08/23/2023
August is National Inventors Month, so let's remember one of our favorites, Ercole Cavicchi, inventor of the Terrazzo grinding machine (information courtesy of the University of Central Florida). Ercole Cavicchi, was born in Bologna, Italy and immigrated to the United States in the 1880s.
During the first decade of the 20th century, Ercole Cavicchi moved his family to Massachusetts, where he proved a gifted inventor and entrepreneur. He started his own business, Cavicchi Polishing Machinery Corporation and found his American Dream.
Cavicchi Polishing Machine Co., based in Dorchester Massachusetts, “specialized in manufacturing machines for the surfacing and polishing of terrazzo, granite, marble, and other stone.” Between 1915 and 1932, Ercole Cavicchi patented at least three inventions related to his polishing machine business, the most recognizable being a mower-like machine designed to polish floors, pictured here. These inventions helped Cavicchi make a name for himself and his family, in their community, and in the Terrazzo trade.
The impact of these machines on the Terrazzo business that existed at the time (including polishing floors with a galera, a long handle attached to a carborundum stone) cannot be overstated.
