Bergamotto di Positano

FAMILY ANECDOTES

The faint sensation of forgotten summer hideaways that enflame forgotten memories, Bergamotto di Positano is a homage to Charles Joseph Pagliano, who in the early 19th century left the enclave of the small fishing village on the Amalfi coast to travel to England and marry his sweetheart Mary Floris. Mary was a key member of the Floris family who lived and worked for many years for the family business at 89 Jermyn Street. The breath-taking spectacle of the Amalfi coast brings you close to the real, tangible and intense soul of the Mediterranean. It is this beauty that Charles left behind to make his fortune. Marrying into the Floris family, he and Mary took up ownership of the Sabloniere Hotel in Leicester Square and for over 3 decades in the early 1800s held court in the heart of London as the first point of call and home for Italian visitors to these fair shores. Charles never returned to Positano remaining in London, but his portrait along with Mary’s still sits inside the mahogany cabinets of 89 Jermyn Street. We were captured as to what he thought of home, and if he ever yearned for the Mediterranean Sea. In the 1950s, John Steinbeck wrote of Positano, ‘"Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone.” We think this may have been true for Charles.