Ercole Manfredi - Personal Life

Personal Life

In Siam, Manfredi adopted the local culture and way of life. He dressed and ate like a Thai, mingled with Thai friends, and used an abacus to calculate. His government contract had required him "to be able within one year to converse in Siamese in a tolerable way," but he went further and became fluent in both the spoken and written language.

Manfredi married a Thai wife, Thongmuan (Thai: ทองม้วน), with Buddhist rites in 1913. They had two daughters and lived together in what he described as "years of paradise". He left the country only twice, in 1925 and 1928, to represent Siam at the second and third International Book Fairs in Florence.

Following the revolution of 1932, rising nationalistic sentiments resulted in a large decline in the role and numbers of Westerners working for the government. Manfredi was among the few who remained in Thailand. Like Corrado Feroci, he took up a Thai name, Ekkarit Manfendi (เอกฤทธิ์ หมั่นเฟ้นดี), and received Thai nationality on 29 November 1943. By adopting a Thai identity, he remained a relevant and respected figure in the Thai field of architecture.

Manfredi was involved in various humanitarian and cultural organisations. He was a member of the Siam and the Italian Red Cross, the Siam Teachers' Association, the Automobile Club of Siam, and the Alliance française. He also maintained links with his Italian roots, and was a member in the Dante Alighieri Society, the Colonial Italian Institute, and the Italian Touring Club. He was also selected as a correspondent member of the Italian Book Institute of Florence in 1929.

Manfredi has been described as rather eccentric for a foreigner in Siam at the time. In an interview, his daughter Maly Manfredi remarked that he was "an odd number". He was also noted to be impulsive and stubborn, often ignoring his wife's sensible advice to do what he wanted, including leaving his official post to pursue archaeology. According to Maly, "as court architect, he used to fly into a rage at the suppliers' gifts," and "Papa needed a big organisation to discipline him, like the Court or Chulalongkorn University." At the age of seventy-five, Manfredi realised his dream project of building a boat; to finance, he had to sell his entire collection of Siamese art. He named the boat Mammino, and used it mostly for pleasure cruises to Pattaya.

Manfredi lived in Thailand until his death on 9 June 1973. He and his wife (who died six years later) were interred at the Christian cemetery at Ban Pong, Ratchaburi.