{"id":124,"date":"2008-02-05T12:02:39","date_gmt":"2008-02-05T14:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.recoletacemetery.com\/?p=124"},"modified":"2026-01-10T12:32:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T11:32:30","slug":"familia-roverano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/?p=124","title":{"rendered":"114. familia roverano &loz;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Familia Roverano, Recoleta Cemetery\" src=\"http:\/\/www.recoletacemetery.com\/images\/200402B09.jpg\" alt=\"Familia Roverano, Recoleta Cemetery\" width=\"338\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Even though he&#8217;s missing an arm, this statue of an Italian immigrant is unique to Recoleta Cemetery. He represents one of the newly arrived in Argentina, stepping off a boat onto dry land. Typical peasant garb of a scarf, pants, &amp; boots make his Italian origins obvious. The short phrase written on the boat provides one final clue: &#8220;<em>Ayudate<\/em>&#8221; (Help yourself). It&#8217;s a wonderful representation of an immigrant who makes a fresh start in a new country.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Roveranos came from the region of Genoa, Italy &amp; amassed a small fortune as owners of the now-demolished <strong>Confiter\u00eda del Gas<\/strong>. This famous caf\u00e9 in downtown Buenos Aires served customers in the original location of the Caf\u00e9 Tortoni. When the Tortoni moved to where it is today, the Roverano family set up their own competing caf\u00e9. In 1882, theirs had the distinction of being the first business in Buenos Aires fitted with electric lamps. Very hi-tech for the time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/images\/confiteriadelgas.jpg\" alt=\"Familia Roverano, Confiter\u00eda del Gas, Buenos Aires\" width=\"450\" height=\"328\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Roveranos also bought property close to the main square &amp; opened a commercial passageway named after them. Their caf\u00e9 may not be around these days, but entering the Pasaje Roverano (directly behind the Cabildo) is like going back to the early 20th-century with an old-time barbershop, beautiful stained glass, &amp; nicely preserved woodwork:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Pasaje Roverano, Recoleta Cemetery\" src=\"http:\/\/www.recoletacemetery.com\/images\/200703E37.jpg\" alt=\"Pasaje Roverano, Recoleta Cemetery\" width=\"338\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Pasaje Roverano, Recoleta Cemetery\" src=\"http:\/\/www.recoletacemetery.com\/images\/200703E33.jpg\" alt=\"Pasaje Roverano, Recoleta Cemetery\" width=\"338\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Pasaje Roverano, Recoleta Cemetery\" src=\"http:\/\/www.recoletacemetery.com\/images\/200703E34.jpg\" alt=\"Pasaje Roverano, Recoleta Cemetery\" width=\"338\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Roveranos decided to change cemeteries in 1919 so this has been vacant for several decades, yet the ideal that brought them to Argentina remains intact. Supposedly they spent over one million pesos to build the new family vault in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.recoletacemetery.com\/?p=3186\">Chacarita Cemetery<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Familia Roverano, Cementerio de la Chacarita\" src=\"http:\/\/www.recoletacemetery.com\/images\/200806A70.jpg\" alt=\"Familia Roverano, Cementerio de la Chacarita\" width=\"450\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Update (08 Feb 2012):<\/strong> Much of the <strong><em>Colecci\u00f3n Witcomb<\/em><\/strong> has been made available online, including photo #369 which shows our favorite Italian immigrant with his arm intact:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Roverano, Colecci\u00f3n Witcomb\" src=\"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/images\/WitcombRoverano.jpg\" alt=\"Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Roverano, Colecci\u00f3n Witcomb\" width=\"338\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n\n\n<p><strong>Update (Oct 2025):<\/strong> The restoration team has replaced the missing arm! Hoping to get more details, but for the moment Marcelo has forwarded me this photo from Susana Gesualdi&#8217;s Facebook account.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/images\/Roveranoarm.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"width:auto;height:450px\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even though he&#8217;s missing an arm, this statue of an Italian immigrant is unique to Recoleta Cemetery. He represents one of the newly arrived in&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/?p=124\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">114. familia roverano &loz;<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7475,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/7475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}