Financial Stability

As the Someda de Chiaromonte gradually lost possession and the various rights to the Trapp estate and the lordship of Caldonazzo, some members of the family explored other possible business and investment opportunities. They had the capital to venture because of their steady income from their successful military careers. Ottavio's son Ferdinando decided to expand the family forest and joint-stock company with the purchase of a vitriol company in September 1650. Investing in vitriol was a very wise strategy, because it combined a valuable wood preservative product with raw timber, creating an enterprise that eliminated the middleman. While the strategy was good, the actual earnings potential must have been questionable, or the vitriol company was considered a risky investment. Unfortunately it isn't known whether Ferdinando purchased an already established business or bought one which was floundering, because Ferdinandos brother Giulio Cesare made a sizable investment in April 1651 in the vitriol company, probably savings from his imperial captain's salary. Either the company went bankrupt or to try to make the company profitable was futile, because only two years later Ferdinando and Giulio Cesare closed its doors.^[47]

 

The simultaneous loss of the vitriol company and loss of possession and rights to the Magnifica Corte di Caldonazzo and to the lordship of Caldonazzo was detrimental to the Someda forest and joint-stock company, because the brothers found themselves paying large sums of money or selling acreage, both of which were needed to maintain their timber business. Debts and interest finally consumed Giulio Cesare's purse, forcing him to sell acreage to various individuals, including the noble Giorgio Althamer, husband of Giulio's aunt Ottavia Caterina. The liquidation of the family assets did not occur suddenly, but over a span of eight years, from 1658 to 1666.^[48]

 

 

 

The need to sell some land to meet debts is not necessarily a result of over extension on the part of the Someda. The times had changed once again, and Giulio Cesare was caught in the midst of it. The Treaty of Westphalia had only ended the Thirty Years War ten years earlier in 1648. Although Tyrol was originally not subject to service under the imperial crown because of the Landlibell of 1511, the Archduchess Claudia reformed the Landlibell in 1636 with the Landt-Militia-Reformationslibell, ordering the creation of the first truly organized Tyrolean militia. This was very likely in direct response to the most recent threat to German and Habsburg security, the alliances King Louis XIII of France and his advisor Cardinal Richelieu had made with Savoy, Parma, and Mantua. Members from all four Estates of Tyrol willingly joined the militia. This is probably when Giulio Cesare and Ferdinando began their rise through the ranks of the imperial military. Once the Thirty Years War ended, the military of Tyrol only naturally reduced in size, as fewer officers and soldiers were needed, and this most likely included the two Someda brothers. The six to twelve years of military service brought steady income to the Someda family. The Someda brothers attempted to make use of their military fortunes and return to their old family business, investing in vitriol. Approximately when the Someda began borrowing to finance their entrepreneurial endeavors is impossible to place, but the grace periods for the debts were probably thought to have been sufficient time by Giulio Cesare and Ferdinand to build the fortune needed to pay off the debts without much hassle. They were after all still in their prime and could put in the amount of effort required to build up fortunes and distinguish themselves. But misfortune intervened and forced the brothers to slowly sell off their lands, which their family had acquired in the course of 130 years.

 

By 1666, Ferdinand was in his mid fifties, and Giulio Cesare in his mid forties. Neither had married, and neither had children. Ferdinand never married, but retired with his brother to the Palazzo Someda. Giulio Cesare opened a pharmaceutical business^[49] and about five years later married Lucia Galeazzi, by whom he had six children, of whom two reached adulthood.^[50] Giulio Cesare died, however, in 1680,^[51] at only 59 years of age, leaving his widow with at least three children under the age of four in the large palazzo and a business to run. There were also the remaining debts left by Giulio Cesare to be paid. Creditors were unrelenting, perhaps because of Giulio Cesare's nobility and his heirs lived in a palazzo. By 1686, forester Bernardo Bertoldi of Belluno, in the name of creditors, had taken possession of the Palazzo as collateral for the debts. However, there is evidence suggesting Lucia and her children retained the right to reside on the estate, an act of charity from Bernardo Bertoldi, because following the death of Giulio Cesare, his family was reduced to commoner status, having lost their title, rank, and privileges as a result of loss of property and fortune, two standards which defined the noble class.^[52]

 

Lucia Galeazzi was not of noble descent. The only certain fact about her is that she married Giulio Cesare and bore his children. Their children were born between 1672 and 1679,^[53] which means Lucia was quite a few years her husband's junior. She was between 18 and 25 in 1672, when Giulio Cesare was 51. This places her anywhere between 26 and 32 in 1680, when she became a widow with three small children. Rearing three children as a widowed mother could hardly have been easy, especially when one is left with nearly nothing. The situation seems only to have worsened by 1686, which seems to reflect the lack of support from her own family, if any were alive. Since there is no mention of Lucia's parents in the marriage register, it can be concluded that either she wasn't of Fiera di Primiero, or she was an orphan in foster care. Whatever the situation, it is probably safe to assume that Lucia Galeazzi did not have the connections that Baroness Maria Anna Trapp had. If she had had similar connections, not to use them to maintain or improve her living conditions seems unlikely, especially as a widowed mother.

The real economic situation the Someda faced in 1700 would be answered if the owner of the Palazzo Someda was known. In 1700, Giulio Cesare and Lucia's two surviving children, Elisabeth and Ferdinando Carlo, were 22 and 23, respectively. Elisabeth had just married local pharmacist Giovanni della Giacomo in 1699, so in 1700, as the head of the family, Ferdinando Carlo had to only support himself and his mother. It is possible that Ferdinando Carlo paid off some of the debt while serving as an apprentice to those still owed. If this was the case, he could have spent perhaps as many as thirteen years in the service of creditors, in which case he may have purchased back some of the palazzo. Knowing whether Ferdinando Carlo did manage to gain co-ownership of the estate is important, because in 1700 his mother, and himself moved out of the Palazzo Someda into more affordable housing in Fiera di Primiero. In the event that Ferdinando Carlo owned a portion of the palazzo, he would have been able to sell his portion back to the creditor for Guldiner. If Ferdinando Carlo did not own any part of the palazzo, the Someda family would have been penniless with no other choice but to live in a loft or else find refuge in the parish church. The fact that Ferdinando Carlo paid Dr. Giovanni Francesco Gilli 100 Guldiners in 1719 ^[54] gives us no clues at all, because this transaction occurred nearly twenty years after the Someda moved from the Palazzo Someda. Whatever the living situation was, Ferdinando Carlo found reasonable housing by 1719 to accommodate his growing family: his wife Corona, mother, and his three surviving children, Giulio Cesare II, Giuseppe Ottavio, and Francesco Antonio Lorenzo.

Ferdinando Carlo probably found improved housing by 1715 when he inherited the pharmacy of his brother-in-law Giovanni della Giacomo. Where Giovanni della Giacomo ran shop in Fiera isn't known, but Ferdinando Carlo managed to secure a lease to a portion of the Palazzo Someda from the Leporini family, who were now partial owners of the palazzo. Ferdinando Carlo ran the pharmacy out of his leased portion of the palazzo successfully for some years until a local doctor persuaded his patients to publicly complain about his high prices and exclusive services. The issue was brought to Baron Giuseppe Welsperg's attention. Ferdinando Carlo probably had to pay damages and change his business ethics. He may have even given his son Francesco Antonio Lorenzo the pharmacy, because he retired as a curate in Canal San Bovo, a small town east of Fiera in the Val di Vanoi, dying there in 1749. ^[55]

 

The pharmacy in Fiera was run by Francesco Antonio Lorenzo until 1753, in which year he moved the pharmacy and his family to Cavalese,^[56] the center of the Val di Fiemme to the west of Moena. Francesco had been to Cavalese at least once before. He married his wife Margherita de Egen dalle Due Spade there in 1743.^[57] Why the couple chose Cavalese for their wedding location is another question, since Francesco still lived in Fiera in 1743 and his wife was of the Trentiner junior branch of the noble family von Egen und Thurnstein, which was ennobled in 1514 and immatriculated in 1713. Margherita was the daughter of Cecilia Teresa Petronilla Gramola and Matteo de Egen dalle Due Spade, whose family had been restaurateurs since 1545 when they opened Le Due Spade, an elegant restaurant which attracted the many nobles, dignitaries, and Church officials, who stayed in Trento during the Council of Trento sessions.^[58]

 

One possible reason why Francesco moved his pharmaceutical business to Cavalese is that Cavalese was the capital of the only autonomous valley of Tyrol, free of nobility, governed by the people. Moving from a market town under the rule of imperial barons to a town governed by its people, or rather the merchant class, was without a doubt very appealing for Francescos Farmacia alla Madonna, which he ran until 1769 before handing it over to his twenty-two year old son Ferdinando Carlo, who later sold the pharmacy in 1775 to Pio Legato Giovanelli,^[59] who may have been a cousin of his. Ferdinando Carlos son Giulio Cesare married an Anna Felice Giovanelli. Ferdinando Carlo sold the pharmacy to become a priest, which was also the chosen life of his cousin Giovanni Nepomuceno, who were both actually following in the footsteps of their uncle Giuseppe Ottavio, who had been in conflict with his brother Francesco Antonio ever since 1749, when their father Ferdinando Carlo died, over the family inheritance, or the pharmacy, which Giuseppe Ottavio claimed to have administered, but whose income Giuseppe Ottavio claimed Francesco Antonio spent. The brothers did not only fight over ownership of the pharmacy. They also fought for the wooded lands and other meadows of their ancestors, lands which were now administered by the imperial Gubernium and not the archducal court at Innsbruck. This political restructuring was due to policies of Emperor Leopold I, who inherited the Tyrolean lands in 1665, because of the untimely death of Archduchess Claudia's younger son, the reigning Count of the Tyrol, Sigismund Franz. The centralizing policies of the Habsburg emperors from 1665 to 1740 dramatically changed the political scene, so that when the Someda brothers appeared in the court of the Gubernium in 1753, the brothers received no compensation for their lands and the few properties they did own were divided between them. To make matters worse, Giuseppe Ottavio was also ordered to pay his brother damages. [60]