The Great Journey: From Milan to Florence

by Enrico Solito
Translated by Bill Barnes

Analyzing the period from 4th May 1891 to "a week later", we can deduce that, once in Italy, Holmes must have taken a train. If he had taken the stage-coach through the Futa Pass he would have spent 15 hours just for the trip from Bologna to Florence: therefore he could not have been in Florence on 12th May.

In these last few years our research efforts allowed us to identify without any doubt the exact train he caught in Milan. Later we will be able to tell you about the discovery of the train timetable and of the reasons which brought us to that conclusion. However, for now, you just need to know that that train was the Milan-Florence express, named "Lampo" (Lightning), arriving in Florence at 4.32 p.m. The conditions in which passengers travelled on the Lampo were certainly far better than those they were normally used to, which were so bad that newspapers wrote that Italian railways didn’t establish a fourth class because it was impossible to travel in worse style than in the existing third class. Nevertheless, the passengers in the legendary "Hundred Doors" cars had to keep themselves warm with blankets, while in summer they had to open the windows in order to breathe, and close them again in the tunnels to keep out the smoke while taking the risk of dying from the stifling heat. But, on the other hand, the views were breathtaking.

The only available railway was the "Porrettana", a real masterpiece of engineering in that period and still today a legend to railway enthusiasts. This railway started from Bologna, climbing up the Tosco-Romagnese Appennine and going down to Pistoia. It was the only conduit linking the north and the south of Italy until the automobile expressway was opened in the 1920’s. Driving a locomotive on that track was very difficult and the "Porrettana" was a kind of "university standard" training ground for engine drivers, and accidents invariably happened. Drivers had to pay strict attention to the pressure of the steam boiler, but most importantly of all they had to use the brakes properly because quite often they failed after repeated use. At the bottom of the most dangerous slope there was a "safety ramp" track on which the train could be diverted so as to be stopped on an upgrade. But that was not the worst risk – if the passengers closed all the windows going through a tunnel, the engine drivers in their open cabin suffered greatly from the smoke pouring out the smokestack with nowhere to immediately escape. As a consequence they were at great risk of dying of asphyxiation when they entered a tunnel, although there were some air-exhausters. To prevent fainting, engine drivers held wet cloths to their faces and were very careful of the first signs of distress, like for example an earache. At the exit of the longest tunnel, near Pracchia, at least two drivers were waiting to jump on the running train to replace their faint colleagues. It is amazing that there weren’t many more train crashes! Actually, we are sure that Holmes was aware of all this, as he says, " I found myself in Florence with the certainty that none in the world knew what had become of me." Holmes knew that if his pursuers had known which train he was on they would have organized an attempt on his life and it would have been so easy to cover up – just another train crash.

The way in which Holmes lays stress on "Florence" (he doesn’t say "I found myself in Italy", nor "in Bologna" although he went there too) shows us that Florence was indeed his destination, his way out, his goal. As this point has already been emphasized elsewhere we would now like to furnish some important background detail of that period, namely:

Florence was the centre of a very strong English community, dating from the beginning of the century, the so called "Anglobeceri". Even today in Florence we say we are the capital of "Chiantishire".

Florence was the focus of important political relations with the British government. Queen Victoria stayed in Florence (at Villa Palmieri and Villa Fabbricotti) in 1888, 1893 and 1894, together with her retinue and some members of her government. She was visited there by the Italian King and Queen and by some Members of the Italian Parliament.

In May 1891 the city was visited by Prince Leopold of Prussia (the Kaiser’s cousin) and the Archduchess Stefania of Austria, Rodolfo’s widow.

Florence was also the nucleus of some powerful Italian political lobbies. Florence had been the capital of Italy from 1866 until 1870 and at that time all the ministerial departments were located there. Government members spent a great deal of their time in Florence. As a consequence there were many political lobbies attempting to exert their influence, including some close relatives of the Savoia’a family.

Italy was on the point of renewing the Triple Alliance. Newspapers reported rumours about the Italian, Austrian and Prussian Prime Ministers meeting for this purpose; and the Italian Monarchy and the government leader Crispi were in favour of it. Nevertheless a government minority representing a majority of voters in the country did not approve of this idea.

All this did not happen by chance and, in accordance with Dr Giovanni Cappellini’s theory, we think that the reasons behind Holmes coming to Florence are to be found in the complex international scheming going on in those years. During his hiatus, Holmes lived incognito for three years – using a false name while travelling up to his visit to Tibet (although once in Italy he knew that nobody was coming after him) – an inordinately long time if he was only worried about one criminal. Unless, of course, we believe that Moriarty’s network, by then taken apart, had linked up with a stronger one with its headquarters in Berlin. Actually, Holmes mentions three enemies, Moran being just one of them, but he doesn’t name the others. I am firmly convinced that the Kaiser and Bismarck were involved. The choice of places Holmes visited during his three-year hiatus exactly corresponds with the Empire hot spots (Tibet, Persia, Sudan) and he himself says that he reported his work to Mycroft and to the Foreign Office. Further, I invite you to reflect on the assumed name Holmes uses, Sigerson, at least from a certain angle of word construction. Baring-Gould and some others suggest that it could been a name with a hidden meaning, that is "Siger’s son", suggesting his father’s name. If we read "siger" from right to left it becomes "regis", in Latin this is the genitive of rex: that is "King’s son", ie, the Prince. In Latin, priceps (the prince) means also the most important, the best, number one. This was a very suitable nom de plume for the best detective in the world on Her Majesty’s service.

If this is the right outline, his going to Florence and making contact with the most influential English and Italian lobbies made sense, because in those days the contacts between De Rudini, Caprivi and Kalnoky were working towards renewing the Triple Alliance. It is patently clear that Italy was a hotbed of espionage activity. The local newspapers of the time abound with reports of the terrible explosion of the powder magazine in Rome on 23rd April 1891, where 265,000 kilograms of gunpowder went off in highly mysterious circumstances, with military leaders saying it was "phenomenal carelessness" and categorically ruling out an attack. Nobody ever claimed responsibility for the incident and it was explained away as a "structural yielding" (an official lie repeated a century later by the Italian Air Force about the tragedy of Ustica). In Genoa on 14th May a trial started against the Prussian Karl Yanzter who, gaining the trust of a government clerk, Carlo Montacchi, had stolen the plans of Fort Richelieu and offered them to his own country (there is a very strange similarity here to the theft of the Bruce Partington Plans).

But what was the city of Florence like at that time? It was very different from today: it was an exhausted community. In 1866 the quiet capital of the old Dukedom of Tuscany and the Lorena family went crazy with the arrival of 30,000 government officials and their families. In 1870 the population reached 194,000 and became the centre of wealth and speculation. In 1871, when the capital was moved to Rome, Florence was gripped by a heavy economic crisis which culminated in 1878 with the failure of the City Council, ruined by huge and, by now, useless city works. In 1881 the population had decreased to 114,000 people. Between 1885 and 1890 an enormous building frenzy demolished Florence’s heart, the Old Ghetto, leaving that Savoy horror that is the present Piazza della Repubblica. This construction boom eliminated the old den of thieves, which moved to the nearby San Frediano district, while the builders close to the King grew richer and richer – a new den of thieves.

The infant mortality rate reached the sad number of 197 per thousand, thirty times the present rate. Social conflicts were worsening. In 1878, 2,600 inhabitants out of 165,000 were recorded in the police records as anarchists – the highest number in all Italy. The traffic – it seems odd to us today – was very busy; there were 100 public coachmen working at night and 484 during the day, and there were many accidents with frightened horses, children and the elderly being killed and injured. Meanwhile the nobles danced and went horse racing at Cascine Park and at Poggio a Caiano. Within a short time of all this (in May 1898) a revolt will explode, the Army will open fire against the crowd (4 people killed in Sesto Fiorentino, 100 in Milan) with the approval of King Umberto (known as "the good"!). At the end of 1890 a typhus epidemic reached high levels in the city (764 cases) but an article in The Lancet (the famous English medical journal) published on 10th January 1891 highlighted the good management of the health authorities in this emergency and ended off by saying "travellers should not be afraid to go to Florence", as certainly Dr Watson would have advised his friend.

At the beginning of May 1891 the political situation was extreme. The 1st of May workers’ revolt had been foreseen, and feared all over Europe. Whereas in England and Switzerland there had not been any serious incidents, only very big peaceful parades with everything under control, in Belgium and Loira the miners were on strike, together with the clerks of the Paris bus companies. In France many people died in Formies and there were many fights in Marseille and Lyon. Paris was calm (the streets were patrolled by 2,500 footsoldiers, three regiments of cuirassiers, two regiments of horse guards, 7,000 policemen and the entire Republican footguards and horseguards!), but in Italy serious fights were reported in Rome, Florence, Bologna, Ancona and Naples. In Rome itself about 100 people were arrested. Newspapers reasserted their allegiance to the Crown and looked down with horror upon the fights for work and bread. All the headlines were about the police hunting the workers’ leaders. On the 8th May Galileo Palla was arrested – he was at the forefront of the Florentine trouble under the false name of Valerio Landi – and trials began in the middle of May. Holmes must have had very good forged documents to preserve his incognito.

All over the rest of Italy it rained and was cold – in Florence it also rained but was quite warm. Floods were reported everywhere: the Po and Adige rivers rose over their banks, nearly all the roads in the North were cut, which was another good reason to take the train. The temperature recorded by the Ximenian Observatory in Florence moved from a low of 12-18 degrees Celsius to highs of 18-28. In particular, on the 12th May (the day of Holmes’s arrival) the temperature reached 28 degrees, then dropped to 20. For an Englishman travelling from a cold mountain region it would have been terribly hot, especially considering the typically high humidity, and presumably Holmes got a new wardrobe (now that he had money, thanks to his contacts in Florence).

Newspapers in Florence in those days were full of items that Holmes would have surely noted with interest. Apart from the advertisements for the steam-powered chocolate factory of Enrico Rivoire in Piazza Signoria and Ferrochina Bisleri liqueur (both still existing), the list of theatres and shows, he probably saw the advertisement for Enrico Gambillo’s railway map with "alphabetic indexes and lists of all trains, street-cars, railway and steamship connections, maps of the Adriatic, Mediterranean and Sicilian routes". At that time it was the only reference because an organised timetable did not exist all over Italy. We are sure he purchased one, together with a copy of a new book on which the local newspaper, "La Nazione", published a review the very day of his arrival, "Observations on Latin Paleography in the Middle Ages, a Practical and Theoretical Essay" by Cesare Paoli. Among all the advertisements for the English shops in town, his practical mind would have no doubt noticed one for the brand new catalogue from Zeiss, a manufacturer of office furniture, especially a handy filing cabinet by which it was possible "to locate telegrams, postcards and mail in general in a very short time". He would have also probably gone to a concert in the evening of 18th May by the famous violin player, Cesare Cagnacci, who would have played Paganini’s "Mosè". It is curious to read in "La Nazione"of 29th May a long description of Edison’s various articles in "The Phonograph" magazine, where he writes about the ease of recording any sounds or music on some magic wax cylinders: "sitting in your armchair one can arrange a series of wax cylinders on which are engraved...pieces of violin playing. The cylinders, eight inches high and five inches round, could be recorded thanks to a telephone connected to a phonograph." In MAZA there is a recording of Hoffmann’s "Barcarola" on the violin, although Holmes mentions a "gramophone" and not a phonograph. It should be noted that there weren’t any recordings made of a violin solo of the "Barcarola" and gramophone recordings were not possible in the theatre, but could only be made professionally in a studio. If it was a phonograph and not a gramophone, the idea for that would have come from Florence. Another intriguing possibility to have interested Holmes was the discovery, reported in "La Nazione" on 20th May, of some ancient illuminated codex at Sant’antonio al Monte, near Rieti. This was a large treasure trove of 500 printed volumes and 69 illuminated codex from the 10th to the 15th centuries. Professor Villari, a Minister of the Italian Government, sent a committee chaired by Professor Monaci, and it is possible that Holmes discussed this valuable find with the Minister (living in Florence in those days), as we know of his great interest in that subject. And how could he feign indifference at the news of the discovery of domed Etruscan graves at Vetulonia, in Tuscany, on 16th May? This discovery led to the finding of an old Etruscan city of great archaeological significance. If our colleague Carlo Oliva is correct in identifying Professor Pasquale Villari as the person Holmes contacted in Milan, then it is certain that their meetings continued on in Florence before Villari went back to Rome.

We can conjecture a little about what Holmes probably did in the city as a visitor. Graziano Braschi will report about his many visits to the Viesseux Cabinet, I for one can only say with some degree of certainty that he would have called in at Filastrucchi’s, the theatre makeup shop, and visited Bizzarri’s chemical products in Via Condotta, both still open today. When you enter those shops you cannot help but think of Holmes and his varied interests. We have mentioned before his visit to Corsellini’s "Operti" pipe shop in Via Panzani and tomorrow we will go there to unveil a plaque that commemorates that event. The railway station was renamed Santa Maria Novella in 1861, as well as being known by the anonymous "Central": it was first called "Maria Antonia" and was joined to "Leopolda" (at the Cacsine Park, closed in 1860). The station was completely rebuilt in the 1930s. We have found some photos of the old station, as Holmes would have seen it, together with the newsagent’s at the station entrance where he would have bought his newspaper on 12th May – if he alighted from the train there…and we say "if" because we have another hypothesis. But before we go on, let me put a question to you.

After Reichenbach Holmes disappeared for many years. Dr Cappellini and I believe Holmes was more worried about the German network than Moriarty’s people, and he was given an important mission abroad as he was in 1912-14. But apart from that, Holmes would have wanted to preserve his incognito in any case. However, wasn’t it a bit strange that he went to Florence, a city full of English people, each of whom could have recognised him? When he left Switzerland he had no makeup kit to change his appearance and the money he had would have been all used on new identity papers and clothes until he reached Florence. Arriving at a crowded station…taking the risk of being identified...I repeat, there is another hypothesis. Let us continue.

It is obvious that Holmes got in touch with a person in Florence who was able to provide money and assistance: one of Mycroft’s contacts, a member of the Diogenes Club. Whether this was organized in London, or improvised on the spot by telegraph, there is no doubt that Holmes had that support in Florence. Who was Holmes’s contact in Italy? It had to be someone who wasn’t known to the international conspirators (in my opinion, the Prussians, as I’ve mentioned earlier). A person beyond suspicion, preferably not English, but someone in continuous touch with London and Mycroft. We have no proof, of course. But many clues add up to a probability, and probabilities can come close to proof.

Paolo Lorenzini was the brother of the famous writer Carlo Lorenzini, named Collodi, the author of "Pinocchio", a best-seller in England. He had been Managing Director of the Ginori ceramics factory in Sesto Fiorentino since 1879. In 1862 he organised the factory’s presence at the London Exposition, where Ginori Ltd established itself as one of the three greatest factories in Europe, and he was the brains behind a lively and very effective advertising campaign in English newspapers. He was in constant contact with England and he was always travelling throughout Europe.

In 1889 the Ginori factory had 1,300 workers, 10 furnaces for porcelain and five for majolica, a chemical laboratory, engraving laboratories, chromolithography laboratories, a blacksmith and joiner’s workshop, and featured gas lighting and the telephone. It had warehouses in Rome, Naples, Turin, and agents all over Europe. In the second half of the 1880s it was in deep trouble from competition from cheap Prussian ceramics flooding the market. The situation was resolved by the passing of protectionist Italian, French and English laws between 1887 and 1889 that were proposed and championed by Lorenzini. One of Ginori’s most important products was Weigmann cylinders, used as insulators, in parts of various machinery and for military purposes. Sales in foreign countries were very substantial. So, to recap, Lorenzini was in continuous touch with England and he had a strong dislike for the Prussians. Maybe he is our man.

Let us return to the Lampo’s timetable. There is only one stop between Pistoia and Florence, and that is at Sesto Fiorentino at 4.28 p.m. This was an ideal opportunity for Holmes to get off the train close to his destination without risking being identified by other Englishmen at the busy Florence terminal. Sesto was linked to Florence by a fast horse tramway, using the same road as the bus does today, and the same route number – 28. The village is sufficiently secluded but ideally placed to get to the centre of Florence in a matter of minutes, it is only six Roman miles from Sesto to the Old Palace in the centre of the city. Moreover, it is close to the villas on the hill – the Royal Summer Residence – and the summer houses of the well off, already occupied in that warm spring of 1891.

But what kind of disguise would Holmes have used? We know his adventures in Tibet were reported by the Press under the name of Sigerson, but we don’t know anything about Florence. We’ve said that in the Ginori factory in Sesto there was a large number of foreign employees, especially French, who worked in the chemical and painting laboratories. A visiting chemical engineer, perhaps a consultant from Montpellier, named Vernet, could easily have been brought in by Lorenzini without raising any suspicion. It is also too much of a coincidence that in 1892 Ginori’s sales increased dramatically from 245,000 to 345,000 lire, this being only partly due to productivity improvements made in 1891. In the same period, trials commenced in semi-automating the production of Weigmann cylinders (Lorenzini’s untimely death in November 1891, soon after Holmes’s departure, delayed this project being completed until 1895) and they began working on the manufacture of electric insulators, an increasingly important commodity for the military.

Coincidence? Holmes distrusted coincidences, however we note that his stay in Florence coincided with important technological improvements at Ginori. We also know of someone in Sesto who purchased an old villa and heard stories from elderly farmers about a strange guest who stayed there at the time of Holmes’s visit…a friend of Lorenzini’s...but people’s privacy must be respected.

Holmes, however, used that time at Ginori’s to learn more about the world of ceramics and china ware. He didn’t became particularly expert on the subject, for in ILLU Watson had to go to a library to study it up, but Holmes learnt the basis of collecting pottery and observed Lorenzini’s passion for china, so he would have known that Baron Gruner could not resist the idea of obtaining a precious piece.

At the end of his Italian mission Holmes left Florence feeling satisfied, as he had undermined the foundation of a reckless alliance that would have linked the young country of Italy to England’s historical enemies. The anti-Prussian forces, the lobby groups and the opposition to the alliance with the enemy of the past (and of the future!) were reinforced and reorganized, even if only informally.

Holmes would have surely passed through Suez to get to Tibet, but I don’t think he returned to Bologna to travel to Brindisi by the Peninsula Express, as Phileas Fogg did. This was a comfortable train trip from London via Paris to Brindisi in only 40 hours, from there a ship for India departed every Sunday at 2:00 p.m. That route was too dangerous for a man travelling incognito. We believe he was persuaded by the compelling advertisements in "La Nazione" and decided to rely on the shipping company Florio & Rubattino, whose ships left Genoa and Naples every 20 days for Alexandria and Bombay.

Let us leave him there, rolling through the swell on an Italian steamer, thinking sadly of his old friend who thought him dead, fighting off the desire to write to him. Looking ahead instead to his eventual return and the many adventures which awaited him, and which today await all us. Thank you.