Raffaele Paolucci was born on the 1st of June of 1892 in Rome (Via Goito, 56).
Raffaele Paolucci's birthplace
Paolucci's house was on the fourth floor
The house seen from Via Gaeta
His house was on the fourth floor, as he wrote in his autobiographical book Il mio piccolo mondo perduto (My little lost world):
“Dopo un breve soggiorno in una casa di Via Palermo dove nacque mia sorella Maria, traslocarono in Via Goito 56, ove sono nato io il 1° Giugno 1892 e mio fratello Gaetano il 13 Giugno 1896.”1
“La nostra casa era al quarto piano di Via Goito 56, una bella casa linda e piena di sole, con molte finestre che guardavano sul villino della Somaglia, e, di scorcio, su Piazza Indipendenza.”2
(“After a short stay in a house in Via Palermo where my sister Maria was born, they moved to Via Goito 56, where I was born on the 1st of June of 1892 and my brother Gaetano on the 13th of June of 1896.”
“Our house was on the fourth floor of Via Goito 56, a beautiful, clean and sunny house, with a lot of windows that looked on the cottage of the Somaglia, and, foreshortening, on Piazza Indipendenza.”)
However, although he was born in Rome and he spent childhood there, he has always felt deeply Abruzzese, in fact he says he was born "by chance" in Rome and not in Abruzzo, and he adds: “Dal libro della spesa di mia madre risulta che la estate del 1891 dall’agosto a tutto settembre, i miei genitori furono a Francavilla. Io sono nato, come ho detto, il 1° giugno del 1892. Sono stato dunque concepito sulla sponda del mare Adriatico”3 (“The book in which my mother reported the expenses proves that in the summer of 1891, from August to all September, my parents were in Francavilla. I was born, as I said, on the 1st of June of 1892. So I was conceived on the shore of the Adriatic sea”).
Nowadays, there is no longer the house number 56, but a great palace at the corner between Via Goito and Via Gaeta at the street number 58 A.
The cottage of the Somaglia (Piazza Indipendenza, 3)
- Photos and main text by Salvatore De Pasquale moc.liamg|99elauqsaped.erotavlas#| and Jacopo Capparelli moc.liamtoh|7991onipocaj#| (January 2018)
- Locate the item on this Google Map
Bibliography
- Fernando Galluppi, Medici illustri d'Abruzzo. Dall'unità d'Italia all'età attuale, Edizioni Noubs, San Giovanni Teatino 2011, pp. 185-205
- Raffaele Paolucci, Il mio piccolo mondo perduto, Cappelli editore, Rocca San Casciano 1947