By the year 1870, a decade after Garibaldi’s conquest of the Two Sicilies and the year the young nation of Italy was at long last successful in the capture of Rome, several hundred families and individuals formally recognized by the United States as “Italian” could call Boston home. 

The city had no “Little Italy”, as so defined, but many in the community were employed in the mercantile trades, or (more rarely) as craftsmen and artists: a successful example of the last-named calling is the dance master and musician “Count” Lorenzo Papanti (1799 – 1873).