Entrepreneur turned local water into a global export
Cesare
Mazzoni, a Milanese lawyer who founded the company that produces the world-famous
San Pellegrino mineral water, died in
1915 - 111 years ago today- in Milan.
The business
Mazzoni started, in the small spa town of San Pellegrino Terme, manufactured 1.5 million bottles of the beneficial water during
its first year of production in 1905 and went on to become a multimillion-pound
operation.
The son of
an English teacher, Mazzoni was born in Milan in 1862. He studied Law at the
university of Pavia, a course from which he graduated with full marks. He then
went to work for a railway company dealing with aspects of commercial law.
Mazzoni founded
the Società Anonima
delle Terme di San Pellegrino in 1899 and took over the running of the Hotel
Terme and Fonte Palazzolo company, and the Hotel Milano and Fonte Salaroli company, after
buying them from the local families who owned them.
He built
new spa facilities and employed the architect Romolo Squadrelli to design and
build a new water bottling plant in San Pellegrino, completed in what’s known
in Italy as Liberty style, also known as Art Nouveau style, between 1902 and
1904.
Within
a few years of opening the plant, the 60 people who Mazzoni employed there were
producing between four and five million bottles of the spa water annually to go
on sale.
Mazzoni
also founded the Val Brembana electric railway and joint stock company in 1904,
which built the Bergamo to San Giovanni Bianco railway line, and he founded the
Milanese Joint Stock Company for the Salami and Cheese industry of Milan in
1909.
He
became president of many companies in Val Brembana and Val Camonica and was
also an advisor to banks in the Bergamo area.
But Mazzoni
was suddenly taken ill in August 1915
and he died on August 21 that same year, aged just 53. He was buried in the Cimitero
Monumentale of Milan.
The
municipality of San Pellegrino officially recognised Mazzoni as un ‘cittadino
benemerito’, a ‘citizen of merit’, and in 1916 a street was
named after him near the area where the thermal establishments were located.
The reputation
of San Pellegrino water being good for people’s health dates back to medieval
times and by the early years of the 19th century, many noble people would
travel to the town to ‘take the water’ because it was believed to be beneficial.
Soon after
the company was founded in 1899 by Mazzoni, bottles of San Pelegrino water began
to be shipped overseas. With the opening of the thermal facilities at the
beginning of the 20th century, San Pellegrino started to thrive as a high-class
holiday resort, which attracted aristocrats from all over Europe.
Also designed
by Squadrelli, the Liberty style Grand Hotel and Casino of San Pellegrino were
opened in 1906 and they soon became popular haunts for international royalty
and politicians. Two Queens of Italy and other members of the Italian royal
family visited, along with famous people such as opera composer Pietro
Mascagni, army General Luigi Cadorna and film director Federico Fellini.
As
early as 1908, San Pellegrino water was being exported to Cairo, Calcutta,
Shanghai, the US, Brazil, Peru and Australia.
The
company was also the first to produce Aranciata, or orangeade, in the 1930s,
and they went on to produce sparkling drinks in other fruit flavours.
In 2010,
more than a billion bottles of San Pellegrino water and San Pellegrino fruit
beverages were sold in a single year.
The spa
town of San Pellegrino Terme is 24 kilometres north of the city of Bergamo and is a comune of Bergamo
province, located in the Val Brembana. The name San Pellegrino has now become
synonymous with its celebrated bottled aqua minerale, but for centuries it has
been a place people visited, hoping for a cure for their illnesses.
Leonardo da
Vinci is reputedly one of the visitors who has sampled San Pellegrino’s
‘miraculous waters’, which are believed to be particularly effective against
uric acid and kidney stones.
It is well worth
a visit to see the opulent Liberty-style architecture and to take a stroll
along the banks of the River Brembo, imagining what San Pellegrino must have
been like at the height of its popularity when it was frequented by royalty and
celebrities. Viale Cesare Mazzoni is situated near the Brembo river and the
thermal establishments.
