Long Ago in Spoleto: 1903, The Regio Oleificio Sperimentale dell’Umbria is founded in Spoleto

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On 29 December 1903, a city poster announced that the Regio Oleificio Sperimentale di Spoleto was ready to start processing olives at the beginning of the new year. The notice signed by the director of the oil mill, Flaminio Bracci, specifies that this involves small-scale processing, in particular the milling of small batches of olives.

The institute has no industrial character or ambitions, but is aimed at the oil industry and olive growing, offering itself as a scientific and research reference point to promote, also through practical and training courses for operators and technicians, the improvement of a product of absolute excellence in the region (the third largest in Italy in terms of production and of significant export, but in fact unknown), imposing its typicality and uniqueness on national and international markets.

In fact, the notice specifies that during the milling process – for which the fee “to be paid to the mill is one and a half litres of oil or 1.50 lire for each milled quantity of about 240 litres or about 160 kg of olives (two cups per shave) in addition to the olive residue – a theoretical and practical oil mill course will be held in order to teach the workers (millers), country agents, owners etc. the knowledge of the good rules for the preparation, clarification and conservation of oil, and of modern oil-making equipment, tools etc., and to train them practically in the use of the equipment itself and in the various oil manipulations. The course will be free of charge“.

Oleificio Sperimentale

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The experimental oil mill has been operating in Spoleto for a few months. Set up in Palmi near Reggio Calabria in 1889 by the Ministry of Agriculture to study and experiment with the most suitable means of improving the production and preparation of oil – at a time, the penultimate decade of the 20th century, when the olive oil industry and trade were in a critical condition – the small institute was first transferred to Cosenza in 1898 and then, as Flaminio Bracci explains in his book “Il R. Oleificio Sperimentale dalla Calabria all’Umbria“, it was “transferred to Spoleto, in the heart of Umbria: another important oil-producing region where it had long been in great demand“.

In a dense, multi-column article published in ‘Giovane Umbria’ on 15 March 1903, besides general considerations on the problems of Umbrian olive oil production, it was announced that the institute would shortly be moving to Spoleto and that ‘no more suitable town in Umbria could be chosen than Spoleto, which […] offers the following requirements. 1) Varieties of olives absolutely homogeneous and suitable for the production of the type sought. 2. The local importance of the oil product which, on average, can be valued at two million lire a year over the twelve million of the entire province 3. Very central topographical position since Spoleto is in the heart of the Umbrian olive-growing area‘.

15 marzo 1903

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Despite the fact that fifteen days later (29 March) a small article in the socialist periodical, in an alarmed tone, feared problems for the birth of the institute in Spoleto “because of local squabbles and because not all those who should have been interested did so with the same zeal“, on 19 April, again Giovane Umbria reassured that “the City, the Province and the Chamber of Commerce had voted for the contribution” and that only the location of the premises were left to be decided, then identified (article of 31 May) in the former Ancaiani stables owned by the city. This building, in Piazza della Libertà (then Piazza Vittorio Emanuele), was later demolished when work was carried out in the 1950s to restore the Roman theatre. At that time, the Oleificio had three types of premises, the actual oil mill, the chemical laboratory with a lecture and conference room and the offices with annexed library. Right from the start, it was clear that the institution represented excellence in the sector, ennobled by prestigious awards, such as the gold medal at the Milan Exhibition of 1906 for the quality of the oils produced, but also for its promotional activities and its study and research in the field of olive growing. Not forgetting the establishment in 1908 of the Oleificio Cooperativo di Spoleto, which was to receive many awards for its fine olive oils.

The history of research and studies, the story of the initial activities and experiences of the first twenty years of the institute’s life – which in the 1930s became the Istituto Sperimentale di Olivicoltura di Spoleto (Experimental Institute of Olive Growing in Spoleto) and was later transferred to Via Nursina – are recounted in two publications edited by the director Flaminio Bracci and printed in Spoleto: “Il R. Oleificio Sperimentale dalla Calabria all’Umbria” (The Royal Experimental Oil Mill from Calabria to Umbria) in 1910 and “Il R. Oleificio Sperimentale dell’Umbria nell’ultimo decennio” (The Royal Experimental Oil Mill of Umbria in the last decade) in 1923. Both are kept at the Carducci Library, among the volumes of the Francolini Fund, which collects precious manuscripts, periodicals and printed editions from the 19th to the 20th century in the agri-food area.

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