Mosaics

“The simplicity of design in the Weston Library is enriched by Art Nouveau mosaic panels over the windows and main entrance, a unique feature among Ontario’s Carnegie libraries,” noted the authors of The Best Gift; a record of the Carnegie libraries in Ontario.

Architect Donald J. Rankin observed in 1978, “From certain angles at night, this mosaic work reflects the street lights with an almost Byzantine effect.”

The mosaics were created in 1914 by the Italian Mosaic and Marble Company of Canada, Limited, which was paid $500 for its work. The company was owned by an American family originally from the Fruili region of Italy.

Details about the De Spirts operations are provided in John E. Zucchi’s history, Italians in Toronto:

In the late 1890s, a fruilano family originally from Fanna, the De Spirts, moved from New York City to Buffalo where they opened a mosaic, marble, and terrazzo firm. From Buffalo, employees were sent to various worksites in the American west and midwest ... In 1912, Albino Pedron was sent to Toronto by the De Spirt family to work at one of its jobsites and to open a branch office from which he could expand into the Canadian market. Pedron seized the opportunity to establish his own business and the De Spirts had to send one of their own sons to complete with their former employee and with some of the older Canadian firms which had been hiring fruilani mosaic, marble, and terrazzo workers, and tile setters.

Attilio Charles De Spirt (1897-1970) was the son that was sent from Buffalo. He was a Toronto resident by September 1918, when his registration papers for the United States draft stated that the 21-year-old American was the manager of the Italian Mosaic & Marble Co. (located in the Crown Tailoring Building at the northeast corner of College and Euclid) and lived at 44 Berwick Avenue.

Construction, September 1915

Prior to Attilio’s arrival, Toronto city directories show that the Italian Mosaic and Marble Company of Canada was managed first by Victor T. Goggin (born in Winnipeg in 1888 and working as a salesman for a mosaic company in Boston by 1917) and then by Joseph P. Connolly.

“A. C. De Spirt” was not listed as the company’s manager until the 1921 city directory, and the business now was located at 442 King Street West, just east of Spadina Avenue.

The company dominated the trade by that time. In the early 1920s, it opened an office in London, Ontario, and was featured on full-page spreads in several building and engineering catalogues, which detailed the company’s activities and provided a “Partial list of Buildings in which the Italian Mosaic and Marble Co. of Canada, Ltd., have executed designs and work.”

Among the dozens of references in the 1924 catalogue was one for “Public Library, Weston, Ont.” and another for “Knox Presbyterian Church, Stratford, Ont.”, both planned around 1913-14 by Lindsay & Brydon Architects. 

In 1925, Egidio (Gid/Giles) De Spirt (1894-1981) moved to Toronto to replace his younger brother, who went back to Buffalo to take over the family business there. Egidio continued the predominance of the Canadian branch. Under his management, the Italian Mosaic and Marble Company of Canada supplied the terrazzo and marble to the Empire Hotel in North Bay (1927), for example, and created the mosaic ceiling at the Royal Ontario Museum (1933). Egidio De Spirt remained in Toronto, and is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery.