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Louis Charles Marie Porte

Louis Charles Marie Porte (Toulon, 1799–Florence, 1843) accompanied his father from a young age in the mercantile activity of the Porte family in Livorno, a city that acted as a safe haven for French merchants and entrepreneurs.
The young Porte, a naturalized Tuscan, first dedicated himself to the tanning industry and then moved to Piombino, entering in the graces of Élisa Bonaparte and her husband Felice Baciocchi. The princess had decided to make Montioni into one of the strong points of the economic development of the Principality, focused on the alum mines and surrounding forest assets, and Porte was selected to participate in this project: with the decree of Felice Baciocchi on 26 November 1811, “.. le sieur Louis Port est nommè directeur de l’alumier..” of Montioni. This was the moment of maximum splendour for the small Maremma mining community: more than 400 employees, mostly seasonal, between those working in the caves, furnaces and boilers, coachmen and cutters, coming from the Tuscan, Lucca and Modena mountains. Porte worked in this arena not only invested with a sense of entrepreneurial responsibility but also feeling himself to be the executor of Élisa’s noble plan to repopulate Montioni. Porte was the first to use dromedaries as beasts of burden for transporting alum to the Follonica port.