Dates

• Existence: 1817 - 1874

Biography

Salvatore Ferretti was an Italian Protestant born in a renowned family: his mother was the cousin of Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, Pope Pius IX. Signor Ferretti was exiled to England for twenty years because of his faith. There, he founded the Asilo dei Fanciulli poveri italiani in Londra (the “Asylum for Poor Italian Children in London”) in 1844. In 1860, he returned to Florence where he established a Protestant orphanage, the Istituto Ferretti.

Like in London, the house was set up to accommodate orphan girls and daughters of Protestants from Tuscany and other Italian regions. He believed passionately in education for women maintaining that the Roman Catholic Church opposed it in order to keep women subservient to the priesthood and to their husbands. The school where the children were sent was called the Istituto evangelico italiano (The Italian Evangelical Institute), and was supported by the Missionary Society of the Wesleyan Church.

Charles William Anderson and his daughter Euphemia Cargill Anderson (1848-1916) supported this protestant establishment for many years.

Ferretti died in May 1874 and was buried in Florence in the Evangelical Cemetery, the so-called Cimitero degli inglesi (“Cemetery of the English”), where his wife and two sons were also buried.

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