io Pedrocchi (1776-1852), an obscure Paduan coffee-house
keeper, tormented by a desire for glory, conceived the idea of building
the most beautiful coffee house in the world, and carried it out.

Artists and craftsmen of all ages since the discovery of coffee have
brought their genius into play to fashion various forms of apparatus
associated with the preparation of the coffee drink. Coffee roasters and
grinders have been made of brass, silver, and gold; coffee mortars, of
bronze; and coffee making and serving pots, of beautiful copper, pewter,
pottery, porcelain, and silver designs.

In the Peter collection in the United States National Museum there is to
be seen a fine specimen of the Bagdad coffee pot made of beaten copper
and used for making and serving; also, a beautiful Turkish coffee set.
In the Metropolitan Museum in New York there are some beautiful
specimens of Persian and Egyptian ewers in faience, probably used for
coffee service. Also, in American and continental museums are to be seen
many examples of seventeenth-century German, Dutch, and English bronze
mortars and pestles used for "braying" coffee beans to make coffee
powder.

[Illustration: COFFEE GRINDER SET WITH JEWELS

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]

A very beautiful specimen of the oriental coffee grinder, made of brass
and teakwood, set with red and green glass jewels, and inlaid in the
teakwood with ivory and brass, is at the Metropolitan. This is of
Indo-Persian design of the nineteenth century.

The Metropolitan Museum shows also many specimens of pewter coffee pots
used in India, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Russia, and England in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

One can guess at the luxuriousness of the coffee pots in use in France
throughout the eighteenth century by noting that from March 20, 1754, to
April 16, 1755, Louis XV bought no fewer than three gold coffee pots of
Lazare Duvaux. They had carved branches, and were supplied with "chafing
dishes of burnished steel" and lamps for spirits of wine. They cost,
respectively, 1,950, 1,536, and 2,400 francs. In the "inventory of
Marie-Josephe de Saxe, Dauphine of France", we note, too, a "two cup
coffee pot of gold with its chafing dish for spirits of wine in a
leather case."

The Italian wrought-iron coffee roaster of the seventeenth century was
often a work of art. The specimen illustrated is rich in decorative
motifs associated with the best in Florent