Domingo Ghirardelli
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Domenico "Domingo" Ghirardelli ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; February 21, 1817 – January 17, 1894) was an Italian-born chocolatier who was the founder of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company in San Francisco, California.
BiographyEdit
Early lifeEdit
Domenico Ghirardelli was born on February 21, 1817,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> in Rapallo, Italy, to Giuseppe and Maddalena (Template:Nee Ferretto) Ghirardelli.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=lawrence164 /> His father was a spice merchant in Genoa.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In his teens, he apprenticed at Romanengo, a noted chocolatier in Genoa.<ref name=lawrence>Template:Cite journal</ref>
At about the age of twenty, in 1838, he moved to Uruguay, then in 1838 to Lima, Peru, where he established a confectionery, and began using the Spanish equivalent of his Italian name, Domingo. In 1849 he moved to California on the recommendation of his former neighbor, James Lick, who had brought 600 pounds of chocolate with him to San Francisco in 1848. Caught up in the California Gold Rush, he opened his first store in a mining camp to sell sweets and treats to miners who were lacking the small pleasures of life.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Ghirardelli spent a few months in the gold fields near Sonora and Jamestown, before becoming a merchant in Hornitos, California.<ref name="Hornitos">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
CareerEdit
In 1852, he moved to San Francisco and established the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company at what would come to be known as Ghirardelli Square. According to the San Francisco Chronicle he is San Francisco's most successful chocolatier.<ref name="SF Chronicle 2010">SF Chronicle, July 25, 2010. "Where to Find Celebrities' Resting Places" by Charlie Wells</ref>
Around the year 1865, a worker at the Ghirardelli factory discovered that by hanging a bag of ground cacao beans in a warm room, the cocoa butter would drip off, leaving behind a residue that could then be converted into ground chocolate. This technique, known as the Broma process is now the most common method used for the production of chocolate.<ref name="Ghirardelli">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Personal lifeEdit
Ghirardelli married Elisabetta Corsini (nicknamed "Bettina"), a native of Italy, in 1837. She died in 1846.<ref name=lawrenceantoher>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Ghirardelli married Carmen Alvarado Martin (1830–1887) in Lima, Peru, in 1847.<ref name=lawrence />Template:Efn<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Her first husband had been a French physician who had been lost at sea,<ref name=lawrence164>Template:Cite journal</ref> and she had an eight-month-old child, Carmen.<ref>Estate of Domingo Ghirardelli, deceased. No. 14,521. 4 Coffey 1, 7 (San Francisco Superior Court, 20 March 1896).</ref> He and Carmen had seven children: Virginia (1847–1867);Template:Efn<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Domenico Jr. (1849–1932);<ref>Template:Cite book; Template:Cite book</ref> Joseph Nicholas (1852–1906);<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Elvira (1856–1908);<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Louis (1857–1902);<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Angela (1859–1936);<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Eugene Gustave (1860–?).Template:Efn<ref name=lawrence164 /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
DeathEdit
He died on January 17, 1894, in Rapallo, Italy from influenza. His body was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> California along with the rest of his family.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
- Notes
- Citations