Bolongaro
The Bolongaro family was a respected merchant family in Frankfurt am Main and in neighboring Höchst .
origin
The family came from Stresa on Lake Maggiore . In 1735 Josef Maria Markus Bolongaro (actually Giuseppe , 1712–1779) settled in Frankfurt. In 1743, together with his brothers Jakob Philipp and Franz Maria († 1756), he took over the tobacco shop Gebrüder Matthey and expanded it into the largest tobacco shop and snuff manufacturer in Europe.
Trading house
The Bolongaro trading company had branches in Antwerp , Leipzig and Würzburg, among others . Headquarters was initially the home to Wölffchen in Frankfurt Töngesgasse .
In addition to tobacco, there was also trade in spices , southern wines, coffee and tea . Another field of activity was banking.
Frankfurt or Höchst?
Since 1737 Bolongaro applied for the citizenship of Frankfurt , which, however, the council of the strictly Lutheran city denied him because of his Roman Catholic denomination . Even after a personal intervention by Emperor Franz I Stephan , he was only admitted as a settee in 1756 and was subject to a high special tax to protect his personal safety .
After further disputes with the council, Bolongaro decided to relocate to Höchst , on Electoral Mainz - and thus Roman Catholic - territory. Elector Emmerich Josef granted him the highest civil rights in 1771 and allowed him to build a spacious settlement, the Bolongaro Palace .
Family relationships
Josef Maria Markus Bolongaro was born with Anna Maria Bolongaro. d'Angelo married. He died childless in Höchst in 1779 and was buried in the family grave in the Justinuskirche . His inheritance fell to his brother Jakob Philipp. When he died in 1780, his daughters and sons-in-law Peter Anton Bolongaro-Crevenna (1736–1792) and Victor Bolongaro-Simonetta inherited the property. In 1783 they succeeded in acquiring Frankfurt citizenship after all, after which they left Höchst and left the management to their authorized signatory Bertina.
Bolongaro-Crevenna paid off his brother-in-law in 1784 and became the sole owner of the snuff factory. After his death, his six sons continued the business. The Bolongaro trading company went out in 1910 with the death of Karl Alfred Bolongaro-Crevennas (1838–1910). The Bolongaro-Crevenna line still exists today, while the Bolongaro-Simonetta line died out.
Members of the Bolongaro family
- Johannes Bolongaro Crevenna (1807–1871), merchant and manufacturer
- Josef Anton Franz Bolongaro (1796–1862), businessman and politician
- Jacob Ludwig Bolongaro-Crevenna (* 1808), businessman and politician
Further worth knowing
Remember the Bolongaro family
- the Bolongarostraße and the Bolongaropalast in Frankfurt-Höchst
- the family graves in the Justinuskirche and in the Frankfurt main cemetery
- Carl Bolongaro was one of the co-initiators of the Kalmenhof Sanatorium in Idstein
literature
- Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie . Personal history lexicon . First volume. A – L (= publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XIX , no. 1 ). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7829-0444-3 .