Andrea Perbacco Quattrin and Rosa Ros
Husband: Andrea “Perbacco” Quattrin
Birth: 1 Nov 1832, Zoppola, Friuli
Father: Osvaldo Quattrin Mother: Lucia Taurian
Death: 8 Jan 1923, Zoppola, Italy
No photo available
Wife: Rosa Ros
Birth: 2 Jan 1835, Castions, Friuli
Father: Andrea Ros Mother: Maria
Death: 18 Feb 1888, Zoppola, Italy
Marriage: 12 Feb 1853, Zoppola, Italy
Children: Teresa (1856-1934)
Giobatta (1858-1859)
Maria (1860-1945)
Luigia (1862-1926)
Anna (1864-1923)
Giovanni Battista (Tita) (1866-1945)
Osvaldo (1867-1924)
Angela-Lucia (1869-1921)
Massimiliano Augusto (1871-1954)
Pasquale Angelo (1873-)
Carolina Alessandrina (1878-1878)
No photo available
2nd Wife: Marianna Boschian
Birth: 29 Dec 1841, Zoppola, Friuli
Death: 26 Feb 1921, Zoppola, Italy
Marriage: 25 Jul 1889, Zoppola, Italy
The Quattrins come from the small farming town of Zoppola, Friuli, about six and a half miles due east of Pordenone and 56 miles northwest of Trieste. Pordenone comes from Latin Portus Naonis, meaning 'port on the Noncello (Latin Naon) River, and the town served as a riverport and export center for the area. Zoppola is probably best known for its castle. When exactly Castle Zoppola (Sopula, in the regional dialect) was built is unknown. According to http://www.pordenonewithlove.it/en/cosa-fare/cultura/architetture/castle-zoppola:
It was erected for defensive purposes near the watercourse of the Meduna river, probably around the year one thousand. Standing in a flat area, it was difficult to defend. That is why it had various defensive systems that were built right at the beginning, such as two moats, three circles of wall, gates, and towers. Since 1405, the manor was owned by the Panciera family [via the patriarch of Aquileia, Antonio Panciera, who later became cardinal], who had implemented some work to improve the wall and defensive structures. In 1567, Gerolamo da Porcia, a historian, describes it as a “castle with three moats, but almost no houses inside, except that of the magnificent lords, who dwell in the last circle of wall.”
The main front of the castle within the first moat that can be crossed by a bridge, appears to be quite impressive because it is quite long and high. There are plenty of decorative elements, including three balconies of the sixteenth century with round arches and stone balconies (one supported by corbels with lion heads) and a row of small wall arches and traces of frescoes along the line of eaves.
Birth: 1 Nov 1832, Zoppola, Friuli
Father: Osvaldo Quattrin Mother: Lucia Taurian
Death: 8 Jan 1923, Zoppola, Italy
No photo available
Wife: Rosa Ros
Birth: 2 Jan 1835, Castions, Friuli
Father: Andrea Ros Mother: Maria
Death: 18 Feb 1888, Zoppola, Italy
Marriage: 12 Feb 1853, Zoppola, Italy
Children: Teresa (1856-1934)
Giobatta (1858-1859)
Maria (1860-1945)
Luigia (1862-1926)
Anna (1864-1923)
Giovanni Battista (Tita) (1866-1945)
Osvaldo (1867-1924)
Angela-Lucia (1869-1921)
Massimiliano Augusto (1871-1954)
Pasquale Angelo (1873-)
Carolina Alessandrina (1878-1878)
No photo available
2nd Wife: Marianna Boschian
Birth: 29 Dec 1841, Zoppola, Friuli
Death: 26 Feb 1921, Zoppola, Italy
Marriage: 25 Jul 1889, Zoppola, Italy
The Quattrins come from the small farming town of Zoppola, Friuli, about six and a half miles due east of Pordenone and 56 miles northwest of Trieste. Pordenone comes from Latin Portus Naonis, meaning 'port on the Noncello (Latin Naon) River, and the town served as a riverport and export center for the area. Zoppola is probably best known for its castle. When exactly Castle Zoppola (Sopula, in the regional dialect) was built is unknown. According to http://www.pordenonewithlove.it/en/cosa-fare/cultura/architetture/castle-zoppola:
It was erected for defensive purposes near the watercourse of the Meduna river, probably around the year one thousand. Standing in a flat area, it was difficult to defend. That is why it had various defensive systems that were built right at the beginning, such as two moats, three circles of wall, gates, and towers. Since 1405, the manor was owned by the Panciera family [via the patriarch of Aquileia, Antonio Panciera, who later became cardinal], who had implemented some work to improve the wall and defensive structures. In 1567, Gerolamo da Porcia, a historian, describes it as a “castle with three moats, but almost no houses inside, except that of the magnificent lords, who dwell in the last circle of wall.”
The main front of the castle within the first moat that can be crossed by a bridge, appears to be quite impressive because it is quite long and high. There are plenty of decorative elements, including three balconies of the sixteenth century with round arches and stone balconies (one supported by corbels with lion heads) and a row of small wall arches and traces of frescoes along the line of eaves.
The origin of the Quattrin family name is that it comes from smallest Papal coin which was the quattrino, a derivative of the Roman quadrans. Supposedly, the first Quattrin came with the garrison that was sent to Zoppola by the Holy Roman Emperor to build and staff the new castle. The new lord’s tailor was a man named Kreutzer or Kreuzer (KROYT-ser), whose name came from the smallest German coin of the time. The tailor became Quattrin. The earliest reference to the Quattrin name was in a document from 1250 c.e. It is unknown how true this family story is, since the kreuzer does not seem to date that far back.
The family can be reliably traced through church records to Natale Quattrin, born in 1497 in Cervaja, one of the hamlets of Zoppola. His four-times-great grandson Guiseppe Quattrin (1657-1707) migrated from Castions to Ovoledo—where he was working lands owned by the Parish of Zoppola—to Zoppola, where he became a tenant to an unknown landlord.
Zoppola was primarily a farming community. The lowlands of Pordenone are characterized by an abundance of water and by the phenomenon of resurgence, or spring discharge. The groundwater then travels through a network of cracks and fissures—openings ranging from intergranular spaces to large caves. The water eventually emerges from below the surface, in the form of a karst spring. When Kevin traveled to Zoppola in 1978, he was surprised to see artesian waters bubbling up in almost every home’s yard 24 hours a day. The land is very fertile, and the wine particularly delicious.
As with most of Continental Europe, farming in Zoppola was different from farming in America in that it was—and still is—an open field system. In a closed field system like in America, farmers live on the farm they own or rent, and the life can be very isolated. Because of feudal land-ownership in Europe, European farmers tend to live in a central town and travel out to the fields during the day—that is, an open-field system. Though individual farmers now own the land (instead of the lord of the castle owning it), farmers still live with their families in the town. This creates stronger, more consistent social bonds beyond the family.
As far as we know, the Quattrins had been serfs or tenant farmers (mezzadria) for many generations, with little or no way to move out of their position in the Great Chain of Being. That began to change in 1797 with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Perbacco’s father Osvaldo was only 3 years old at the time. Napoleon swept through northern Italy, “freeing” the peasants and establishing a new order based on republican ideals. Local government and economic reforms took hold, giving Zoppola a mayor and a council of elders. Citizens of all social levels could own land and owed taxes. Initially, these new ideas did not take hold and were reverses after Napoleon left for his Egyptian Campaign and the Austrians reinvaded. As Nerio Petris wrote in his article From Fiefdom to Municipality: Zoppola in the Napoleonic Era in Zoppolani Quaderni,
The experience of the French occupation in 1797 had already shown how the arrival, following the French armies, of the principles of the Enlightenment and the Revolution clashed in Friuli with a particular reality, where there were many factors that played against the new social and economic theories of which Napoleon was the bearer. The reduced presence of an enlightened bourgeoisie, the resistance of the large landowners, the very psychology of the population, were all factors that contributed to the maintenance of a substantially feudal order in the Friulian countryside. From an administrative, legislative and, in part, also social point of view, however, the second French occupation set in motion evident dynamic processes.
These changes continued after Napoleon was gone the second time, in 1814. Perbacco’s elevation in society would be one result.
Andrea Quattrin was born on November 1, 1832. He was the fourth child and eldest son of Osvaldo Quattrin and Lucia Taurian. According to the usual naming traditions of the area, he should have been named Giovanni Battista, after his paternal grandfather. Since neither of his younger brothers received that name, it is possible he had an older brother who did not survive. There were gaps of four years between his older sisters. The name Andrea does not seem to be a Quattrin family name before him, so it may have come down in his mother’s family. He did had a grandson and a great-great-grandson named after him, so now it is a family name.
Andrea’s nickname—Perbacco —is an exclamation that literally means “For Bacchus!” Usually, it is translated as “Gosh!” or “Wow!” According to family lore, he often uttered the exclamation of wonder and disappointment “perbacco,” so it stuck as a nickname. Perbacco is also a kind of red wine that comes from the Piedmont region and is referred to as “feisty,” so some of his descendants in America incorrectly assumed his nickname had to do with wine.
Perbacco was baptized at the Church of San Martino di Vescovo, in Zoppola. St. Martin of Tours is the patron saint of Zoppola, and generations of Quattrins have been baptized, married, and buried there. The church was and is at the center of town physically, socially, and spiritually
The family can be reliably traced through church records to Natale Quattrin, born in 1497 in Cervaja, one of the hamlets of Zoppola. His four-times-great grandson Guiseppe Quattrin (1657-1707) migrated from Castions to Ovoledo—where he was working lands owned by the Parish of Zoppola—to Zoppola, where he became a tenant to an unknown landlord.
Zoppola was primarily a farming community. The lowlands of Pordenone are characterized by an abundance of water and by the phenomenon of resurgence, or spring discharge. The groundwater then travels through a network of cracks and fissures—openings ranging from intergranular spaces to large caves. The water eventually emerges from below the surface, in the form of a karst spring. When Kevin traveled to Zoppola in 1978, he was surprised to see artesian waters bubbling up in almost every home’s yard 24 hours a day. The land is very fertile, and the wine particularly delicious.
As with most of Continental Europe, farming in Zoppola was different from farming in America in that it was—and still is—an open field system. In a closed field system like in America, farmers live on the farm they own or rent, and the life can be very isolated. Because of feudal land-ownership in Europe, European farmers tend to live in a central town and travel out to the fields during the day—that is, an open-field system. Though individual farmers now own the land (instead of the lord of the castle owning it), farmers still live with their families in the town. This creates stronger, more consistent social bonds beyond the family.
As far as we know, the Quattrins had been serfs or tenant farmers (mezzadria) for many generations, with little or no way to move out of their position in the Great Chain of Being. That began to change in 1797 with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Perbacco’s father Osvaldo was only 3 years old at the time. Napoleon swept through northern Italy, “freeing” the peasants and establishing a new order based on republican ideals. Local government and economic reforms took hold, giving Zoppola a mayor and a council of elders. Citizens of all social levels could own land and owed taxes. Initially, these new ideas did not take hold and were reverses after Napoleon left for his Egyptian Campaign and the Austrians reinvaded. As Nerio Petris wrote in his article From Fiefdom to Municipality: Zoppola in the Napoleonic Era in Zoppolani Quaderni,
The experience of the French occupation in 1797 had already shown how the arrival, following the French armies, of the principles of the Enlightenment and the Revolution clashed in Friuli with a particular reality, where there were many factors that played against the new social and economic theories of which Napoleon was the bearer. The reduced presence of an enlightened bourgeoisie, the resistance of the large landowners, the very psychology of the population, were all factors that contributed to the maintenance of a substantially feudal order in the Friulian countryside. From an administrative, legislative and, in part, also social point of view, however, the second French occupation set in motion evident dynamic processes.
These changes continued after Napoleon was gone the second time, in 1814. Perbacco’s elevation in society would be one result.
Andrea Quattrin was born on November 1, 1832. He was the fourth child and eldest son of Osvaldo Quattrin and Lucia Taurian. According to the usual naming traditions of the area, he should have been named Giovanni Battista, after his paternal grandfather. Since neither of his younger brothers received that name, it is possible he had an older brother who did not survive. There were gaps of four years between his older sisters. The name Andrea does not seem to be a Quattrin family name before him, so it may have come down in his mother’s family. He did had a grandson and a great-great-grandson named after him, so now it is a family name.
Andrea’s nickname—Perbacco —is an exclamation that literally means “For Bacchus!” Usually, it is translated as “Gosh!” or “Wow!” According to family lore, he often uttered the exclamation of wonder and disappointment “perbacco,” so it stuck as a nickname. Perbacco is also a kind of red wine that comes from the Piedmont region and is referred to as “feisty,” so some of his descendants in America incorrectly assumed his nickname had to do with wine.
Perbacco was baptized at the Church of San Martino di Vescovo, in Zoppola. St. Martin of Tours is the patron saint of Zoppola, and generations of Quattrins have been baptized, married, and buried there. The church was and is at the center of town physically, socially, and spiritually
Perbacco was intelligent but not well-educated. He could read and write but only went to school for about three years of elementary education. This was not unusual at the time for tenant farmers. Their work in the fields was far more important to the family than education. His obligations at home became even more important in in 1845 when both his younger brothers died. He was only 13 and had become the last male child of the family.
Being an agrarian town, the daily and yearly life was based on the growing cycle. Each day began early with tending the animals, followed by working in the fields until lunchtime. Sons—and often daughters—worked the fields with their fathers. They returned home at noon for the leisurely lunch their mothers prepared. After an afternoon rest, they would return to the fields. Daughters would also learn housekeeping and culinary arts from their mother.
Daily life in Zoppola was inextricably intertwined with Church life. The Church bells created a rhythm to the day, and meals were timed to them. One of the stories passed down about Perbacco was that, when he lost his hearing later in life, his grandsons working with him in the fields would pretend they heard the noon bell while they were working in the fields and would kneel down to pray the Angelus. He would hitch the oxen to the cart and bring them all home for lunch, even though it was only 10 am.
The whole town would gather on Sunday mornings, though many of the men did not go to Mass. As Perbacco’s great-grandson John would say, “Women are supposed to go to mass to pray for the souls of their husbands. Their husbands are supposed to give them a reason to pray.” His granddaughter Palmira remembered that Perbacco taught her to smoke on the church steps after mass on Sundays.
In USÀNSIS VIA PAL ÀN, town historian Nerio Petris, whose mother was one of Perbacco’s great-granddaughters, collected stories of calendar customs from the elders of the community. There were dozens of Saints’ feast days as well as the high church holidays and days of obligation. There were processionals and rogations (chanting the litanies of the saints). Interestingly, many of the customs clearly predated Christianity and were likely Celtic in origin, like the building and lighting of bonfires with a wicker old woman on top, or the ritual of blessing the waters in the house to keep the Ròdia (local archaic term, probably a shortening of Herodias, the wife of Herod who demanded the head of John the Baptist) at bay. It was said that Ròdia could be heard growling and howling all night, frightening the people. The old beliefs were thinly disguised, and the Italian Inquisition was very active in the area in the 16th and 17th centuries hunting white witches who confessed to joining in The Night Battles, astral projections to an open field where they fought demons for the control of the souls of the townspeople.
After the Napoleonic period, Friuli had been re-incorporated into the Austrian possessions in Italy (a.k.a., the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia). In 1848, when Perbacco was 16, the Kingdom of Sardinia, centered at Piedmont, rose up in the First War of Italian Independence. Most of the fighting was in the regions of Milan and Venice. Austrian reinforcements did march through Friuli from Palmanova to Udine to Belluno, passing just north of Zoppola and Pordenone. Perbacco does not seem to have been drafted or enlisted, but he may have had soldiers billeted in his father’s house.
Perbacco married Rosa Ros in 1853. They had likely known each other their whole lives up to that point. Rosa was born on January 2, 1835, in Castions, a suburb of Zoppola. She was the fifth of the six children of Andrea Ros and Maria Boz. Her father and grandfather had been born in Orenico Inferiore, another nearby village, but the previous four generations were from Taiedo, a small village six miles due south of Zoppola near Azzano Decimo. They were peasant farmers as far back as 1636.
The couple were married on February 13, 1853. He was 21, and she was 18. It would not have been surprising if it were an arranged marriage, but it was definitely a good marriage. They had 11 children and stayed together until her death 25 years later. Their first child, a daughter named Teresa, was born in 1856. A son, Giovanni Battista (Tita), followed two years later. Another child was born roughly every two years until 1873. Then a surprise baby, Carolina Alessandrina, was born five years later in 1878, but she did not survive.
According to Nerio Petris, Perbacco’s father Osvaldo was a tenant farmer and trusted man of the Lotti family. The Lotti were the second largest landholders in Zoppola, after the Counts Panciera. They even had a small village bank and, in the past, had made their fortune giving loans for interest. A Catholic loaning money to another Catholic was not allowed during the Middle Ages and even by the 19th Century was seen as distasteful.
In 1859, the Second War for Italian Independence took place. Backed this time by the French army of Napoleon III, the Kingdom of Sardinia–Piedmont took advantage of Austria’s preoccupation with the growing strength of Prussia. From April to July, Austrian and Italian armies march through the region, commandeering food and billeting soldiers on the people. After several losses and facing a revolution in Hungary, Emperor Franz Joseph signed an armistice with Napoleon on July 11 at Villafranca. Milan and most of Lombardy-Venetia was ceded to the new Kingdom of Italy. Friuli would stay part of Austria for seven more years, but it finally became part of Italy in 1866.
The year 1859 was not a happy one for the Quattrins, though. Perbacco’s only son Giobatta died just five days after the armistice. He was only sixteen months old. A little over a month later, Perbacco’s father Osvaldo also died, leaving a doubly grieving, 27-year-old Perbacco as the man of the family, responsible for a wife and daughter, his aging mother, and two as-yet unmarried sisters. Farming did not seem to be enough to make ends meet.
Using his native wit and winning personality, Perbacco became a sensàr. This is a Friulian term meaning a mediator in the sale of land, buildings, animals, and other things between seller and buyer. (In later American parlance, he would have been called a fixer.) Undoubtedly, his relationship with the Lottis and their bank was important in these endeavors. One of his specialties was to sell quàdri (crisopon gryllus - chrysopogon gryllus), an herb with very deep and hard roots suitable for making brushes for laundry and for brushing the hair of cows and horses. Many rural people, especially the poorest, cut and collected these roots to sell to a travelling merchant from Ancona (a coastal town on the Adriatic) as a supplement their income. Perbacco brokered the deals. Over time, he managed to earn enough to buy some fields and a house of his own in Via Manzoni. (Today, one of his descendants, Danilo Quattrin, still lives in the house.)
The family began to grow. Rosa and Perbacco had nine more children after Teresa and Giobatta—six daughters and five sons, in total. Giobatta had not survived childhood, nor did their youngest daughter, Carolina, but most of the children married and lived to an advanced age. Their son Osvaldo became a priest—a great badge of honor for the family. He died in 1924. According to family lore, he either committed suicide or he was murdered by the Fascists for speaking against them from the pulpit.
By the mid 1870s, Perbacco and Rosa’s oldest child had married Angelo Ornella. Teresa was likely pregnant with her first child at the same time that her mother was pregnant with her last. There would be over 40 grandchildren born over the next 30 years. The first to carry the Quattrin name would be Giovanni Battista’s daughter Maria-Rosa, born in 1893. The first of Perbacco’s Quattrin grandsons would be named after him—Andrea Quattrin (1894-1958).
In 1885, Perbacco was elected to the town council as a substitute councilman / assessor. As can be seen in Book 10 of the series of books Quaderni Zoppolani, dedicated to the town published by the Commune di Zoppola, the 1885 list of Directors, executors and employees listed him as a contadino possidente, a peasant landowner.
Being an agrarian town, the daily and yearly life was based on the growing cycle. Each day began early with tending the animals, followed by working in the fields until lunchtime. Sons—and often daughters—worked the fields with their fathers. They returned home at noon for the leisurely lunch their mothers prepared. After an afternoon rest, they would return to the fields. Daughters would also learn housekeeping and culinary arts from their mother.
Daily life in Zoppola was inextricably intertwined with Church life. The Church bells created a rhythm to the day, and meals were timed to them. One of the stories passed down about Perbacco was that, when he lost his hearing later in life, his grandsons working with him in the fields would pretend they heard the noon bell while they were working in the fields and would kneel down to pray the Angelus. He would hitch the oxen to the cart and bring them all home for lunch, even though it was only 10 am.
The whole town would gather on Sunday mornings, though many of the men did not go to Mass. As Perbacco’s great-grandson John would say, “Women are supposed to go to mass to pray for the souls of their husbands. Their husbands are supposed to give them a reason to pray.” His granddaughter Palmira remembered that Perbacco taught her to smoke on the church steps after mass on Sundays.
In USÀNSIS VIA PAL ÀN, town historian Nerio Petris, whose mother was one of Perbacco’s great-granddaughters, collected stories of calendar customs from the elders of the community. There were dozens of Saints’ feast days as well as the high church holidays and days of obligation. There were processionals and rogations (chanting the litanies of the saints). Interestingly, many of the customs clearly predated Christianity and were likely Celtic in origin, like the building and lighting of bonfires with a wicker old woman on top, or the ritual of blessing the waters in the house to keep the Ròdia (local archaic term, probably a shortening of Herodias, the wife of Herod who demanded the head of John the Baptist) at bay. It was said that Ròdia could be heard growling and howling all night, frightening the people. The old beliefs were thinly disguised, and the Italian Inquisition was very active in the area in the 16th and 17th centuries hunting white witches who confessed to joining in The Night Battles, astral projections to an open field where they fought demons for the control of the souls of the townspeople.
After the Napoleonic period, Friuli had been re-incorporated into the Austrian possessions in Italy (a.k.a., the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia). In 1848, when Perbacco was 16, the Kingdom of Sardinia, centered at Piedmont, rose up in the First War of Italian Independence. Most of the fighting was in the regions of Milan and Venice. Austrian reinforcements did march through Friuli from Palmanova to Udine to Belluno, passing just north of Zoppola and Pordenone. Perbacco does not seem to have been drafted or enlisted, but he may have had soldiers billeted in his father’s house.
Perbacco married Rosa Ros in 1853. They had likely known each other their whole lives up to that point. Rosa was born on January 2, 1835, in Castions, a suburb of Zoppola. She was the fifth of the six children of Andrea Ros and Maria Boz. Her father and grandfather had been born in Orenico Inferiore, another nearby village, but the previous four generations were from Taiedo, a small village six miles due south of Zoppola near Azzano Decimo. They were peasant farmers as far back as 1636.
The couple were married on February 13, 1853. He was 21, and she was 18. It would not have been surprising if it were an arranged marriage, but it was definitely a good marriage. They had 11 children and stayed together until her death 25 years later. Their first child, a daughter named Teresa, was born in 1856. A son, Giovanni Battista (Tita), followed two years later. Another child was born roughly every two years until 1873. Then a surprise baby, Carolina Alessandrina, was born five years later in 1878, but she did not survive.
According to Nerio Petris, Perbacco’s father Osvaldo was a tenant farmer and trusted man of the Lotti family. The Lotti were the second largest landholders in Zoppola, after the Counts Panciera. They even had a small village bank and, in the past, had made their fortune giving loans for interest. A Catholic loaning money to another Catholic was not allowed during the Middle Ages and even by the 19th Century was seen as distasteful.
In 1859, the Second War for Italian Independence took place. Backed this time by the French army of Napoleon III, the Kingdom of Sardinia–Piedmont took advantage of Austria’s preoccupation with the growing strength of Prussia. From April to July, Austrian and Italian armies march through the region, commandeering food and billeting soldiers on the people. After several losses and facing a revolution in Hungary, Emperor Franz Joseph signed an armistice with Napoleon on July 11 at Villafranca. Milan and most of Lombardy-Venetia was ceded to the new Kingdom of Italy. Friuli would stay part of Austria for seven more years, but it finally became part of Italy in 1866.
The year 1859 was not a happy one for the Quattrins, though. Perbacco’s only son Giobatta died just five days after the armistice. He was only sixteen months old. A little over a month later, Perbacco’s father Osvaldo also died, leaving a doubly grieving, 27-year-old Perbacco as the man of the family, responsible for a wife and daughter, his aging mother, and two as-yet unmarried sisters. Farming did not seem to be enough to make ends meet.
Using his native wit and winning personality, Perbacco became a sensàr. This is a Friulian term meaning a mediator in the sale of land, buildings, animals, and other things between seller and buyer. (In later American parlance, he would have been called a fixer.) Undoubtedly, his relationship with the Lottis and their bank was important in these endeavors. One of his specialties was to sell quàdri (crisopon gryllus - chrysopogon gryllus), an herb with very deep and hard roots suitable for making brushes for laundry and for brushing the hair of cows and horses. Many rural people, especially the poorest, cut and collected these roots to sell to a travelling merchant from Ancona (a coastal town on the Adriatic) as a supplement their income. Perbacco brokered the deals. Over time, he managed to earn enough to buy some fields and a house of his own in Via Manzoni. (Today, one of his descendants, Danilo Quattrin, still lives in the house.)
The family began to grow. Rosa and Perbacco had nine more children after Teresa and Giobatta—six daughters and five sons, in total. Giobatta had not survived childhood, nor did their youngest daughter, Carolina, but most of the children married and lived to an advanced age. Their son Osvaldo became a priest—a great badge of honor for the family. He died in 1924. According to family lore, he either committed suicide or he was murdered by the Fascists for speaking against them from the pulpit.
By the mid 1870s, Perbacco and Rosa’s oldest child had married Angelo Ornella. Teresa was likely pregnant with her first child at the same time that her mother was pregnant with her last. There would be over 40 grandchildren born over the next 30 years. The first to carry the Quattrin name would be Giovanni Battista’s daughter Maria-Rosa, born in 1893. The first of Perbacco’s Quattrin grandsons would be named after him—Andrea Quattrin (1894-1958).
In 1885, Perbacco was elected to the town council as a substitute councilman / assessor. As can be seen in Book 10 of the series of books Quaderni Zoppolani, dedicated to the town published by the Commune di Zoppola, the 1885 list of Directors, executors and employees listed him as a contadino possidente, a peasant landowner.
The American branch of the family was always told Perbacco had been the mayor of Zoppola, but he never actually held the position. The mayor was usually Count Panciera, but apparently, as a nobleman, he did not speak with commoners. Perbacco was the sensàr between the Count and the people. The towns people considered him the de facto mayor. According to Nerio,
I believe that he acted as an intermediary between the needs of the ordinary people and the effective mayor (i.e. Count Camillo Panciera di Zoppola), collecting the questions and giving the answers after consulting his superior. Moreover, even today there are people who, once elected municipal councilors, pose as "mayor," taking it on to bring citizens' requests to the superior and then provide the answer. For this they come ironically and jokingly called “mayor,” especially if of small hamlets of the municipality, such as Ovoledo, Orcenico, Cusano, or Murlis.
It was noted in the Quaderni Zoppola that almost the entire thirty-year term of Mayor held by Count Camillo Pancieri was be punctuated by absences and proxies. He held many other public offices that were conferred on him, including those of provincial councilor for twenty years, three times president of the Province of Udine, president of the Provincial Labor Office, inspector of monuments and excavations for the district of Pordenone, member of the National History Deputation for Veneto-Friuli, etc. On a couple of occasions, he even resigned (due to fatigue and/or discontent), but, given his recognized authority and the good will on the part of the population, he was induced to resume his mandate. During some of the times he was out, Perbacco may indeed have been acting Mayor.
I believe that he acted as an intermediary between the needs of the ordinary people and the effective mayor (i.e. Count Camillo Panciera di Zoppola), collecting the questions and giving the answers after consulting his superior. Moreover, even today there are people who, once elected municipal councilors, pose as "mayor," taking it on to bring citizens' requests to the superior and then provide the answer. For this they come ironically and jokingly called “mayor,” especially if of small hamlets of the municipality, such as Ovoledo, Orcenico, Cusano, or Murlis.
It was noted in the Quaderni Zoppola that almost the entire thirty-year term of Mayor held by Count Camillo Pancieri was be punctuated by absences and proxies. He held many other public offices that were conferred on him, including those of provincial councilor for twenty years, three times president of the Province of Udine, president of the Provincial Labor Office, inspector of monuments and excavations for the district of Pordenone, member of the National History Deputation for Veneto-Friuli, etc. On a couple of occasions, he even resigned (due to fatigue and/or discontent), but, given his recognized authority and the good will on the part of the population, he was induced to resume his mandate. During some of the times he was out, Perbacco may indeed have been acting Mayor.
As noted above, Perbacco must have owned land in order to be a member of the town council. Above is a painting of the house he owned. Though rebuilt in 1936, it is currently at Via Manzoni 3, on a wedge of land between formed by Via Alessando Manzoni and Via Raffaello Sanzio. Perbaccco's great grandson Danilo Quattrin lives there.
Rosa died on February 18, 1888, at the age of 53. After 15 months alone, Perbacco remarried on July 25, 1889. His new wife was Marianna Boschian. Other than her name and the fact that she was born on December 29, 1841, little else is known about her for sure. Perbacco’s granddaughter Palmira Quattrin thought Marianna was mean, though.
Perbacco owned a fair amount of land later in life, but no one in the American branch of the family knew for sure how it had come into his possession. All that was known was that when Perbacco died, each of his sons inherited two houses, as well as fields to support their families. It turns out that the story of the source of the wealth centers around Giobatti Simòni. Some in the family thought Simòni died without children and left land to his boyhood friend Perbacco. That turned out not to be correct.
Giobatta Simòni was a native of San Giovanni di Casarsa and had resided in Murlis. His family origin may have come from Venice. In 1824, he came into the service of Count Giulio Panciera and his wife the noble Cecilia Flanginias. Simòni was likely a majordomo, or steward. Also on staff at the Castle was Don Luigi Biglia, a former abbot who came from the Garfagnana (an area near Lucca in Tuscany) following Napoleon. During that period, Count Panciera was often in Venice as a senator of the Serenissima (and then at the service of the Napoleonic state). It was rumored that the Countess had an ongoing affair with Biglia and that Simòni covered for his friend.
Simòni was given the nickname of Piuma de Gabana, which Nerio Petris explained as follows:
Piuma was “feather,” more or less in those years, and was a [word] to define a rogue or a rascal, while gabana indicated the cassock. He therefore was designated as the “rascal friend of Don Luigi Biglia.” They were a couple of gamblers similar to "the Cat and the Fox" in the tale of Pinocchio—dedicated to the good life, squandering, and embezzlement.
Upon the death, without heirs, of the Count and Countess, Biglia inherited a good part of the conspicuous patrimony of his mistress, but some bricciola (“crumbs”) also went to Simòni. There was the large orchard located at the back of the square of Zoppola, on the left side of Via Tomba (today Via Giardini), including some rustic houses, those [owned] today by Borile (formerly of the wives Angelina Ius), by Vio, by Durat “Stagnin”, by Tomasi (formerly Del Tedesco “Madiu”), by Bortolussi Culonto, and the one that Gio Batta Simoni [remodeled] inside (now owned by Quattrin). In addition, there were about twenty hectares of land in the Gravòt-Blàchis (now via Brentella), and other lands.
In the meantime, Simòni’s son was able to study by graduating in law and becoming a lawyer. The son was often in Venice, together with Biglia, leading (so it is said) a rather cheerful life (like their fathers), and attending the Casino, where, it is said, he got into debt. He hastily sold all his assets in Zoppola (it is said to cope with a gambling debt) and on April 2, 1904, he left with his wife and mother to Canisano (Cremona).
Here is where Perbacco comes into the story, as it was handed down orally in Nerio’s family.
In his youth, Perbacco was tenant of the Lotti, in Zoppola. He got busy integrating the activity of farmer with that of merchant (he traded in “paintings” 'roots for brushes' and more) and sensàr –a ‘mediator in the sale of land, buildings, animals and other things,’ succeeding in buying his own house and some land. One day (presumably in 1904), he recollected, the sale of Gio Batta Simòni’s assets was envisaged and [Simòni] offered it to the Lotti family through Perbacco. But the deal did not go through, due to a small difference between demand and offer. In the evening, Andrea retired to the house and did not give himself peace, continuing to grumble that a deal could not be screwed up for a few lire difference, when the price of the request alone was worth the buildings and appurtenances, and the land remained in surplus. Then his daughter-in-law Emilia Cecco [Pasquale’s wife], my great-grandmother and her favorite confidant, intervened and urged him to act on his own. "Ohh, perbacco ...” - Patriarch Andrea exclaimed turning to his children - s’i mi dèis coràgiu i la compran nù ..." “If the day gives me courage, then we can buy a little bit.” With the consent of his sons Giovanni, Massimiliano and Pasquale, he went to Seningallia, where he met a wealthy friend who, on trust, gave him the significant sum of ten thousand lire for the down payment, corresponding to about half of the value of the property. He bought the Simoni property himself, and with a subsequent series of splits and partial sales of the entire property, to partially repay the debt contracted, in a few years the entire obligations were met, arranging for his numerous heirs appropriately.
It was this late 19th century deal with Simoni that made Perbacco and his family financially sound for good, thanks to his skills and attitude as a self-made man. By 1891, Perbacco enough land that he was asked to sell or donate some to the local school district to build a new elementary school. The plot of land was described as "the gardens of Andrea Quattrin Perbacco, an area at the time facing the now-disappeared public road called Viola Coreana, connecting the current town hall with Via Giardini-Via Trieste." The district needed three to five perches. The land was worth 1000 lira per perch. This was deemed too expensive for the Comune and decided to put the school in the Castle.
Most of the stories passed down in the American branch about Perbacco had to do with when he was much older. His grandsons like to play tricks on him. They would send the priest to hear his confession when he did not request it. They would make noises outside the house at night to convince him that it was haunted. He would come back from the outhouse saying, “Damned bees!” because his grandson Giovannin (Zio Johnnie Quattrin) would put a pin on a stick and jab him in the butt when he was in there. They were probably just jealous, because apparently the young girls in town would take Perbacco to the stream and bath him.
Perbacco was 83 when war with the Austrian Empire broke out again. This war was unlike any before it. The goal was to cross the Isonso River and seize Trieste and the Istrian Peninsula. But beyond the Isonzo, the Italian Army had to fight a literal uphill battle, and this against machine gun nests and artillery placements. Perbacco’s grandsons were in the artillery, so they were spared the slaughter that the southern Italian infantry had to endure in frontal assaults. After two years and 11 failed attempts, they were getting ready for the 12th Battle of the Isonzo when the German army returned from the eastern front and attacked. The Italian troops were swept before them and Friuli was taken.
Zoppola was occupied for nearly a year. German soldiers (or Tedeschi, as they were known in Friulano) were billeted in the homes of the people. As elders and town councilmen, Perbacco and his son Tita had to put up officers. Tita’s daughter Palmira described the soldiers in her house:
They slept on the floors in the hallway, were dirty, and had lice. The family had to live in one bedroom as the officers took the others. The soldiers took everything they could lay their hands on, including old dresses that were intended to be handed down to the younger daughters. They took all the food they could find, and the children often went hungry.
After the Germans returned to the Western Front for a final assault on France, the Austrian Army was thrown back to the Isonso and Zoppola was free, but devastated. A year after the War ended, Perbacco’s first grandson and namesake returned gaunt and haggard from a year in an Albanian prisoner-of-war camp.
Perbacco’s second wife, Marianna, died on February 26, 1921. She was 79 years old. Perbacco survived two more years and died of old age on January 8, 1923. He was 90 years old.
Rosa died on February 18, 1888, at the age of 53. After 15 months alone, Perbacco remarried on July 25, 1889. His new wife was Marianna Boschian. Other than her name and the fact that she was born on December 29, 1841, little else is known about her for sure. Perbacco’s granddaughter Palmira Quattrin thought Marianna was mean, though.
Perbacco owned a fair amount of land later in life, but no one in the American branch of the family knew for sure how it had come into his possession. All that was known was that when Perbacco died, each of his sons inherited two houses, as well as fields to support their families. It turns out that the story of the source of the wealth centers around Giobatti Simòni. Some in the family thought Simòni died without children and left land to his boyhood friend Perbacco. That turned out not to be correct.
Giobatta Simòni was a native of San Giovanni di Casarsa and had resided in Murlis. His family origin may have come from Venice. In 1824, he came into the service of Count Giulio Panciera and his wife the noble Cecilia Flanginias. Simòni was likely a majordomo, or steward. Also on staff at the Castle was Don Luigi Biglia, a former abbot who came from the Garfagnana (an area near Lucca in Tuscany) following Napoleon. During that period, Count Panciera was often in Venice as a senator of the Serenissima (and then at the service of the Napoleonic state). It was rumored that the Countess had an ongoing affair with Biglia and that Simòni covered for his friend.
Simòni was given the nickname of Piuma de Gabana, which Nerio Petris explained as follows:
Piuma was “feather,” more or less in those years, and was a [word] to define a rogue or a rascal, while gabana indicated the cassock. He therefore was designated as the “rascal friend of Don Luigi Biglia.” They were a couple of gamblers similar to "the Cat and the Fox" in the tale of Pinocchio—dedicated to the good life, squandering, and embezzlement.
Upon the death, without heirs, of the Count and Countess, Biglia inherited a good part of the conspicuous patrimony of his mistress, but some bricciola (“crumbs”) also went to Simòni. There was the large orchard located at the back of the square of Zoppola, on the left side of Via Tomba (today Via Giardini), including some rustic houses, those [owned] today by Borile (formerly of the wives Angelina Ius), by Vio, by Durat “Stagnin”, by Tomasi (formerly Del Tedesco “Madiu”), by Bortolussi Culonto, and the one that Gio Batta Simoni [remodeled] inside (now owned by Quattrin). In addition, there were about twenty hectares of land in the Gravòt-Blàchis (now via Brentella), and other lands.
In the meantime, Simòni’s son was able to study by graduating in law and becoming a lawyer. The son was often in Venice, together with Biglia, leading (so it is said) a rather cheerful life (like their fathers), and attending the Casino, where, it is said, he got into debt. He hastily sold all his assets in Zoppola (it is said to cope with a gambling debt) and on April 2, 1904, he left with his wife and mother to Canisano (Cremona).
Here is where Perbacco comes into the story, as it was handed down orally in Nerio’s family.
In his youth, Perbacco was tenant of the Lotti, in Zoppola. He got busy integrating the activity of farmer with that of merchant (he traded in “paintings” 'roots for brushes' and more) and sensàr –a ‘mediator in the sale of land, buildings, animals and other things,’ succeeding in buying his own house and some land. One day (presumably in 1904), he recollected, the sale of Gio Batta Simòni’s assets was envisaged and [Simòni] offered it to the Lotti family through Perbacco. But the deal did not go through, due to a small difference between demand and offer. In the evening, Andrea retired to the house and did not give himself peace, continuing to grumble that a deal could not be screwed up for a few lire difference, when the price of the request alone was worth the buildings and appurtenances, and the land remained in surplus. Then his daughter-in-law Emilia Cecco [Pasquale’s wife], my great-grandmother and her favorite confidant, intervened and urged him to act on his own. "Ohh, perbacco ...” - Patriarch Andrea exclaimed turning to his children - s’i mi dèis coràgiu i la compran nù ..." “If the day gives me courage, then we can buy a little bit.” With the consent of his sons Giovanni, Massimiliano and Pasquale, he went to Seningallia, where he met a wealthy friend who, on trust, gave him the significant sum of ten thousand lire for the down payment, corresponding to about half of the value of the property. He bought the Simoni property himself, and with a subsequent series of splits and partial sales of the entire property, to partially repay the debt contracted, in a few years the entire obligations were met, arranging for his numerous heirs appropriately.
It was this late 19th century deal with Simoni that made Perbacco and his family financially sound for good, thanks to his skills and attitude as a self-made man. By 1891, Perbacco enough land that he was asked to sell or donate some to the local school district to build a new elementary school. The plot of land was described as "the gardens of Andrea Quattrin Perbacco, an area at the time facing the now-disappeared public road called Viola Coreana, connecting the current town hall with Via Giardini-Via Trieste." The district needed three to five perches. The land was worth 1000 lira per perch. This was deemed too expensive for the Comune and decided to put the school in the Castle.
Most of the stories passed down in the American branch about Perbacco had to do with when he was much older. His grandsons like to play tricks on him. They would send the priest to hear his confession when he did not request it. They would make noises outside the house at night to convince him that it was haunted. He would come back from the outhouse saying, “Damned bees!” because his grandson Giovannin (Zio Johnnie Quattrin) would put a pin on a stick and jab him in the butt when he was in there. They were probably just jealous, because apparently the young girls in town would take Perbacco to the stream and bath him.
Perbacco was 83 when war with the Austrian Empire broke out again. This war was unlike any before it. The goal was to cross the Isonso River and seize Trieste and the Istrian Peninsula. But beyond the Isonzo, the Italian Army had to fight a literal uphill battle, and this against machine gun nests and artillery placements. Perbacco’s grandsons were in the artillery, so they were spared the slaughter that the southern Italian infantry had to endure in frontal assaults. After two years and 11 failed attempts, they were getting ready for the 12th Battle of the Isonzo when the German army returned from the eastern front and attacked. The Italian troops were swept before them and Friuli was taken.
Zoppola was occupied for nearly a year. German soldiers (or Tedeschi, as they were known in Friulano) were billeted in the homes of the people. As elders and town councilmen, Perbacco and his son Tita had to put up officers. Tita’s daughter Palmira described the soldiers in her house:
They slept on the floors in the hallway, were dirty, and had lice. The family had to live in one bedroom as the officers took the others. The soldiers took everything they could lay their hands on, including old dresses that were intended to be handed down to the younger daughters. They took all the food they could find, and the children often went hungry.
After the Germans returned to the Western Front for a final assault on France, the Austrian Army was thrown back to the Isonso and Zoppola was free, but devastated. A year after the War ended, Perbacco’s first grandson and namesake returned gaunt and haggard from a year in an Albanian prisoner-of-war camp.
Perbacco’s second wife, Marianna, died on February 26, 1921. She was 79 years old. Perbacco survived two more years and died of old age on January 8, 1923. He was 90 years old.
Palmira Quattrin Zuffi recalled her grandfather when he was in his 80s and she was a child:
I remember when I was little: my grandfather Quattrin worked very hard in a courtyard, building stairs and steps, and he earned quite a bit of money — but he didn’t know how to save it. He loved wine very much; he’d spend his earnings drinking, though he was a fine craftsman. Everyone in town came to him, my Nonno, because he satisfied them all; he was a truly skilled artisan. But my grandmother used to scold him. Later, he grew older and a bit ill.
Perbacco had lived through the unification of Italy, the capture of Friuli from Austria-Hungary, the invention of the radio by Marconi, World War I and the occupation of Zoppola, and the rise of Fascism. He began life as a peasant tenant farmer, not much better than a Medieval serf, and died as landowner and respected elder of the town. At the age of 72, he took the aggressive financial leap from being a facilitator to being an active player in the real estate game by going into debt to buy the Simoni land and got out of debt by wheeling-and-dealing the properties. His eleven children gave him over 40 grandchildren, and they in turn, brought him many more great-grandchildren who would spread around the world from America and Canada to Argentina and Australia. Perbacco was the foundation upon which the Quattrin family was built. “Wow!” indeed.
I remember when I was little: my grandfather Quattrin worked very hard in a courtyard, building stairs and steps, and he earned quite a bit of money — but he didn’t know how to save it. He loved wine very much; he’d spend his earnings drinking, though he was a fine craftsman. Everyone in town came to him, my Nonno, because he satisfied them all; he was a truly skilled artisan. But my grandmother used to scold him. Later, he grew older and a bit ill.
Perbacco had lived through the unification of Italy, the capture of Friuli from Austria-Hungary, the invention of the radio by Marconi, World War I and the occupation of Zoppola, and the rise of Fascism. He began life as a peasant tenant farmer, not much better than a Medieval serf, and died as landowner and respected elder of the town. At the age of 72, he took the aggressive financial leap from being a facilitator to being an active player in the real estate game by going into debt to buy the Simoni land and got out of debt by wheeling-and-dealing the properties. His eleven children gave him over 40 grandchildren, and they in turn, brought him many more great-grandchildren who would spread around the world from America and Canada to Argentina and Australia. Perbacco was the foundation upon which the Quattrin family was built. “Wow!” indeed.
