History of the surname Zappoli
The origin of the surname Zappoli is linked to one family: in fact, it seems that all the Zappolis are relatives and that most of them descend directly from Domenico De' Giorgi called Zapoli, born in Labante (BO) at the end of the 15th century.
Originally the family was called De’ Giorgi and its members were called Zapoli, then Zapoli and eventually Zappoli. The nickname Zapoli, which in the end became Zappoli, seems to come from the misspelling of the name Giovanpaolo which was written with an initial Z and pronounced in Bolognese dialect Zanpol and then Zapol, italianized in Zapolo.
There isn‘t any link between the surname Zappoli and the town of Zappolino in Castello di Serravalle, province of Bologna, near Bazzano.
The Zappolis were all small landowners: there is almost always a will or buying and selling deeds (see Zappoli: the first filed documents), except for Angelo Zappoli who was a shoemaker.
The Zappolis, therefore are not highborn: some of them were notaries, but from secondary branches compared to those of the present Zappoli Thyrion.
The most renowned personality with the Zappoli surname is Agamennone, born in Bologna in 1810. He was a lawyer. He was also a passionate patriot, as he took part to the revolutionary day of the 8th August 1848 and on the wave of the enthusiasm, also wrote a tragedy titled "Bologna liberata dagli Austriaci” (Bologna freed from the Austrians”, represented only once. To Agamennone Zappoli was entitled a road near Piazza VIII Agosto in Bologna.
The coat of arms
The family coat of arms representing a small tree and a dove, is kept in the notary seals, filed in the Bologna State Archives, numbers 58 and 87 by the notary Giovanni Pellegrino Zappoli ( who worked from 1746 to 1788) and the notary Andrea Zappoli (who worked from 1769 to 1802). There is also another coat of arms (alike the other two) sketched by hand by an unknown person (probably in 1600), included in the book “Blasone bolognese” and kept in the Bologna State Archives.
History of the surname Zappoli
“I think that I'm accidentally outlining the characters so dear to me without originality, but believe me, my dear old men were very simple people in habits and costumes and it would be a pity to complicate them” (Federico Zappoli).
The information is taken from the volume written by Paolo Zappoli Thyrion (18/10/1923) and in particular from the memories dictated by Federico Zappoli (1902-1932) to his wife Giorgina Bidone during his convalescence in Davos (Switzerland).
The Zappoli family
Angelo Zappoli, son of Domenico Zappoli and Maria Lollini, was born in San Pietro di Roffeno on the 8th March 1798. He lived in a suburb called “La Quercia” (località Gardeletta) and he was a shoemaker. As well as work, in “La Quercia” Angelo found love: in fact, in 1837 he married Anna Monari. From the marriage between Angelo Zappoli and Anna Monari three children are born: Federico, Enrico and Clementina Zappoli. In Federico’s letters, Anna Monari is described as a ”very small woman, not beautiful, but with very lively eyes, with a strong and independent character and very active". An example of her determination can be found in the fact that when the godfathers of her sons wanted to impose the names Romano and Domenico, she took position against them. An even more important decision was taken when Federico and Enrico were teenagers: Anna, going against the grain, decided to send the boys to Bologna to offer them a better future.
Federico says: “…the far city represented to people from the mountains a place of dangers and vices. However, she trusted her sons and the boys didn’t fear unexpected events.[…] Federico was 16 and Enrico 14 years old. I talked with some old men of the “La Quercia” who still remembered the disapproval of everybody against Nina for deciding to send the sons to the city and predicted that, left alone, the boys would have become slackers or worse.Of course it must have been a very sad parting".
At the beginning in Bologna, Federico worked as a shop boy in a delicatessen shop and Enrico worked at the Vignoli tailor’s shop. Both lived at their owner’s house, with no particular comforts. This dark period of work lasted about 5 years. Later the Zappoli brothers had a stroke of luck, as an uncle (brother of their father Angelo Zappoli) at his death left all his belongings to his nephews Federico and Enrico, who inherited a fortune.
Therefore, the two boys had the opportunity to open their own shop: they rented a workshop in the centre of Bologna (at the corner of the two streets Ugo Bassi and Nazario Sauro) and they opened their own delicatessen shop.
The changing fortunes of the Zappoli brothers work
The working period of the Zappoli brothers can be divided in three phases:
Salumeria Zappoli: the artisan fase
1872-1882: it is a favourable period for the Zappoli brothers, who with initiative make their activity grow.
The letters’ author describes the shop of the Zappoli bothers:
The two young men launched a shop full of innovations: large floodlit displays, clean marble counters, clean white jackets for themselves and last (it seems nothing, but it impressed people and aroused interest) the items were displayed in elegant packages with coloured waterproof papers, so that when people purchased something, they could go around with their package and no one would think it might contain food.To all of this their courtesy and pleasantness was added.
In years, the delicatessen shop enlarged more and more, until it became a big factory.
Later Federico opened another shop in via D'Azeglio with the same features and a large workshop.
The industrial phase: from the salumeria to the Great Factory of the Zappoli brothers
1882- 1904: this twenty years are tragic because we assist to the uninterrupted growth and then the fast fall of the delicatessen factory of the Zappoli brothers.
In 1884 their shop went from being an artisan shop to an industrial shop with the building of a factory based on the project of the engineer Filippo Buriani, “after buying some lands bordered roughly by via Silvani, Saffi, S. Pio, Via Malvasia”.
By the end of the century the delicatessen factory, that had been until then a society between the two brothers Federico and Enrico Zappoli, was transformed in “Industria Salumiera Bolognese Fratelli Zappoli società in accomandita per azioni (Partnerships Limited by Shares): it was done in order to find capitals for the growing number of shares, capitals that arrived from different people also not from Bologna. Much of what was produced was exported, and pigs were bought even in Serbia where Federico had been several times.
Later events, the growth and the diversification of the group born thanks to the will of the Zappolis are part of the Bolognese and Italian history.