Ferdinando De Cinque, lawyer, deputy and scholar of literature, was born in Casoli (Italy) in 1876 from a prominent family of notaries.
He studied law at the University of Bologna but completed his studies in Genoa.
He took an active part in various conflicts, such as in the Redshirts Legion alongside the Greeks against the Ottoman Empire and as a volunteer in the First World War, after which he was wounded and decorated. He was assigned to the press and propaganda office of the Bologna army corps with the rank of captain and collaborated with the newspaper Il Resto del Carlino.
Ferdinando was active in the political scene as well: in 1906 he enrolled the Republican Party in Faenza, he was part of the defence team of Pietro Nenni, then secretary of the Forlì Chamber of Labour, arrested for having organised the strike against the Libyan war in 1911; in the early post-war period Ferdinando was linked to Leandro Arpinati, joining the Fascist Party and holding the office of deputy from 1929 to 1934.
He died in Bologna in 1950 and was buried in the family grave in his native town.
A multifaceted man with a constant passion for studying, his life is studded with experiments and a deep curiosity for the world around him, despite his active participation in more than one conflict.
In the early 1900s he began to put his knowledge on botanicals into practice, playing with new combinations and flavours.
Ferdinando never revealed the formulas of his liquors, which have remained preserved in his notes, among which we can include at least a hundred procedures for the most different creations, with variations and corrections.
Worth mentioning among his many interests is also the one for writing, which culminates with the publication in 1944 of a collection of poems and short stories, entitled Scheletri, cani, lupi e ninfee (Skeletons, dogs, wolves and water lilies); currently, the copies available in circulation are very rare.
