Chapter 8
In the second half of the 1400. – The churches –The Municipal Statutes – Outstanding citizens for jobs and public offices – Convent of San Sebastian, its decline and abandonment.
At the foot of the castle, which was a valid feudal defense instrument and at the same time the magnificent residence of the Gesualdo family, there stood a cluster of casupole [hovels], which constituted the first nucleus of habitations called La Terra – a name that has remained until our day — and in which there were almost no roads, but just narrow alleyways that ascended and descended and that were nothing more than crude, steep flights of stairs. In this primitive nucleus of habitations rose the mother church, which was dedicated to San Canio: The spiritual jurisdiction for the care of souls was centered in the church of San Canio and was entrusted to an archpriest – curate. In May of 1473, that archpriest-curate was Don Nicolò de Impomola, and he is the first of the long series of archpriests that we will encounter. In the district contiguous with the castle, which is called the Torre district, there rose the church of the Purgatorio [Purgatory] and Pio Monte dei Morti [Pious mountain of the dead] under the name of San Michele Arcangelo, whose first construction — according to the Regole di Fondazione [Rules of foundation] — dates back to June 23, 1333. In the casale of the same name, rose the capella di S. Pietro [Chapel of Saint Peter] — of which there now remains an alleyway so named — and in its immediate vicinity rose the hospital, endowed with good earnings, as was revealed by a Notary document of September 14, 1493, where it is called bona hospitalis Terra eiusdem[1][the good hospital of Terra]. The name and the site are still remembered in the street of the same name in Calitri.
At this time, that is, in the second half of the Fourteen Hundreds, the population, which had risen to 220 fuochi or families (about 1200 souls), consisted mostly of shepherds and farmhands who worked the lands of the feudatorio for food or for very meager wages. There were a few pure farmers, some of which were small landowners, and others were censuari[2]of the baronial lands or censuari of those lands belonging to the clergy. There was no evidence of public life In this century of hard serfdom, all the citizen activity revolved around and was centered upon the service of the feudal lord. The only public activity, which took place within specific limits, was restricted to the Amministrazione [governing body] of the Comune or Università, as it was then called. Some Statuti[3] e Capitoli [accords]on the relationship between the inhabitants and the feudatori had — from time immemorial —been drawn up by common agreement. These Statuti and Capitoli also regulated the internal life of the village. Under Ferrante I of Aragon (1458 –94), the municipal law, founded up until then on ancient customs, entered into a new legal phase with the Capitolazioni, [document that protected people’s rights] whose first draft dates back to July 18, 1494.[4] Such Capitolazioni or Statuti sanctioned some public health standards in order to govern the removal of waste, the washing of clothes in the public fountains, and the killing of animals in the habitat. In addition, it also became the obligation of each family first of all to clean its own home every Saturday beginning on the first day of June through the end of August. Other articles regulated the sale of meat, the sale of goods imported from foreign lands, the trading of absolutely necessary consumer goods, etc.. Other provisions of these documents established fines for whoever uses an inaccurate scale, for whoever appropriated the lands of the Comune or caused damage to the communal vegetables. Other provisions made it absolutely obligatory for the enclosing the gardens both near and far away from their homes with poles and thorns; it also governed the grinding of grain in the mill of the feudatorio, with the absolute prohibition of grinding their grain into flour elsewhere, except when the above mentioned mills could not function because of lack of water, etc.
The Statuti municipal [municipal statutes] also governed the sale of products of the soil, which gave a certain comfort to the censuari class and of the small rural landowners, who, little by little, had to take the place of the feudal landowners. The names of those families that, at first, managed to established property ownership are not known; the only names that come down to us are those of a few fellow citizens who, in the second half of the fifteenth century, held some high position or practiced a profession or a trade. In May of 1473, the fellow citizen Donato de Edualdis, was a notary. It is stated in a Privilegio of Ferranti I, dated September 15, 1489, that «Angelo di Calitri» was sent to take over the Capitania [captaincy, governing] of Pisticci and Montalbano Ionico.[5] Other names of fellow citizens are revealed by a sales document dated September 14, 1493 — which is kept in the pergamene[documents that are made of parchment] of the above cited historic archives of Montevergine: the notary, Antonio Leone, of Calitri, drew up the notary deed of purchase of the total house of one Veronica, widow of Ranzino, which is situated «in the suburb of the village of Saint Peter.» There were other names found in the «Inventario dei beni feudali» [Inventory of feudal goods] that was conducted on June 4, 1494, and they are Giovanni Maglio, who in that year had in his care the mares of Massenzio Gesualdo; Antonio de Maurella and Ianuccio [Giovannuccio] de Liuni who rented some houses of the feudal lord at Casaleni; and then Antonio Maglio, Mastro Donato, Luca Rizzo, and Leonardo de Tanca who, up until 1464, were employees of the baron in charge of the mills of the feudal lord. And there were yet a few other names: in the last twenty years of the fifteenth century, one Luca Tozolo took a house in Calitri. Having graduated in Jurisprudence, in Rome, he held the job of consistorial attorney in that city. When he moved to Naples, where «because of his erudition and great skill at law, he was welcomed by Ferdinand with great honor and engaged to read [teach] on our Studio. He was made Consigliere [advisor]in 1466.»[6] Having been implicated in the alleged plot of Platina[7] and of other humanists against Pope Paul II (1468), he never again returned to Rome, but continued to live in Naples, at the court of Ferdinand I of Aragon. Besides these few names, a thick veil wraps the internal life and the families of Calitri. It is only known that — in the second half of the fifteenth century — last names had become widely used, while before only persons of high birth used last names. For their own name then, there prevailed a very wide spread tendency to follow the classic tradition using Roman names like Cornelia, Camilla, Dionisio, Drusiana, Fulvia, Orazio, Reginia, Renziano, Scipione, Troiano, Livio, and many others. It cannot be established with certainty whether or not this use was a secular and uninterrupted tradition, which repeated the origin from remote times, or was mannerism that came from the Humanists during the glorious Rinascimento [Renaissance] — in which classical models were imitated. In addition, tradition — which is a great part of historic sources — has told us that one of the oldest families in Calitri was the Gervasi[8] family and that a Gervasi participated in the crusade or – as is easier to say — in a pilgrimage to the Terrasanta [Holy Land]; filled by a living religious fervor, he carried a fragment of the Holy Cross, under whose title he had erected a chapel on a hill, which took the name of Calvario. [Pictured here]. That said family repeats its origin for ancient times one can gather from the fact that, at the end of the fifteenth century, one Bernadino Gervasi practiced the profession of notary.[9]
The devotional chapel of Calvario leads me, by the association of ideas, to relate that, towards the end of the fifteenth century, the church and the convent of San Sebastiano was built on the south side of the residential area. The initiative was taken by the Università, which interpreted the religious feeling of the whole citizenry. The circumstance surrounding this construction was an extremely terrifying plague that, in the last twenty years of the fifteenth century, raged through our population. The plague having ceased, the people wanted, because of renewed religious fervor, that there be erected outside of the residential area – perhaps there where a leprosarium had stood – a church dedicated to San Sebastian, the heavenly eradicator of the plague, with a convent annexed to it. One has explicit confirmation of in the Cronica Conzana, which has been cited many times: «It appears from the writing that said convent was built in the time of the plague, before 1508.»
Pope Innocent VIII, with the Breve [papal letter] of January 12, 1489, welcoming the votive offerings of the Università, authorized the construction of it iuxta et propr muros castri, [near the walls of the city] entrusting its officiating to the Reformed Minor Brothers.[10] The work of construction must have proceeded with celerity, to judge by an item reported by Wadding, who, relating that on December 6, 1489 P.[padre] Tomaso from Pescopagano was buried there – perhaps one of the first Franciscans who went to officiate at the new temple – and this leads us to believe at least the church was finished that year. The expenses for the construction were borne by the Università and by the consort of Fabrizio Gesualdo, the Contessa Sveva Caracciolo, who not only contributed because of her ample means to the expenses of construction but wanted to be buried in that peaceful sanctuary.
The Franciscan church, veiled in solitude and mysticism, effused for almost a century the fascination of the faith and feelings of Christian piety; however, toward the end of the sixteenth century, the cloister began, because of malaria, to decay and to be depopulated. Death had crossed the threshold of the sacred courtyard too often. During the seventeenth century, then, it was abandoned and taken up many times by various religious orders. This is how the archbishop Caracciolo of Conza expressed himself on the subject in a relazione [report] to the Holy See on September 2, 1688: «The first possessors were the Reformed Fathers of the Franciscan Religione,[11] who held it for some time, but then left it, and it was then inhabited by the Minor Observing Fathers and these similarly abandoned it, and then in the year 1612 the above mentioned Reformed Fathers took it over again, but in the same year because of the cattiv’aria [Malaria] of the site, all the brothers became ill, and some died. Because of this, they abandoned it…. In addition, the convent, which was placed at the extreme edge of the monastic province, was not able to keep the observance of the rule and the Provincial Minister because of the long distance, was only visited on rare occasions.»
Our Università was interested in the convent not be abandoned, it committed itself to «rebuild the sacred and profane furnishings, and to repair said convent, with the expending of fifty scudi[12]per year for that span of ten years, and to pay to the brothers one hundred scudi per year.» But an indeed generous promise of help was put in doubt by the Archbishop who judged it unworkable: «I do not know if then the Università would, as it asserts, support it — continued the archbishop Caracciolo in the above mentioned Relazione[report]— but I do know that said Università has an attrasso[Calitrani dialect for a debt which has come due but has not been paid]due the tax collectors of the Royal Court. In addition, in order to pay this annual allotment, the king’s consent is necessary, which I am not certain they will obtain when they are so seriously burdened by tax debt.» This was a real hatchet job. And the Archbishop was telling the truth, because never in those years was our Università so indebted that, in order to pay only the interest, the creditors were given the receipts «Over the fruits and income of the Università specifically and generally, and signanter [expressly] over the tax on flour.» — as will be stated later on. Every effort of the Università against the resolute will of Archbishop Gaetano Caracciolo (1682 – 1709) turned out to be useless, which Archbishop, on September 2, 1688, informed the Holy See about the wretched state of the convent and about the conditions that rendered convent life impossible, and he concluded by proposing that the convent be abandoned. The Holy See — and it is superfluous to repeat — approved such a proposal and provided for its ultimate abandonment.
In 1688, then, every heartbeat of religious life and every divine worship in that devotional time ceased in that cloister forever. With its silence, the extreme splendor of a past of faith and citizen history disappeared in Calitri. To remind us of this indeed evocative page in our history, there remains now only a few ruins and the name Convento at that locality, which is today more accessible because of the new carriageable road that crosses it.
[1] Archives of Montevergine, pergamene, Volume XXX, sheet 11.
[2] In medieval German law, a partially free person who had to pay a tax for the land to be cultivated.
[3] In the middle ages, the collection of laws proper to a Comune or to a specific legal entity— by laws.
[4] Archives of the State of Naples, Processi della commisione feudale,[cases of the feudal commission] Volume, 461, no. 2702, sheet 25-54
[5] Archives of the State in Naples, Collaterale Privilegiorum, volume 4, sheet 156.
[6] G. G. Origlia, History of the Studio [university] of Naples, 1753-54 volume I, page 253.
[7] Platina was the pseudonym of Bartolomeo Sacchi (1421 – 1481). He was a humanist. He lived at the papal court and participated in a plot against Paul II with Pomponio Leto [an academic and also a humanist]. Rehabilitated, he was prefect of the Vatican Library and first lay historian of the church.
[8] The family ended Michelarcangelo Gervasi son of the late Angelo, who died on July 22 1912. In his family is conserved a precious reliquary with a fragment of the Holy Cross, which I have seen.
[9] Cfr. F. Scandone, The monastery of Saint Francis in Montella, in «Luce Serafica», Ravello, 1927, No. IX page 207, where it is said that the Notary B. Gervasi drew up on November 5, 1510 the will of Giovanni Guglielmo Abiosi of Montella.
[10] L. Wadding, Annales Minorum sen trium ordinum a S. Francisco institutorum, Romae, 1731 –45 (2a ediz.) tomo XIV, pag. 625-26.
[11] Here the word means order. In Cannon Law, a Religione is society recognized by the church whose members pronounce public vows of humility, poverty, and obedience.
[12] [shield]A gold or silver coin issued in Venice and Florence beginning from the Sixteenth century, it was so called because it carried on one of its faces the coat of arms of the prince or of the issuing state.
Chapter 9
The Spanish domination and the Gesualdo family –– Calitri is declared camera riservata – Carlo Gesualdo and Maria D’Avalos – Secular Chapels – reconstruction of the mother church – legal dispute between the Clergy and the Comune – Foundation of the Monastary of SS[most holy] Anunziata – the professions and the families in the sixteenth century and in the first decades of the seventeenth century.
With the entrance of Consalvo of Cordova into Naples, the whole of the Mezzogiorno fell under the power of Ferdinand the Catholic. The vicereame [vice royalty] began with him. Of all the foreign lords, the Spanish were the most disgusting and the most corrupt because of the arbitrariness and the greed of the vicerè [viceroy], because of the rapacity of their ministers, and because of the decadence of every branch of the public administration. During the brief domination of Ferdinand, the Catholic (1503 – 1516), there is little information on the internal life of Calitri. More specific news is available on the baron Fabrizio Gesualdo, in favor of whom the acts of royal protection would increase, especially when Carlo I di Absburgo (Charles I of Hapsburg) ascended the throne in 1516, who, having become emperor in 1519 with the name of Carlo V, intended to assure the allegiance and the help of the Gesualdo in the harsh war against Francis I, King of France. And, Fabrizio Gesualdo very loyally complied with the policy of the Emperor, remaining faithful to him and supporting him with weapons during the period of hostilities. After the rivals made peace, Gesualdo returned to the sumptuous castle of Calitri, where he lived with his brother Don Camillo, archbishop of Conza (1517-35) and with his second son Don Troiano, who was archbishop of Conza from 1535 – 1539; The Cronica Conzana [Chronicle of Conza] confirms this and recounts: «Almost all the archbishops of the Gesualdo household live in Calitri, to wit: Camillo, Troiano, Alfonso and Scipione.» Fabrizio died in Calitri on June 14, 1545 and his first-born son, Luigi, took possession of the fief. Luigi managed his property well and, with his considerable wealth, bought the fief of Venosa together with the noble title of Prince on May 13, 1561. But a few months later, on July 31, 1561, he had the misadventure of seeing a good part of the castle of Calitri collapse because of a strong earthquake. Our village «is in a ruinous isoseismic area, where earth shocks cause the ruin of buildings without human victims.» At that time, Calitri contained 514 fuochi [hearths] or families.
Having completed repairs on the castle, Luigi Gesualdo continued to dwell in it, where his seven children, Fabrizio, Carlo, Alfonzo, Giulio, Sveva, Maria, and Costanza were born. When Luigi Gesualdo died on March 17, 1584, Fabrizio, the second one with such a name, inherited all the paternal property. He got the vicerè to declare our Università a camera riservata, which was a sought after privilege that gave immunity against the alloggiamenti [quartering] of Italian or Spanish soldiers who, crossing our territory, were able to claim free food, lodging, or whatever else that may be necessary for themselves and for their horses. Calitri retained this right for the rest of the sixteenth century and for almost all of the following century.
Fabrizio II concentrated on increasing the patrimonial estate of his family and not only did the high social position of his brothers and his brothers-in-law help him, but his main support came from the substantial dowry that his wife, Geronimo Borromeo, the niece of Pius IV, brought to the marriage. He was, however, very unfortunate with his sons, Luigi and Carlo, over which there hung a sad fate. At first, he lost his first born, Luigi, as soon as he was twenty; so that he hurried to give a wife to Carlo, having him marry on April 28, 1586 the attractive Maria D’Avalos. The nuptials were celebrated with unusual pomp both for the nobility of the two houses and for the fame of Carlo, who was a fine madrigalista [one who wrote madrigals] and one who had a deep understanding of music. But after four years, Carlo was involved in a horrendous family tragedy, killing Duke Fabrizio Carafa and his wife who were surprised in flagrant adultery (October 26, 1590). This serious event shortened the life of Fabrizio who died in 1591, at the age of 53. But Carlo Gesualdo had still not paid for his vengeance: of the two children that he had by Maria D’Avalos, believing he noticed in the face of his youngest – a baby who was a few months old – the hated likeness of Carafa, he had him suffocated in his crib. Thus, surviving him, was his first born, Emanuel, to whom he turned his paternal care and on whom he based his hopes.
Emanuel Gesualdo, having become an adult, married a rich German woman, Polissena di Furstenberg, but soon afterwards, still young, he died on August 20, 1613, leaving a single daughter, Isabella, who was entrusted to the old parent, Carlo. Moreover, when Carlo passed away on September 8, 1613, there was extinguished with him, in the male branch, after three centuries, the ancient and noble Gesualdo family, who had lavished many acts of charity on our population. With their great generosity and donations, they had set it up so that philanthropic organizations were developed in Calitri. It is known that, as far back as 1442, some charitable citizens, whose names have not reached us and who were urged on by admirable feelings of Christian charity towards people who were worse off than they were, had founded, with rich endowments, various Capelle Laicali [organization of lay persons] which had charitable goals. In 1534, through the generous donation of other pious persons, these Cappelle grew in number to seven, with the religious titles of San Bernadino, San Rocco, Santa Maria di Monserrato, San Canio, Santissimo [most holy] Rosario, SS[most holy] Sacramento and Nome di Gesù: each one of which were endowed with a substantial patrimony. Such humanitarian institutions, in those times of misery and selfishness, indicate a nobility of soul and elevated religious feelings in the founders, who wanted, with the earnings, «to have poor virgins get married, do secret as well as public works of charity, as much for strangers as for citizens, and whatever else is necessary for the aid of the neighborhood.» — as one reads in the Tavole di fondazione. [Founding documents].
Each of the seven Cappelle had, through the centuries, an independent administration, which raised income according to their prudent criteria. There were no Statuti,[by laws] but everything proceeded according to the spirit of the founders. The administrator of the Cappelle took care of their own patrimony up until October 16, 1809, when, having been recognized as Opere Pie[pious works], the Cappelle were united in a single Commissione di beneficenza, [Charitable commission] which had to administer the patrimonial property and earn money for the benefit of the poor and the less well off. The appointment of the members of said Commissione di beneficenza rested with the Decurionato [Municipal council of many comuni]. Later on, with the Law of August 3, 1862, the Congrega di Carità [Congregation of charity] took over, with the same assignments. With Law No. 847 of June 3, 1937 this body was changed into the Ente Comunale di Assistenza, E.C.A. [Communal assistance board] as it commonly called today.
Together with the above named works of public charity, our population felt the moral need of having, for the dignity of the citizen and for the glory of the religion, a larger and architectonic Chiesa-Madre [Mother Church] in which all could meet in prayer. The old church had become too small to hold the population, although it had already been enlarged many times in the preceding centuries. Therefore, in 1547, the rebuilding of the church «at the expense of the Università» and under a single nave was started. The church was built in an elegant and well harmonized form and was adorned with artistic marble altars and pleasing decorations. The work dragged on for various decades and only on September 21, 1563 was the new church consecrated by the Bishop of Muro Lucano, Filesio Cittadino, who was delegated by Cardinal Gesualdo, Archbishop of Conza. He also consecrated the main altar, which was dedicated to Saint Canio, as well as the altars of Corpus Domini, of Saint Biagio and Santo Stefano, protomartyr [first martyr of the Christian church].
While the Chiesa-Madre was being finished, the foundation of the monastery and the church dedicated to SS. Annunziata [Most holy Mary, the person who received the Annunciation] for the cloistered nuns under the observance of the — ora et lavora [work and prayer]— of S. Benedetto, was being laid. This was done because of the initiative of the devoted and generous Signora Drusiana di Landolfo, who, for an indeed noble goal, donated «her house with a tavern and shops to the Universitá, in order that a convent for nuns be built.» The Sindaco of the time, Antonio di Furno, and the Eletti accepted the generous donation and zealously labored make it a reality, having the religious obligations and maintenance borne by the Università. In addition, they gave the monastery some communal goods, consisting — as one reads in the Cronaca Conzana — in fifty measures of seminary land and in a vineyard with olives and fruit trees, obligating themselves to increase the donation, according to the availability of the budget, in subsequent years.
The construction work must have proceeded very quickly, judging by the fact that on September 19, 1563, three nuns took the veil and on February 11, 1571, the church of the Annunciation was consecrated and opened to worship. The monastery continued to be completed according to the means at their disposal and the monastery was completed in 1586, as is testified to by a stone that is imbedded in the wall of the side of the monastery that faces the old piazza, and which stone is embossed the coat of arms of the Comune with the Marian monogram A. g. P. [Ave, gratia plena (Hail, full of grace.)] and the above mentioned date.[1] During the Seventeenth Century, the monastery was enriched with bequests and donations coming from private people and from the nuns themselves, so that it achieved, both because of its economic consistency and above all for the observance of the Rule, great prestige both in the bordering villages as well as those far away to the point that, in 1644, at least twenty five professed nuns took their vows at the cloister – as was indicated in the census conducted in that year.[2] Even from the Feudal Lords it received, every year, a donation of thirteen ducats and three grana[3]as can be read in the Stato di Uscite [Record of Expenditures] of that Baronial Court in 1692. The monastery received also from the Communal Administration an annual donation, which in the early years consisted of a «corresponsione in natura» [payment in kind] of seventy tomoli[4] of grain. Afterwards, the number of tomoli were reduced to fifty five and one half, as is learned from the balance sheets that were compiled in the French decade (1805 – 1815); and after 1810, when the lands were subdivided «on which were exacted the tarragon [rent in money]» The Comune, no longer receiving earnings in kind, paid to the nuns the equivalent in eighty seven ducats and twenty grana. To this income must be added the substantial patrimony brought as dowries by the nuns themselves: «their dowry – wrote Vinaccia in 1737 – in becoming a nun for strangers is 300 Ducats; and for the citizenry 150 ducats and they are then ordinary gentle women who came from the village and nearby places… and, in said monastery, there are, today, twenty three Veiled Nuns [professed], three oblates.», who passed their whole austere and meditative life in the most serene asceticism in the monastery.
Meanwhile, in the second half of the sixteenth century, a heated dispute arose between the Communal Administrators and the Clergy, because of the decime sacramentali e personali [sacramental and personal tithes]that the administration did not want or could not pay to the clergy, although it was obligated «to pay them as in ancient times in 500 tomola of grain in the old measure.» Hence there were complaints and protests by the clergy, who referred to local customs and to canon law. The Communal Administration held fast and was not ready to give in; rather, on October 1, 1570, the Sindaco Enrico Balascio and the Eletti [the elected council]decided, in all solemnity, in the presence of the giudice a contratti [Contracts judge] Salvatore Cera, that the Comune was no longer held to pay the decime [tithes], «which the clergy and the Mensa [archbishopric] exacted at the rate of one tomolo of grain for each father of a family and one half tomolo for married son.»[5] On June 22, 1577, the clergy pursued the case to S. R. Consiglio [The Sacred Royal Council] of Naples, stating the facts concerning rights of theirs that were no longer observed by the Università, «who has refused and refuses to pay the decima [tithe] to the church; because of which the Ecclesia and its clergy have not been able to live and are forced to live miserably and not in the custom of the clerical order,» and it had itself represented first of all at the magistrate by the Priest Don Ruggiero Martinelli. The judgment, based on the diritto di patronato [patronate] exercised by the Università on the mother-church, judged that «the gift for the maintenance of the Church, of the Sacred Worship, and of the clergy was not just the donation of earned funds, but also obligated those citizens to give, annually, a quantity of grain that they gathered by their own labor» at the same time, in order to deal with the indigent state of the people, the judgment allowed that the size of the decima – five hundred tomoli of grain – was too high and disproportionate to the economic abilities of the citizenry, and reduced them at least by half.
Since the need has arisen many times to cite the name of some professionals who lived in the second half of the sixteenth century, it is useful to state the names and the standing of the professionals and priests, of whom news, albeit fragmentary, has reached us. In 1577, the Clergy — consisting of a capitolo [chapter] — was formed by Don Dionisio Zampaglione, archpriest – curate, by Don Iannuzzo Delli Liuin singer, Don Pomponio Fruccio, Don Angelo Margotta, Don Giuseppe Tornillo and Don Ruggiero Martinelli. There were. in addition, other simple priests living in the years 1555-1588: Don Matteo De Alifi, D. Geronimo Buccio, Don Michele Fiorentino, who was Chaplain of the Gesualdo Family. Don Troiano Panaro was a learned priest, on whom was conferred the pontifical honor of protonotario[6] apostolico [apostolic protonotary (prothonotary)] who, during the meetings of the Diocesan Synod, which was held in Conza in October 1597, acted as recording secretary and, as such, wrote down its acts and decrees. He died in Calitri on September 20, 1619.
The following notaries lived in that century: Giovanni Codella, who drew up deeds in 1562 and 1568; Ludovico Rosa, of whom there is an instrument that was drawn up in 1558; Cesare Tartaglia – a native of Carbonara but domiciled in Calitri because of marriage – living in 1573; Giovan Battista Balascio who drew up a contract in 1598 and Nicola Antonio Rosa, of whom are preserved notary deeds that were drawn up in 1594 and 1599. In addition, in 1574 the office of giudice a contratti [Contract judge] was held by our fellow citizen Salvatore Cera; Giovan Matteo De Loisi, who died in 1620, was an eminent jurist, and of whom more will be said in the chapter on «Illustrious Citizens.» No matter how deeply I have investigated, I have not managed to learn anything more about those who held public positions. However, from the first Registri Parrocchiali [Parish registries], from the Relazioni di S. Visita degli archivescovi di Conza [Reports of Holy Visit of the archbishops of Conza], from the notary deeds kept in the Arcivo Notarile [Notarial Archive] and of the large quantity of documenti della Cancelleria Vicereale [Documents of the chancery of the viceroy] that are kept in the State Archives in Naples, I have been able to get the names of the following families existing in the second half of the sixteenth century and in the first decades of the seventeenth century, which are hereby stated in alphabetical order:
Abruzzese; Albanese; Amatiello;; Araneo; Autieri; Balascio’ Barbato; Barrata; Baviera; Bianco; Borbone; Borea; Borrello (later on, Borrillo, Berrilli); Boscaglia; Bottigliero; Brigliaro; Bucco; Calcagno; Caldaro; Calvi; Cannaviello; Caposele and De Capossele; Caputo; Capuzza; Caradonna; Carcasio; Carlucci; Carpinelli; Carrieri; Caruso; Cssiero; Cataro; Cazzotta; Cegnaro; Cennarulo; Cera; Ceriello; Cerminiello; Cerrata; Cerreta; Cesta; Cestone; Ceva; Cialeo; Cicoyra, Cicoira, and also de Cicoira; Cicoria; Cioglia; Cioglia; Cocozza . Codella; Coviello; cuorpo; De Alifi; DeLoisi; De Belardino; De Blasi; De Calabritto. De Canio, De Carlo, De Cazzecarella (this seems to be a nickname.) ; De Corbo, De colantuono; De Ferrante; De Feo; De Frecento; De Furno; De Giorgio; De Iandella; De Lillo; De Luciano; Del Barbiero; Cel Cogliano; Dell’Abbadia and Della Badia; Dell’Auletta; Della Pergola; Della Salvitelle; Delli Liuni; Dello Cilento; Dello Cossano; Dello Massaro; Dello Todisco; Della Valva; De Maio and Di Maio and also De Mayo; De Marsico; De Mauro; De Milia and Di Milia; De Minico; De Nicola; De Palo; De Prospero; De Rapone; De Rienzo; De Roberto; De Rosa; De Rubino; De Vintanni (Nickname); De Boezio and Boezio; Di Cairano and Di Cayrano; Di Carbonara; Di Cecca and De Cecca; Di Ciarlo; Di Conte; Di Cosmo; Di Meo; Di Muro; Di Napoli; Di Nora and De Nora; Di Porcello and Porcello; Di Quiqui; Di Teora; Dragnontto; Fata; Fastigio; Ferriero; Fierravante; Fiorention; Frasca; Frecchione; Frangione; Freda; Fruccio; Gala; Galgano; Gallucci; Gaurieri; Germano; Gervasi; Grieco; Ianella; Iannolillo; Innnuzzella; Incarnato; Iattariello; Insegnola; Iulianello; Lantella; Leone; Lombardo; Lucrezia; Lungaro; Lupone; Mafferecchia; maffuccio; Mangialardo; Margotta; Martinelli and Martinello; Martino; Marzullo; Melaccio; Metallo; Mucciaccio; Nannariello; Orlando; Paladino; Panaro; Parisi; Pasqualicchio; Paolantonio; Percaccino; Pasciuto; Pauloccia; Peccerillo Giuseppi di Pede di Caulo (nickname); Pedone; Pennetta; Petragalla; Pignone; Pinto; Polestra and Della Polestra; Porciello; Quaglio; Quaranta; Rabasca; Rago; Ranaldo (following, Rinaldi); Ricciardella; Ricciardi; Ricciardone; Rapolla; Radoaldo; Rapone; Rosa; Rotondo; Ruggiero and Ruggieri; Russo; Rustico; Sacchitella; Savanella and Savinella; Salvante; Sansonetto; Santoro; Scarricino; Scoca; Simone; Sepe; Sozio; Speranza; Strangia; Sterlicchio; Stigliano; Marino; Marino Stupolo alias vignaruolo (nickname); Sciatamarra; Tartaglia; Tornillo; Toglia; Torciano; Tozzolo; Tuozzolo; Vallata; Veglione; Vernecchia; Vitamore; Voccardo; Volpe; Zabatta; Zarrillo; Zampaglione; Zuglio.
As one can quickly ascertain, the last names that are derived from the village of origin and those that are patronymic are very widespread, and there were only a few that were still characterized with a nickname.
[1] The plaque can still be seen, in the outside wall of the business of Antonio Acocella fu Michele, in the old Piazza, which is today the Via Roma.
[2] State Archives in Naples, Fuochi di Princip. Ultra [Families of Principato Ultra] volume 912, No. 2 Page 13.
[3] Le Grana are ancient Neapolitan and Sicilian coins.
[4] A dry measure, used in the past in southern Italy which is equal to 55.1 liters in Campania and 27.5 liters in Sicily.
[5] Archives of the State of Naples, Sezione Giustizia, Pandetta nuova seconda, 482, incartamento 19, page 1-18
[6] In the papal curia, each of the seven apostolic notaries with the job of writing up and registering the acts issued by the curia itself and the processes of canonization of the saints. The term also applies in this manner: in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, from the Norman age to the Aragon age, the head of the royal chancery with the job of overseeing the drafting and the issuing of royal charters [documents].
Chapter 10
Debts contracted by the Comune – Bloody reaction of a treasurer – The Internal life in the sixteenth century – The fuochi [hearths, families] fiscali [direct taxes] and the enumeration of the fuochi – Heinous crimes- Famine and extreme poverty.
I n the continuous struggle with the tax collector, our Università — which was obliged in solidum [in its entirety] to pay fiscali [direct taxes] — had to watch out that no family got away from paying such tribute. The levying of the fiscali was based on the enumeration of fuochi [hearths], that is, a census, which was conducted, in general, every three years. However, it was so hated by everyone and there were so many difficulties encountered in its practical execution that it was a long time between one enumeration and the next. It happened, therefore, that the Università was taxed for a number of fuochi that in reality it did not have. In addition, the wealthy people, in order not to pay or to pay less, claimed less earnings or completely dodged the census: thus the number of hearths and the amount of fiscali [direct taxes] collected varied from year to year.
In the enumeration of 1532, because of the multiple concealments, 351 fuochi were assigned: consequently, there were severe measures taken against those – and there were many – who in the enumeration had managed to keep from paying fiscali. And the immediate effect was noticed in the enumeration of 1545, when 450 hearths were assigned to Calitri, so that payment of the fiscali was fuochi on many who were completely exempt from them. Afterwards, such provisions were assigned more rigorously; and the tax collectors, in order to increase collections, also included the poor, the widows, and other people who were exempt by law, so that the fuochi that were taxed rose in the new enumeration of 1561 to the very elevated sum of 514. In addition, in the enumeration conducted in 1561, it would grow excessively to the number 613, which was never previously reached. Following many and very insistent complaints, four years later, in the enumeration of 1599, the number of fuochi were again brought down to 514.[1]
The consequence of such financial and economic disorder was the slow decay of the municipal institutions, which benefited exclusively the feudalitá [feudality, the feudal aristocracy] who, during the vicereame, had regained its vigor. Our Università, which was impoverished, was continually forced make loans, so that, in 1598, it contracted a debt of five hundred ducats, which was borrowed from Donato Cioglia with the fideussione [backing] of twenty wealthy citizens. For the payment of interest, it was agreed that forty ducats per annum would go to the creditors to be drawn «from the fruits and income of the Università specifically and generally, and signanter [expressly] in addition to gabella della farina [duty on flour].»[2]Another loan of three hundred ducats was made under the same usurious conditions in the following year.
The loans taken out by the Comune in the sixteenth century were not satisfied even in the following century; rather, new loans were made, especially in 1619 and 1620 to satisfy the expenses of alloggiamento [quartering] of four companies of soldiers that were stationed in Calitri. The system of making new debts to extinguish the old debts or to convert these to a lower rate was being inaugurated. Throughout the 17th century, the wise economic stance, that the reduced conditions of the budget required, was not taken. Following such financial ruin and «because of the poverty that exists in said Terra,» the Communal Administration saw accumulate in a few years, in its lean budget, also many residui [arrears]of the tax payments that had already come due, as was seen from a report of the Archbishop of Conza who in 1688 wrote to the Holy See: «I know that said Università has an attrasso [a Calitrano word for a debt that has become delinquent] to the tax collectors of the Royal Court of over one thousand scudi…. and is burdened with tax debt.» This was a serious observation made by a reliable and well informed authority! What were the causes of the huge deficit in the budget of our Comune? They are multiple and serious. First of all, there are the extraordinary expenses imposed by the Royal Court for political and military contingencies of the moment and in addition because of the very frequent peculation [stealing] to which not very honest functionaries and administrators turned. The impertinence of Ottavio Santoro is very typical in this regard. Santoro, who, having been for many years treasurer of our Comune, refused to present, for management purposes, an accounting and to restore what was in the till: rather, in order to avoid the threatened levy, he went back to Cairano – his village of origin – from whence, with unheard of audacity he threatened with death, whomever dared to visit him to get the accounting. The dishonesty and the impertinence assumed such a provocative level, that, at the request of the Università, the Regia Camera della Sommaria [Royal chamber of Summary Justice] issued peremptory orders to the Capitano of Calitri in order enlist his military aid to force Santoro to account. But great danger befell the wretched executors of such orders. Here is how the priest of the time gave the details: «April 22, 1684, Leonardo Rubino, baglivo[bailiff] and Donato di Quiqui, alias lo Garruto[wanderer], Giurato [a sworn officer], while they were going to Cairano to notify Signor Ottavio Santoro, who had been treasurer of the Università and did not want to render an accounting to said Università, of a provision of the Regia Camera della Sommaria, having passed Arata, the baglivo was killed by four unknown persons with seven botte di cortiello [blows of a knife] in the belly and in the throat, and il Giurato was killed by with two shots from an harquebus.[see left]…» How far the impudence of the dishonest treasurer reached!
But the progressive increase in debt of the Università was principally connected to the payment of the fiscali – direct taxes – which the Università had to guarantee to the Royal Court even for insolvent citizens, since such taxes weighed collectively on the whole population. Hence, the indebtedness of our Comune.. To eliminate this inconvenience, the enumeration of 1630 was compiled with the assistance of the Sindaco, Giovanni Antonio Germano and the Eletti who went from house to house. In this way a total of 448 fuochi were ascertained to «actually pay.»[3] There was another enumeration in 1644; A Commissario and a Razionale were sent by the central government to prevent omissions and disputes, The Commissario and the Razionale asked the Sindaco to place at their disposal the original Catasti [An inventory for tax purposes of the real estate of a Comune or of a province.] the collection receipts, the books of excise duties and other documents. And they asked the Parroco [parish priest] to show them the death records. In this manner, there was a determination that there were a total of 550 fuochi.[4] But in the enumeration of 1669, the number of fuochi declined steeply to 331, and the decline became rapid in the subsequent years because of the famine of 1683 and the consequent poverty that made life hard for those worse off who, urged on by hunger, headed for the countryside, preferring the free life of the forest to the oppression of the rapacious Spanish government. That dark seventeenth century was also for Calitri the century of heinous crimes that reflected the sadness of the times, abuse of liberty, and human wickedness. There was also no lack of pestilence and natural disasters. One remembers the fall of a quantity of ashes and gravel that flew out of Vesuvius on December 16, 1631, causing panic and apprehension: «At about Le Hore 19 about [= 12 in our time] suddenly – noted the Parrocco – one saw the air darken so that it seemed to be darker than night and it began first to rain ashes, and after like sand from the sea, so that the people, terrified, proceeded in procession to the large church… and at about five in the evening the air began to clear up. It is sufficient to scan the parish registries of that time to discern that there is almost no year in the seventeenth century that a murder, a bloody vendetta, was not noted, one of those horrendous misdeeds that always leave traces of relentless and long-lasting hate. Among all the crimes, the most ferocious and cynical was the triple homicide that laid the Di Cecca family low. I will leave the macabre narration to the Parroco: « On June 30, 1682, the priest Don Gioacchino De Cecca was killed by two of his nephews and by a brother of his cousin using hatchets and knives, in the early morning while he was going into the countryside»; a few months later, on August 5, there was killed «the brother of the above mentioned priest, Giovanni Di Cecca by the same people …. While scognava [he was paying off his debts], with rods and a knife that they plunged into his back.» And here the vendetta is complete: «On August 24 of the same year, Gabriele Cozza for having killed Don Gioacchino Di Cecca his uncle, was killed by a blast from an arquebus by Canio Cestone.» A whole family of wealthy farmers was destroyed, just like in a Greek tragedy. These barbarous crimes stigmatized the sadness of the times and evil of men, who got justice by themselves, perhaps vainly waiting for it from the authorities, who were supposed to protect human life.
In this continuous resentment of passions and of hard feelings, in so frequent ferocity of monstrous crimes, what did the central power of the vicerè do? Little or nothing. And such absence or disinterest was manifest also toward the most urgent and serious needs of the people, in every branch of public life. So, the population of Calitri had no help from the central authorities in 1683 when it was hit by one of the most terrible famines that can be remembered in southern Italy: the people were reduced to such extreme indigence that, because of the absolute lack of grain, most of them were eating grass: «The citizens all found themselves in such poverty – wrote a contemporary – that one was reputed rich who had been able to sow two tomola of grain, and in order to get it, it was necessary for them to go the Terra of Pescopagano to procure it; and not having money to pay for it, they left their clothes as security, with the obligation to pay back double at the scogna [payment of debts after the harvest].
Because of poverty and bandits, many citizens had fled to other Terre [lands].»[5] One can conclude that, during this long period of foreign domination, the Spanish vicerè because of innate anti plebian policies did not provide, with rare exceptions, for the relief of the misery and the calamities of the population of farmers of the provinces, just as they never fully committed themselves to eradicate crime and above all brigandage, which almost became an institution, to which the government itself had recourse.
[1] Archives of the State in Naples, Fuochi of Princip. Ultra,[hearths, families of Principato Ultra] vol. 612, No. 2, Page 12 and following.
[2] The gabella della farina – 7 grana per tomolo of grain – constituted the principal income of the Comune; little, instead was received from the gabella della macellazione [duty on butchering], called chiancatico[from the Calitrano word chianca meaning butchery], which wasone tornese[copper money of modest value which was coined in the Kingdom of Naples of the middle of 16th century to the end of the reign of the Bourbons.]per rotolo[which was an old unit of measure used in southern Italy and in Genoa, corresponding to 0.79 or 0.89 kg and is a unit of measure still in use in Malta and corresponding to 0.190 kg]; and very little duty on wine, one and one half grano per barile [barrel].
[3] State Archives in Naples, New Fuochi of Principato Ultra, bundle 102. From this enumeration was learned the names of the following professional people: Notary Pompilio Margotta; Dottore in utroque [in both directions, cannon and secular law] Lodovico di Loisi; the Dottori Fisici Giovan Battista Insengola and Giuseppe Cioglia. The Chapter of the Mother Church was made up of twelve Participating priests.
[4] State Archives in Naples, Fuochi di Principato Ultra [Families of Principato Ultra], volume 612m page 1-3. In that year (1644) Carlo Perretti was Sindaco; there were the pharmacists Francesco D’Elia and Donato Insegnola, the notaries Fabio Tartaglia and Antonio Balascio
[5] They say scogna, in dialect, which is the time of the threshing of the grain, when the peasants are accustomed to pay their debts with the sale of the grain of the recent harvest.
Chapter 11
Enfeoffment of the Ludovisi house. – Sale of the fief to Francesco Mirelli – description of the castle as it was in the last twenty years of the seventeenth century – Calitri, walled Terra with four gates.
Isabella Gesualdo, heiress to all the fiefs of her family, as has already been stated, was married to Nicolò Ludovisi, of Bologna, nephew of Pope Gregory XV. Only one daughter, Lavinia, was born of this marriage and she inherited all the maternal property at the death of her genitrice [mother], which took place on May 8, 1629. Soon afterwards, Lavinia also died; and, not having offspring, her many fiefs devolved upon the Crown. Nicolò Ludovisi, father of Lavinia, on May 16, 1636 bought the total estate for a large sum of money, and so, in this manner, he took possession of all the other property of the house of Gesualdo.
Nicolò Ludovisi, having died on December 24, 1664, left his property to his son Giambattista. Nothing is known of the new feudal lord with respect to our Comune. It is only necessary to remember that, although he had many and important fiefs in various regions of Italy, he preferred the Castle of Calitri for his usual residence. And in this castle he was pleased to host illustrious personalities among whom was the Archbishop of Conza, Iacopo Lente, who, «urged on by the prayers of prince Ludovisi, came to Calitri, was received cordially, and was always treated with great kindness.»[1]
Meanwhile, Giambattista Lodovisi, who was caught up in growing economic difficulties and compelled by his creditors, found it necessary to sell the fief of Calitri to Francesco Mirelli for the sum of thirty thousand eight hundred ducats. The contract was drawn up on February 13, 1676. But soon afterwards, Ludovisi, believing himself deceived in the value of the fief, sent his faithful Ingegnere [engineer] Antonio Chianelli, in secret, to Calitri. The engineer reported the true state of preservation of the castle and the earnings and liabilities of the fief. Chianelli reached Calitri in December of 1692 and, after having observed and investigated everything, wrote a very detailed Relazione [report], which is an extremely valuable document because of its historical data and because of the economic observations it contains.[2] On the basis of Chianelli’s report, Prince Lodovisi no longer opposed the sale and, with the deed of May 6, 1693, ratified the sales contract in favor of Francesco Mirelli.
The new feudal lord was a member of the Neapolitan nobility and his wife was Anna Paternò. From this marriage was born Carlo, who was a man of vast legal culture and had the high post of avvocato fiscale della R. Camera della Sommaria [Tax lawyer for the Supreme Administrative chamber of the Neapolitan kingdom.] Then, Francesco Mirelli, the new feudal lord, as soon as he had signed the definitive sales instrument, moved with his family into the vast and sumptuous castle of Calitri. The small fort had become truly magnificent because of the care of the rich and powerful Gesualdo lords, who had lived there for centuries and provided the castle with a system of defenses as well as every comfort, enabling them to live a refined and luxurious life.
Calitri and its “very famous” castle in the 17th century.
The historian Pacichelli bore witness to the external shape of the castle, which he called imposing and grandiose, and he told of a precious engraving of the time — which is today very rare — in which is also reproduced the habitats and the other appurtenances of the «famous castle,» as he himself called it.[3] Moreover, other contemporary authorities highlighted the merits and the more salient characteristics of the inside and the exterior aspect of the castle: «A very famous castle, — wrote Castellano in the Cronica Conzana [Conzan Chronicle] after the visit he paid in 1691 — with about 300 rooms, which can comfortably accommodate five Courts of Nobles. The castle is equipped with two drawbridges with beautiful bastions, is atop a mountain, equipped with all the conveniences, and other….». The castle, which was architecturally imposing, was a very formidable instrument of defense. The castle was high, solid, and equipped with all the means of fortification and, as Chianelli – who visited it at the end of 1692 – writes «at first sight it seemed to me to be a well-built machine.» The lynchpin of the whole defensive system it seemed was constituted by the castle keep, which was rectangular, and made of enormous, solid wall with very few openings. Four large towers, equipped with feritoie [arrow slits] caditoie [drains through which to pour boiling oil on the assaulting troops] guaranteed the safety of the little fort, on which blockhouses, small towers, and other fortifications completed its wartime armor. Access to the castle, which was narrow and placed on the frontispiece or pediment, was assured with a solid drawbridge. The castle did not lack subterranean passage, which was well disguised, and which led into an open field that was outside of the surrounding wall of the village and properly below the modern strada di Piero, according to the tradition and the testimony of some of the ruins.
Inside the small fort, then, there were well-equipped armories, vast kitchens jam-packed with colossal storerooms and whatever else was necessary for the sumptuous life of the lord, from the wine cellar to the granary to the cisterns.[4] The luxurious salons and the richly appointed feudal family living quarters are especially interesting. In brief, «One can deduce the magnificence and grandness — observes Vinaccia — by the vastness of the plant, which truly shows it to have been a very magnificent castle.» In valid support of the small fortress, on a rough terrain, arose its external defenses, which consisted of bastions and a wide moat that girdled solid, battlemented walls, which surrounded it up to the Ripe [steep banks], where rose the little church of St. Maria ad Ripam. Almost attached to the wall surrounding the castle rose the habitations of the citizens, which were extremely wretched and which constituted the Terra, a name that still survives today, as in the dialectical directions «ngimma a la Terra» [above the Terra (ngimma = [in cima a] sopra = above)] and the other direction «fore Terra» [fore = fuori = outside, that is, outside the Terra of Calitri.] etc. Around the fortilizio [small fortress], then, were clustered the habitations which, because of the needs of the growing population, developed along the slopes of the mountain, forming a compact and overlapping cluster, in the shape of an amphitheater, which Castellano — who visited Calitri in 1691when it had just 1843 inhabitants — described in this manner: «Calitri is situated in a high and elevated place, with a good construction of houses, which are all built in perspective, that is the windows are all on one side, that is on the lower part and the doors all on the upper part; so that from the road, which comes from Le Puglie[5], there is a beautiful theatrical perspective, to the point that the Illustrisimo Prince of old Venosa [and baron of Calitri], when he wanted to show his noble guests a beautiful sight, had lights put in said windows at night, which were a wonderful and peaceful sight.» For greater safety in the defense of the castle, the feudatori had the village surrounded by a solid wall: «the Terra is all walled in with four gates that make it very secure,» one reads in the Cronica Conzana, which has been cited many times. That the habitat of Calitri was ringed by a solid wall with four gates for communication with the outside, can be shown no only from the incisione in prospettiva [The perspective drawing or etching] of the seventeenth century [which is reproduced above (TN: unable to put in this book, but it is in the Italian version)], but also from the surviving names of the gates, and from the ancient Itinerario delle processioni, [Procession itinerary] which is preserved in the parish archives.[6] The surrounding wall was started at the Torre district – where rose a massive keep – and headed toward the south, interrupted by the Porta di Nanno;[7] from here one descends still to the south until one is above the so called Pozzo Salito, to the north east of which opened precisely the Porta del Pozzo Salito; then one turns to the east, for a long stretch, up to the Porta del Buccolo[8]; then it continued downstream in order to go back up to the Posterla, where one finds oneself at the Porta of the same name. Here, the enclosing wall stops in order to give way to the impervious precipice of the Ripe [steep cliffs], which constituted a natural defense up to the castle. The four gates were defended, in their turn, by equally massive and round towers that watched over the entrance to the village like sentinels. This is, in its architectural and military lines, the structure of the castle and the walled perimeter of the habitat, as it appears in the second half of the seventeenth century, when the fief was sold to Francesco Mirelli.
[1] Ughelli, Italia Sacra (Ed. Coleti), vol VI, page 826. Archbishop Lente died on August 30, 1672, during his stay in Calitri, and was buried in the Chiesa-Madre [mother church].
[2] State Archives in Naples, privilegorium del Collaterale, volume 607, page 63-66.
[3] G. D. Pacichelli, [TN: The internet gives his name as Giambattista Pacichelli] The kingdom of Naples in perspective, Naples, 1703, volume I, page 254
[4] The bottom of a large cistern still remains. It can be seen by ascending a stepped incline in front of the chapel of the Madonna delle Grazia, on the via Castello.
[5] These are the present provinces of Foggia Bari Brindisi Lecce and Taranto, that were known for a long time as Le Puglie [The Puglias]. Origin of the name: In the antiquity some people that populated this area were called Apuli, from which came the name of the area Apulia and which was subsequently changed to Puglia.
[6] Thus was described the route, which must be followed in some processions: On St. Mark’s Day (April 25), «one goes out from the Parish, one goes through the Serro Pipa, one walks on the street of the Buccolo, one exits by the Porta del Buccolo, one walks through the Pozzo at the Carmine, one enters through la porta di Nanno, one enters into the church.» On the Mondays of the Rogazioni[the Sundays preceding the Ascension], «one goes through the porta di Nanno, from under the Ripa, one enters through the Porta della Pusterla.» Finally, on Wednesdays of the Rogation, that is the vigil of the Ascension «one goes from under the vault of the church, one descends to the porta del Pozzo, one goes to the Carmine and returns to the church.»
[7] The Porta di Nanno is identified today, with the arch, under the Bozza habitation, along the Strada. The very common detto [saying] still remains «Andare, o portare uno a Nanno», that is to walk outside the enclosing wall, into the countryside.
[8] The porta del Buccolo corresponds today to that narrowing of the wide stepped road that from the piazzetta [little square] del Buccolo which leads upstream, before turning onto the road that leads to the Chapel of San Antonio Abate. It is called Viccolo, from Biccolo [=Bocca, mouth], because near there, outside the ring of the wall, there was a bocca or fosso [ditch] in which one threw garbage.
Chapter 12
The earthquakes of 1688 and 1692 – another earth calamity in 1694 – Total collapse of the castle and death of the whole Mirelli family – Serious damage to the habitations and numerous victims in the population.
Calitri has been periodically hit by terremoti [earthquakes] that have changed its external aspect from time to time and have destroyed every historically and artistically important work, and in the last twenty years of the seventeenth century – in a little more than a five-year period – three violent and disastrous seismic shocks hit Calitri directly. The first happened on June 5, 1688, at eight PM: Calitri, although outside of the zone of maximum intensity, still suffered considerable damage to its habitations, without any victims: the castle had many wide fissures, which were quickly repaired by the new feudatorio, Francesco Mirelli. On May 6 of the following year, following another earthquake, some already-damaged houses fell and six persons died. Here is how the parroco [parish priest] of the time describes such a disaster: On the sixteenth of said month [May 1689], after the preceding midnight there fell more habitations in piedi allo castello [at the foot of the castle], and the inhabitants not only were forewarned more days before by His Divine Majesty through his mercy by making some stones fall and, from time to time, by other signs; but also, on the preceding day, Mastro Leonardo Di Meo told them, so that they were able to get out quickly.»
Just four years later, in March of 1692, another earthquake hit Calitri, causing few victims but substantial damage. Many houses fell or were badly cracked, the Chiesa-madre was very seriously damaged and the castle was almost entirely destroyed. Chianelli, who visited the castle a few months after the earthquake, described it in detail: «When I entered into the cortile [courtyard] of the castle, I saw a pitiful ruin made by three shocks of a ferocious terremoto. Four small apartments had completely collapsed as well as other inhabitable places. Only two lean-tos remained at the level of the cortile, where [the person who accompanied him] said that the agent of the present baron lives, and telling me that the castle was totally smashed by the last earthquake which took place in June of 1688… And walking through said Terra, I saw on some of its streets all the houses demolished because the people of the village were so poor that they did not even have the wherewithal to repair the Chiesa-madre that had collapsed.»[1]
The old Francesco Mirelli repaired the damage to the castle as best he could, where he returned to live with his whole family. But a cruel fate awaited him, and this fate hit him squarely in the face. And he, perhaps foreseeing his calamity, wanted to ensure, beforehand, that his fief would pass to his grandson, Francesco Maria — born of his first born son Carlo and of Maddalena Cafara on August 7, 1684 – and with the sales instrument of May 19, 1694 he sold the feud of Calitri and his other property to him for thirty six thousand ducats. The boy, Francesco Maria was reaching, at that time, just twelve years of age and was living in Naples with his father. This fortuitous circumstance was his salvation. On September 8, 1694, a Wednesday, at 6 PM then —which now corresponds to 1PM today, — a very violent earthquake hit Calitri, entirely demolishing the turreted castle and damaging almost all the habitats. It was a true calamity, a huge disaster for the Mirelli family – which completely perished – and for our people. Calitri, which suffered incalculable damage and was in part razed to the ground, was in the mesoseismal [center of an area of an earthquake] zone, at the center of a 95-kilometer long axis. Under its immense ruins, besides the unspecified number of wounded, three hundred and eleven persons perished, according to trustworthy testimony of the parocco of that time, who registered the names of the victims. The damage suffered by the habitat was also immense, «Having observed that [Terra], I found it — reported A. Caracciolo, Primario [chief] of the S. R Consiglio [Sacred Royal Council], who was sent in 1696 to ascertain the damage — that the homes had been all destroyed and in particular the Chiesa Parrocchiale [Parish Church] …the major part of said Terra is rendered not only uninhabitable but also impassible… the rest of the citizens who remained alive, because they could not work said Terra, were reduced to living inside some caves situated at a level below said Terra.»[2] The population, then, fell into a truly primitive state, without homes or food, and found shelter a guisa di fieri [in the manner of savages] in the natural caves that are at the foot of the habitat. Another contemporary, Pacichelli, confirms the immensity of the disaster: «…having indeed been overwhelmed by the fact that Calitri collapsed with houses, monasteries, and churches, and with the sublime castle.»[3] Besides the collapse of the Chiesa-Madre — which was already damaged by the earthquake of 1694 — what suffered the most damage was the old castle, which collapsed entirely with its considerable mass of towers and superstructures: «I also observed the castle – continues Caracciolo in the Relazione [report] – which was situated on top of a hill that was higher than the buildings of said Terra and consisted of a large building, and, however, I found it completely destroyed and reduced to a pile of rocks.»
The collapse of the castle crushed all the members of the Mirelli family and however many guests and servants that were in the castle to death; «the sublime castle that despicably swallowed up the old Francesco Mirelli, father of the Marchese (Carlo), his consort, his sister and his children, along with his brother-in-law Carafa and others.» according to the authoritative Pacichelli who has already been cited. No one, then, of those who lived in the castle were able to escape their cruel fate; Francesco Mirelli, his wife, Teresa Caropresa, and their daughter Anna, Paolo Carafa, Maddalena Carafa (wife of Carlo Mirelli) with the five children, Antonio, Nicola, Saverio, Angelo, and Luisa, as well as all the service people which consisted of fourteen people and the young secretary Cesare Michele. From the disaster was saved only Carlo Mirela and his children Francesco and Costanza, who were living at that time in Naples. The family archive, which was very important, and which contained the diplomas and documents that were conserved there also in relation to the history of Calitri were destroyed.
After this very serious disaster, the young Francesco Mirelli, took possession of the fief, to whom the grandfather – as if prescient – had sold his property on May 19, 1694, as was mentioned above. The new feudal lord took possession of the fief, but he no longer thought about rebuilding the castle, nor was he able to do it because of the immense pile of debris to which it was reduced. He only looked after the restoration of the chapel, which corresponds to the present day Madonna delle Grazie.[4] Here is what Vinaccia says when he visited the castle ruins in 1737: «… nothing else was seen in said place but a small Chiesola [little church] which was restored by the present owner of said Terra on the old vestiges of the Chapel [which] was in service of the above mentioned palace and, presently, mass is celebrated there on feast days.»
For his residence, the Marchese Francesco Mirelli, expropriated some houses and occupied part of the Piazza, and had a palace constructed for him from the ground up, where he came to pass the summers together with Donna Gabriella Pallavicino Sforza Badat, whom he had married in 1713.[5] The ruined castle was completely abandoned, and the weather, which acts on all things, did not save even the few ruins that continued which continued to crumble and to erode away, as, the tavolario [land registrar] Vinaccia, in 1737 had to notice with bitterness, after the inspection: «once an exceedingly magnificent palace, but today there everywhere there are ruins and nothing at all is serviceable.»
What remains today of that famous castle? Nothing or almost nothing. Man, in addition to the subsequent earthquakes and the weather, have altered the aspect and the form itself of those parts that were saved from the cataclysm of 1694, by building over them, by opening new roads, stairways, gates, etc., so that today it is difficult – not to say impossible – to recognize the primitive form of the keep[6]. Still, a few parts of it have remained intact and easily recognizable. On the north-west side which looks out on the Pascone, over the tufaceous precipice of the lower slope rose a massive revetment, on which rested the terraces of the castle; from that side, the castle was divided into two large curtains or wings – whose walls are still seen – connected between each other by means of a draw bridge, the second one that the castle had. In the figure reproduced below, refers to the massive terrace of the west wing of the little fortress, which appears up to the terremoto of June 7, 1910, when the pick axe demolished a part of it that was becoming dangerous.
Terrace of the west wing of the castle
In the «Torre» district, there are still ruins of the old tower, from which the district takes its name. Part of the round base, with a few openings and feritoria [tall, narrow slits, used to fire arrows at the enemy] can still be seen. It is built of irregularly and roughly squared blocks, which seem to be cast in bronze, as if the masonry were one solid piece. The terrain, which is subject to landslides, had given way and the tower was slightly inclined, just as it appeared fifty years ago. Today, it is almost enclosed between modern constructions. A little upstream of the «torre», above the piano di San Michele [plain of St. Michael] a large revetment can still be seen today, with a scarp[7] and without any openings. This was the basis of the south wing of the castle. A spacious road wound about the foot of this revetment, a road that led to the main entrance of the castle, that is, it led to the drawbridge. The road is very wide, from six to seven meters, and had slight incline up to its final tract where it was almost level at what was the entrance to the castle. This was the principal access road to the small fortress, trodden over by the feudatario and his followers on superb horses. From the entrance to the castle, the perimeter wall continues, on the east side, along the road that today leads to the Madonna delle Grazie chapel. This wall, which has been modified a lot by the hand of man with window openings, outside stairs, and with habitations, terminated in that wing of the castle, where the bottom of a cistern still remains. There are other castle ruins, but it is necessary to proceed with systematic excavations in the internal part of the superstructure, which is raised on those ruins where once the small fortress rose. Would it be worth the trouble? Today, only the owl nests among the shapeless ruins, which, with its lugubrious lament, seems to be singing a dirge to the «very famous castle!»
[1] State Archives in Naples, Privilegorum del Collaterale, [special documents of the Collaterale –the Collaterale were, at the time of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the supreme council that deliberated with the vicerè [Viceroy]on affairs of state] vol 607, page 63.
[2]State Archives in Naples, Privilegiorum del Collaterale vol. 600, page 120-122.
[3] G. B. Pacichelli, Tremuoto di Napoli e del Regno a puntino spiegato… al Signore abate Battistini, in «Lettere familiari istoriiche ed erudite…», Napoli, 1695, tomo II page 358.
[4] As it is today, the Chapel of the Madonna delle Grazie was reconstructed, ex novo, at the expense of the priest Don. Francesco Maffucci, in 1886.
[5] This apartment house still remains, and is owned in common by the heirs of Luigi Sacchitella and by the descendants of Michele Zampaglione whose father was Lorenzo.
[6] The keep is the main tower of a castle.
[7] A scarp is reinforcing incline for a walled in structure, especially of a fortification, which the castle was.
Chapter 13
Epidemic – Construction of the church of the Immaculate Conception – Economic and social conditions of the population – Feudal income – the right of toll at the step of the Taverna – Fight for the enfranchisement of prohibited rights..
The political and economic decadence of the Mezzogiorno [Southern Italy] during the long period of the Spanish domination (1559 –1700), would grow after the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, when the House of Austria obtained control of it, and which control lasted until 1734. In those years, calamities and misfortunes of every kind afflicted our population, which was already severely tested. First there was an epidemic of measles that raged from September 1739 through May of the following year with the death of more than one hundred children out of a population of four thousand inhabitants, according to statistics compiled by the parroco [parish priest] of the time. The disease became worse the subsequent year with over fifty-four dead in July and the same in August of 1741; then it began to decrease and, in October, the death rate was reduced almost to zero. The vicerè [viceroy] of Austria did nothing to alleviate the pain of the population, and this habitual apathy towards the illnesses of the above mentioned people did not cease, not even when Carlo di Borbone, in 1734, chased out the Austrians, abolished the vicereame [viceroyalty], and restored political independence under the dynasty of the Bourbons to the Kingdom of Naples. Then bands of criminals terrorized our districts with robberies and murders. Sadly famous became the gang formed by the Calitrani Pasquale Caputo, Giuseppe Lettieri, and Vito Germano. But, very quickly – as often happens in the life of the woods – serious discord and rivalry broke out among the members of the band, which ended between June and July 1750 because of rancor and suspicion. Only Vito Germano remained, who shortly after was captured and beheaded. In addition, the parroco, in recording his end, noted: «His head was exposed on the Porta di Nanno [One of the gates of Calitri] and the quarti [that is the rest of the body] was thrown in the Ofanto.» Therefore, he was denied even a Christian burial.
A few years later, a serious famine, which afflicted the entire Kingdom of Naples in 1763-64, caused extreme poverty. Our village, which was mostly agricultural and was in an inaccessible region, felt perhaps more of it, suffering the famine directly. The parroco of the time, in recording the dead, having investigated the cause of the mortality, wrote: «they suffered hunger due to lack of food, because it did not rain from June 13, 1763 to October 20 of the same year, and grain began to be sold in the subsequent March at 30 Carlini per tomolo and then increased to six ducati per tomolo.» The food shortage caused, consequently, death, above all, among children «who died in such great numbers because of hunger» that from September 1763 throughout August of the subsequent year there were over 212 deaths. With the new harvest, general health conditions improved. The famine, however, served to incite the farmers to extend the cultivation of the fields, to cultivate uncultivated or wooded land, to introduce the cultivation of corn, and to improve sowing methods.
Among many calamities and in a state of extreme poverty, many new houses were built and those damaged by the earthquake were repaired. However, there was also a great reawakening of feeling for religious works. In this spiritual fervor, there was constructed, on the hill of S. Biagio, a church dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, which was opened to worship on April 15, 1714. Mass was sung by Don Giovanni Barrata, the archpriest. Subsequently, the Arch confraternity was instituted there, which had its Regole [rule] approved with the royal decree of Carlo di Borbone on February 17, 1759. The Natale family had constructed, at their expense, in 1739 the little church of San Antonio Abate. In addition, the old chapel dedicated to the San Croce [holy cross]– commonly called del Calvario [of Calvary] – was enlarged and decorated by Giuseppe Gervasi, who, with the instrument of March 14, 1745, established Cappellania[1] laicle [lay chantry] with rich bequests.[2]
The religious fervor of the population turned, above all, to reconstruct the Chiesa-Madre with greater architectural richness, «it having collapsed in 1694 because of the memorable earthquake.» The work required significant expenditures and a long time, and only on April 25, 1728 was it consecrated by the archbishop of Conza. A detailed description given by the R. Tavolario,[3] Vinaccia, in 1737 has reached us: «It[the church] is situated at the entrance of the Terra rising somewhat to the left, where there is a small open space and one encounters the frontispiece or facade of same [the church], in which, through a square door decorated with highly carved stone from the village, the floor levels off and, with one step, one enters the church, which consists in a single nave and choir…its ceiling or templing of beams is divided up into panels of various decorations and figures; next then, there are its chapels… up to ten of them, and with the names of various saints, to which the people can offer devotions. The main altar, which would seem to be isolated, can be seen in front, with the vault of the choir behind it, and with its main panel over said altar. The above-mentioned is seen to be an excellent, old painting.[4]…There is the baptistery of carved solid stone, and the pulpit is made of wood… Outside it had a bell tower with two bronze bells, one larger than the other. It is convenient to the mediocre vestry which is longer than it is wide, which is well provided with all the tools to officiate, celebrate, and perform any ecclesiastical function. There were nine silver chalices, both spherical and passive [large, covered, gold chalices] pluvials [liturgical vests] chasubles, six terns of various kinds, and there was not lacking the usual ingenzieri [censers] with silver navette [vessels]. Said church was served by thirty four priests, twenty clerics and an archpriest.» In addition to these precious details of the mother church, Vinaccia has painted an exact portrait of the economic and civil conditions of our people in his observations in 1737: «Among the other lay people are 4 doctors, 3 physicians, 2 pharmacists, 3 barbers, 2 haberdashers, 2 carpenters, 4 builders, 2 blacksmiths, 2 tilers who worked in terracotta, 6 tailors, and 5 shoemakers; the others are put to use in the country, and some of the women weave cloth and some “pannina” [cheaper textiles], the above mentioned were about 40. Among the above mentioned people, are those that are well to do. And there are many others that work farms or fields, who are called massari, and these number 50. Some had, to a greater or lesser extent, different kinds of animals, both for industry and for service, so that they counted in their possession 323 plow oxen, 473 cows of various kinds, 6965 sheep and goats, 825 pigs, 175 donkeys, 22 mules, 90 ponies… The above mentioned Universitá was governed by the election, which took place in the middle of August, of a Sindaco and five Eletti, in which election the sentimento [consent, approval] of the Baron was necessary….»[5] But under what financial restrictions was the communal budget debated! The earnings went up to a little more than one hundred ducats; and in order to deal with the not inconsiderable public expenses, it was necessary to increase the tassa dei fuochi [hearth tax] and the fida[6] on the animals «which went into the woods of Castiglione.» It is true that the Comune collected the earnings from «many corpi stabili [established entities] and many jus[laws], like the jus of the butcher or chianca, the zecca (minting) of weights and measures, the buonatenenza [ownership of real estate] of the bodies established both for strangers and for citizens.»; but all these sources — because of the exemptions and abuses — yielded so little that the communal budget ended every year with a large deficit.
In the face of all the budgetary restrictions and above all in the face of the misery in which the people struggled, an ostentatious luxury was shown by the Court of the feudal lords, which was fed by substantial income. One of the most profitable and, at the same time, most hateful of incomes, was the monopoly that the feudal lord exercised over the ovens and over the mills, which, under this monopoly, were considered corpi di natura feudale; [entities of a feudal nature], «it was prohibited to citizens and inhabitants to have and build ovens in their own houses…; that any citizen and inhabitant, who goes to bake bread in the baronial ovens; must bring wood sufficient to bake the bread that he brings; and then for said payment give two loaves of bread for each tomolo of dough.» Likewise, the Baron also possessed «two mills in which he has jus prohibendi [right of excluding others] that is he has the right of prohibiting citizens and inhabitants from grinding their grain elsewhere, except only if, for a period of 24 hours, the river Ofanto does not supply sufficient water to make the mill grind. After, which time of twenty four hours — continued the feudal ordinance — if the above mentioned mill cannot function because of lack of water, they can go to other mills.» or if the level of the water prevents the crossing of the river and puts the life of the citizens in danger.[7] And that happened frequently during the long winter period when «The Aufido is terrible – as Castellano states – considering that it had devoured various travelers who, thinking they did not fear the water, crossed it and whose dead bodies were seen floating at the discretion of the waves. All this happened because they did not have a secure place, let alone a bridge, to cross more easily, and although there are some vestiges of an old bridge, which are seen under this Terra; in any case because the said water always ate away and moved the site from one place to another, the rebuilding of the bridge is deemed impossible.[8]»
In addition, the baron still — despite it being against the law — exacted the pedaggio [toll] at the Taverna del Passo, [toll booth] «where he had the power to collect a certain amount of money from those who pass with donkeys, animals, and other beasts, in accordance with the rate that one reads there in marble.» The right of pedaggio was an obstacle to commerce and to the freedom of exchange and communications. Other significant income consisted of the collection of tax on grain, as it was registered in the libro di compasso, [literally the compass book, or land measurement register]«free of ditches and subsidence.» This was the most hateful tax, because it allowed abuses of power due to the way in which the Compassatore[9][land surveyor] conducted the measurement of the land that was given to raising crops. «And who will be the strong man who will dare — concluded a printed Memoria[document]of the time — to find out from the baronial compassatore if he conducted the measurement of the lands properly? In addition, will he dare it in front of the soldiers who are making the collections? It is sufficient that they find themselves entered in the registro del compasso [land survey register], and certainly one must deliver and deliver the best in a manner that best pleases the collection agent who receives it!»
These were, in short, the numerous and substantial collections, which the baron received in 1732, when the feudal system was still in existence. Yet, many of such rights and privileges were considered, because of the changing times, damaging to the people and not helpful to those who possessed such rights. Moreover, the equitable and rational jurists tended to take away the jurisdictional rights and monopolies of the ovens and mills. Urgent appeals were made to the sovereign to strike down the worn out and falling down edifice of the feudal order, that had already fallen in spirit, to use the words of Croce. It was in the reign of Carlo di Borbone (1734-59) and above all at the time of his successor Ferdinando IV that some progress was made. He did not enact radical laws concerning feudality, but he continued to diminish it, to trim it, and to reduce it, preparing for (according to Croce) its future abolition in deed and even more in the soul. It was in that climate of social renewal that our Amministrazione Comunale started legal action against baron Francesco Mirelli, asking for the abolition of the monopoly on the ovens and on the mills. The baron, then, managed with underhanded maneuvers to cause the S. R. Consiglio to issue a decree dated February 17, 1745, with which it recognized its prohibited right; but the trap was avoided in time by our Amministratori, who with a petition to King Carlo di Borbone obtained, on May 8th of the same year, the suspension of the above cited decree.
Meanwhile, Francesco Mirelli died (July 27, 1763) and his son Giuseppe thought it prudent, for the moment, not to take up again the judgment that was suspended in that manner. Only after his death on May 1, 1774, did the son Francesco introduce ex integro [afresh, from the beginning] the cause in another section or banco — as it was then called. This action, however, did not have a better outcome. Then, out of spite, he turned to the Marchese Porcinari, provisional Commissario [Commissioner] of the Sacro Reale Consiglio, — his friend — petitioning him to bring the decree of February 17, 1745 back into force. He managed this time to tear up the execution order. Chancellor Domenico Barba was sent to Calitri to do this. He prohibited the construction of new ovens and imposed on those citizens «who had constructed centimoli a mano per macinare» [hand operated grist mills] to demolish them in the course of the day. It was a true act of provocation! The citizens, even this time, knew how to exercise their rights, a committee presented itself to the Marchese Porcinari, who was on holiday at San Iorio, a few kilometers from Naples. This was in June of 1782. Porcinari, was moved by the proper reasons and complaints, and, in his own hand, quickly delayed the order, recalling to his office the scrivano [scrivener] Barba. After considerable stalling and opposition, the controversy was finally resolved, in 1788, in favor of our people, who in that year counted 4540 inhabitants. This victory was obtained through our Amministratori, but above all through the maturity of the times, when, that is, the Abbott Longano, in 1788, was able to write to the King: «You are breaking, most august father and monarch, the ignominious chain that has humiliated your children so much with the abolition of so many prohibitive laws, you will quickly see the face of the province quickly changed.» It was thus that our ancestors obtained full possession and exercise of the ovens and the mills; because soon afterwards, in 1791 – when, at the suggestion of the fiscale of the royal estate, Vivenzio, the Passi [Passports] were abolished – there also ceased the right to collect the toll that had been exercised, for many centuries, at the Taverna del Passo. The dark feudal night, then, was about to set, and there could be seen a glimpse of the dawn of better times, in which dawn there was beginning that upward movement of the diritti dell’uomo [rights of man] that lead, soon afterwards, to freedom and to the equality of the social classes.
1[lay chantry]A pious foundation established with the bequest of a faithful person for the celebration of masses in a specific chapel.
[2] The first chaplain was Don. Angelo Gervasi, who then was named Archpriest (1765 1783). Capellania laicale was kept until February 17, 1861, when a decree of the king’s deputy decree No. 251, suppressed such Cappellanie, in the Neapolitan provinces. Many goods, which constituted the endowment, were assigned to the Gervasi family. With the instrument of March 31, 1896, the last of the descendents of that family, Michelangelo Gervasi, sold the Chapel with a small plot of land and the access road to the Arch fraternity of the Immacolata
[3] Royal Land Recorder
[4] He is alluding to the large oil painting – called commonly la cascata di San Canio – that is still seen in the parish church, which is still under construction. Here also is kept the old baptistery of finely worked excellent stone, an artistic bell that was cast on December 13, 1523 at Agnone and the main, marble altar.
[5] State Archives in Naples, Feudal commission, volume 460, process 2696, pages 4-11 and following.
[6] A tax that in the feudal age was paid by way of compensation for the reduction to cultivation of lands originally used as pasture.
[7] There were two baronial mills: One, which «used to grind in the summer with the waters of the Ofanto» was named Piero or Molino di basso, near Ischia, not too far from the railroad line inspector’s house (which is today completely destroyed); the other, which «grinds in winter with the waters of the torrente Ficocchia» was named after the Cantonata. In order to get to the two mills, it was necessary to ferry across the Ofanto «… to go there to grind — writes one contemporary — the growth of the volume of water endangers the life of the poor citizens, and risks and derides the modesty of the women, who had to undress to ferry across the river. And in the winter for entire weeks the river did not allow one to swim across, and meanwhile that population had to languish.»
[8] A few ruins can still be seen on the left bank near the head of the present bridge.
[9] The compassatore was an agrimensore [land surveyor] – trained mainly by the Royal Customshouse of Foggia — who compiled, every year, on behalf of the feudal lord, the platea [in this case platea means an inventory], after having measured the farm lands given to crops. On the basis of such measurements, this same compassatore transcribed on the register or libro del compasso the quantity of grain, that every tenant had to give.
Chapter 14
Fight with Pescopagano for the reciprocity in usi civici. – the Catasto onciario [land registry using the once as the accounting unit.] – the Comune quarrels with the commendatory abbot of S. Maria in Elce for the usi civici. – Peaceful popular rebellion and division of some Difese.
OurUniversità endured other quarrels, above all with the Comune di Pescopagano, because of various disagreements on usi civici.[1] Between the two Comuni, since the earliest times, commonality and reciprocity were practiced on water rights and on pastureland; this commonality of rights was however for many centuries a bone of contention, causing frequent and serious excesses which were known since December of 1276 – as has already been discussed. The Comune di Calitri, in order to put an end to such disputes, solicited in 1496 a Rescritto[2] from Ferdinand II of Aragonon the strength of which the exercise of the usi civici on the contested territories was given to our citizens. In spite of this, in 1542, Michele Gesualdo, baron of Pescopagano, wanted to restrict the surface of such common territory. Various court documents on the contested land were drawn up. In the end, for the sake of peace, Calitri paid baron M. Gesualdo two hundred ducats as damages, and, with a public document, the two parties agreed to recognize the reciprocal rights and mark off the mixed territory. Having established the extent of the common land, there were no further reasons for contention. But, in 1565, the Università of Pescopagano appealed to the S. R. Consiglio [Sacred Royal Council] about the immoderate grazing and the collecting and cutting of wood in the forest that the Calitrani were doing in the bosco delle Rose[3]. No further complaints were made for two centuries. In 1712, the Pescopaganese again began to hinder the right of our citizens to exercise the usi civici. From then on, the arguments never ceased. There were not only conflicts caused by abuses and usurpations, but petitions, claims, and protests that were shouts of anguish first of the Calitrani and then of the Pescopagnesi flowed to the Sacra Reale Consiglio. Everybody had a complaint and an accusation of a terrible, bloody deed. The complaints were made on any pretext, and came from everywhere, until, in 1737, the Comune di Pescopagano began civil proceedings against the citizens of Calitri before the Regia Camera della Sommaria[4] [Royal Chamber of Summary Justice]. But our Comune knew how to show its age old right of promisucità [commonality] and reciprocità, [fairness] and we prevailed. The Comune di Pescopagano did not give in and, in 1753, stated in another petition to the R. Camera della Sommaria that the origin of the promiscuità referred back to the Tufara and S. Filippo degli Schiavoni casali [hamlets]. Therefore, it had to follow the fate of these; and, since the two casali had become for a time uninhabited, ipso jure[5] – the petition concluded – such promiscuità has ceased; but the Sommaria, with the Decree of April 15, 1758, stated that the Calitrani had maintained possession of the usi civici. The controversy was taken up again in 1771 by Pescopagano, who claimed for itself all the common territory. Our Comune knew, once again, how to defend itself and obtained a new, more explicit Decree from the S. R. C. [Sacred Royal Council], with which the promiscuità and the reciprocità of the usi civici was recognized and awarded to it. Notwithstanding this decree, the Comune di Pescopagano kept the dispute going up to the time that feudalism was abolished, when in the division of the public property, the age-old promiscuità degli usi civici was terminated forever, eliminating, consequently, every reason for future disputes.[6]
Since 1734, with the advent of Carlo di Borbone, there was initiated a vast program of reform involving communal and feudal disputes. The new King directed his particular concerns at the administration of the public patrimony, putting the communal finances into a rational and fair order and, at the same time, reviving the economic bases of each Comune. To such an end, from the Camera della Sommaria[7], were issued, on October 31, 1741, the proper instructions for the compilation of the Catasto onciario.[8]
Each Comune had its own Catasto onciario or general census of persons and goods existing in its district. The declarations were made, under grave penalty, by the head of the family, who had to give his first and last name and that of each member of his family along with each person’s age and profession or trade. In addition, all his urban and rural real estate with its boundaries and its size, the beasts, the trade at which they worked, etc. were required.
The catasto of Calitri, published in 1735, has come down to us and it is a faithful reflection of the economic and patrimonial conditions of each family and of each institution. The catasto is signed by the Mayor Giuseppe Codella and by the Eletti. The Catasto Onciario of Calitri revealed that the single source of wealth consisted then agriculture and industria armentizia [herding and its products such as cheese, ricotta and other dairy products]. The owner and laborer on the various fondi rustici [farms] was himself called massaro di campo, [literally farmer of the field] with the appellative magnifico [magnificent]. The list is long. Whoever has the interest or desire to know the economic foundation of the family, can consult the Catasto, in its voluminous exposition. From this detailed study one learns also the names of all those who practiced a profession or a trade, as well as artisans, laborers, public employees, etc. The economic foundation of the clergy and of the Benedictine nuns with regard to the nature and value of the goods possessed by them, as well as the vast feudal and private patrimony of the feudal lord to which they belonged is also stated. It is useful here to remember that to the patrimonial assets [estate] of the feudal lord belonged – among many other goods, of which is it many times necessary to state the quantity – also the defenses and the lands belonging to the ex-abbess of S. Maria in Elce, over which our citizens enjoyed, from time immemorial, the diritto degli usi civici[9][right of usi civici.] The abbots of the Mirelli house – who took care of the administration of the goods constituting the Commenda [10]– tried to prevent or to deny in jure [in law], and such exercise caused animosity and legal disputes. This tension festered even more when Don Michele Mirelli, son of the baron Francesco, was appointed abate commendatario [abbot in charge of the Commenda]. He began to prevent or to hinder our citizens from exercising their right to usi civici in the « difese » [Fortifications used to defend an area, defenses] of Luzzano, Difesa di Mezzo, and Pascone dell’abbazia. The damage that our people incurred for not raising a voice of protest and appealing to the courts was very grave. Hard and bitter were the legal disputes between the Abbott Mirelli and the Communal Administration. This dispute, through Don Giovanni Cestone, ended up in the Sacra Reale Consiglio, in order to claim the right that the citizens laid claim to on the three above-mentioned difese. The work of Cestone was a true representation of the multitude at the S. R. Consiglio, which recognized and sanctioned with the judgment of April 7, 1797, the full right of the people concerning usi civici. Cestone, who had gone to Naples, to closely follow the trial proceedings, returned towards twilight of April 8, and was welcomed with a great celebration of joy by the people; he urged on « the zappatori [Calitrano for peasants] to ammolá [sharpen] [ammolá is the Calitrano verb meaning to sharpen or to render] their hoes in order to go and work the land of the Difesette.». This was in reality the fervent desire of the peasants, who believed that the only means to put an end to the continual fighting and quibbling was to occupy the difese and divide it up: such a state of mind was also the fruit of the new ideas of liberty and equality that came from France. The Monday after Easter, April 11, the Mayor and the three Eletti, accompanied by the «Compassatori» mastro Giusieppe di Cosmo and Mastro Michele Cerreta, went into the fields and under their vigilance measured and divided into small shares the public property of Spineto di Luzzano, Difesetta, and Pascone dell Abbazia.[11] There was no opposition nor, for the sake of prudence, could Michele Margotta serve as leaseholder nor could Leonardo Pastore serve as the bailiff. The Abbott Commendatario Don Michele Mirelli did not think about it like that. On April 13, 1797, Don Michele petitioned the S. R. Consiglio «to ask for nothing new to the Calitrani on the abbey of S. Maria, to leave all the innovations as is… and proposing criminal action against the authors and executors of the above mentioned attack.» The S. R. Consiglio ordered an inquest, which was long and laborious: Depositions of over twenty witnesses were gathered and the «plans» of the three difese that had been split up. On the 22 of November of the same year, the S.R.C.,[Sacred Royal Council] without entering into the merits of the public property question, ordered that «pending the discussion of the complaint, nothing was changed and everything was to be as it was before..» To execute the decree, the mastrodatti[12] Prospero Martelli, was sent, along with a squad of soldiers. The arrival of the public force exasperated even more the already excited souls of the peasants and caused the reaction, which fortunately did not cause lamentable consequences.
The peasants «having armed themselves who with an axe, who with a hoe, who with a scythe, who with an iron hook, and who with a flintlock rifle,» and who were about thirty in number, on the morning of the first and second of January of 1798 «went together with many women, also armed with rustic weapons, tumultuously into said cultivated lands publicly threatening that they were going to kill any one there who accosted them.» At the head of this uprising were Michele Fastiggi with his sons Cesare and Angelantonio, Canio Abate, Giuseppe Rabasca, Angiola Margotta and the brothers Giovanni and Pasquali Sperduto. The Mastrodatti Martelli, in order to avoid a cause for provocation, held back for two days his going into the field to carry out his orders. And when, on the morning of January 3rd , he went to the place accompanied by a large squad of soldiers, he noticed that the population was all up in arms, at the edge of the village: «I saw — Martelli himself narrates — between four and five hundred people both men and women, who were coming near me and others who moved forward, all armed with farm tools, and about another twenty with flintlock rifles, who, in seeing me and the soldiers that were to assist me, began to shout loudly and gave warlike signs of resisting me…. They dug in at the entrance….» Martelli tried everything he could to calm the revolt, but it was useless. Having thus seen the impossibility of carrying out the order of the S. R. Consiglio without causing grave consequences, Martelli thought it prudent to go back into the village, where he remained until January 10, waiting for calm to return. However, the wait was in vain. In the end, he completely gave up on carrying out the orders received and went away.
In such a way, through the will of the people, was obtained the division of the three «difese,» which carried a certain good to the population. They constituted the small rural properties for the benefit of the most indigent families, to which remained only the obligation to pay to the Comune, every year, the four ducats and twenty carlini rent. Everything was spontaneous in this movement: it was a sincere and direct expression of a feeling of justice that was deeply felt; in short, it was like a first victory of the people who work and suffer for an ideal of democracy and of social wellbeing.
[1] Rights of enjoyment that the members of a collective have on communal lands or the property of others.
[2] A written pronouncement of a sovereign having the force of law or of an un-appealable decision, for example, edicts, ordinances, etc.
[3] Forest of the roses.
[4] The Regia Camera della Sommaria was a chamber that had jurisdiction over all financial and local administration lawsuits, as well as consultative functions in financial matters and jurisdiction over feudal matters.
[5] As a matter of law.
[6] Cfr. Bolletino delle sentenze emanate dall Supreme Commissione per le liti fra I gia Baroni ed I communi, Napoli [Bulletin of the judgment issued by the Supreme Commission because of the disputes between the former barons and the Communes, Naples], 1809, volume II judgment of December 14, 1809, including Article 11. But the Comune of Pescopagano was not satisfied and awaited a return match. And the occasion presented itself, when from the government was instituted the R. Commissariato per l’eliminazione definitive degli usi civici. [Royal commission for the complete elimination of usi civici]. The Comune of Pescopagano seized the opportunity and, using the R. Commissario of Bari, cited the Comune di Calitri to appear on November 25, 1933 in front of that Tribunal «for the reintegration of the public property erroneously possessed in the area of the Bosco delle Rose.» The Calitrani, strengthened by being in the right and availing themselves of the Relazione Ufficiale [official report] concerning the limits of the fief of Calitri, which was conducted in 1737 by the R. Tavolario [Royal registrar of lands]Vinaccia – which I discovered in the State Archives in Naples – knew how to exercise their rights. And the R. Commissario di Bari, with the judgment of March 30, 1935, recognized the Calitrani as the legitimate possessors of the land and definitively sanctioned the border between Calitri and Pescopagano that was presented in the Diritto Possessorio[right of ownership]. Cfr. Sentenza Registrata a Bari il 20 aprile 1935, Mod. III, vol 168,[Judgement recorded in Bari on April 20, 1935, Cannon 3, volume 168].
[7] There was a system of central, provincial, and local royal law courts which covered the entire country in a tight network whose function was to administer justice and consequently to control all economic and social life in the provinces. This royal judicial system also included a subsystem of entities that directed the economic and financial life of the provinces, at the top of which was the Regia Camera della sommaria. It exercised jurisdiction over all questions to which the royal financial administration was a party or in which it had an interest and generally supervised all universitá that were classified as “dedotte in patrimonio’, that is in financial difficulty.
[8] The catasto [land registry]is called onciario, because in it is established the amount of earnings in once [a medieval coin used up until the 18th century] for each contributor and the related tax. That is Catasto onciario = land tax in once.
[9] The exercise of the usi civici on those lands was indispensable to the life of the farmers, «who used to – as one reads in the Memoria [record]of the time – graze their pasture animals, and cultivate, plow, and sow the lands of the Abbey, as communes and tenants, only paying to the Ecclesia one eleventh of the harvest.»
[10] Concession of the use of a vacant ecclesiastical benefit to a priest or a layman who has no title to it, in order the keep it for life.
[11] The work of dividing up the land was finished on April 17. There were at least 365 parcels in the spineto di Luzzano for an extension of fifteen tomoli; 23 parcels in the bosco di Luzzano in the place named Serra cimmino; 2 parcels in the locality called Pietra di fuoci; 30 parcels in the Difesetta della Badia and 35 parcels in the Pascone dell Abbazia. Cfr. State Archives in Naples, Processi della commissione feudale Princip. Ultra. [procedures of the feudal commission of Principato Ultra]Vol 460, No. 2697.
[12] The Mastrodatti was the Secretary or Chancellor who also had to take care of the Archive.
Chapter 15
Evil brigandage in the territory of Calitri: Angelo Duca, nicknamed Angiolillo. – The Vito Errico band – The Calitri band – the earthquake of 1805.
In the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, a gang headed by Tomaso Freda of Andretta wandered the countryside of the High Irpinia. The reputation of the brigand, who was renowned as a marksman, attracted into his ranks numerous gangsters, to whom the free life in the woods was a pretext to sack or to carry out private vendettas. Among these outlaws was Angelo Duca, nicknamed Angiolillo, a peasant from S. Gregorio Magno who, about 1780, at the age of a little more than twenty years, had taken to the hills to escape the anger of a signorotto[1] of his village. After being in Freda’s gang for eight months, he went off on his own, becoming the head of another gang; and when, soon afterwards, Freda was killed by treachery, Angelo incorporated the survivors of that gang into his, which then numbered twenty well-armed men. He set up his headquarters in the territory of Calitri, protected and helped by friends and abettors, who welcomed him with public demonstrations of sympathy and jubilation.[2] The wealthy people, in truth, were not right to rejoice, but did the best they could — as they say — to avoid more serious damage. Because of the protection that he enjoyed among our people, Angiolillo frequently went to Calitri, and established his base of operations. Having been informed of this, the Preside
[something like a mayor] of Principato Ultra sent a contingent of soldiers who were chosen from among the square di campagna [infantry companies] and from among the fucilieri di montagna[mountain fusiliers] – thirty six in all, in order to capture Angiolillo. But he was not at all worried about the deployment of forces and on April 26, 1783 he went to rouse them out of their own residence. Upon entering the village, he found four fucilieri making merry in a tavern; with a slap, Angiolillo hit one of them leaving him stunned on the floor, while the other bandits tied the remaining. The brigand, emboldened by this first success, headed toward the soldiers barracks and killed one fuciliere, who was the sentinel in the corpo di guardia [guard post]. Upon hearing the noise, the other soldiers came out of the barracks to avenge their fallen comrade; but in the encounter, another two soldiers were killed.
Certain of the protection of the people and of the favor of the local authorities, Angiolillio continued to reside in Calitri, where, in the beginning of February of 1784, seeing the population struggling because of the paucity of the harvest, with the megalomania that is typical of brigands, he collected a substantial sum of money from the Parocco [parish priest] Don. Nicolò Berrilli – who belonged to a wealthy family – and used this money to buy a large amount of grain and distribute it to the poor. However, the bold and reckless acts against the soldiers summoned a squad of fucilieri [riflemen] to Calitri; and Angiolillio, who no longer felt secure in the village, took refuge in the new Abbey of Santa. Maria in Elce on February 10, 1784, which abbey was a few kilometers west of Calitri.[3] When the Alfiere[4] Buglia was informed of it, he headed there, by forced march, with the fucilieri. The brigands welcomed them with rifle fire, killing two soldiers; but, no longer believing themselves safe, they took advantage of the darkness to flee and headed for Puglia, where they asked for hospitality at the convent of the Bonifieri, at Lucera. Here, however, they were surrounded; but even this time they managed to keep from being captured by fleeing. Only one bandit, whose name was Giorgio – a nephew of Angiolillo – fell dead in the encounter; the fucilieri cut off his head and brought it to the president of the tribunal of Lucera. Who had it exposed on the Porta di Nanno in Calitri, as a warning to the
people. Who knows how long it remained exposed there! And to think that soon afterwards, the head of Angiolillo was also affixed to the same gate! Having been surprised, in fact, in Muro Lucano [shown in the above picture], he was arrested and, on July 26, 1784, was decapitated without any formal trial.
The sad memory of Angiolillo was still in the minds of the Calitrani, when, in March of 1804, another band of eight brigands appeared in the countryside of Calitri and Monteverdi. It was a small but agile team, very mobile, and equipped with good horses; it was made up of the Calitrani Vito Errico, Vito Cianci, and Vito Scoca, as well as Pasquale Marravino of Rionero in Vulture [a Comune in Provincia di Potenza] and of four others from Avigliano. The head of the band, whose name was Vito Errico, called il matto [the insane one], whence the name of Comitiva del matto di Calitri[literally, the crazy Calitrano’s gang]. Using blackmail and murder, the outlaws upset the life of the population, which was already terrified by the misdeeds of other brigands. And here it is that, in the Serredistrict, that, on June 9, 1804, the wealthy farmer Donantonio Tozzoli and his tenant farmer Canio Maffucci were barbarously slain. The author of the double homicide was Vito Scoca, who did it because of an angry private vendetta. Having informed the Preside [Governor] of the province, a large contingent of soldiers was dispatched to exterminate the band, and, at the same time, the governor of Calitri was requested «to quickly give an account to the tribunal of such crimes, ascertain the general evidence of the murders, and contribute also to the hunting down and extermination of said band.» Vito Errico and Vito Cianci were killed in an encounter on September 2, 1804; a few days later, Maravino was captured and quickly shot. Only Scoca, who was the most terrible and bloodthirsty, remained. Therefore, the Amministrazione Comunale of Calitri increased their own squads under the command of Lieutenant Domenico Papa; and on December 31, 1804, the last survivor of the ferocious band fell dead by the Calitrano milizzotto [militaman] Canio Martinelli. The Presideof the province ordered that his head be cut off and be placed «on an iron grate» over the gate of Calitri, where already had been exposed the heads of his wicked companions.[5]
In the summer of 1809, another band of outlaws were prowling about our countryside. The people were «beat up – wrote De Nicola – now from the hordes of brigands, now from the civil guards, and both the brigands and civil guards committed every kind of horror. The comitiva di Calitri is believed to be made up of Calabresi.»[6]: it was a mixture of bandits, of thieves, of ex-bourbon soldiers who hastened from the two Principati[7] and from Basilicata[8], under the specious appearance that they were moved to insurrection for the restoration of the Bourbons. They quickly organized into squads composed of Municipal Guards and volunteers. There was a very violent encounter on September 10, 1809, at Castiglione, where the Calitrani Angelo Inauale, Vitantonio Savanella, Donato Michele Tuozzolo, Michele Di Napoli, Canio Gervasi, Canio Fierravanti, and Pasquale Del Franco fell. After such a bloody encounter, the central government sent, toward the end of 1810, the French general Manes with a large squad of soldiers, who, on May 4, 1811, managed to capture two brigands and, in order to warn the people, shot them quickly in Calitri. In the meantime, another different disaster hit our village. On July 26, 1805, there was a strong earthquake, as the Terra of Calitri has often noted: the ground «was shaken by such a violent earthquake that not one building seemed to be standing,” wrote De Nicola in the above cited Diario. The earthquake was detected at one minute and forty seconds past 10[9], at first with a shudder, and then an undulation that lasted 45 seconds. There were neither victims nor relevant damage to buildings; only in the farm country was there a lot of destruction and cracking in the ground, which was accompanied by fires, indicating the intensity of the earthly convulsions. Here is what one learned geologist stated at the time: «In the tenimento of Calitri, on the way to Castiglione, a large piece of land appeared to be upset, as if it had been turned upside down; and flames were seen to emerge from the ground, which flames immediately disappeared. The trees, which were planted there, had sunk below ground to such an extent that only just the treetops were seen, and the country haystacks had been completely swallowed up. The cracking then extended a mile distant from said Terra, beginning from the Vallone dei Monaci up to the place called the Monti, extending itself from east to west for the length of a mile, and having the width of five palmi (= 1.25 meters). Even here, the land, furiously upset and subsided, in part swallowed up oak, olive, and almond trees, and in part took them away so that they no longer can be seen. From such cracking, beginning from the point of the earthquake and lasting 15 hours, there came out some exhalations in the form of rare clouds of a reddish color. In the above stated craters, there was noticed a similar change of color; the clay was first blackish, and now appeared whitish.… One also observed there some flames with a strong smell of tar and sulphur.»[10] The trench is still called «Valanghe del terremoto» and with such a name is also recordered in the Catasto Ufficiale [Offical land registry].
[1] A man who is owner of a small fief or who holds under his domination a territory of small size.
[2] The criminal actions of Angiolillo inspired some minor poets of the time: P. Fortunato, History of the true facts of the famous A. Duca (unpublished in the Società di Storia Patria in Naples.); P. D’Aiutolo, Istoria della vita del gran forascito[history of the life of a great outlaw «forascito» A. Duca in five cantos (published in the periodical «La lega del bene, » Napoli, 1884); also an Anonomous person wrote: Bellissima Istoria delle prudezze ed imprese di Angiolillo [ Magnificent history of the exploits and deeds of Angiolillo](published in part in the periodical «La Lega del Bene,» Napoli, 1889.)
[3] The so called Abbazzia di fabbrica, along the mulattiera [mule track] that lead to Andretta; it is today the property of the Tozzoli family.
[4] In this context the term Alfiere means Sottotenente [Second Lieutenant.]
[5] State Archives in Naples, Consulte di Polizia (year 1804)[Police Consultations], fascio [bundle] 18, fasciolo [dossier]283, pages 16 -173
[6] C. De Nicola, Diario napoletano 1798 – 1825, Naples, 1906 Volume II, page 527-28
[7] These were Principato Cito [the near province] and Principato Ultra [the further away province.] that were part of the Kingdom of Naples.
[8] Basilicata is a Region that lies in southern Italy. It faces the Gulf of Taranto (Ionian Sea) to the southeast and the Gulf of Policastro (Tyrrhenian Sea) to the southwest and borders with Campania to the west, Puglia to the north and to the northeast and Calabria to the south: its borders, largely conventional, are the result of complex historical events. Comparatively small, it exceeds only Molise and Val d’Aosta in number of inhabitants: also the population density is very low and corresponds only to a third of the national average. The region has two provinces, Matera and Potenza.
[9] C. De Nicola, Diario napoletano [Neapolitan Diary]1798 – 1825, Naples, 1906 Volume II, page 527-28
[10] G. S. Poli, Memoria sul tremuoto del 26 luglio1805, Napoli 1806, Pag. 98 – 105.
Chapter 16
The Partenopean[Neapolitan]Republic and the borbonic reaction: 1799 in Calitri . – The French decade and the reforms. – Abolition of feudalism.– The feudal commission and the fights with the ex-baron – Reform of the finances of the Comune.
The principles of liberty solemnly proclaimed by the French Revolution had large repercussions even in the Mezzogiorno, above all among educated people. In order to defend the kingdom from any infiltration of Jacobin[1] ideas, the absolutism of King Ferdinand IV quickly instituted in 1874 a Giunta d’inquisizione [Council of inquiry]. This supreme tribunal had to proceed against anyone that it found guilty or simply suspected of adherence to new ideas, without compromise. And, as suspects of Jacobinism, in 1795, the baron of Calitri, Francesco Mirelli, and his fellow citizen Guglielmo Cioffari were put on trial.[2] But a few years later, the French general Championnet, with the help of the exiles and the Jacobins, occupied Naples on January 29, 1799 and proclaimed there a Repubblica Partenopea [Neapolitan Republic], dividing the territory of the kingdom into departimenti [departments] and these into cantoni[3] [cantons]. The obligatory adherence of each Comune to the Constitution of the Neapolitan Republic lead some young Jacobins to raise the l’albero della libertà [the tree of liberty][4]even in Calitri, which had a population of 4612 inhabitants; but, in Calitri, revolution and reaction did not last long, because, after a few days, l’albero was felled without protest and without opposition by the fervent supporters of the Bourbon Monarchy. These same supporters of the Monarchy, then, knew that l’albero della libertà had been raised in the Pescopagano area and that a Guardia Civica had been established. This Guardia Civica consisted «of twelve armed persons in order to watch the people who were becoming tumultuous and which people were gazing with heartbreak at the French tree – as a contemporary stated. Thus, on the morning of 26 February about 40 Calitrani came around dinner hour, with a priest of the Scoca house and a layperson from the Tozzoli house who was on a white horse and bore the king’s flag. They were well armed. They cut down the tree and quickly set off for Calitri without even touching a glass of the wine of our terra.» [5]
Towards the middle of March of 1799, an active secret emissary of the Bourbons, one Cesare Giannini di Bella, was sent to Calitri, to support the reaction and to disseminate propaganda.
His propaganda was not limited to Calitri. He sent, in small, wooden flasks, proclamations of the hereditary prince and news on the debarkation of cardinal Ruffo[6] to the faithful of the Bourbon dynasty in the nearby villages. When, then, on May 20, the news spread that Ruffo’s hordes were approaching, G. Battista Tarantion was sent by the Sanfedisti of San Angelo dei Lombardi «with many armed men to take the city of Calitri… notwithstanding the threat of the republicans.»[7] Tarantino reached Calitri on May 25 and without any violence managed to have the Sovereign acclaimed and to sing the Te Deum in church. Everything ended here. Calitri remained, then, almost closed to the new ideas of liberty.
The Repubblica Partenopea having fallen after an ephemeral life of just four months, the government of Ferdinand IV was restored, which government lashed out with a horrendous reaction against all the Jacobins. It was a reaction that perhaps had no equal in history. It was never like that before. The Monarch sent the flower of the intelligent and honest prelates, gentlemen, officers, and intellectuals to death, to life in prison, or into exile. On the long list of those who were classified under the rubric: «Enemies of the State who are condemned to be removed from the royal domain,» figures the fellow citizen Angelo Maria Lupo, ardent Jacobin, who was born in Calitri in 1765 of Canio and Lucia Maffucci. In 1787 he enrolled in the University of Naples and graduated in jurisprudence. When the revolution broke out, he eagerly participated in the demonstrations. When arrested, he did not hesitate to «confess to have served in the Civica and to having been with others at the garrison of Castellamare.»[8] He was therefore sentenced on January 12, 1800 to esportazione [exportation, exile] to Masiglia «under penalty of death in the case that he return to the Royal Dominions, without Royal Permission.» [9] Also, Don Michele Mirelli, brother of the Marchese di Calitri, was overcome by the spirit of liberty and, having participated in the Repubblica, was sentenced to the gallows, but he was saved by the ready and authoritative intervention of his brother Giuseppe, who «confronted every danger and saved him.»
A few years later, the dream of the martyrs, of the exiles, and of the many who still languished in the jails seemed to be realized when Napoleon sent his victorious armies to liberate Naples. The exiles, eager with hope, accompanied them, fighting, while from the inside, the Jacobins facilitated its conquest. At the end of 1805, Giuseppe Bonaparte with general Massena occupied Naples, forcing Ferdinand IV to return to Palermo (February 1806). Having been crowned King, Giuseppe Bonaparte introduced vast and radical reforms that touched almost all the organisms of political, social, and administrative life into the Costituzione [Constitution] of the new kingdom. With the comprehensive Law of August 8, 1806 and of January 19, 1807, the whole kingdom of Naples was divided into ten provinces. Each province into distretti [today called circondari] and the distretto into circondari giurisdizionali [today mandamenti, magistracies]. Because of this law, Calitri was part of the Distrette of S. Angelo dei Lombardi, and, together with Carbonara, constituted the Circondario giurisdizionale of Monteverde, where the seat of the pretore remained until 1812 when it was transferred to Carbonara; and from here in 1924 to Calitri. It is useful to remember that, under this law, Avellino became definitively the Capoluogo [capitol] of the province of Principato Ultra,[10] with an Intendente [superintendent] at the head of the civil administration, of finances and of public safety.[11]
But the major conquest of the new times was, without a doubt, the Law of August 2, 1806 — issued by King Giuseppe Bonaparte — the abolition of feudalism. Because of this law, which carried immense material and moral benefits, — although our right had already been transformed and reduced — definitively closed the Middle Ages. The credit for having implemented the reform rested with Gioacchino Murat, who ascended to the throne on September 6, 1808. In this way, our people not only saw its civil and economic life improved in an atmosphere of liberty, but it was also witness to the most noteworthy historic event, the end of feudalism, which for over seven hundred years had held them subject. The abolition of feudalism was accomplished in four subsequent years, more through deeds than through law, because, except for the related controversies concerning the jurisdiction of the tribunali ordinari [lower courts] the feudal cases through August 10 were entrusted to a Special Magistrature of seven persons — a Feudal Commission — who were to judge these cases without appeal.
The last feudal lord was Francesco M. Mirelli (1774 – 1814) who saw himself stripped of his caste privileges and of his feudal goods. In front of the hoped for resurgence of the rights of the Comune and of the population, the ex-feudal lord, Francesco M. Mirelli, did not know how to resign himself, nor did he want to restore, in part, the undue usurpations and appropriations already made. There were many lawsuits, debates, controversies, and legal objections that he brought against the rights of the Comune.; finally, in spite of himself, he had to capitulate in front of the specific decisions of the supreme Commissione feudale, which brought to term three solemn decisions being imposed on the ex-fief of Calitri, with three important judgments: The first was the one of February 10, 1809, which was resolved in favor of the Comune, the century old dispute over the wood of Castiglione by declaring it Public Property.[12] The second was the judgment of May 22, 1809 in which the share of Castiglione due the Comune was determined and its borders were set[13] And, finally, the third judgment of January 9, 1810, which stated that the public property of Difesette, Tufiello, spineto di Luzzano, Pascone dell’abbazia, Cardinale, Pascone near the habitat, Cesine miglioate, and Cesine non migliorate, as well as the locality called Saparone, and the territory of the small Difesa etc, all belonged to the Comune. [14]
Because if this ruling, Francesco Mirelli, lost a great part of his feudal goods, saw his authority broken, and, with it, his earnings and the natural feudal income reduced. After much cenere e tosco [ashes and bitterness], he left Calitri and, withdrew to the private life in Naples, and died there on January 12, 1814, leaving his estate and noble titles to his first born, Giuseppe. He, who had served the bourbon dynasty faithfully throughout the French decade, when the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was restored with the return of Ferdinand I (March 23, 1815), he did not want to accept any diplomatic post at court, although he enjoyed a good reputation. His soul was one of unequaled generosity: he not only pardoned — as the biography of his family reveals — «but treated affectionately those who, having enriched themselves with shameful acquisition of the possession of his house, became ungrateful and forgetful of the benefits received.»[15]
In addition to the abolition of feudalism — and this is useful to remember — the Murat government proceeded to confiscate a considerable amount of property of the ecclesiastical manomorta [mortmain],[16] which weighed on the national economy along with deleterious effects of the latifondi [estates] and of the bad administration; and it dealt with, in a radical way, the thorny reform of Comunal finances, which was burdened with heavy and intolerable debt. To such an end, it established by law — as has been stated — that part of the ex-feudal property be assigned to the Comuni, who thus entered into possession of a rich patrimony. It also provided that some ex-feudal lands assigned to the Comuni be distributed to those inhabitants less wealthy in order to be possessed as free properties, behind an annual [affrancabile] redeemable rent of 5%. Our Comune took great advantage of it, because it struggled under such miserable conditions that in 1810 it reported on its Balance Sheet a deficit of 1191 ducats and 46 grana over assets of 1151 ducats and 30 grana. At that time Giuseppe De Maio was mayor and the population counted 5220 souls. The Decurionato[17] that existed in 1811 dealt with the balancing of the budget and with the imposing of serious pecuniary sacrifices on the contributors, and in fact managed in the following year to eliminate any deficit, having been helped in this financial turnaround also by new income, which the Comune had begun to receive from the ex-feudal estates that had been assigned to it. Having therefore reached the effective balancing of the budget in 1812, this balance was maintained by the subsequent Amministrazioni Comunali, even after the restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy (1815).
What and how great had been the efforts made by the Amministratori to balance the local finances could be seen from a detailed examination of the Balance Sheets, or budjets — as they are called in French — that have come down to us.[18] And the mind of anyone who skims through those documents is overcome with a real sense of civic pride in observing what progress has been made in such short a time! In the uniformity of amounts for the clerical expenses, for the rent of the jail, for the payment of the two communal serviente [ministrants] to the two guardia campestre [land wardens], to the regulator of the public clock etc, etc, there are a few words which are eloquent indications of a cultural elevation in action: one finds, in fact, assigned the annual stipend of 72 ducats for a school teacher and 30 ducats «for the teaching of little girls.» Thus, there was free elementary schooling and the start of the struggle against illiteracy. In addition, there was paid an annual payment of 12 ducats and the rent of the house to the woman «charged with the reception and care of the foundlings and abandoned children,» where the illegitimate children were taken to be safe from infanticide. The service of the distribution of payments by means of an «internal postal courier » also took place; there was street lighting that cost 15 ducats per year and other expenses for public utilities. Our Comune, then, was already on the road to civil progress: the road system was also improved, for which the budget allocated a related sum for the «maintenance of the roads, of aqueducts, and cemeteries,» for the repair of public buildings, for the restoration of the Chiesa-madre etc. External access was improved, for which the Comune contributed in the years 1812 – 1816 the annual sum of 255 ducats «for the repair of the strada interprovinciale Avellino-Melfi [the Avellino to Melfi inter-provincial road]. In 1816 over four hundred ducats were expended «for repairing the road that leads to Luzzano and Tufiello»; in that same year and in the subsequent year was constructed «the paved road that, passing near the Capella dell’Immacolata lead to the Fontana and went out through to mill road» of Piero or of Basso.[19] In brief, the Amministrazioni Comunali, that followed, applying the economic reforms imposed or suggested by the French government in the decade of its domination, increased the tenor of the lives of the citizens. Just as, in that period, through the spread of unitary feelings of the peninsula, there was shaped that conscience of national independence, which had to become a valid coefficient of the Italian Risorgimento.
[1] (jak´ebinz) , political club of the French Revolution . Formed in 1789 by the Breton deputies to the States-General, it was reconstituted as the Society of Friends of the Constitution after the revolutionary National Assembly moved (Oct., 1789) to Paris. The club derived its popular name from the monastery of the Jacobins (Parisian name of Dominicans), where the members met. Their chief purpose was to concert their activity and to secure support for the group from elements outside the Assembly. Patriotic societies were formed in most French cities in affiliation with the Parisian club. The members were, for the most part, bourgeois and at first included such moderates as Honoré de Mirabeau . The Jacobins exercised through their journals considerable pressure on the Legislative Assembly, in which they and the Feuillants were (1791-92) the chief factions. They sought to limit the powers of the king, and many of them had republican tendencies. The group split on the issue of war against Europe, which the majority, including the Brissotins (see under Brissot de Warville, Jacques Pierre ) sought. A small minority opposed foreign war and insisted on reform. This group of Jacobins grew more radical, adopted republican ideas, and advocated universal manhood suffrage, popular education, and separation of church and state, although it adhered to orthodox economic principles. In the National Convention, which proclaimed the French republic, the Jacobins and other opponents of the Girondists sat in the raised seats and were called the Mountain . Their leaders Maximilien Robespierre and Louis de Saint-Just, among others relied mainly on the strength of the Paris commune and the Parisian sans-culottes. After the fall of the Girondists (June, 1793), for which the Jacobins were largely responsible, the Jacobin leaders instituted the Reign of Terror . Under Robespierre, who came to dominate the government, the Terror was used not only against counterrevolutionaries, but also against former allies of the Jacobins, such as the Cordeliers and the Dantonists (followers of Georges Danton ). The fall of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794) meant the fall of the Jacobins, but their spirit lived on in revolutionary doctrine. The movement reappeared during the Directory and in altered form much later in the Revolution of 1848 and in the Paris Commune of 1871.
[2] State Archives in Naples, Indice dei processi dei rei di Stato dal 1795, in poi, Mazzo Secondo, processo 7, 9, e 20: under the word «Montefusco.»
[3] A canton is an administrative subdivision of a territory of a state. The canton is best known in Switzerland.
[4] Tree of Liberty (The), a tree or pole crowned with a cap of liberty, and decorated with flags, ribbons, and other devices of a republican character. The idea was given by the Americans in their War of Independence; it was adopted by the Jacobins in Paris in 1790, and by the Italians in 1848.
[5] V. M.a Pinto, Diario, in F. P. Laviano, La vecchia Conza e il castello di Pescopagano, [Old Conza and the castle of Pescopagano] Trani, 1924, Page 124 -43
[6] Fabrizio Ruffo di Bagnaro. King Ferdinand set about retaking his kingdom. He found Cardinal Ruffo, a sort of warrior/priest, a zealot who landed on the Calabrian mainland with nothing but a flag and his own forceful personality. Ruffo raised an army from among the tough peasantry in the surrounding countryside as he marched north. Depending on who is telling the story, Ruffo’s Christian Army of the Holy Faith, the sanfedisti, were either ruthless fanatics or they were a collection of Robin Hoods (such as the famous Fra Diavolo) loyal to their king, on a mission to drive out foreign invaders. In fairness to Ruffo, he tried to curb the excesses of his troops, and if they were violent, it is equally true that their opponents, those who were dispensing Republican libertè, fratenitè et ègalitè in the Ex-kingdom of Naples at the moment, were generally the same sort who a few years earlier during the Terror in Paris had lopped off 2,500 heads, most of whom were guilty of little else except holding wrong thoughts. Suffice it to say that there was barbarism on both sides as Ruffo swept north, up through Calabria and Puglia, into Campania and towards the capital.
[7] State Archives in Naples, Amministrazione dei beni dei rei di Stato confiscati nel 1799 ecc., fascio 108, foglio staccato 60.
[8] A. Sansone, Gli avvenimenti nel 1799 nelle Due Sicilie[Events in 1799 in the Two Sicilies.], Palermo 1901, page 303
[9] Filiazioni dei rei di Stato condannati dalla Suprema Giunta di Stato… ad essere asportati dai Reali Domini,[Filiations of the enemy of the state who have been condemned by the Supreme State Committee…to be transported from the Royal Dominions] Naples, 1800, page 8
[10] The residence of the head of the province of Principato Ultra, for about seven centuries, had been now Montefusco and now Avellino. Here, as in a more important and central places, would always have been, if the Princes of Avellino – in order not to be seen degraded in their authority before the representatives of the government – had not hindered the fixed address.
[11] The first Intendente was Giacomo Mazzas, who on August 13, 1806, left Montefusco and established himself in Avellino.
[12] Bulletino delle sentenze emanate dalla Suprema Commissione per le liti fra i già baroni e i Comuni [Bulletin of the judgement issued by the supreme commission because of the disputes between the former baron and the Comuni], Napoli, 1809, Volume II, Page 36 and following.
[13] Bulletino delle sentenze etc. which was cited above, 1809, Volume II, Page 125 and following. 3/7 of the entire wood was assigned to the Comune, that is well over 2565 tomoli (1 tomolo = 4,115 square meters) of land, in the part near the habitation of Calitri. But not so adventurous, as the judgment of the commission, was , in practice, the division of Castiglione, which – through supreme disgrace – had to be subject also to shameless usurpations by «some frontagers at the south-west border of the wood.»
[14] Bullettino delle sentenze ecc, above cited, 1810, vol. I, Pag. 343 e sgg.
[15] F. De Angelis, Cenno genealogico delle famiglie Ceva – Grimaldi e Mirella, Napoli, [Genealogical notes of the Ceva, Grimaldi and Mirella, families Naples]1840, page 133 – Giuseppe Mirelli, che aveva per moglie Donna Mariantonia Ceva-Grimaldi, morì in Napoli il 20 gennaio 1840.[Giuseppe Mirelli, who was married to Donna Mariantonia Ceva – Grimaldi, died in Naples on January 1840.]
[16] In the middle ages and the modern age the legal and economic regimes in which were found the goods, especially real estate, which belonged to ecclesiastical institutions and to moral entities and were considered therefore unalienable and not subject to inheritance tax.
[17] decurionate: in the late middle ages, a municipal council of numerous Italian Comuni
[18] State Archives in Naples, Stati discussi di Princip. Ultra (budjets) from 1810 to 1837,[Controversial states of Principato Ultra (budgets) from 1810 to 1837] vol 114, No. 5.
[19] Cfr. My work, Le Amministrazioni Comunali nel decennio francese: I bilanci di Calitri e di Conza, [The communal administrations in the French decade: The budgets of Calitri and Conza] in «Irpinia» Rivista storica [History magazine], Avellino, 1932, Dossier VI; 1933 Dossier I.