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,Terza, Dante della. "The Canto of Brunetto Latini". In: Mandelbaum, Allen; Oldcorn, Anthony & Ross, Charles. Lectura Dantis: Inferno: A Canto-by-Canto Commentary. University of California Press, 1999, pp. 197-212 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.Peck, Fanny Morton. “A Roman Consul of the Nineteenth Century”. In: United States Catholic Historic Society. Historical Records and Studies, 1919; 13
By 1500, the family had already acquired prominence and large holdings in the region, and had been added to the patriciate, the civic nobility of Vicenza. From the core of the Seven Communes and Vicenza, the Sartori produced vast descendants, joining the patriciate of several Veneto communes, and giving many notable members. 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.
Not much is known about Salvador Sartori's life before he arrived in Brazil, and even there his story is poorly documented. The press was still incipient in the city, and the documentation of the City Council, of which he was a part, precisely the one referring to the period in which he was active, was mostly lost in a fire.
His family left Vicenza when Sartori was still young, possibly because of the political, social, and military unrest of that time. From the Napoleonic invasion in 1797, the commune spent a long period afflicted by war, popular revolts, and tyrannical governments. By 1832, the family was already established in the commune of Cornuda, province of Treviso. In 1854, Sartori married Angela Zancaner, who would give him eleven children: Ludovico, Lino, Amalia, Carolina, Maria, Luigi, Alberto, Massimo, Guerino, Settimo, and Attilio, who was born in Brazil. According to memories preserved by his great-grandson Ludovico Beretta Sartori, Salvador was a partner in a contractor specializing in road construction, but for some reason, his partner in the business came into conflict with the Cornuda authorities, damaging his interests. Faced with an adverse situation and seduced by a misleading propaganda of the Italian colonization agents in Brazil, who promised him great facilities in the New World, he sold all his assets and investments, which were still significant, and decided to seek a new life in America.
Life in Brazil
Salvador arrived in Caxias do Sul on February 20, 1879, during the great immigration wave at the end of the 19th century, taking part in the founding work of the city. When he arrived, there were no more lots available in the urban center, so he first settled in Travessão Umberto I da Sexta Légua, along with other family members. However, with the resources Salvador brought with him, in a few years he set up a large business in the Dante Alighieri square, the center of the emerging settlement, where he started to live. By 1883 he is already cited as the owner of a "business" and a bakery.
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, kept a troop of mules to transport goods for himself and others between Caxias and the trading post of São Sebastião do Caí - from where they were shipped to the capital Porto Alegre -, and was apparently a wine producer. The article by his granddaughter Graciema Paternoster, published in the Pioneiro newspaper, illustrates the profile of this business at the beginning of the 20th century, when it had already been inherited by Sartori's children: "My aunt and uncle Sartori's house was everything. Because it was coffee there, it had a coffee hall with the billiard room, hall for playing cards, drinking, it had farms, with all the quality of a farm. Then it had a very big display case, it looks like you can see it now, a display case that you pushed back and forth, full of silk scarves that you used to put on your head, those necklaces..."
According to Costamilan, "forged in the crucible of daily struggle, he soon saw his name accepted within the community", becoming a leader in religion and politics. He was co-founder of the first Chapel of San Pellegrino that, in the 1940s, gave place to a monumental church, a member of the construction commission of the first Mother 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.
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. As an example, here follows one of the first letters issued by the Board, number 8:Citizen.
At this time all the annual taxes that are easily collected have already been collected by the Municipal Government of São Sebastião do Caí, throughout this new municipality; however, this Government lacks the prompt and precise importance of repairing the Municipal Palace and attending to the most urgent repairs that several streets and the General Road, almost impassable, require. It could resort to credit or to collecting the taxes and fines due, but it is repugnant to it to begin its functions by vexing its fellow citizens, even though it does so in the fulfillment of a duty. So, it decides to ask for your approval for the resolution it has taken to exempt from that fine everyone who, within 30 days from today, voluntarily satisfies their debts. And since this deadline cannot be used by the residents of the outskirts of the municipality, the same administration wishes to extend it for another 30 days, and asks you to do so.
Health and Fraternity.
Municipal Government of Caxias, July 3, 1890.
To the citizen General of Division Cândido Costa, honorable Governor of the State.
Signed by Ernesto Marsiaj, Angelo Chittolina, Salvador Sartori.
This letter already points out one of the main problems faced by the newly installed government. As soon as the emancipation of the town of Caxias took place, the new municipality found itself completely deprived of funds, and the solution found was the immediate collection of the taxes due and the late fines. This displeased the population, since most settlers took time to stabilize their economic situation, leading many of them to end up losing their land due to their inability to fulfill their legal obligations. The situation remained complicated for several years, since, at that time, the authorities of the Land Commission, an organ of the imperial government that organized the colonizing process of the municipality of São Sebastião do Caí, of which the Caxias colony was part as a district before gaining independence, and of the village itself, still overlapped their attributions confusingly; in practice, the settlers started paying double taxes. As a result, serious friction arose between the public authorities and the settlers, which, added to other political disputes that simmered, derived from rivalries between Masons and Catholics and others that the immigrants had brought from Italy, convulsed by a difficult unification process, contributed to disrupt everyone's lives and made the actions of the Board and the Council often conflictive, if not impossible.Memory Center of the City Hall of Caxias do Sul. [Onzi, Geni Salete (org.)]. Palavra e Poder: 120 anos do Poder Legislativo em Caxias do Sul. Caxias do Sul: Ed. São Miguel, 2012
Another illustrative letter is No. 19, also in Adami's transcript:Citizen.
In a municipality as vast as this one, and so distant from the center, inhabited mostly by poor farmers, as you've seen, a single pharmacy is an evil: it's authorizing the monopoly, it's putting the citizen in the alternative of using medicines manipulated by someone who doesn't deserve his trust, and paying for them ten times their value, or seeing the sick person who is dear to him die for lack of medicinal resources.
The skillful pharmacist Hugo Ronca, who enjoys general and entire confidence, has twice applied to the General Inspectorate of Hygiene for a license to open a pharmacy in this municipality and was denied on the pretext that there is already a licensee there; but if this licensee does not satisfy those in need of medicinal resources, who will they turn to?
This Intendency, in the sole interest of its citizens, is concerned with the matter and is asking for your interference so that this license may be granted.
Health and Fraternity.
Municipal Government of Caxias, September 20, 1890.
To the citizen General of Division Cândido Costa, honorable Governor of the State.
Signed by Ernesto Marsiaj, Angelo Chittolina, Salvador Sartori.On February 13, 1891, Salvador asked to be relieved of his duties on the Board, and on October 20 of the same year, he was elected to the first City Council, taking office on December 15 and remaining in office until September 1896. However, political unrest continued, and on June 25, 1892, the second Revolt of the Settlers broke out, which deposed the council and took over the command of the municipality. On July 5, after intervention by the State Government, the Council reassumed control, but it was not until September 26 that the solemn and definitive reinstallation took place.