Settlement in Chios

Supposedly reliable documents of the Chios diocese affirm that Giuseppe d’Andria and his father, Dr. Marius d’Andria, were descended from a Pantaleone who had come from Genoa and settled in Chios. The date given of his arrival, 1565, raises questions. A previous note from the same diocese linked the branch known as the “Stevanachi/Marachi“ to a son of one Niccolo, named Pantaleone, who died before 1569, according to a deed by the notary Stefano de Portu. However, the note was neither dated nor signed, but it was surely written between 1787 and 1808, because in it, Marius’s sister Apollonia is referred to as living and as a widow, and we know that her husband Nicolao Giustiniani was assassinated by bandits aboard a ship in July, 1787 and that she died in 1808.

The most likely date of the document seems to be 1789, as it is oddly similar to the one drawn up in that year at the request of another Andria branch, that of Paul Ellis, Marie-Anne Marandet and Elisa Petitta, a branch which, until recently, had no confirmed ties to Marius. That document unequivocally established their branch as descended from a Genoese Pantaleone, whose son Antonio, also Genoese, had the notary Stefano de Portu record, in 1569, a testimonial dividing his property between his two brothers, Episcopal affidavit on the family’s origin, dated Sept. 3 1832 Episcopal note, undated and unsigned, on the origin of the branch. Paolo and Gasparo, and stating that Pantaleone was deceased.

The most likely date of the document seems to be 1789, as it is oddly similar to the one drawn up in that year at the request of another Andria branch, that of Paul Ellis, Marie-Anne Marandet and Elisa Petitta, a branch which, until recently, had no confirmed ties to Marius. That document unequivocally established their branch as descended from a Genoese Pantaleone, whose son Antonio, also Genoese, had the notary Stefano de Portu record, in 1569, a testimonial dividing his property between his two brothers, Episcopal affidavit on the family’s origin, dated Sept. 3 1832 Episcopal note, undated and unsigned, on the origin of the branch. Paolo and Gasparo, and stating that Pantaleone was deceased.

Stefano II, named after a deceased brother, was born in 1711, thirteen years after his parents were married. He died around 1778, according to his grandchildren’s baptismal records. Except for the bougourtou shown here, we have little information about Stefano. Because of missing records, we know neither the date of his marriage with Minetta Corpi² nor that of the baptisms of his children. The first known child is Giovanni (b. 1736), who will be followed by four girls and four boys, the last of which, Andrea (b.1749), may have taken the name of a deceased brother.

Apparently Mario III, born second to the last, in 1743, was the only Stefano’s son who had children. In 1758, he was enrolled in the Greek College of Rome on an Allatius scholarship³. In 1762, he earned a degree in Art and continued to study medicine in Rome. In August 1765, he left with a pass delivered to him by Joseph Boussard, the French ambassador. In 1770, he married Maddalena Marcopoli⁴, age 14, the daughter of a Chios physician. The wedding attendants were Dominico Marcopoli and another physician, Nicola Timoni (a relation to Emmanuel Timoni, who, it may be noted, long before Jenner, practiced inoculation (variolisation), the first historical form of vaccination). Nicola’s wife bore many children between 1774 and 1796: thirteen are mentioned on the island’s christening register. They included four boys. The first boy was born in 1779, after four girls, and was baptized Stefano after his grandfather. Another boy named Giuseppe was the eighth child, born in 1785. ‘Our’ Giuseppe was born in 1794, followed in 1796 by Andrula, the youngest male child. The second Giuseppe is the only one for whom I was able to find descendants, which makes me think that his brothers died prematurely.

As young as sixteen, he obtained in 1810 from his father the Spanish consul –Joseph Bonaparte was then king of Spain– a safe-conduct for the ‘barca di Ventura⁵’ to Smyrna. The second youngest of the brood, he decided so to strike out on his own on the continent, 3 years before his father’s death and 12 years before everyone else was to do the same under duress.

Giuseppe's sisters – at least those who reached adulthood – married in Chios, scions of prominent families. Two of the sisters’ marriages require no comment: The third, Angela, and the fifth, Battistina, married around the age of twenty, Domenico Castelli and Giovanni d’Andria, respectively, the latter, a distant cousin who shared the common ancestor, the first Pantaleone. In other households, the age gap between spouses was less common: Andrea Macripodari was more than 20 years older than Maria, the eldest; the widower Ignazio Marcopoli, was 17 years older than Mineta. Calomati Pietro was 18 months younger than Caterina, who married at 28, and Angelica was 8 years younger than her husband, an attaché de consulat.

A Century on the Continent.

The move to the continent, even partial, of a clan as large and diversified as the Andrias took place, of course, over time. The inscriptions on a tombstone at the Feriköy Latin cemetery in Istanbul, unfortunately damaged in 1864 when the cemetery was moved, mentions a Joannes (Giovanni) d’Andrea, native of Chios, who died in 1677 in Pera. According to the Latin epitaph, which is difficult to decipher because of truncated lines⁶ and the frequent use of abbreviations, he lived to age 82 – therefore, he would have been born in 1595– was held captive in Tunisia (a major pirates’ refuge), ransomed, had many children, and was paralyzed for the last 40 years of his life. Unfortunately it is difficult to identify his descendants with certainty.

One Giovanni d’Andria (who may the one cited on the tombstone) is mentioned in 1626, as a procurator at St. Jean. A record shows Lorenzo and Domenico d’Andria as sub-priors at the Magnifica Comunita de Pera, the former in 1656 and 1680, the latter in 1662. Later, other Andrias became well known in Constantinople. A passageway in Galata was named after them. At the beginning of the 20th century, an Andria owned The Hotel de Londres, built on the site of an old Glavany house.

Graves in Istanbul’s Catholic cemetery contain several generations of Andrias from Chios. The oldest are of those persons born at the beginning of the 19th century while the most recent death occurred in 1997. This last is probably of the branch that, in the early 1900s, was responsible for fitting out a 1,200-metric ton ship, a relatively large one at that time. By 1864, that branch had joined the St. Anne’s Confraternity.

As we shall see, at the beginning of the 20th century, those who were part of my grandfather’s family and that of at least one of his brothers joined the Constantinople d’Andrias. Today, my second cousin Remo, who lived in Smyrna for quite some time, continues to represent the de Andria family in Istanbul.

In the middle of the 19th century, Andrias resided in several other cities of the Ottoman Empire, mainly Salonika and Gallipoli. One descendent of the Chios group lives in the Dardanelles area, a ‘Michel’ (actually François Jean Auguste, nicknamed Michel in memory of a deceased brother) who was then Vice- Consul. During the Crimean war, he was helpful to the Allied forces, and became a successful and highly decorated diplomat, receiving the Legion of Honor, allegedly from Napoleon III, himself. Following his example, many of his descendants became diplomats, notably as French Consuls in various Eastern Mediterranean cities.

In September 1832, Giuseppe obtained from the Chios diocese the affidavit that established Pantaleone as his ancestor. Unlike most affidavits, this one lists him as the only recipient, which seems to confirm that his numerous siblings had not joined him in Smyrna. The document allowed him both to prove his Genoese origin and to become a Sardinian citizen. This was unlike many Genoese families who opted for keeping French nationality, automatically granted when the Napoleonic Empire briefly annexed Genoa (1805-1814).

The first names Giuseppe, Jean-Baptiste, Etienne Alexandre, and finally, Pietro are also found on a subscription for the impoverished families of mobilized troops in the War of Italian Independence (1860).

I do not know whether these charts still exist, or where they might be found, but we do know the coat of arms the family was bearing. While the other branches, following the example of other Smyrna families, took up the Chios Giustinianis’ arms, themselves derived from the Zaccarias’, the ‘de’ Andrias transformed the three-tower castle into a single tower and added a (count’s?) crown. Note that this single tower is already visible on the right side of the seal of the Giuseppe’s passport.

“Gigibi” became “a very large property owner in Smyrna, and held shares in many commercial firms and companies in the city”⁸. He was one of three “foreigners” who, in 1868, had a seat on the short-lived Smyrna town council. The negotiations between the Ottoman authorities and the European consuls on upgrading the land tax on European properties in Smyrna led, in 1874, to the development of a joint committee of European and Ottoman property owners, whose Italian representatives included Pierre and Ange Aliotti and Jean Baptiste d’Andria. They were chosen because of the size of their properties and their prominence in the Italian “colony”.

Gigibi married Anne Esther de Portu⁹, 17 years his junior. They had four children. One son, Ilario Luigi, would run one of Smyrna’s main Italian commercial firms at the beginning of the 20th century. The other, Alcide Théodore (1864-1946), emigrated early to the United States. He performed as a baritone, published French songs (especially Christmas carols) and, in 1919, taught French at Boston University.

By the 1850s, Gigibi’s brother, Stefano Alessandro de Andria, was listed in the archives as an important Sardinian banker. In 1856, he held the Directorship of the E. A. de Andria and Sons Bank. He “Frenchified” his name to Etienne Alexandre, and used ‘de’, as noted above in his signature of 1853, which held a mortgage on a distillery belonging to a French merchant, B. Carle¹⁰. By the turn of the century, he would own a steam mill (for which he would be listed as “associate owner”) in Karatach, in the Southern part of Smyrna. Undoubtedly trustworthy, he was named executor by his first cousin Stefano d’Andria, Battestina’s son, Gilbert’s father and Bernard d’Andria’s grandfather (see Stefano’s will and testament) and by his brother-in-law Antoine Giraud (see below).

Another of Gigibi’s brothers, Pietro or ‘Petrakaki’ –little Peter in Greek– lent his name to the ‘P. de Andria & Company’, even though he was only nine years old when it was apparently founded in 1836. According to A. Frangini, his partner was Antoine Giraud, who was only five years older (and would become his brother-in-law when he married Peter’s sister Elisabetta). The 1891 Ottoman Business Index shows that Petrakaki’s older brothers, Mario (born 1817) and Etienne Alexandre (Stefano Alessandro, born 1821) had been involved in founding the firm, but abandoned it in 1868. From 1881 on, Petrakaki had his sons join the company, causing A. Giraud’s departure¹¹.

The company may have started on shaky ground, but it specialised in manufacturing and selling oriental rugs, for which by the middle of the 19th century, the market was quickly developing. This article of decor, which until then had been considered a high-end luxury item, became all the rage among the increasingly wealthy Western bourgeoisie in Great Britain, the Netherlands and, later on, America. To meet the soaring demand, Turkish production increased. Most of it came from Anatolia and especially Uşak in the Smyrna countryside. Using semi-industrial techniques, yet maintaining traditional quality, the firm (whose warehouse was next to the Greek church of St. Photini) outdid its competition. The World’s Fairs began to display rugs and present awards. ‘P. de Andria & Co’, registered with the Marseilles Chamber of Commerce and Industry, received several awards in 1873 (Vienna), 1876 (Philadelphia¹²), 1893 (Gold Medal, Chicago) and 1906 (Milan). It prided itself on being the oldest carpet company in Smyrna and had branches in Constantinople, Paris, London and Tehran.

It was the official supplier to Paris’s Bon Marché department store, and assured its clients that it was able to fulfil all orders, including custom-made rugs; and, finally, it was the “only firm with its own dyeing factory (‘In-House dyeing in Ouchac’), which would ensure stable colours.” This last boast was aimed at the competition, which was industrialising the manufacturing process, mainly by using chemical rather than natural dye. By 1900, six companies controlled 80% of the Turkish rug exports in Izmir, Petrakaki’s being the second largest. Upon falling ill, as early as in 1882, he passed the management, first, to Nelson, who had studied in Lyons, eventually to all the other sons. This injection of fresh blood into the firm brought about vigorous development, especially internationally.

Thanks to his success, Petrakaki was considered a veritable patriarch: he appears on the parish registers, often with his second wife Caroline, née Romano, as best man for most of his children, then as godfather to his grandchildren. He was said to have designed some of the carpet patterns himself. He also ensured that his less well-off or attractive nieces married well. Thus, he created a clan of sorts around him, which set itself apart from the other Andrias by its noble particle.

One can reasonably assume that the Andrias spoke French. The proof lies in the spelling of their first names, the firm’s advertisements, the commercial letter in perfect French by J.J.B. (Gigibi) in 1847, and the engravings on their tomb at the Kemer cemetery as recorded by Livio Missir. Yet they were still Italian and practiced some form of endogamy, marrying only into other Levantine families of varying origins but of the same social standing. Most were Chians of Italian descent, with the family names Aliotti, Castelli, Dracopoli, de Portu, Giudici, Giustiniani. “Persian” families – Balladur, Caraman, Issaverdens, Micridis, Missir– were also well represented, as were the French – Bon, Caporal, Guys, Michel, Roboly. Finally, British and Dutch families were also represented: Edwards, van der Zee. As for Pietro, he was fond of giving his children English names: Nelson, Herman, and John instead of Giovanni.

Immediately after Petrakaki’s death in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1907, his company merged with several competitors in Smyrna and became “Oriental Carpets Manufacturers Ltd.” The carpet manufacturing and trading corporation, first chaired by Nelson, the eldest, then by the third son, Herman¹³, was listed on the Constantinople and London stock exchanges; then at the formal request of Raymond Poincaré, on Paris’s exchange. The company had offices in those capitals. Purchasing inventory in Turkey and Persia, the firm occupied a dominant position in the profitable rug market: it was reputed to control 75% of production, and, by 1911, it employed 46,000 people, the vast majority of whom were women and girls in workshops of various sizes in country towns. After an impressive beginning -the stock price had increased fivefold just before the Great War- the corporation was faced with a number of setbacks. Having barely recovered from the wartime interruptions, it saw its middle class clients diminished by the Great Depression.

Giuseppe’s sixth son, Petrakaki’s brother Jacob (1833-?), gained some renown in the 1890s when he took over Smyrna’s commercial listings, an important resource for analysing the city’s economic growth. His son Oswald followed in his father’s footsteps in Egypt where he established the commercial listing and carpet selling businesses that had made the family so successful in Smyrna.

Giovanni, our grandfather, was the youngest of the nine children Petrakaki had with Maddalena Dracopoli, another Chian 8 years his junior.Giovanni never knew his mother, who died from a hemorrhage, one day after his birth, in January 1869. Caro line Romano (1831-1904) became his stepmother, although her name appears on official documents only beginning in 1882. Petrakaki’s second wife, also a widow was a mere three years younger than he was. Giovanni may have felt deprived of maternal affection. As far as we know, his relationships with his brothers, especially Herman, were cordial enough, but he was not very out-going and was quite prone to depression.

Like his brothers, Giovanni was active in his father’s business. As a young man, this took him to Iran (at the time, Persia), where his caravan once repelled a bandit attack. In 1896, he was married in the Smyrna’s new St. Jean cathedral to Marie Guys whose family of French merchants had been living there for over a century. Three years later, Giovanni and Marie joined Herman in Constantinople, who had moved there in 1893 to open a branch of P. de Andria & Co. They travelled with Herman’s wife, Helen née Edwards, and his daughter Margherita, called Rita, and their own two children, Marie-Jeanne and Mario Oscar, born in December 1896 and August 1898, respectively. The boy’s first name was specific to the branch, while his middle name was common among the Guys.

A Giovanni and Marie’s third child, Stéphane Herman, was born in Constantinople in 1900. According to family tradition he was given the first name of Stevanachi/Marachi, and his middle name after his uncle and godfather’s, Herman. Uncle Herman eventually became one of the main managers of OCM and the administrator of Tombak, the Ottoman Tobacco Company. In the 1914 Ottoman business address list, Herman’s official address is on Misk street, in Pera, near Taxim; whereas, John (Giovanni) is not listed. Both names do appear, accompanied by the reference: de la maison P. de Andria et Cie [of the firm P. de Andria & Co.] and the company itself still appears at the Kutchuk Ismaïl Pacha address, on the other side of the Golden Horn, near the second bridge.

Like Stéphane and a bit before him, Fred, Herman and Helen’s son, was born in Constantinople. The five children most probably grew up together and saw each other often. They would be reunited much later, in France¹⁴.