Via Drapperie

Behind the old sign of building number six, the shop continues where it can no longer be seen from the street: internal staircases and corridors lead to neighboring Via Caprarie and to rooms where bread is baked and pasta is prepared. The sales area preserves a wooden counter from the beginning of the last century, panels with shelves, a painted ceiling, lamps, and a tile floor. Here, retail trade and workshop work still stand on opposite sides of one door.

Via Drapperie was named after the sellers of woolen cloth, the drappieri. Their shops stood right here; the form “Drapparia” appears in city documents from sixteen thirty-five. Previously, the street was named after the Church of San Matteo degli Accarisi and the Accarisi family, who owned houses nearby. Over time, the people of Bologna kept its commercial name.

Fabrics have not been sold in building number six for a long time. It is home to Paolo Atti e Figli, a shop that shows how Via Drapperie became part of the food-focused Quadrilatero.

Paolo Atti came to Bologna from the countryside to look for work. He began as a baker’s assistant, and his main asset was his own craft. Documents date the start of his business in the shop on Via Drapperie to eighteen sixty-eight. Atti became the owner of a large bakery called Forno Piemontese, then expanded the business to neighboring Via Caprarie. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he built a new house there; the shops were linked by internal staircases, corridors, and production rooms.

In nineteen twenty-two, Paolo’s daughter Margherita Atti continued the business. For a Bolognese businesswoman of that time, it was a rare role: she herself was responsible for the family’s production and trade. Later, her daughter Paola Atti joined her. During World War II, they had to work amid food rationing and the black market. Partisans took shelter in the basement, while German soldiers entered the shop upstairs. A bomb explosion near the Mercanzia destroyed the mirrors in the Liberty-style shop, but the family kept the business and passed it on to subsequent generations.

Old signs remain on building number six. Inside, the counter from nineteen oh seven, wooden panels with shelves, painted ceilings, lamps, and the tile floor have been preserved; the mirrors had to be replaced after the wartime explosion. Behind the shop, an internal passage to Via Caprarie still runs, alongside rooms where bread is baked and pasta is prepared.