Mattozzi historical business of Italy

With great honour we have joined the association of historical businesses of Italy, a selection of less than 300 shops and businesses of which there are only 17 in Campania.

What is it

The historical businesses of Italy is a cultural non-profit association, which aims through specific  cultural, touristic and editorial events, to promote and protect the oldest and most prestigious businesses, hotels, restaurants, cake shops and cafés that have more than seventy years of history and have become part of Italian history through events and the people who have frequented them. Today the association has 240 members. The association has the patronage of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Cultural Activity.

2017 THE GUIDE

Unique in its genre, reviewed by the Italian press together with the most important national tourist guides, the Guide to Historical Businesses of Italy is dedicated to the people that love cultural tourism and we are included 2017 edition.

Mattozzi Restaurant and Pizzeria

There are very few pizza chef families from the XIX and XX century that have arrived today to pass on the heritage of knowledge and experience to the future generations. One of these families is the Mattozzis  that founded the Restaurant Pizzeria  more than 150 years ago in Largo Carità (today Piazza Salvo D’Acquisto).

Today with Paolo Surace we are the fourth generation of pizza chefs.

The restaurant in Piazza Carità was founded in 1833 under the name “Le stanze di Piazza Carità” by Antonio La Vecchia and it was attended by the intellectuals of the time such as Francesco De Sanctis one of the main critics and historians of the XIX century Italian literature.

After the generations of the the Mattozzi family, in 1959 the business was bought by Alfredo Surace which had been the maitre d’of the Mattozzi Pizzeria in Via Marchese Campodisola since 1930.

He started this new venture with his wife Concetta Perrone. Alfredo was also helped by his sons Franco and Lello.

In 1984, together with Antonio Pace, Lello founded the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana through which they aim to protect the great tradition of the Pizza and spread it all around the world.

Today Lello with the help of his son Paolo keeps the Neapolitan tradition with a great cuisine and amazing pizzas.

FRANCESCO DE SANCTIS AND MATTOZZI RESTAURANT PIZZERIA

A great customer of the restaurant in Piazza Carità was Francesco De Sanctis a writer, literary critic, politician, philosopher and also a Minister of Education, consider by everybody one the major critics and historians of the Italian literature of his time.

De Sanctis was born in 1817 in a small town in Irpinia. He moved to Naples to study which led him into teaching and to compare himself with the best  known contemporary philosophers. It is in this period that Francesco De Sanctis  attended the restaurant in Piazza Carità, meeting point for the intellectuals of the time.

His career as a teacher ended in 1848, due to his involvement  in the revolutionary upheaval  of the Union of Italy. He was suspended, imprisoned and exiled .

He returned to his native country in 1860 when he met Giuseppe Mazzini with whom he started his political carrier not forgetting his teaching and the literary activities.

He was a member Parliament and Minister of Education after which he dedicate himself to his studies, writing very important essays and theses. He taught at the University of Naples.

After a short break he will became  part of the government  of  Benedetto Cairoli. Then he returned to Naples where he spendt the last years of his life dedicating his time to his studies and writing.

Francesco De Sanctis died in 1883.