Jacopo Girolami, italian citizen and Brunero Barsetti, canadian citizen were based at 45, Upton Street, Ardwick, Manchester, 13. They used a service address of Marks & Clerk, 57/8, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London W.C.2.
THE GIROLAMI SURNAME: ORIGIN GEOGRAPHY
The surname Girolami is a patronymic derived from the personal name Girolamo (the Italian form of Jerome). It is firmly Central Italian in distribution.
- 26 percent of all Italian Girolami are in Tuscany
- 42 percent are in Lazio (Rome region)
- 16 percent are in Marche
However, the key genealogical data point is the WikiTree records, which show:
- Carolina Girolami (born c.1860) from San Cassiano, Bagni di Lucca, Lucca, Tuscany
- Francesco Girolami (born c.1823, died 1887) also from San Cassiano, Bagni di Lucca
Francesco’s is significant. San Cassiano is a frazione within Bagni di Lucca. This is not incidental. Bagni di Lucca is the historical heart of the figurinai tradition, where plaster figurine-making is documented as far back as a 1373 Lucca archive entry. The Girolami name has demonstrable genealogical presence in the exact municipality most strongly associated with the figurinai emigration tradition. To be clear this is circumstantial but substantial.
Note on Tuscany surname geography: The heraldry and onomastics sources specifically place Girolami as “typical of central-western Tuscany” and document multiple noble Girolami branches in Tuscany. The surname is also strongly attested in Perugia and Piceno. Lazio concentration likely reflects later Rome-area migration.
A POSSIBLE FRIULIAN CONNECTION: JOHN OR GIOVANNI GIROLAMI
Just to call out, this concerns John Girolami (the “not to be confused” individual from the April 1954 registrations), so not Jacopo. However it is worth flagging as context. The AMMER-FVG database (Archivio Multimediale della Memoria dellEmigrazione Regionale Friuli Venezia Giulia), an Italian regional emigration archive, contains an entry for a John (Giovanni) Girolami who was born in 1922, London, to parents from Fanna (Pordenone, Friuli-Venezia Giulia). The database records a departure date of 1936 (e.g., left England temporarily and then returned)
Interstingly it stated his occupation as: terrazziere (terrazzo worker); also worked on English farms; “lavorava e produceva stampi per manichini di gesso” (made and produced moulds for plaster mannequins); later worked with fibreglass. He was interned, arrested 1940 in England as a suspected fascist. He married a Friulian woman; had one daughter.
Assessment: This is a different origin entirely – Friuli, not Tuscany. The Friulian Girolami family is based in Fanna (Pordenone province – the red marker top right of the map). Sir Paul Girolami, the late Chairman/CEO of Glaxo who was knighted in 1987, was also from Fanna, suggesting this is a distinct Friulian Girolami lineage. John Girolami the plaster moulds maker appears to be part of this Friulian family.
The Jacopo question: Whether Jacopo Girolami is from the same Friulian family (Fanna) or from the Tuscan Lucca (bottom left of the map outlined in yellow) figurinai tradition is currently unresolved. The BT registers record him only as “Italian citizen.” The forename Jacopo (James) is common across all Italian regions. The presence of John Girolami making plaster moulds in England, from a Friulian family that emigrated to London, raises the possibility that Jacopo may be a relative – but equally, the Lucca Girolami records on WikiTree place the surname squarely in the figurinai heartland.
MANCHESTER ITALIAN COMMUNITY CONTEXT
The Manchester address (Ardwick, M13) is outside the traditional N1 London clustering that characterises the Clerkenwell figurinai network. Ardwick in this period had a modest Italian community but was not a figurinai enclave on the scale of Clerkenwell. The choice of Marks & Clerk as patent agents (a London firm) rather than the Manchester-based Wilson, Gunn & Ellis used by most Manchester chalkware designers is notable: Barsetti in particular is flagged on the site as “a little bit odd” for this reason.
BRUNERO BARSETTI
A Canadian citizen and the Italian connection. On the registration papework we are told he is a “Canadian citizen”, but this tells us his nationality at the time of registration (c.1961-1964), not his ethnicity or birth country. There are two realistic scenarios:
- Born in Italy, emigrated to Canada before or after the war, then came to Britain (a common pattern in the second post-war Italian emigration wave, 1950s-1960s)
- Second-generation Italian-Canadian, born in Canada to Italian immigrant parents
The second large wave of Italian immigration to Canada peaked between the early 1950s and mid-1960s, at 20,000-30,000 per year. This lines up precisely with the registration period.
THE BARSETTI/BARSOTTI SURNAME
The surname Barsetti is closely related to Barsotti (variant forms of the same root: a patronymic from the personal name Barso). Barsotti is overwhelmingly Tuscan: 92 percent of Barsotti in Italy are in Tuscany, according to Forebears.io data. Geneanet records specifically place Barsotti and the closely related Barsanti within the Lucca province.
The -etti suffix is a standard Tuscan diminutive/diminished patronymic form. Barsetti vs Barsotti are regional spelling variants of the same family name pattern. This is not proof of Lucca origin for Brunero specifically, but the surname geography points strongly toward Tuscany.
Note on Arte Barsanti: There is an unrelated but contextually interesting firm, Arte Barsanti, founded in 1900 in Bagni di Lucca, which is the last surviving producer of traditional alabastrine plaster figurines in the figurinai tradition. The Barsanti surname is listed among common Lucca province surnames. Barsetti is the plausible variant of the same root.
TWO ADDRESSES AND WHAT THIS MAY TELL US
The site records two addresses for Barsetti:
- Joint with Girolami: 45 Upton Street, Ardwick, Manchester 13
- Solo (Barsetti alone): Birch Croft, Dickenson Road, Manchester
The fact he had his own address separate from the Upton Street joint address suggests he was not simply a lodger or employee of Girolami but an independent operator who collaborated on specific designs. The solo registrations run beyond the joint ones (1964 solo vs joint ones from 1961). This implies Barsetti continued independently after the Girolami partnership wound down or became inactive.
Jacopo died in 1996.
Girolami Collection is collated here
Do get in touch if you have more information on Girolami
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