Salvador Sartori

Salvatore Sartori, known in Brazil as Salvador Sartori (Vicenza, October 20, 1827 - Caxias do Sul, July 8, 1899) was an Italian politician and merchant who became a naturalized Brazilian.

After a successful career as a road contractor in Italy, he got into difficulties and decided to emigrate to Brazil. He was one of the founders of Caxias do Sul, made his fortune in commerce, was a Catholic leader, and became an influential politician. He was one of the founders of the directory of the Riograndense Republican Party, was nominated by the state government to be part of the first Governmental Board during the emancipation of the municipality, and later was elected to the first Municipal Council, participating in the elaboration of fundamental laws for the organization of the community. He gained prominence in local society and gave birth to a prolific line of descendants, with several notorious members.

Family & Past in Italy

Salvador Sartori, son of Angelo Sartori and Giacomina Toffolon, was born in Vicenza. His family line has long antiquity and was founded by members of the retinue of the Florentine bishop Andrea dei Mozzi. After being involved in a scandal that made Dante Alighieri put him in the Inferno of his Divine Comedy, but which today is the object of skepticism, the bishop was transferred to the vacant see of Vicenza in 1295. He was accompanied by a court of which the Sartori were a part, a group that received fief in the commune of Roana, one of the Seven Communes of the Vicentine plateau, and joined the nobility of Vicenza as vassals of successive local bishops. However, in the 17th century, the civic statutes of the commune of Vicenza were reformed, excluding families practicing mechanical trades such as commerce from the patriciate. The lumber trade was the main source of income for the Sartori, and since then, they are no longer mentioned as nobles in this commune.

His family left Vicenza when Sartori was still young, possibly because of the political, social, and military unrest of that time. By 1832, the family was already established in the commune of Cornuda, province of Treviso.

At the time of the foundation, when everything was improvised, the merchants, formerly called "traders", carried out several activities more diverse than simply buying and selling, including transport, savings and credit operations, functioning as incipient banking houses, besides often maintaining associated manufactures and industries; they could even have guest rooms in their establishments and set up bodegas and restaurants. From 1892 on, he was listed in the Industry and Professions Tax Registration Books as also owning a bodega and a butcher shop, and shortly afterwards he appears to own a tannery. There are also reports that he made shoes,

According to Costamilan, "forged in the crucible of daily struggle, he soon saw his name accepted within the community", He was co-founder of the first Chapel of San Pellegrino that, in the 1940s, gave place to a monumental church, and one of the founders and first leaders of the directory of the Riograndense Republican Party. After the former Caxias colony was emancipated to the condition of an autonomous municipality, on June 28, 1890, he was nominated by the State Government as a member of the Governmental Board, taking office on July 2 along with Angelo Chittolina and Ernesto Marsiaj. Official committee arriving from Porto Alegre, the state capital, for the installation of the Governmental Board of Caxias do Sul in 1890. João Spadari Adami Municipal Historical Archive.

Some transcriptions made by Adami of lost documentation allow us to know from the inside a little of Sartori's participation in public administration in those times when everything was to be done, showing the rulers interested in a variety of subjects.

Costamilan gives other information about Sartori:He was a somewhat reserved man, iron willed, balanced in his judgments and in his way of being. His figure was impressive and commanded respect, but deep down he was an understanding, soft-spoken father, an uncompromising defender of the religion he professed and of the principles of his formation. This is why it seems strange, at first sight, to link him to the eccentric behavior of his adult children, who were all cheerful, talkative, braggarts, and noisy, true artists of the stage art and certainly responsible for their father's white hair. All were accomplished singers and musicians, and five of them became, around 1893, full members of the historic Italian-Brazilian Band, [...] which for that reason came to be known as La Musica dei Sartori. But not to be out of line with an old saying, the circumspect father had a beautiful tenor voice, and besides doing choir with his sons, [...] he brightened up many religious festivals and concerts in old Caxias. Anyway, nobody could be sad around those people, because everything they did or said was a laughing matter; the boys' greatest hobby, whenever they had the opportunity, was to play tricks on their friends, and an encyclopedia could be written, if someone was willing, about the antics of that bunch of histrionics. The priest suffered an attack in 1897 by a gang of heavily armed hooded men, under the eyes of the population, who almost took his life, being very badly wounded. In 1898, Campos also claimed to have suffered an attack, which, however, according to Costamilan, must have been a staging, since there were no witnesses and the intendant did not suffer any damage. In any case, Campos accused the priest and his friends Salvador Sartori and Ambrosio Bonalume (Sartori's son-in-law) as the instigators. The accusation was vehemently refuted and does not seem to have received credit in the community. The situation only softened with the removal of the priest from Caxias by Bishop Cláudio Ponce de Leão. In 1925, his name was inscribed as one of the founders of the city in a Golden Book created by the Municipality. In the same year, in a large album published by the State Government in partnership with the Italian Government commemorating the 50 years of Italian immigration to Rio Grande do Sul, he was again celebrated as "one of the exponents of the foundation of Caxias," highlighting also his family, "egregiously linked to domestic affections and traditions and to the economic cooperation that is at the origins of the Pearl of the Colonies and contributes to create a history of amazing progress".

He was praised by several distinguished personalities of the city as a firm leader in the times of social, political, and military unrest at the end of the century, amidst the difficulties of settling the colony, the turmoil of the Federalist Revolution, and the settler revolts that marked the early history of Caxias do Sul. He was an honorable man and servant of the public cause, a patriot, one of the founders and one of the first organizers of the city, and today he baptizes a street. Mário Gardelin, one of the main local historians, in the second edition of his monumental Povoadores da Colônia Caxias (2002), written in partnership with Rovílio Costa, described him as "a personality of great importance in the life of Caxias", and regretted that such an illustrious figure has not yet been biographed. In the same year, during the solemn session that celebrated the 110th anniversary of the installation of the Legislative Power in Caxias do Sul, with the presence of a great number of authorities, a plaque reproducing the minutes of the installation of the first Council was unveiled at the City Hall, where his name and the names of the other first councilors of the city are inscribed.

Descendants

With Angela Zancaner, he had the following children:

Maria, considered by Costamilan a person ahead of her time, breaking many prejudices that hindered the women of her generation, Mary and John Paternoster were the parents of six children, most notably: Ida, socialite, female leader, honorary member of the Esporte Clube Juventude, one of the founders and first president of the cultural group Éden Juventudista, linked to the Recreio da Juventude, considered by Rigon "an avant-garde woman for her time" and "one of the most significant personalities in the history of Caxias do Sul"; Carolina, one of the founders and counselor of the Associação Damas de Caridade, a charitable entity of relevant trajectory, founder and maintainer of the Pompeia Hospital. She married Ambrosio Bonalume, a great wine industrialist, with descendants; Hermenegildo Pascoal, hotelier, one of the founders and president of the Clube Juvenil, one of the founders of the Recreio da Juventude and of the first cinema in the city; Atílio, member of the Italian-Brazilian Band, founding partner of the Apollo Theater, the most emblematic show house in the city, and later politician and coffee farmer in São Paulo. He was married to Egide Guerra, with descendants; Settimo, award-winning industrialist and founder of the city's first horseracing track. Married to Rosalba Maineri, with descendants; Alberto, member of the Italian-Brazilian Band, industrialist, one of the largest wine exporters in Caxias, owner of several hotels, lieutenant of the General Staff of the 85th Reserve Battalion of the National Guard, and sub-intendent in the 3rd District in 1932. Maria and Albertina Sartori, founding members of the Grêmio Feminino Republicano Liberal Evaristo Flores da Cunha, the first organized women's political center in the state; Paulo Pedro, one of the founders and president of the Associação dos Cronistas Esportivos de Porto Alegre, judge at the Sports Justice Court, editor of the newspapers Hoje and Jornal do Dia, president of the Federação Atlética Riograndense, vice-president and counselor of the Associação Riograndense de Imprensa, director of the Department of Inspection of Public Entertainment Services, a censorship agency during the dictatorship, and secretary-general of the Federação das Associações Comerciais, among other attributions; Guerino, member of the Italian-Brazilian Band, He married Santina Amoretti, one of the founders, treasurer, and counselor of the Associação Damas de Caridade, with descendants; Married Pasqua da Rè, no descendants; they were Ida Sartori Paternoster's foster parents; Luigi Angelo, of obscure life, married to Emma Araldi. He died early, with no known descendants;

Other descendants, "of the finest flower of Caxias do Sul society", as Costamilan said, appear frequently quoted in the different newspapers of the first decades of Caxias do Sul, standing out in the cultural, social, sports, and economic fields, and marking a leadership in the structuring and development of the city in its first fifty years, when the city, starting from scratch, became one of the main economies of the state.