Francesco Illy

Biography

Francesco Illy was born in 1892 in Temesvár, a multicultural city then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was a Hungarian carpenter, and his mother had Danube Swabian roots. He was baptized in a local Catholic church, attended a Piarist high school, and finished vocational training in 1904. After studying economics, he moved to Vienna to start his career. At 22, he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army and fought on many fronts during World War I, including at Kraśnik and the Isonzo. He earned several medals—the Silver and Iron Cross of Merit, the Bronze Bravery Medal, and the Karl Troop Cross—and rose to the rank of Sergeant.

Following the war and the Treaty of Trianon, Illy settled in Trieste with his sister Amalie, who was married to a wealthy man. There he met Vittoria Prandina, a piano teacher for his nieces, and later married her. They had two children, Ernesto and Hedda. In Trieste, Illy worked for firms that roasted cocoa and coffee. He briefly moved to Milan in 1920 to co-found the Emax coffee roasting company with a partner, then returned to Trieste. There he created a vacuum-sealing method that kept coffee fresh by replacing oxygen with pressurized nitrogen, a technique still used today.

In 1933, Illy and Roberto Hausbrandt became equal partners in founding illycaffè, originally called Illy & Hausbrandt Coffee and Chocolate Industry. Two years later, Illy patented the Illetta, the first automatic espresso machine to use pressurized water instead of steam, a key step toward modern espresso machines. In 1939, he, Hausbrandt, and Carlo Seitz opened a Swiss branch of the company in Thalwil. Illy later became a naturalized Italian citizen while keeping his Hungarian nationality. His son Ernesto eventually took over the company, which remains family-owned and run by the third generation.