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A bearer of a hundred Roman shields dating back to 1849 issued by the Roman Society of Iron Mines and its work with the handwritten signature of the President Giacomo Benucci. The document of which we speak today (format 20.5 × 19 cm) is an etching on watermarked paper depicting the factories for the processing and the iron melting furnaces, images also present in the dry imprint affixed in the upper right quadrant.
The company was founded with the aim of extracting iron from the mines of Tolfa and other places in the Papal States. The main facilities are located in Tivoli and Terni. The industrial processing of iron in the Papal States spread at the end of the eighteenth century, the year in which the Pontifical Ironworks was opened under the pontificate of Pius VI. Its activity is linked to the extraction of iron in Monteleone di Spoleto. The modernization of the Ironworks is due to Giacomo Benucci who in 1847 definitively became its president after his Ferriera Benucci merged with the Roman Society of Iron Mines in 1846.
As told by Danilo Stentella (From the Pontifical Ferriera to the Mint of Terni to SIRI ", Terni 1995)" Benucci entrusted the management of the Ironworks to Felice Gauthier of Besancon, who proceeded to a rapid adaptation of the structures of the ironworks, which became the largest industrial plant of the city. The personnel employed in this phase amounted to a hundred units. In 1846 they were installed: 8 fucinali, 4 large hammers and 2 machines for the production of air. Drawn merchant iron, rails, bandone and tin were produced. From 1847 the production of products for agriculture began and, especially, machines for processing olives and grapes, as well as the activity of the bronze foundry. Two large hydraulic cassette wheels were put into action, with great motive power. A new engine channel was also built starting from the Nera, with a capacity of six cubic meters, restructuring the course of the ancient Pantano canal. But in those years in Terni there was not only the ironworks, whose driving force was given by the Pantano canal which operated four coffered wheels, whose maximum diameter was m. 7.50 for a width of the boxes of m. 3.50. The local steel industry also consisted of a magona for copper smelting and processing and one for iron purification. Ludovico Silvestri places these two factories on the Via di Galleto, in an area rich in mills, of which today there are still some ruins, especially in the immediate vicinity of Papigno ”.
