and the ciaramella to perform music before images of the Holy Infant during the nine-day Novena.

Popular Neapolitan Song Printed 180,000 Times

The Neapolitan song Te voglio bene assaje became extremely popular, with 180,000 copies of its lyrics printed for the public.

Getting around

Lack of a unified time system

Travel times were inconsistent because there was no unified time; for example, trains in Verona ran with a 13-minute delay compared to those in Turin. Additionally, local time in cities like Lecce differed by several minutes depending on longitude.

Reaching the train station by mule cart

For many people in the early 1900s, reaching a train station required walking down mountain paths to a village where they could catch a mule cart. This was often the first time individuals had traveled beyond a few miles from their birthplace.

Daily life

Candlelit homes and open hearth cooking

Until around 1910, most homes relied on candles, oil lamps, or petroleum lamps for lighting. Cooking was done over open fires that blackened kitchens with smoke until newer closed stoves appeared around 1915–1920.

First Italian village with modern electric light

Crespi d'Adda workers' village was the first in Italy to feature modern Edison public street lighting.

Food

Boiled chestnuts as a main course

For one soldo, street vendors in Naples sold nine boiled chestnuts in a reddish juice, which the poor used as a main course by soaking their bread in the liquid.

Peasant diets relied on carbohydrates

Peasant families often lived on a diet centered on carbohydrates like polenta made of maize flour, beans, and bread, with meat consumption remaining very low at about 14 to 15 kilograms per person annually.

Prices and wages
Around 1897–1898

Bread price spikes in Milan

The price of prime-quality bread in Milan rose from 30 centesimi per libra in April 1897 to 38 centesimi by January 1898.

Cost to set up a home

In the early 1900s, a Neapolitan couple could set up a new home with basic furniture, such as a wooden chest and a kitchen cupboard, for 350 to 400 lire.

Work

Agriculture dominated the Italian workforce

In 1911, the vast majority of the Italian population, 58 percent of the active workforce, was employed in agriculture.

Grueling working hours for laborers

Factory workers often toiled between 12 and 16 hours a day, with start times as early as 3:00 a.m. in the summer.

During their lifetime

  1. 1905

    Nationalization of Italian Railways, 1905

    In 1905, the Italian state nationalized the railway network, forming the State Railways (FS) to modernize transport and boost heavy industry.

  2. 1906

    Simplon Tunnel opens, 1906

    In 1906, the Simplon Tunnel, at 19.7 km the world's longest at the time, opened, connecting Italy and Switzerland by rail.

  3. 1913

    Peak of Italian migration, 1913

    In 1913, Italian migration hit a record peak, with 870,000 people leaving the country in a single year.

  4. 1918

    Spanish flu pandemic, 1918

    During the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918–1919, 600,000 Italians lost their lives.

  5. 1927

    Economic crisis, 1927-1935

    Following the Great Depression, the poorer classes in Italy suffered a fall in nominal wages of up to 70 percent between 1927 and 1935.

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.