(A fascinating reading for anyone who loves the adventures of the American West)
Mike Homer, Italy’s Honorary Consul to Utah since 2008, is a historian among many other talents and has written several books on the American West and Mormonism. In 2007, the Mormon History Association awarded him the Steven Christensen Best Documentary Book Award for On the Way to Somewhere Else: European Sojourners in the Mormon West, 1834-1930 (see cover above). Today, I’m pleased to bring you a selection from this book about Italy’s first Consul in San Francisco.
(Historian and Italy’s Honorary Consul to Utah, Mike Homer)
In saying “the first Italian Consul in San Francisco” it should be noted that “Italian” is being used somewhat loosely, since Mr. Cipriani was in fact representing the Kingdom of Sardinia (see map below), whose capital was in Turin in the Piedmont. In other words, Mr. Cipriani was dispatched to San Francisco before the official unification of Italy in 1861.
Without further ado, here follows Mike’s guest post.
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During the nineteenth century many prominent Italian travelers visited the Far West. One of the earliest visitors was Leonetto Cipriani (1812-1888). Cipriani was born in Corsica but his family roots (like those of Napoleon Bonaparte) were in Tuscany. After the Battle of Waterloo the family returned to Tuscany where it established a successful mercantile business. Cipriani was eventually appointed by Grand Duke Leopold II to be governor of Livorno and in that capacity established relations with King Carlo Alberto (King of Sardinia) and Louis Napoleon (President of France).
After Victor Emmanuel became King of Sardinia he appointed Cipriani to be his first consul in San Francisco. Cipriani’s memoirs, which contain narratives of three separate journeys to California in 1851, 1853 and 1871, were published in1934. He recorded some very interesting encounters. In fact, the accounts of his two earliest journeys are the only central overland narrative written by an Italian. Throughout his travels he encountered local leaders and diplomats as well as other Italians. In Salt Lake City he met Brigham Young and other members of the Mormon hierarchy, with whom he established good relations, as well as an Italian musician named Gennaro Capone. In San Francisco, he was introduced to the French and Austrian Consuls as well as Nicola Lauro who he described as “the richest Italian merchant in the city” and his cousin Ottavio Cipriani. He also describes how he assembled his elegant prefabricated home in Belmont, the first of consequence on the San Francisco peninsula, later to become the Ralston mansion.
His memoirs Avventure della mia vita (pictured above) were published more than forty-five years after his death and were based on a manuscript that is still located in Bastia, Corsica in the original sea chest that he used during his travels. These memoirs were first translated into English by Ernest Falbo and published as California and Overland Diaries of Count Leonetto Cipriani from 1853 through 1871 (Portland, OR: The Champoeg Press, 1962). More recently I had the honor to examine the Cipriani archives in Bastia, Corsica. I included excerpts from Cipriani’s account in my documentary history of European travelers (including other prominent Italians) who visited Utah entitled “On the Way to Somewhere Else” (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2010) which is still in print. You can buy it by clicking here. Buona lettura!