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lst October 1888: the
Path starts
In the late 1800s the café is a real institution in Bologna: it
is difficult to give its draw the slip, impossible not to have a break
“half an hour in those warm, well lighted sale-rooms, noisy for
the so-called taute Balagne, that would feel lacking in something if
he didn’t make his appearance, especially between seven and
eight o’clock, after dinner time”.
The café is the place where the literary and political life of
the town spread, where the gossip is in the norm: everybody has his
own public of habitual visitors, his own history. The café is
also the place where the most exclusive sodalities emerge and which
sometimes win the city celebrity.
It is just in the sale-rooms as soaked of tobacco and of the
penetrating odour of spirits at least as of various and rambling
chatters of Beletti beer house out of D’Azeglio Archway - an
elegant building on the avenue, certainly one of the most renowned
resorts of the town – that a group of people found the club of
the Bolognese Hunters. Nevertheless, the negotiations to fix there the
seat come to nothing, so that they feel under compulsion to look for
elsewhere. They obtain concession for the upper sale-rooms by the
Café dei Servi, located in via Mazzini, 39.
The Emilian exhibition
1888: the town invites to the Margherita Gardens, where the main
buildings are collected, Italy, and it offers “its”
exhibition in the fields of industry, agriculture and music. By San
Michele in Bosco, Enrico Panzacchi ran an exhibit of fine arts and by
the Archiginnasio they celebrated with solemnity the VIII centenary of
the birth of theUniversity. This is the occasion the town awaited, in
order to put itself on the level of others preceding it; it is the
pride of a revenge towards the history, which always denied it that
role of big fair centre it deserved for its renowned industries
– suffice it to think to that one of the silk. It is also the
consciousness to have lacked in enterprise, retiring for centuries
into the shell of a strong and valid work as well as it was limited in
the territory. Perhaps owing to the calmness, typical of the Bolognese
world. Bologna is also Bologna the erudite: and it is feast of the
university and of those first springy thrills, as the age when the
exhibition was inaugurated, which already recognise it an important
role in what technology is and what will be future. However, the
celebration of the VIII centenary are also the occasion awaited by the
Director of Il Resto del Carlino, the Ferrarese lawyer Amilcare
Zamorani, to bring the Bolognese daily to the national forefront. The
draw is suasive and the success shall not fail.
The first assembly
On 14th November 1888 the first assembly of the members takes place in
the premises leased for 75 lire a month by Mister Leopoldo Gambelli
and the plenary meeting votes the first statute of the Hunting Club of
Bologna. They are 48 articles, divided up into 8 titles, which
regulate the organisation of the club, its management, the admission
and which define the tasks of the chairmanship, the treasurer, the
secretary, the councillors and the plenary meeting. “The club
entitled Hunting Club of Bologna is established with the aim to attend
to what is concerning the interests of hunting in Bologna province and
to provide its members for an useful and pleasing meeting”
(art. l).
Private clubs and cafés fulfil a front line role in the
life of nineteenth-century Bologna. They are fully approved places
where the different cases isolate themselves to celebrate their social
and cultural customs: every class, both wealthy or not, noble or
popular, has its own exclusive club where it feels at ease and where
it identifies. In the late 800s many Clubs are operative in Bologna.
The Domino Club, in via Castiglione 16, is a very noble and exclusive
resort “at the purpose of an useful and pleasing meeting. It is
absolutely forbidden to have any meeting or organized discussion alien
to the club nature, included concerts, dances and similar acts”.
The Bolognese Club or Bolognese Society is at the first floor of the
building which is Loup heirs’ property, in Piazza Calderini , 4.
It is frequented by a certain conservative middle class. Alfredo
Testoni in his book “Bologna which disappears”, asserts
that it is the place where “you make and unmake the deputies and
the city councillors”. According to Giulio Padovani, it is the
headquarters of the gros-bonnets of the rampant moderate party. In
1898 the Bolognese Club ceases its short existence and in one side of
the premises Il Resto del Carlino settles down.
The Artistic Club in Cataldi Palace, in via Montegrappa, 1, is instead
frequented by what we could define the “home” debauchery
of late 800s, literates, musicians, painters and sculptors. The social
city feast of 11th March 1882 doesn’t remain famous at random.
In the Club many artists exhibit their paintings, that are not devoid
of any talent.
In 1891 the new times are characterized by the birth of the Democratic
Club located in via Zamboni ,9. It plans “to open a place of
outstanding resort to those who, having a sure credo in the
unstoppably fated path of progress and democracy, mean to grab the
right to discuss with efficacy the ideas, the intentions, the
aspirations towards the common ideal”.
Starting from 1894 the clericalists of noble family can begin to
frequent the Chess Club.
Not only the leisured and noble classes have their exclusive club:
also the populace creates its own societies, particularly operative in
the carnival time. On the contrary, the local clubs emerge with a
social purpose, too, to avert the populace from the inns and they are
often encouraged by the mutual aid Societies.
Twenty years of Bolognese Society. 1881-1901
The landowners are yet the dominant class and the fact that they
prefer not to turn away capitals from agriculture is reported by many
enterprises of public nature – gas, tram service, water main,
power production (at least in a starting phase) – which are
financed with foreign capitals even if they appear with all the
features of a sure remuneration. Also the construction firms –
and they are not footling if we think to the redefinition of the town
planning of the city historical centre ruled by the town plan of 1889
with the widening of via Rizzoli and with the demolition of Artenisi
and Guidozagni towers, to the exploitation of the land in the renewal
zone of Garagnani Gardens by Galliera Archway – don’t
attract very much. At least, until the increasing disorders in the
land advise a different finalization of the investments. Anyway, the
rural vocation of the capital, prerogative of an ancient nobility but
also of the young aristocracy of Napoleonic origin and of that middle
class that could get enormous advantages from the speculation on the
goods sales of religious guilds’ property, keeps steady the
social composition avoiding so the big disputes and avoiding
especially many cases deriving from the fast industry development.
On 22nd December 1888 the Marquess Giovanni Salina Amorini hands his
resignation from the post of chairman of the Club by reasons he
didn’t specify. Therefore it is convened an extraordinary
plenary meeting that has to provide for the election of the new
chairman. In the evening of 29th December, with 18 present members out
of 41 – and then legal according to the art. 39 (the assembly of
first nomination is valid with the intervention of one third of the
members. The assembly of second nomination is valid with the number of
interventions, on condition that it takes place eight days later)
– they proceed to the voting from which the name of Mister
Giuseppe Bonavia arises, who scores 17 voting preferences.
In 1889 the members of the Club are already increased to 60.
The first life year of the Club
The members of the Hunting Club are now distinct, according to
articles 5 and 6 of the statute, in promoters and associates who are
admitted to frequent the sale-rooms according to article 13.
In its first life year the Club is honoured by the presence and the
signing of many eminent names of that time. The society news refer of
sumptuous dances and feats to which the members intervene dressed with
red tailcoats of the fox hunters. The Club has acquired, despite its
young age, an appearance which is given not only by “the
cynegetic lovers (or better the art to employ the dogs in the
hunt” by the hunters and by the crack shots who grace the town
of Bologna in national and international races) but, more generally,
by the good middle class and by the thick group of professionals. In
conclusion, a pleasing benchmark whose reputation always creates new
followers and puts itself beyond the limited attractions and a silent
Bolognese simplicity.
The social annual dues are fixed in 36 lire for every member and the
admission due amounts to 5 lire for every new accession. They
recognize the waiter on duty a benefit of 2.5% on the cashed and
outstanding sums during the year, on the contrary, his monthly earning
is of 30 lire. In the estimate of cost for the period from 1st October
1889 – till 30th April 1890 they include the cost for the rent
of a billiard table “at a rate of 20 lire a month” and
that one for the playing cards (200 lire).
On 20th October 1889 they elect the new chairman: the Count Antonio
Marescalchi receives 14 voting preferences out of 21 voting members
and he is the new chairman: vice-chairman is Mister Vito Querzoli.
During the same assembly the domicile of the Club is regularized with
a simple contract “…it remains declared that Mister
Leopoldo Gambelli, who is entitled and to whom belongs the saying
flat, gives and rents out to Mister Bonavia Giuseppe, as Hunting Club
chairman, who accepts the management of a furnished flat for the use
Club located in this town, in via Mazzini over Caffé dei Servi.
This contract shall start from 1st October 1889 and shall stop on 8th
May 1890”. The lease is fixed in 75 lire a month and “will
be paid with monthly instalments deferred by the Tenant to the
domicile/s of the Lessor, without delay or any meaning. The flat is
composed of an entrance, a reading room, a playing room, a little
sale-room, services. In these premises the Hunting Club remains until
the first days of February 1890 when it will temporarily move to the
sale-rooms located over Caffé dei cacciatore in Piazza Ravegnana.
The Caffé dei Cacciatori
This café, one of many in Bologna but also one of the most
“particular”, reaches out its being on the outside under
the big arcade which is located in the shade of the towers, at right
angles with via Castiglione. Here they read little and play let alone;
they breath an air different from that one of the more distinct and
exclusive cafés. Nonetheless, a various public stems whose
kaleidoscope are students and teachers, artists and bohemians,
politicians and money-makers on the whole, engaged with jokes and
considerations that run by word of mouth and spread on the walls of
the café until they reach those one who, under the arcade in the
open air also in the harshest climate, speak about hunt or discuss
vivaciously about the before and after the horse races.
To provide for the establishment and furnishing costs of the new seat,
the Club puts the residual asset and the social contribution at
disposal. Nevertheless, the so scraped sum is not sufficient and they
open a subscription among the members for 50 shares of a nominal value
of 50 lire, which will be paid off in succeeding times.
How upper-class Bologna of late 800s wore
By day, along the streets of the town you can admire some
professionals who – as testimonial – wear the riding-coat
or the frock coat, the suit for the official occasions. The tailcoat
is, on the contrary, the classical suit for the gala nights or for the
theatre, for dinners and dances. In the open air they usually wore a
wheel tippet – the most elegant and valuable are lined with
white embroidered silk – over the tailcoat or the
“cloak” provided with pelerine and sleeves. The daily life
of turn of the century attends to the spreading of the
“jacket” done up aloft with four buttons. They wear the
hat: the classical one is the top hat and it is suitable for every
occasion. Another garment is the “capparèla”.
Everybody wears it, rich and poor, tall and short, fat and thin. What
makes the difference is not only the manufacture but also the body
wearing it and the way it is worn. In short, it is elegant only if it
is well worn and especially if it is well manufactured. Salacious and
witty remarks arise on the wretches, who are found out:
«La capparèla la par attàc a la crusira d'l
'armèri»
(The capparella seems hanging from the cross of the cupboard)
«Al porta la capparèla com un imbariègh»
(He wears the capparella as a drunk)
«L 'um pèr la ciòza con sòtta i
pipién».
(He seems the brood-hen with the chicks below)
The most complete assortment is the one of “sgnèra
Gigia”, wife of Filippo Vignoli, the tailor who, for years, had
the shop on the corner of via Indipendenza and Vetturini (today via
Ugo Bassi ).
On 16th February 1891 the Hunting Club moves to a flat of Mister
Alessandro Vaccari’s property, located at the first floor of the
building in via Rizzoli, 33. “The lease requital remains
invariably fixed in Thousand-two-hundred lire (1,200), that the Tenant
will pay to the domicile of the Lessee in two instalments every year
and i.e.: the first one within next 14th August and the second one
within next 24th December and so on.”
The contract, signed by mister Vito Querzoli for the Hunting Club,
will run for five years. The flat is described as follows: “flat
at the first floor composed of passage of entrance lightened by the
transom-window of varnished wood with glasses; then three bedrooms
looking into the street, the first and the second one with firesides
of earthen with iron tubes; then a toilet as bathroom with bath or tub
and marble table, water pipes with water taps of brass and behind a
little room with water–closet of marble; then a room for pantry
and living-room, afterwards the kitchen and behind that one two small
rooms, one for pantry and the other one with sink; then a bedroom
looking into the court of the Café Cacciatori with another
pantry. In every room there is a gas piping and furthermore three
lamps with one light and opaque hat and glass tube and other two lamps
shaped like Lira without glass”.
The members increase and they are figures of great importance in every
field of knowledge and of the professional life of the Bolognese
society. The Club acquires more and more consideration in the
surroundings of the upper-class Bologna of that time and it feels the
sale-rooms of the ancient seat more and more cramped.
The nights of the town
Also in the late 800s, Bologna doesn’t renounce to its own
night-wandering “vocation”, even if the night life
develops itself more behind the curtains of the cafés or the main
doors which announce the city clubs than in the streets and under the
arcades, full of arcane shadows. The theatres are yet rather rare,
whilst it is more and more established the café chantant (the
“variety theatre” in the Bolognese dimension), introduced
by the libertine Paris on the occasion of the Emilian exhibition of
1888.
Going out from the theatre, a minority of people, in a certain sense,
“distinguished”, enters into the cafés and beerhouses
which are more in vogue and there they have dinner. Others, otherwise
less distinguished, approach the seller of silkworms and rum under the
arcades and at the right angles of the streets and there poetise or
recite between one mouthful and another. Meantime, the agents of the
gas Society put out one lamp every two creating particular tricks of
light. The fiacres, real masters of the night, stand in front of the
clubs waiting for the client to walk home. The horses, covered by wool
bolts, doze and perhaps dream rich royal coaches.
Life of the Hunting Club flows quietly in the spirit of the tradition
and encompasses the spiritual and intimist features of the ancient
Bologna. Though in its habits, the Club is able to conjugate also the
modern purposes and it always tries to offer the best to its members,
more and more numerous, the best of the city nobility.
On 15th October 1894 the marquis Giovanni Salina Amorini . re-elected
as chairman on 5th May 1893 – enters into a purchase contract
with Mister Francesco Vignudini for a new billiard table with
following sizes: 2.84 meters of length and 1.42 meters of width. The
purchase price, included the accessories, is fixed in 1,400 lire
divided into six instalments, whose last one will be due on 15th April
1897. The billiard table is equipped with 12 billiard-cues, a hand
scoreboard, two ivory balls with a weight of 250 grams everyone, five
ivory balls with a total weight of 994 grams, eight ivory balls with
object ball for the snooker play of a total weight of 1,174 grams.
In the purchase contract they inserted following clause “the
Hunting Club intends to have power to give back the billiard table and
its accessories to the seller after the term of one year if it
estimates that it is not satisfied; in that case this contracts will
be rescinded and of no effect and the first instalment of lire 300
(three hundred) that will be paid on 15th December 1894 will be kept
by way of rental by Mister Vignudini, the Hunting Club remaining in
this way free from every other compulsion towards the seller. It is as
well convened that mister Vignudini will take the giving back of the
eight snooker play balls on application of the Hunting Club, on
condition that this doesn’t occur after next 10th November
– in that case they will deduct the amount of lire 60 (sixty)
from the billiard price, remaining so the agreed price at lire 1,340.
During the period from June 1893 – June 1894 the social rates
amount to 2,416 lire. In the same period the Club, in the person of
Giuseppe Succi, lawyer, takes out an insurance with Riunione Adriatica
di Sicurtà for a value of 4,500 lire. The billiard table is
insured except for the ivory for one year. From the meeting convened
on 5th May 1893 the new chairmanship of the Club emerges; it is so
composed:
Chairman: marquis Giovanni Salina Amorini
Vice-chairmain: Cesare Marchi
Treasurer: Gaetano Querzoli
Secretary: Giuseppe Succi, lawyer
Councillors : Angelo Goretti, knight Pellegrino Magistrini, Ernesto
Romagnoli.
The hunters
In 1889 the hunters of Bologna province are 3,388; other 60 shoot with
nets and with means tolerated by the law. The gun licence and the hunt
licence cost 12 lire. The hunt is officially opened on 1st August of
every year and it triggers an incredible sequence of game massacres
but mainly of sparrows, particularly damaging for the agricultural
products.
In the late 1800s, but even more in the first decades of 1900s, you
can say that every self-respecting person has a gun with which he goes
to delight close to home or away. At the same time, the Café dei
Cacciatori is ascended to shrine of the hunting: here they know the
vicissitudes but it is mainly possible to listen to stories of
astonishing feats (as bloated sometimes) and the tricks, visiting card
of every hunter.
When the Café dei Cacciatori succumbs to the building revolution,
its place is taken by the shop of the gunsmith Giacinto Zanotti, who
becomes the “senate” of the variegated hunting world.
We said that the Hunting Club emerges from a group of people, who are
passionate lovers of the cynegetics, or better the art to employ dogs
in the hunting, and of the hunting itself.
On 3rd April 1894 the members, convened into the meeting, decide to
found a section of skeet shooting together with the Bolognese Society
of pigeon skeet. Twenty members adhere immediately to the initiative
and vote also a rule divided into 14 points. As for it, the Bolognese
Society, convened into its own meeting, votes the fusion with the
prestigious Hunting Club with one voice.
All the members of the Club can join the new special section paying an
annual surcharge of 15 lire; the members of the Bolognese Society have
the run to the Club without paying the entrance fee but they are
obliged to abide scrupulously by the rules and the articles of the
statute. Also who is not member of the Club can adhere to the skeet
section paying an annual fee of 30 lire and an admission fee of 20
lire.
On 4th January 1895 the new presidencies are voted: the marquis
Giovanni Salina Amorini is re-elected as chairman with 19 voting
preferences and the engineer knight Cesare Marchi is also reconfirmed
in the post of vice-chairman.
The treasurer is doctor Alfedo Romagnoli; secretary is the lawyer
Giuseppe Succi and councillors are the knight Pellegrino Magistrini,
Angelo Goretti and Ernesto Romagnoli.
1895 is a rich year where two very important events for the Club life
are summed up: the reconfirmation of the chairmanship, a fact that can
only benefit and grant tranquillity to the Club itself and to its
members and the nth removal of the social seat.
The repeated removals report in an explicit way the success and the
achievement of an institution that in a handful of years became
natural with the Bolognese life and feature assuming not only the
aspects of a pure surface but living also an intimate city prestige.
Portrait
The marquis Giovanni Salina Amorini combined the rare qualities of
hunter and shot. As hunter he always trained in his valley La Cà
di Fra, under the Vallazza. Once he shot 204 head to the ducks; and it
is said that in a score of years he went one hundred head at least
beyond fifty times, among ducks and snipes.
In the game park of the marquis Carega, once he let fall down 60
pheasants and 10 hares. In the valley they counted also 416 teals for
him; in Foggia 1,077 larks. (Gaspare Ungarelli no. 11, Bologna
municipality, Y. XVII no. 6, June 1930).
The gentleman earl Cesare Malvasia - Tortorelli enters into a lease
contract with the marquis Giovanni Salina Amorini for a flat located
in the town, via Mazzini ,15, under the parish of S. Bartolomeo. The
contract has for the first time a duration above one year – in
fact it will end on 8th May 1901 – and it will be extended every
two years if “from one of the two sides is not extradited the
judicial or amicable notice within 31st October of the year previous
to that one fixed for the expiry and its extensions”. The annual
lease is fixed in 1,200 lire payable to the domicile of the lessor in
two instalments within 19th August and 24th December of every year.
The tenancy and management is ruled by following agreements “the
earl Cesare Malvasia wants the power to can rescind this contract even
before the age fixed for its expiry and its extensions, only in case
of selling of the leased building and providing that the new buyer
refuses to keep the Tenant Society among the tenants. Then in case
that this resolution has to occur, the earl Malvasia –
Tortorelli will be obliged to give notice of termination within 31st
October of the year previous to that one where the contract resolution
has to occur; meantime they obliged the Tenant Society to pay the
amount of 1,000 (thousand) lire by way of indemnity or reference
cleared every opposing exemption”.
“It remains specifically forbidden to the tenant to sublease or
cede to others whether entirely or partly this tenancy without
absolute and explicit written approval of the lessor… He has
however the power to sublease some premises to his domestic with his
family as warden of the same premises”.
“It is power of the tenant to make the gas and water duct as
well to adapt the premises as he likes, but he is obliged to give
written notice to the Lessor and if this last doesn’t approve
them, at the end of the tenancy the Tenant is obliged to give back the
same premises in the condition and form in which they lie”.
“The Tenant marquis Salina Amorini is obliged as chairman of the
Hunting Club to use and delight the above-named flat as upright and
good family man”.
“He will be obliged to put those shelters that the art and
practice advise in order to avoid failures to the underlying
premises”.
“Every year the Tenant will pay all the water consumed in his
flat directly to the Society in charge for Setta water main in
Bologna”.
A rich drawn map and coloured on silk is attached to the lease
contract and shows us how the new seat is.
It is a “flat at the first floor to which you gain access
through common stairs with other tenants and through back stairs of
strict and exclusive use of the Tenant; the back stairs, starting from
the arcade downstairs go upstairs till the second floor; this flat is
composed of no. 9 rooms and loo and terrace at the first floor; no. 4
rooms, a corridor, a loo and a barn at the second floor to which you
gain access through the second above said stairs, of no. 1 kitchen
complete with sink, no. 1 room in a mezzanine located along the above
mentioned stairs”. The main entrance door to the building in via
Mazzini 15 has to remain open till the closing time of the Club: the
closing will be carried out by the waiter of the Club providing that
the arcade and the stairs are lightened by the direction. On 2nd May
1902 the count Cesare Malvasia – Tortorelli concedes a tenancy
extension till 8th May of following year, date when the contract would
have ceased without any advance notice.
On 27th March 1927 the plenary meeting of the members is convened:
Gazzoni applies to the presents with these words: “I’m
sure that the members will be glad to be convened into the meeting in
the new premises of the Club. If the passage from the old to the new
ones brought you any discomforts you are then rewarded by the
unconfuted superiority of the new seat, by the perfect disposition of
the services and by the sunlight, which has here the profusion with
its shafts, to give off every angle of the stairs. Then I feel bound
to thank my dear assistants before you, commander Santi, doctor
Vanzini and the councillors on the whole, for the rendered work.
During the extraordinary meeting of the members summoned on 17th
December 1933 they voted the renewal of the lease contract of premises
and things: the property raises the annual share to 30,000 lire
instead of 25,350 paid till that time. The members declare themselves
in the negative for the increasing but they are also disposed to take
upon themselves the financial burden for the “arrangement
works” of the premises in view of the forthcoming fusion with
the Chess Club.
At no. 3 of the agenda there is in fact under discussion the admission
of a group of people who come from the undone Chess Club. The chairman
of the Hunting Club, doctor commander engineer Ugo Melloni, reveals to
the meeting that the members of that club entered into negotiations
with the executive in order to mediate a possible admission. After
many discussions, the meeting decides that the two directions take the
necessary agreements for the fusion of the two sodalities.
The conditions, taken on the nod, are following: every member of the
undone Club, instead of paying the individual admission fee, is
obliged to bring as “assent” to the Hunting Club,
furniture, credits or cash in addition to a stamped schedule of the
old direction.
The members admitted to the hunting Club are 62 and, received by a
warm applause, decree in the event the fusion of the two clubs as from
midnight of 15th June 1934.
Three months later the members are 311 included those ones of the
undone Chess Club who bring a financial contribution surely not
indifferent, in excess of 100,000 lire. The fusion makes sure that the
plenary meeting of the members votes the possibility to go against the
rigid rules that were unchanged since the founding.
The Club will open its sale-rooms to the families of the members twice
a year for dance feasts; at this aim some premises are transformed by
competent architects of that time, the biggest names of the sector, in
a sole big sale-room furnished in 900s style. Among many feasts and
receptions of honour those ones in honour of the duke of Genova and of
Umberto di Savoia remain memorable; this last asked specifically for
the chance to visit the Club premises.
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