As a child, Beppo was the first to receive a broader education than his parents, which had to be limited. Bernardo realised that the ‘school of experience’ alone, although very important, was no longer enough to run a real business, a more appropriate education was needed and so he spared no expense: in 1851, his eldest son left for a Swiss boarding school, the Institut Hüni in Horgen, in the canton of Zurich, which provided professional training. From that period, Giuseppe’s archive preserves, among other things, several ‘cartes d’amitié‘, which were very much in use at the time: the boys had a ‘silhouette’ (a picture that renders only the outline of the profile, usually black on white) made by street artists or those who asked for little money, which they then gave to friends and schoolmates with a few lines of dedication. Looking at them, young Giuseppe’s friends and classmates appear before our eyes, tall and short, thin and round, with a camouflaged or French nose, invisible in features but recognisable in figure, giving us a thread of his life as a student far from home.
Sources:
Albiate (MB), Villa San Valerio, Villa San Valerio Archives, Giuseppe Caprotti Factory Archives, Giuseppe Caprotti Archives (1837-1895).
Bibliography:
G. CAPROTTI, “Le Ossa dei Caprotti. Una storia italiana’, Milan, 2024/3.
R. ROMANO, “I Caprotti. L’avventura economica e umana di una dinastia industriale della Brianza”, Milan, 1980.
A. CAFLISCH, “Die ersten hundert Jahre”, in “Horgner Jahrheft 1988. 150 Jahre Oberstufe’, pp. 3-10; p. 4.
G. CAPROTTI, ‘The Caprottis and relatives: the formidable Aunt Virginia, sister of great-great-grandfather Giuseppe‘, 26/10/2024.
