Vincenzo Florio

Vincenzo Florio Sr. (Bagnara Calabra, 4 April 1799 – Palermo, 11 September 1868) was an Italian entrepreneur and politician, member of the rich Florio economic dynasty, one of the wealthiest Sicilian families during the late 19th century.

Early life Vincenzo Florio was born in Bagnara Calabra on 4 April 1799 to Paolo Florio and Giuseppa Safflotti. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Palermo (Sicily), where his father opened a spice and drug store in Piazza San Giacomo La Marina. He received an excellent education, under the guidance of his uncle Ignazio, he learned art and the practice of business.

Florio's father died in 1807, when Vincenzo was eight years old. This bequeathed him his spice shop, which had become relatively prosperous. Since he was too young to manage it, his uncle Ignazio Florio, a former associate of his father, directed and managed in his place the administration of commerce, which was now called Ignazio & Vincenzo Florio. Gradually, the store became increasingly important and created a name for itself as the most famous spice shop in Palermo. The financial legacy of Vincenzo and his uncle tripled in the decade between 1807 and 1817. In 1829, Ignazio Florio died without descendants, and Vincenzo became the sole heir to the family shop.

Business career Vincenzo immediately set a much faster pace in the family business, considerably expanding the scope of his activities well beyond the drug and spice shop. In 1832, he established a factory of Marsala wine (Cantina Florio) in Marsala. His winery was in between the ones of John Woodhouse and Benjamin Ingham (1784–1861), the original British pioneers in the Marsala wine trade. Florio became the first Italian producer of Marsala wine. He built splendid cellars in the town's tuff rock in which to produce and conserve the wine.

Florio also invested in the emerging sulfur trade, mainly to the British Empire. In 1835, he set up a company for the exploitation of the Racalmuto mines with the owner, the widow of the Prince of Pantelleria; in 1839, he managed 26 sulfur mines under lease, including that of the Prince of Palagonia, which had just been discovered in Lercara. In 1840, he co-founded the Anglo-Sicilian Sulfur Company Limited in Palermo with Ingham – also engaged in Marsala wineries – and Agostino Porry, a French expert, for the production and marketing of sulfuric acid and sulfur derivatives in a factory specially built at the foot of Monte Pellegrino.

In politics

After the demise of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1861 and incorporation into the new Kingdom of Italy, Florio had to face the new political-economic context, especially as his relations with the past regime could have made the new Italian government less benevolent. Not that he was openly compromised, but his participation in the Sicilian revolution of 1848 had been lukewarm and conditioned by the concern to safeguard his assets and economic interests. At the time, he had refused, for lack of guarantees, a loan to the revolution for a supply of arms. However, the new rulers were more interested in establishing peaceful relations with the productive bourgeoisie of the new regions. He had married Giulia Portalupi from Milan, from whom he had two daughters, Angelina and Giuseppa, and a son, Ignazio Florio Sr. (1838–1891), who took over the management of the business empire of the family.