Thursday 20 September 2012

Café Pedrocchi . Pádua.


Between 18 and 19th century, coffee consumption by the expanding bourgeoisie of Europe at public establishments expanded. In 1772 the Francesco Pedrocchi of Bergamo founded a successful "coffee shop" here, near the University, town hall, markets, post office and the square of the Noli (now Piazza Garibaldi), from were coaches left to nearby cities.
His son Antonio expanded the premises to cover the entire block. In 1826 Antonio Pedrocchi presents to the municipal authorities a project for the construction of a plant, including premises used for roasting coffee, and ice-making. He also asked Giuseppe Jappelli, engineer and architect already to redesign the premises. Jappelli had to integrate different buildings and facades into a single unit, creating a eclectic exterior of diverse facade. The interior has neoclassical elements.
The ground floor was completed in 1831, while in 1839, the Gothic pastry shop called "Pedrocchino" was built. During the "Fourth Congress of Italian Scientists" in 1842, the rooms of the upper floor were inagurated. Japelli collaborated with the engineer Bartolommeo Franceschini and the architect Giuseppe Petrelli, to whom we owe the merger of the balustrades of the terraces with the griffins. The painter Giovanni De Min, helped decorate the Greek room; Ippolito Caffi, the Roman room; Pietro Paoletti, the Pompeian room (or "Ercolana"); Vincenzo Gazzotto, painted the ceiling in the Renaissance Room.
Antonio Pedrocchi died on January 22, 1852, and left the enterprise to the son of an apprentice, Domenico Cappellato. On the death of Cappellato in 1891, the cafe was willed to the city of Padua. Cappellato spelled out that:
It is the solemn obligation and enduring to the city of Padua to preserve in perpetuity over the property, the use of the plant as is found today, seeking to promote and develop all those improvements that will be brought by the progress of time putting
— From testament Domenico Bruno Cappellato Pedrocchi















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