Emiddio and Alfonso Mele, wealthy landowners, frequent visitors and connoisseurs of Europe, understood that Paris was the beating heart of modernity.
The two brothers acted as cultured and attentive entrepreneurs, they sensed the signs of the times and had the inspiration and intuition to propose the happy commercial formula (coming from beyond the Alps) of "large-scale distribution" in their Naples.
In fact, the Magazzini Italiani of the Mele brothers during the years of the Belle Epoque constituted a unique model of glamor in Europe, for the diversification of products, from high fashion (the major European stylists designed for the Neapolitan house) to every other genre commodity. Distribution took place both in the elegant showroom of the Palazzo della Borghesia and through mail order with the quarterly catalog which includes more than 1,000 items.
The prestigious Palazzo della Borghesia is the headquarters that best suits the Mele's activity, since its typology reflects the ideal model of building designed for the bourgeois society of the late nineteenth century, also for its functional and distribution organisation: the ground floor and the first floors intended for commercial activities, and the upper floors reserved for residential apartments.
1) Alfonso Mele con la moglie Emma Pepere e i figli Giuseppe, Emiddio, Teresa
2) Emiddio Mele con la moglie Maria Francesca Stellingeverff e i figli Anna Maria, Caterina, Alfonso
3) Alfonso ed Emiddio nel giardino della Villa di famiglia a Posillipo
4) Alfonso ed Emiddio in viaggio per l'esposizione Universale di Parigi del 1900,