After sending the ships back so that none of his men would be able to seek refuge in them, he went to attack Messina. Finding it undefended—for its defenders had been killed as a result of Roger’s earlier attack—he [Roger I d’Hauteville] captured the city and stormed its towers and ramparts, killing all those whom he found within, except those who managed to flee to the Palermitan ships. This occurred in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 106[1].
Among those who tried to flee was a certain youth, one of the most noble among the citizens of Messina, who had a very beautiful sister whom he tried to take with him as he fled. But the girl, a slight young woman, weak by nature and unaccustomed to such effort, began to lose heart out of fear and the unaccustomed difficulty of their course. The brother tenderly encouraged her to flee, but when his words had no effect and he saw that she was physically exhausted, he fell upon her with his own sword and killed her so that she would not have to live among the Normans and be corrupted by any of them. Although he was steeped in tears—his sister being so sweet and his only one—he chose to become her murderer and to mourn her death rather than to have her become a prevaricator of their law and be defiled by someone who did not live according to it.”
Goffredo Malaterra,The Deeds Of Count Roger Of Calabria And Sicily And Of His Brother Duke Robert Guiscard,p.91
Folklore gave a name to these unfortunate and unnamed siblings:CiafarandIras. It also provided them of a background. According to tradition they were the children of an alleged Emir of Córdoba, who found themselves admist the chaos of the Norman conquest of Sicily. If they really existed and that was their name and story, we won’t ever know.
May 17th 1198. A 4 years-old Federico II Hohenstaufen is crowned King of Sicily
Soon after the death of the Emperor Henry, Constance had the child fetched from Foligno by an Apulian count and brought to Sicily. Dressed in widow’s weeds she awaited her son in Palermo. There were grave accusatory rumours against the Empress current at the time: some said she had poisoned her husband, and it was a matter of common knowledge that she had no love for Germans. The suspicion of murder was unjust, but the hatred for Germans ascribed to her was genuine enough; she shared it with her Sicilian fellow-countrymen and with the Italians oppressed by the Roman Curia. The foundations of this hate were the same then as they have always been: the arrogance “allied with unwisdom” of the Germans alienated the Mediterranean peoples, as did their “obstinacy and self-assertiveness.”
Their physical strength and their savagery moreover terrified the Southerners, the discords prevailing amongst themselves brought them scorn and contempt. For rulers of the world they appeared “crude, coarse and uncivilised,” while their yet unpolished language seemed to the Romans "like the barking of dogs and the croaking of frogs.” But the main factor in this hate was fear; fear of the inrush “of the winter and the storm into the rose-gardens of Sicily.” This fear was not allayed by the savagely cruel treatment meted out to the Sicilians by Henry VI. Perhaps Innocent with his biblical phraseology hit on the right description of the German visitation of those days when he wrote: “Because the people of Sicily and the other inhabitants of this kingdom have grown effeminate in sloth, and undisciplined through too much peace, and, boasting themselves of their wealth, have given themselves over to the unbridled lusts of the body, their stink has gone up to heaven and the multitude of their sins has delivered them into the hands of the oppressor.”
Innocent spoke thus out of no friendliness to the Germans. The hate of Germans that flamed up throughout Italy on the death of the Emperor had been carefully nurtured beforehand by the Curia, had been given the air of a national pan-Italian movement and utilised as a means to shake off the imperial yoke in the south in favour of a papal Italy. In resonant periods Innocent III had taken pains to stir up and foster this hate: “The wrath of the North wind whistles through the mountains with a new quaking of the earth, it drives through the level plains of Apulia, whirling dust into the eyes of wanderers and country-dwellers.” Thus he wrote about the German,Henry VI, whom Dante also designated “that loud blast which blew the second over Swabia’s realm.” A reaction of this sort against the tyranny of Henry VI was of course inevitable. The importance of the movement in Sicily was enhanced by the fact that the Empress Constance took part in it. Her motives were probably personal, for Henry had made a terrific clearance amongst all related to the old Norman royal house and had banished the survivors to Germany. On his death Constance immediately resumed the sovereignty of her hereditary domain, in accordance both with the Emperor’s instructions and with the right she herself possessed as Norman Queen. But the new ruler of Sicily was Norman Queen only: not widowed Empress; and the first act of her reign was to banish from her kingdom the Emperor’s interpreter, Markward of Anweiler, and with him all other German notables, a considerable number of whom held fief and office in the Norman territory. The pretext was that they might prove dangerous to the peace and quiet of the kingdom,especially Markward, who had not been slow to propose himself as vicegerent. Her next step was to imprison the Sicilian Chancellor, Walter of Palear, Bishop of Troia, who had been from of old an opponent of the Norman dynasty and a willing tool of the German Emperor. The intervention of the Pope was necessary to effect the liberation of the Bishop Chancellor and his re-instatement in his former offices. AntiGerman feeling in the south was so acute that the first German crusaders who were returning, all unsuspecting, from the Holy Land were surprised and plundered by the excited Sicilians, and after that the home-coming pilgrims had to avoid the har bours of this dangerously inhospitable kingdom. Curiously, the German princes who were on the Crusade, when they received in Acre the news of their Emperor’s death, reconfirmed the choice of Frederick as King of the Romans.
Constance, however, deliberately shut her eyes to all this. Her hate of Germany reinforced the maternal anxiety which heroes’ mothers are wont to suffer from: in the German crown she saw a never-ending series of future perils and struggles for her son. She would as far as possible ward off such a danger from him. Frederick should be king of the wealthy Sicily, and in the southern Land of Dreams he would quietly forget the imperial dignity of his fathers. A few months after the boy’s arrival in Palermo she had him crowned King of Sicily. The solemn rite was celebrated on Whit Sunday 1198, with a pomp and ceremony borrowed from the Byzantine court, while in accordance with ancient custom the people greeted their newly crowned king with the cry which may still be read on every crucifix in southern Italy “Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.” It is significant to note that this is also the motto engraved on Frederick’s early seals. From that day Constance omitted from all official documents of the young king the title that had previously figured there: Rex Romanorum. From henceforth Frederick of Hohenstaufen was to content himself with the many titles borne by the reges felices of Norman stock. He was to be, body and soul, the son of the Sicilian Constance only, and to be kept aloof from all the fatal, unknown consequences in which the dangerous Hohenstaufen blood of his father might involve him. One is reminded of the childhood of Achilles or of Parzival.
Kantorowicz Ernst,Frederick II. 1198-1250, p. 13-16
Since still in the 1930s, heirs of previous Royal French Houses (which included of course Henri, the Orléanist claimant) were still exiled, the couple couldn’t marry in France. They chose Palermo because Henri’s family owned a palace there.
Palazzo d'Orléans is an 18th-century estate, opposite to Palazzo dei Normanni,in the centre of Palermo. It had firstly belonged to the Sicilian branch of the Spanish Monroy family (Hernán Cortés’ family). It later was bought by rich merchant Francesco Olivieri.
Starting 1808, Olivieri rented it to exiled PrinceLouis Philippe d'Orléans. The following year, on November 25th, the French Prince married Princess Maria Amalia di Borbone-Due Sicilie (herself exiled with her family from Naples due to the Napoleonic invasion) and bought the palace, which took the name of Palazzo d'Orléans. The couple’s first three children would be born in the Palace (Ferdinand Philippe,Louise andMarie) and the family would live in Palermo until 1814, when they were reached by the news of Napoleon’s fall. The Orléans then left Palermo headed for France, where Louis Philippe would rule as king from 1830 to 1848.
Palazzo d'Orléans, in the meantime, still belonged to the French royal family. In 1855 Maria Amalia bestowed it to his son Henri, Duke of Aumale, whom expanded the estate up to 63 hectares, buying the adjoining houses and lands. A botanic and agricolture enthusiast, the Prince developed an innovative irrigation method. At Henri’s death, in 1897, the Palace was inherited by his great-nephew,Louis Philippe Robert (grandson of Henri’s eldest brother, Ferdinand Philippe). Louis Philippe would order the last enlargement of the Palace, but also rent a large part of the adjacent land to support his exiled life
After the childless Prince’s death in Palermo, in 1926, Palazzo d'Orléans would be inherited by his eldest sister,Amélie, last Queen consort of Portugal, whom would sell it to her cousin,Jean, Duke of Guise. On February 10th, 1929, the Palace hosted the marriage of the Duke’s daughter, Françoise, to Prince Christóphoros of Greece and Denmark. Two years later, on April 8th was celebrated the marriage captured by this video. Wedding witness were: Don Carlos of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (maternal cousin of the groom), Prince Amedeo d’Aosta, Duke of Apulia (the groom’s brother-in-law), Prince Pedro Gastão of Orléans-Braganza (the bride’s brother), and Prince Adam Ludwik Czartoryski (grandson of Prince Louis of Orléans, Duke of Nemours).
In 1940, following Fascist Italy’s entering in the war against France (and the rest of the Allied Forces) Palazzo d'Orléans was confiscated and entrusted to the Banco di Sicilia. In 1943, after the Allied invasion of Sicily, the Palace was used by the US army as military headquarters (and it is in this occasion that the Palace was looted of many precious objects, like art pieces, furniture and silverware).
After the war, the building was elected as seat of the Regione Siciliana, despite still officially belonging to the Orléans. In 1950 the descendants sold circa 40 hectares of land to realise the University campus. Finally, in 1955 they sold the Palace to the Region, which still uses it as its headquartes.
The wonderful park which ornated the back of the Palace was slowly transormed into a giardino all’italiana, and was converted into Italy’s only ornithological park. Of the original park, only the ficus magnoloides planted by Louis Philippe remains.
And yet Heaven’s providential intervention stepped in; since the still free mind of Prince Don Cesare couldn’t grasp a greater gift was yet to come. And this bird-catcher fooled by hope, instead of an escaped dove, managed to catch a Phoenyx. This was indeed Donna Luisa di Luna e Vega, daughter of Pietro Duke of Bivona, who by marrying Don Cesare, not only brought to her husband’s House her father’s Duchy, and the lands of the House of Peralta, already englobed by those of de Luna’s, but then with the marriages of her son and grandson, poured in the Moncada’s possessions, the titles and riches of two other illustrious lineages, that of Aragona and Cardona, with the Duchy of Montalto and the County of Collesano.
Hence, like that Arabian bird, which it is obsequiously followed by other birds wherever it flies, likewise she brought with her a magnificent procession of many estates in the House where she nested.
Giovanni Agostino della Lengueglia, Ritratti della prosapia et heroi Moncadi nella Sicilia: opera historica-encomiastica,p.559-560 [my translation]
Aloisia (or Luisa) was born in Bivona (nearby Agrigento) around 1553. She was the firstborn of Pietro Giulio de Luna Salviati, Duke of Bivona, Earl of Caltabellotta and of Sclafani, and his first wife, the Spanish Doña Isabel de Vega y Osório. The baby girl was named after her paternal grandmother, Luisa Salviati de’ Medici. In fact, through her father, Aloisia descended from Lorenzo il Magnifico de’ Medici, who was her great-great-grandfather. On her mother’s side, on the other hand, she was the granddaughter of Juan de Vega y Enriquez, who had been Viceroy of Navarre and later of Sicily (also the one who brought Jesuits in Sicily). Aloisia had two younger sisters, Bianca and Eleonora, and a half-brother, Giovanni, born in 1563, out of Pietro’s second marriage to Ángela de la Cerda y Manuel, daughter of Juan de la Cerda, IV Duke of Medinaceli and Viceroy of Sicily from 1557 to 1564.
In 1568, Aloisia married Cesare Moncada Pignatelli, Prince of Paternò, Earl of Adernò and of Caltanissetta, a decade older than her, in Caltabellotta. The union between the two had been planned by Juan de la Cerda, the bride’s step-grandfather. Cesare was indeed supposed to marry his cousin, Giovanna de Marinis (daughter of his aunt Stefania), but marriages between noble families were delicate matters and needed the Viceroy’s approval as well as (sometimes) the Papal dispensation in case of seventh grade parentage. The Moncadas were an incredibly wealthy and noble family. They owed their fortune mainly to Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada Earl of Agosta who, in 1379, had kidnapped Queen Maria I of Sicily and brought her to Spain where she married her cousin Martino. To thank him for his support, King Pedro IV of Aragon (the Queen’s maternal grandfather) had named Guglielmo Raimondo Royal Counselor and Justiciar of the Kingdom of Sicily. From 1565, the Moncadas were able to add to their titles that of Princes of Paternò, plus managed to exchange Augusta for Caltanissetta, thus saving tons of money since Augusta, differently from Caltanissetta, was a maritime city, which was often the victim of pirates’ raidings and needed to be constantly defenced (which entailed great expenses). De la Cerda used his influence to mess up the Moncadas’ original wedding plans (angering thus the groom’s family) and proposed the union with the de Luna, with whom the Moncadas were distantly related and therefore had needed the Pope’s blessing.
Aloisia would give birth to two children: Isabella (who would die an infant) and Francesco (ca. 1569-1592). Her marital life would be cut short as Cesare would suddenly die in Paternò on July 30th 1571, after only three years of marriage.
Little Francesco, now Francesco II, would be officially appointed of his late father’s titles the following year and placed under the guardianship of his maternal grandfather, Pietro de Luna, and his paternal uncle, Fabrizio Moncada (first husband of famous portrait painter Sofonisba Anguissola). Seven years later, Fabrizio would die in a pirate attack off the coast near Capri and some would talk about it not being an accident and about rumours of Fabrizio being headed to Spain to denounce his sister-in-law’s meddlings in the management of the Moncada’s patrimony.
Gossipers aside, it’s documented Aloisia took personal care in the education of her son and short-lived daughter. She began Francesco to study law, philosophy, literature and maths, as well as more artistic subjects like painting and sculpting.
Aloisia was the one who actively ruled over her son’s lands, showing a great deal of resourcefulness and managerial skills. Holding steady in her mind the idea of strengthening her (and by result her son’s) position, on September 17th, 1577, in Monreale, she married Antonio d’Aragona Cardona, Duke of Montalto and himself a widower. By concession of the Viceroy Marcantonio II Colonna, Aloisia obtained to keep acting as her son’s guardian without having to cede the role to her new husband or someone else.
Antonio d’Aragona too belonged to a prominent family, being a grandson of Ferrante d’Aragona Guardato, founder of the Line of the Dukes of Montalto and illegitimate child of Ferdinando I of Naples. Antonio’s first wife had been María de la Cerda y Manuel de Portugal, daughter of Juan de la Cerda y Silva, 4th Duke of Medinaceli as well as a Grandee of Spain, Viceroy of Sicily and Viceroy of Navarre during his long political career. From his first marriage, only his daughter Maria had reached adulthood as little Ferdinando died as an infant.
Aloisia bore Antonio a daughter, Bianca Antonia, who would later marry Giuseppe Ventimiglia Ventimiglia, II Prince of Castelbuono and IX Marquis of Geraci, and be the mother of Francesco III Ventimiglia d’Aragona, who would be offered (but not accept) the Crown of the Kingdom of Sicily during the anti-Spanish revolt of 1647.
The Duke of Montalto died in Naples on February 8th, 1584, on the route to quell a riot in the Flanders (the so called Dutch War of Independence) by virtue of his role of Captain General of the Spanish Cavalry in the Flanders. Leaving no male heir, all his titles and possessions passed to his eldest daughter, Maria.
Aloisia didn’t lose time to grieve for her husband as she swiftly arranged the marriage between her son Francesco and her step-daughter, the new Duchess of Montalto. The wedding took place on March 12th 1585 and the following year Francesco received maritali nomine the endowment of the Duchy of Montalto the Earldom of Collesano and all the lands owned by his wife’s family, bringing the total to thirteen of the fiefs owned by the Moncada.
On August 1592, Aloisia’s half-brother, Giovanni died childless, so as his eldest sister and heir, on September 30th she was endowed of the baronies of Scillato and Regaleali. She also inherited many fiefs in the area of Caltavuturo and Sclafani. From her court in Caltanissetta, she kept cleverly administering her possessions as well as the lands acquired through both of her late husbands (she generally rented her lands to foreigners, mostly Genoese and Pisans). She invited the Jesuits in Caltanissetta, had many churches and religious centre of the area built, she restored the city’s Cathedral. Aloisia took particular interest in having the Moncada’s libri di famiglia (books used to register one family’s commercial activity as well as key events in the lives of its family members, particularly common from XIII to XVI century) perfectly catalogued and maintained. She introduced and commissioned many artists and was perhaps the one who called back her sister-in-law Sofonisba Anguissola who, at that time, lived in Genova with her second husband, and who starting 1615 returned in Sicily where she would die.
Those who visited her, were rendered almost speechless about the magnificence of her court. During a visit in 1598 of the Viceroy and Vicereine, Bernardino de Cárdenas y Portugal and his wife Luisa Manrique de Lara, the Duchess had, in that occasion, surpassed herself. Aloisia had, in fact, arranged the area where she would receive her guests (at her own expenses), the forest of Mimiani, so perfectly and with so many tents, one would have thought you were in an actual city. Her guests were so pleased, the Vicereine gifted her of a splint of the Holy Cross kept in a display case ornated by precious stones.
Aloisia was also particularly generous. She did a lot of charity (and passed on the same generous disposition to her son and grandson), but made it through the nuns, ordering them to keep quiet about her being the one who sent the money, so that people would rather thank the Heaven for the celestial gift. She must have thought that public displays of charity didn’t have as an aim to help people, but rather that some benefactors did it for themselves since they took pleasure to hear their names be acclaimed for their generosity. During a terrible famine, when poor people were so hungry they ate grass and pasture, she used her personal income to provide for her people, so that at that time in her lands mortality rate was very low. She was also particularly mindful to guarantee that poor girls wouldn’t find themselves forced by misery to undertake a dishonourable life, granting them means to do honourable marriages. On the other hand, the Duchess didn’t skirt from regularly sending generous gifts to ministers and potentates, so that when at the right time, she could count on their support.
On May 23rd, 1592, a 23 year-old Francesco II Moncada died of malaria in Adernò (nearby Catania). Although it must have been extremely heartbreaking to lose her beloved son, Aloisia braced herself and took on the task of properly raising, together with her daughter-in-law, her 4 years-old grandson, Antonio. Since the child was also Donna Maria’s heir, in accordance with his parents’ marriage settlements, it had been stipulated he would take as first his mother’s surname and be styled as Antonio II d’Aragona Moncada de Luna.
The little Prince grew up together with his younger brother Cesare (the other brother, Giovanni, had died a child) in his family’s palace in Caltanissetta, closely watched over by their grandmother and mother (although, at ten, he seriously risked drowning in a cistern, while playing with his brother, and was saved thanks to Cesare’s cries for help which alerted Aloisia and Maria). From a young age, Antonio had been betrothed to Juana de la Cerda y de la Cueva, daughter of Juan de la Cerda, VI Duke of Medinaceli and his first wife Ana de la Cueva and at that time her father’s only heir.
The Duke of Medinaceli was in particular eager to have this marriage celebrated and already thought of Antonio as a son of his own. Since the young Moncada kept delaying his journey to Spain in order to marry, the Duke of Medinaceli somewhat grew tired and got married a second time (although he hadn’t thought of remarrying previously). Unfortunately for Juana, her step-mother, Antonia de Toledo Dávila y Colonna, would in 1607 give birth to a son, Antonio Juan Luis, who would surpass his sister and would one day inherit their father’s titles and possessions.
Although, understandably, organising a quasi-royal marriage all the way to Spain, complete with a long voyage to reach it, was indeed a big and long deal, that missed chance was perhaps Aloisia’s only mistake. If only they had moved faster, and Juana had succeeded her father, Moncada’s riches might have reached legendary status.
The delay was due to the fact that the old Duchess had also insisted to travel to Spain, accompanied by her daughter-in-law, Maria, and her two young granddaughters, Isabella and Luisa, with the hope of finding suitable matches for the girls among the Spanish aristocracy, and for that every aspect of the journey had to be perfect (Isabella would die young, while Louisa would marry in 1612 Eugenio de Padilla Manrique, III Count of Gadea). The Moncadas had to arrive in Spain with the pomp and grandeur (Aloisia must have thought) they deserved. Worryngly, as they reached Naples and stopped for a break, the groom grew sick and had to be treated by the best doctors before he could resume the voyage.
The marriage between Antonio Moncada and Juana de la Cerda took place in 1607 and it seems like it was a successful union, with the couple living harmoniously together in Spain for the first years, then settling in Collesano, near Palermo and part of Antonio’s possessions. While in Spain, the new Duchess gave birth to a son, Francesco, in 1613, who would be followed by Sicilian born Luigi Guglielmo (1614), Marianna (1616), and Ignazio (1619).
In 1610, Maria d’Aragona de la Cerda, Dowager Princess of Paternò died, leaving her mother-in-law Aloisia as the sole matriarch of the family.
In 1626, the young Francesco, Antonio II’s heir, would feel ill and die (and his siblings almost followed him) while both of his parents were in Spain to attend their courtly duties. Full of pain and regrets, Antonio and Juana would obtain the dissolution of their marriage and they both would take the cloth, becoming one a Jesuit and the other an Augustinian nun. Following his father’s resignation, 13 years-old Luigi Guglielmo became the new Prince and head of the Moncada family.
But Donna Aloisia would be spared of these sorrows as she died in Palermo in 1620, at 67. She would be buried in her Caltanissetta, in the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, which would be turned into a hospital in the XIX century, and which already housed the grave of her son Francesco II.
Salvatore Giuliano’s name will be associated for ever in Italian memories with a place—Portella della Ginestra. Today, nowhere in Sicily seems more bleak and haunted by violence than this piece of open ground at one end of a valley between Piana degli Albanesi and San Giuseppe Jato. It was here that peasants came together to celebrate May Day in 1947. Families assembled in their best clothes for a picnic, a song, and a dance; their donkeys and painted carts were decorated with banners and ribbons. It was to be a celebration of the freedoms that had returned after the fall of Fascism.
At 10.15 A.M. the secretary of the People’s Bloc from Piana degli Albanesi stood up amid the red flags to open proceedings. He was interrupted by loud bangs. At first many people thought they were fireworks, part of the celebration. Then the bullets fired by Giuliano’s men began to find their mark. Ten minutes of machinegun fire from the surrounding slopes left eleven dead, among them Serafino Lascari, aged fifteen; Giovanni Grifò, aged twelve; and Giuseppe Di Maggio and Vincenzo La Fata, both seven years old. Thirty-three people were wounded, including a little girl of thirteen who had her jaw shot off.
The impact of the massacre on the local communities was profound and lasting. When Francesco Rosi came to film the Portella della Ginestra sequence for Salvatore Giuliano, he asked 1,000 peasants to go back and enact exactly what they, their friends and relatives had been through fourteen years earlier. Events nearly slipped out of the director’s control. When the gunfire sound effects started, the crowd panicked and knocked over one of the cameras in the rush to escape; women wept and knelt in prayer; men threw themselves to the ground in agony. One old woman, dressed entirely in black, planted herself before the camera and repeated in an anguished wail, ‘Where are my children?’ Two of her sons had died at the hands of Giuliano and his band.
Despite public outrage at the horrors of Portella della Ginestra, the ‘King of Montelepre’ remained at large for a further three years. Following the massacre, the molten lava of social conflict in post-war Sicily slowly hardened into a new political landscape dominated by the Christian Democrats. It was these political changes, rather than the fury and sorrow aroused by Giuliano’s actions, that began to make him look like a wild anachronism. The electoral victories secured by the DC slowly removed the need for his clamorous brand of anti-Communist terror.
Giuliano continued his attacks on peasant activists and institutions, but the members of his band gradually fell into the hands of the authorities—often with the help of information from the mafia. At the same time, Giuliano’s actions became more difficult to read. In the summer of 1948, he killed five mafiosi including the boss of Partinico. It is not known exactly why. Not surprisingly, many people identify this as the moment when Giuliano’s fate was sealed. Nevertheless a year later he was still powerful enough to murder six morecarabinieri in an ambush at Bellolampo just outside Palermo.
All this time investigations into the Portella della Ginestra massacre plodded on amid growing speculation that someone—possibly the Minister of the Interior— might have ordered Giuliano to carry it out. The bandit himself wrote a public letter, taking sole responsibility for the murders and denying that there was anyone behind him. He claimed that he had only intended his men to fire above the heads of the crowd; the deaths had been a mistake. He cited the fact that children had died as evidence that it was an accident: ‘Do you think I have a stone in place of a heart?’ The 800 spent rounds of ammunition found at the scene are enough in themselves to make this denial ring dreadfully hollow.
Speaking at Portella della Ginestra on the second anniversary of the massacre, Sicilian Communist leader Girolamo Li Causi, who had become a Senator since surviving Don Calò’s grenade attack in Villalba, publicly called on Giuliano to name names. The appeal led to an extraordinary public exchange. Li Causi received a written reply from the bandit leader: ‘It is only men with no shame who give out names. Not a man who tends to take justice into his own hands; who aims to keep his reputation in society high, and who values this aim more than his own life.’
Li Causi responded by reminding Giuliano that he would almost certainly be betrayed: ‘Don’t you understand that Scelba [the Minister of the Interior, a Sicilian] will have you killed?’
Giuliano again replied, hinting at the powerful secrets that he possessed: ‘I know that Scelba wants to have me killed; he wants to have me killed because I keep a nightmare hanging over him. I can make sure he is brought to account for actions that, if revealed, would destroy his political career and end his life.’ No one was sure how much of this to believe.
In the summer of 1950, Giuliano’s captured associates were finally arraigned in Viterbo near Rome for the trial that was supposed to answer all the questions. But no sooner had the hearing got under way than the mysteries deepened when Giuliano’s body was found in the courtyard of a house in Castelvetrano—outside his mountain realm.
[…]
Although it would be futile now to try to solve the mysteries surrounding Portella della Ginestra and Salvatore Giuliano, it is certainly worth listing some of the evidence. Ever since Giuliano’s death, ‘behindologists’ have been trying to assemble a coherent picture out of these and other facts:
• Several witnesses recalled that Giuliano received a letter just before he carried out the Portella della Ginestra atrocity. When he read it, he destroyed it carefully and told the members of his band, ‘Boys, the hour of our liberation is at hand’; he then announced the plan to attack the peasant celebration. No one has ever discovered who sent the letter.
• After the massacre at Portella della Ginestra, the Chief of Police in Sicily met senior Monreale mafiosi at his house in Rome. There they handed him a written testimony by Giuliano which he in turn seems to have sent to the home address of the chief prosecutor at the Palermo Court of Appeal, a man who may also have had contacts with Giuliano. The testimony has never been found.
• The same Chief of Police had a regular correspondence with Giuliano through the same mafia channels. On at least one occasion he actually met the bandit leader—they shared panettone and two different kinds of liqueur.
The one man able and possibly willing to reveal the truth about Portella della Ginestra was Gaspare Pisciotta, Giuliano’s dapper cousin who betrayed and probably killed him on behalf of the carabinieri. While he was with the band he had a pass, signed by a colonel in the carabinieri, that allowed him to move about the island freely. He had even visited a doctor under the supervision of another officer— he suffered from tuberculosis. During the Viterbo trial, Pisciotta had proclaimed, ‘We are one body: bandits, police and mafia—like the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.’
At the conclusion of the Viterbo trial, Pisciotta was given a life sentence for his part in the events at Portella della Ginestra. While he was in prison—he spent his time writing an autobiography and doing silk embroidery—it became clear that the authorities were starting to give more credit to some of his evidence. There was to be a new trial at which he would be charged with Giuliano’s murder. Perjury and other charges were to be made against police and carabinieri. Pisciotta contacted an investigating magistrate and said that he was intending to reveal much more than he had done before.
On the morning of 9 February 1954, Pisciotta made himself a cup of coffee. Into it he stirred what he thought was his tuberculosis medicine. He took an hour to die, his body tormented by the violent head-to-toe convulsions that are the characteristic symptom of strychnine poisoning. His autobiography vanished.
Pisciotta was poisoned in the Ucciardone prison in Palermo—the mafia’s university of crime since the middle of the nineteenth century. It is inconceivable that he was killed without at least the honoured society’s approval. Whatever the mafia’s involvement in the intrigues behind Portella della Ginestra and the Giuliano band, it was they who made sure that the whole truth would never come out.
John Dickie,Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia, p. 212-216
Graziella (or Grazia) Giuffrida was born in Catania in 1924. From a young age, she was known for being very kind and determined. When, upon graduation, she expressed her desire to move to Genova to work as a teacher, her parents tried their best to stop her, but in vain. Together with her brother Salvatore, Graziella arrived in Genova in 1943.
Horrified by the many atrocities and acts of violence committed by the nazi-fascists, and inspired by Salvatore’s antifascism, Graziella decided soon to join a SAP, a partisan squadron, together with her brother. However, not long after becoming a partisan, she met her horrible end.
On March 24th 1945, while riding a streetcar, a group of German soldiers started molesting her. While groping her, they realized she was hiding a gun under her coat.
After being arrested, Graziella was led to a shed in the suburb, where she was tortured, raped and finally killed. Her body was taken to Fegino in Val Polcevera, in the locality of Barbini, and tossed in a ditch together with those of Daniele Cotella (43, captured because he had secretly hosted a partisan), Sebastiano Macciò (23, partisan), Andrea Savoldelli (48, partisan), Giancarlo Valle il genovese (19, partisan). They were casually found on April 28th. They had been so cruelly tortured, it took three days to properly identify the corpses.
Graziella’s brother, Salvatore, would be too captured and killed by the nazi-fascists, although.
At the news that both her children had died, their parents went crazy with grief. Graziella and Salvatore’s bodies were brought back to Catania and placed to rest in their family tomb.
On this day, 30 July 1906, Italian anti-fascist and revolutionary Alfonso Failla was born in Sicily. From the age of 19 he took part in the armed resistance to fascism: including the 1925 Battle of Siracusa where local residents and dock workers inflicted heavy losses on an invading force of 1000 armed fascists. He was jailed by the fascists in 1930, until he led a prison revolt and mass breakout after 1943. He then got involved in the wartime resistance movement, and helped free hundreds of Italian prisoners being marched to Nazi death camps. He remained active until the end of his life in 1986. More info in this short biography: https://libcom.org/history/failla-alfonso-1906-1986https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1177568279094987/?type=3
“They say she had been ridden off because she had little regard for chastity, or because of Vespasiano’s suspicion of it, least it would be considered a disgrace for his own house since he often quoted Caesar, that the wife of a great man out to be free of mere guilt, but also suspicion of crime.”
Dianawas born in Palermo around 1531 as the daughter of Antonio de Cardona y Peralta, Marquis of Giuliana, Earl of Chiusa and Baron of Burgio (belonging to the Sicilian branch of the ancient and noble Catalan house of Folc de Cardona) and Beatrice de Luna e Aragona.
Nothing is known in particular about her early life except she had been at some point betrothed to Cesare Gonzaga, son of Ferrante I Gonzaga (who had been Viceroy of Sicily from 1535 to 1546) Earl of Guastalla.
As a trusted man of Emperor Carlos V, Don Ferrante had been appointed in 1546 as Governor of the Duchy of Milan and it is in this moment that he led his (supposed to be) future daughter-in-law with him to Milan.
But independent and free-spirited Diana wasn’t happy in Milan. It’s unclear what was the cause of it (contemporary sources affirm they don’t know or can’t remember), but at some point Diana got in a huge fight with Don Ferrante and fled from the city.
According to some gossipers, the real cause was Vespasiano Gonzaga Colonna, Earl of Sabbioneta, member of a cadet branch of the Gonzaga and thus a relative of Ferrante and Cesare. During a visit of the Earl in Milan, Diana had fallen in love with him.
Vespasiano was about her same age, and was described as charming and charismatic. He was the only child of Luigi “Rodomonte” Gonzaga (eldest son of Ludovico Gonzaga of Sabbioneta), and Isabella Colonna. Luigi died in 1532, leaving a one year-old child, who then became his grandfather’s heir. Because of some disagreements between Isabella and her father-in-law, and especially following her remarriage to Filippo di Lannoy Prince of Sulmona, little Vespasiano was entrusted to his paternal aunt, Giulia Gonzaga.
Aunt Giulia loved tenderly her nephew and did her best to ensure him a bright future, like sending him to the Habsburg court in Madrid, where he refined his education and strengthened his bonds with the Royal House, especially with the Infante Don Felipe.
Once returned to Italy, a 19 years-old Vespasiano could now take full possession of his domains (his grandfather had died in 1540 and, also thanks to Giulia Gonzaga’s appeals, the Emperor had recognized Vespasiano’s inherited titles) and settled in Sabbioneta, which he would later shape into his ideal city.
Again aunt Giulia was the one who had previously, before her nephew had left for Spain, shunned a betrothal between Vespasiano and Vittoria Farnese, granddaughter of Pope Paul III. Giulia didn’t look kindly on the Farnese and to ensure that that union never took place, she demanded an outrageously high dowry from Vittoria’s father to allow the marriage.
On the other hand, the Gonzaga matriarch appreciated Diana Cardona and, perhaps, the young Sicilian’s wealth might have been one of the reasons. The two families, Gonzaga and Cardona, were also closely related as Giulia’s aunt, Susanna Gonzaga, had married Pietro II Cardona Ventimiglia (curiously enough, these two had had a daughter called Diana).
During her flee from Milano, apparently in the desperate attempt to go back to her family, Diana had stopped (or was stopped) in Piacenza, where Vespasiano was currently staying. Now, if Vespasiano too had fallen in law with the spirited and beautiful Sicilian lady, if he was prompted by his aunt to get a hold on Diana’s wealth or if he offered himself as a mean to avoid much more scandal by offering Diana a shotgun wedding, we won’t never know. Fact is, the two of them secretly married in Piacenza in 1549 and, because of the secrecy (even her mother would be informed much later), the union wouldn’t be announced until 1550 when the couple triumphantly entered in Sabbioneta.
As a trusted military man, Vespasian was often away from home, busy fighting in various parts of the great Habsburg Empire. During his absence, his wife personally ruled and managed the earldom of Sabbioneta. In the many letters sent to Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga and Dowager Duchess Margherita Paleologa, regents of the Duchy of Mantova on behalf of little Duke Francesco III Gonzaga, Diana presented herself “come superiore et padrona” (as superior and mistress) and her sometimes strong tones reveal a matched strong character. The countess of Sabbioneta (who had the full support of her aunt-in-law, Giulia Gonzaga) had truly taken at heart the privileges and rights of newly acquired dominions and didn’t appreciate any meddling of the main branch of Gonzaga of Mantova.
Surely the thrill and satisfaction derived from being a mistress of herself, perfectly capable of ruling a (tiny) earldom must not have been enough for Diana. She must have thought something was missing on the personal and intimate level and her husband’s long absence must have made her feel lonely, especially since she was still childless (we only know of a stillborn son in 1550, right after the couple arrived in Sabbioneta).
Around 1558-1559 she started a secret relationship with a Giovanni Annibale Ranieri, a dashing secretary. It was rumoured she had even became pregnant by her lover. Unfortunately for her, her husband found out (we don’t know if he received letters or someone told him). It looks like, though, he reacted quite quickly as the mere suspicion (aggravated by the rumours of the pregnancy) horrified him greatly.
The betrayed earl ordered one of his trusted men, Antonio Messirotto, to kill Ranieri. The secretary was abducted, taken to a secret room and killed. Then, according to the tradition, Vespasiano led his wife into that same room, gave her a cup of poison and locked her in with her dead lover. Diana resisted for three long days, after which, worn out, she drank the poison. As she was agonizing because of that horrible death, she was taken to her chamber where she finally died. It was November 9th, 1559.
Vespasiano laconically sent words of her death to both her and his family, claiming a stroke had ended her life, leaving Diana speechless just right before her death.
Vespasiano would remarry two more times, to Anna d'Aragona y Folch de Cardona and to Margherita Gonzaga, daughter of the same Cesare who had been Diana’s first betrothed.
Anna d’Aragona was too related to Diana (and to Felipe II), and like her kinswoman, her death would be sudden and tainted with the suspect of murder. Vespasiano and Anna would get married in 1564 in Spain. The following year, Anna would give birth to twin Giulia (who would die shortly after) and Isabella. The following year, the long-awaited male heir, Luigi was born. Married life would be cut short for the new Countess of Sabbioneta as she would die in the fortress of Rivarolo Mantovano on summer 1567. The official cause of death was postpartum complication (coupled with depression), but some evil tongues once again blamed poison and a jealous husband.
Unfortunately for Vespasiano Gonzaga, if he could be cleared of all the charges of his first two wives’ deaths, the same cannot be said about his only son’s tragic end.
Luigi had grown up pampered and spoiled, which combined with a proud character, made the teen a rebellious young lord. One day, while he’s riding with his friends, he purposefully didn’t acknowledge his father’s greeting. Angered by his son’s irreverence, Vespasiano ordered him to dismount from his horse. Luigi obeyed, but some defiant words from the kid, led Vespasiano to react and kick his son in the stomach. The hit was so strong, Luigi fell and fainted, blood dripping from his mouth. After three days of agony, on January 21st, 1580 Luigi Gonzaga died, leaving a distraught and full of guilt father. He was 13.
Without a male heir (the union with Margherita Gonzaga would remain childless), Vespasiano’s titles and possessions would be inherited at his death in 1591 by his daughter Isabella, and with her ended the line of the Gonzaga of Sabbioneta, with the land becoming a possession of the Carafa della Stadera, the family she would marry into.
Anna Maria was born in Messina in 1672 to Paolo Arduino (or Ardoino) Patti, Prince of Polizzi and Marquis of Floresta as well as Grandee of Spain, and Giovanna Furnari (daughter of Duke Antonio of Furnari and belonging to a junior branch of the illustrious Sicilian House of Notarbartolo). She had two younger sibling, Margherita (who would marry Giuseppe Antonio Transo, Prince of Casalito) and Michele (who would inherit his father’s titles).
From a young age, she showed a particular interest and skill in music, dance, poetry and painting. Don Paolo, acknowledging his daughter’s talent, had her educated in literature and liberal arts. Growing up, she was admired both because her beautiful looks and her artistic skills. She was especially considered an accomplished embroiderer and writer (both in Italian and Latin, with Petrarca and Vergil’s styles as her inspiration).
In 1687, at 15 years old, she wrote and dedicated some Latin poems to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and his wife, Empress ElonoreMagdalene(“Rosa Parnassi plaudens triumpho imperiali S.M.C. invictissimi Leopoldi de Austria Romanorum Imperatoris etc., eiusque dignissimae uxoris Eleonorae Magdalenae Palatini Rheni”), which were later printed in Naples and even reported by Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni (one of the founder and leader of the Accademia dell’Arcadia) in his work Istoria della volgarpoesia (1698, p. 228).
It’s reported Anna Maria could speak Latin, Greek, French and Spanish. She was also versed in philosophy and would perform in argumentations for which she would get praised by her erudite public. Finally, she appeared to have been a skilled amazon and very good at handling weapons, and this appeared to be the reason (or so essayist, politician and fellow Messinese Giuseppe La Farina reported in his Messina ed i suoi monumenti)Giovan Battista Ludovisi, widower (his first wife – who died in 1694- had been María Moncada de Silva, daughter of Guillén Ramón de Moncada y Castro, IV Marquis of Aytona) and Prince of Piombino, fell in love with her.
Giovan Battista was born in 1647 as the eldest child of Niccolò I Ludovisi and his third wife, Costanza Pamphili, niece of Pope Innocent X and daughter of the infamous Donna Olimpia Maidalchini (by many called la papessa, because of her great influence over her Papal brother-in-law, during whose pontificate she actively ruled over the Papal court and the whole Rome, amassing enormous wealth and many privileges).
Nicolò himself was related to a Pope, being the nephew of Pope Gregory XV (Bologna native born Alessandro Ludovisi), although he had received the title of Prince of Piombino through his second wife (ex uxor), Polissena de Mendoza-Appiani d’Aragona, hereditary Princess of Piombino and of the Isle of Elba. Since his son by Polissena, Filippo Gregorio, had died an infant, (his first wife Isabella Gesualdo had bore him a daughter, Lavinia, who would die in 1634), Nicolò had inherited the title and, when he died in 1664, he passed it to his eldest son Giovan Battista.
Anna Maria and Giovan Battista married in 1697 and moved to Rome. The new Princess of Piombino had been so well-liked by her fellow countrymen, that many Messinese poets dedicated her auspicious verses, wishing her a safe journey and a successful life in Rome.
Finally settled in her new home, she was soon to be noticed and appreciated by the Roman society. That same year, she received the honour of becoming a member of the Accademia dell’Arcadia, assuming the pastoral name of Getilde Faresia, and writing many sonnets and poems both in Latin and Italian.
Her husband had one of her musical dramas, I rivali gelosi, performed in the magnificent garden of his Roman family mansion. Giovan Battista Ludovisi might have been a dedicated partner, but he was mostly known by his contemporaries for being a womanizer and a squanderer, having been forced to sell many of his lands due to his prodigality and incompetence in the management of his family’s property.
One year after the wedding, Anna Maria gave birth to a baby boy Niccolò. Unfortunately (or luckily, given Giovan Battista’s history in administering the Ludovisi’s belongings) marriage life would be cut short as the Prince of Piombino died on August 29th 1699, leaving a young widow and an even more younger heir.
Baby Niccolò became the new Prince of Piombino and his mother assumed the regency of the Principality, although for a very short period. The child died on January 17th, 1700 and Anna Maria (who must have been heartbroken) followed him shortly, dying in Naples on December 29th of the same year. She was 28.
Mother and son were buried in the Church of San Diego all’Ospedaletto. Their graves are ornated with two marbled bas-reliefs sculpted by Giacomo Colombo, with Anna Maria portrayed in half-bust, while Niccolò in full-length.
The Principality of Piombino was then inherited by the child’s aunt, Olimpia Ludovisi, Niccolò I’s eldest daughter. Unlike her younger sisters, she had chosen to become a nun (taking the name of Suor Anna) and so she ruled her lands from her Roman nunnery of Tor de’ Specchi. The religious Princess wouldn’t govern for long as she outlived her nephew for less than a year (she died on November 27th 1700). She was succeeded by her younger living sister, Ippolita (Lavinia, Niccolò I’s second daughter, had died in 1682). With Ippolita I the Ludovisi branch of the Principality of Piombino became extinct. With her daughter and heir, Maria Eleonora, started the line of the Boncompagni Ludovisi who would rule over Piombino (with only the short Napoleonic interval) until the Congress of Vienna after which the Principality would be annexed to the Gran Duchy of Tuscany.
Elpide(also known as ElpisorElphe) was a Christian Latin poetess born in the V century AD. Her whole life is somehow shrouded in mystery and her whole existence is by some denied. According to tradition, she was the first wife of Roman politician and philosopher Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius and mother of his sons, Patricius and Hypatius. Nonetheless, according to other academics (if she really existed) she might have married a namesake of the famous philosopher.
Those who context Elpide’s marriage to Severinus Boethius, point out contemporary sources and the fact that same philosopher only talks about his wife Rusticiana, daughter of Roman historian and politician Q. Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, who would give him at least two sons, Flavius BoethiusandFlavius Symmachus. Yet, this doesn’t necessarily disconfirm the existence of another wife. Plus in The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius writes about fathers-in-law(“Quis non te felicissimum cum tanto splendore socerorum[…]”), fact that would again support the theory of more marriages from his part.
From the first line of her epitaph we learn that she was born, or at least she grew up in Sicily (“Siculae Regionis alumna”). Two cities have since long competing (in heated terms, to the point of almost physically fighting over it in 1819) about the honour of being her birthplace: Messina and Palermo.
The Strait city has a long literary tradition (which goes back to XV century) concerning Elpide’s origins. According to its scholars, Elpide was the daughter of Messinese patrician Titus Annius Placidus and the sister of Faustina, mother of Saint Placidus (one of Saint Benedict of Nursia’s disciples).
Palermo’s academics, on the other hand, dispute the Messinese theory and argue that Elpide was born in Palermo, where she met her future husband who had stayed for a while in that city and, if he took a wife there and then, it would have been more plausible she was a Palermo’s native born. In 1643 a bas-relief portraying Elpide was recovered in Palermo. Since its finder was Messinese Mario Caridi, he managed to have it transferred to Messina, where it was displayed with an annexed plaque which indicated said city as Elpide’s birthplace.
Aside from these geographical controversies, Elpide was described by sources (which, it’s important to point out, are all posthumous) by many as an educated and virtuous woman. An anonymous scholar from Palermo goes as far as suggesting she was the authoress of philosophical works whose authorship was later stolen by her husband.
Two sacred hymns, dedicated to the Saints Peter and Paul and featured in ancient breviaries, are traditionally attributed to her: Felix per Omnes andAurea Lux. Following this attribution, Spanish poet Lopez de Vega considers Elpide the creator of the heptasyllabus verse. These hymns were sung on January 18th and 23rd, February 22nd, June 29th and August 1st.
Elpide died around 504 in Rome, where she had transferred after marrying. She was probably buried in the first St. Peter Basilica, given that her epitaph was said to have been originally placed on the porch of said Basilica.
Boethius would then remarry to the more famous Rusticiana and lead his life as a trusted official at the court of the Ostrogoth King Theodoric the Great, who at that time ruled over a large part of Italy. Later on, he would fall from power and accused of treason, together with his father-in-law, Symmachus. Condemned to death by Theodoric, he would be executed in 524 (or 525) in Pavia (followed by Symmachus the year later). Boethius was then interred in the same city, in the Church of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, where Elpide’s epitaph was said to have been transferred, facing her husband’s sepulchre. Nowadays, there’s no trace of such inscription, still many trustworthy antiquaries saw it and wrote down its text, which has arrived to us.
“Si vous dirons d'une damoisiele qui en Puille estoit, qui fille avoit esté le roi Tangré. Elle par le consel l'apostoile et le consel d'aucun preudome, ala en Campaigne, al conte Gautier de Braine et fist tant qu'il l'espousa. Et quant il l’ot espousée, elle l'enmena en Puille, et alerent par Rome.”
Elvira (also known as Albinia,Alberia,Maria,AlbidinaandBianca) was born around 1180 most certainly in Lecce (Apulia), at that time part of the Kingdom of Sicily, ruled by the Norman House of Hauteville as the daughter of Tancredi of Lecce and his wife Sibilla of Acerra. Elvira was the eldest of four daughters, the others being Medania (or Madania), Costanza and Valdrada, the latter two would both marry two Venetian Doges. Sibilla had also given birth to two sons, RuggeroandGuglielmo.
Tancredi was the bastard son of Ruggero Duke of Apulia, eldest son of King Ruggero II of SicilyandElvira of Castile. Given his status as an illegitimate child, when Duke Ruggero died in 1148, Tancredi couldn’t inherit the duchy (though he succeeded his father as Count of Lecce) nor was deemed fit to take his father’s place as future King, and the throne would eventually pass in 1154 to his uncle, Guglielmo I, the only surviving son of Ruggero II (nobody between the King’s elder sons, Ruggero of Apulia, Tancredi of Bari or Alfonso of Capua had, in fact, produced legitimate heirs).
Relationship between Tancredi and Guglielmo I had been turbulent, to say the least. In 1155, the Count of Lecce rebelled against his uncle and master, and because of this was imprisoned (alongside his brother, another Guglielmo). Again in 1161, Tancredi rose against Guglielmo I. The plot led to a bloody tumult that broke out in Palermo, with the Royal Palace raided by the rioters, the King and the Royal family imprisoned, important documents destroyed and the massacre of many Palace eunuchs, considered power usurpers. At some point, though, the revolt started to lose its strike, the King had to be released and, in order to be pardoned, Tancredi agreed to self-exile in Constantinople. In 1166, following Guglielmo I’s death and the accession to the throne of his son, Guglielmo II, Tancredi returned in Sicily. During the reign of his cousin Guglielmo, he proved to be a faithful subject and was awarded with the leadership of the Sicilian fleet. It is at this particular moment that Elvira was born. We do not know anything about her early years, and we can only imagine she spent her time with her mother and siblings, living in Apulia and later moving to Sicily.
The death of Guglielmo II in 1189 threw the Kingdom into a succession crisis. The King left, in fact, no direct living heir as his marriage to Joan of England hadn’t been blessed with children. Perhaps, at some point, Tancredi might have thought his childless cousin would designate him as his heir. Unfortunately for him, Guglielmo had already appointed their common aunt Costanza as his successor. In addition to being a woman, Costanza was married to Heinrich VI of Germany, son of Friedrich Barbarossa. Taking advantage of the malcontent of the Sicilians (who feared they would eventually see their country absorbed into the Hohenstaufen’s estates), and the fact that both Costanza and her husband couldn’t leave Germany at that moment (Heinrich was acting as regent since his father was at that moment busy crusading in the Holy Land) Tancredi rushed to Palermo, where he was crowned in January 18th 1190.
Roughly two months later, Richard I of England arrived in the Sicilian city of Messina. Although the official reason was to sail from there to the Holy Land, he had more pressing familiar issues to take care of. Joan, widowed Queen of Sicily as well as sister to King Richard, had been taken prisoner by Tancredi in the harem of the Castello della Zisa (Palermo) after being denied the return of her dowry. After having obtained the release of his sister, the payment of the dowry and of a compensation for himself, Richard accepted to join an alliance with Tancredi and support his rulership against Costanza’s (rightful) claim. To seal the partnership, the two Kings planned the betrothal between Arthur of Brittany (Richard’s nephew and heir) and one of Tancredi’s daughters (we do not know which one, although it could have been Elvira since she was the eldest). After the deal, and after a brief occupation of Messina, Richard of England finally sailed towards the Holy Land. Tancredi’s reign would be cut short. He died of a non specified illness on February 20th 1194. His eldest son, Ruggero, had died the year prior, while his younger son, Guglielmo, was 9-years old. Guglielmo III was King for less than a year, despite his mother’s desperate attempts to salvage her son’s throne in the capacity of Regent. Their subjects turned their back on them and welcomed the German rivals. Taking into account the hopelessness of their situation and the favourable terms of surrender that were offered them, Sibilla surrendered Palermo to Heinrich on December 4th. On Christmas Eve, Heinrich got crowned King of Sicily in Palermo’s Cathedral. The following day, Costanza gave birth to Federico, future Stupor Mundi, in the distant Jesi (in the Marche region).
If losing their Kingdom must have seemed to them a nasty blow, it was only the beginning. Right after the new King’s coronation, Guglielmo, Sibilla and the rest of the family were accused of having conspired against Heinrich. If it was true or it was just a pretext of getting rid of the last Hauteville’s direct male heir, the family was nonetheless deported to Germany. Guglielmo was incarcerated in the castle of Hohenems (currently in Austria), where he must have been mutilated (probably blinded) in order to make him unfit to pose as a threat and where he died at some point after 1198. Sibilla and her daughters were put under arrest in Hohenburg Abbey, in Alsace (France), being able to leave their gilded prison only in 1198, following the death of Heinrich Hohenstaufen (1197) and the election of Innocent III as Pope, who successfully petitioned for their release.
The former queen and her daughters then sought refuge in France, at the court of Philippe Auguste. Now, finally safe, Sibilla started looking for an eligible husband for her eldest daughter as well as Tancredi’s heir, Elvira. Since the current King of Sicily was just a child (Federico was just 4-years old and already orphan of both parents), Sibilla intended to propose Elvira (now around 18 years old) as an alternative to the little sovereign and for that the young princess needed the backup of a man (as Costanza did too).
After a meeting in Melun with the French King, a fit spouse was found for Elvira: Gautier III Earl of Brienne. Between 1199 and 1200 Elvira and Gautier married. Of course the marriage to the pretender to the Sicilian throne meant a qualitative leap for both her husband and the House of Brienne (Gautier’s younger brother, Jean, would later become King of Jerusalem and Emperor of the Latin Empire), and it shouldn’t surprise Philippe of France encouraged the married couple to leave France in order to pursue their destiny.
In 1200 Elvira, Gautier and Sibilla arrived in Rome to peruse their cause before the Pope. Unfortunately for them and despite his antipathy towards the older Hohenstaufen (who, unlike the Hauteville, had a penchant for opposing the Papacy’s power), Innocent III was Federico’s guardian. The Pope refused to support Elvira’s claims and simply recognized her rights to be styled as Princess of Taranto and Countess of Lecce. These titles had, of course, once belonged to her father and Heinrich had promised to give them back to Sibilla and her family as compensation for giving up her son’s rights and surrender peacefully. The Hohenstaufen hadn’t really kept his promise since, as we have seen, he would swiftly incarcerate his rivals and take back those lands once again. Now, Elvira was able to get back part of her father’s inheritance, but in exchange she (and her husband) had to recognize Federico as her King, thus giving up her claims to the throne once and for all.
The problem was that those promised lands had already a lord (although not the legitimate one), Roberto di Biccari, who had received the fiefs from Heinrich VI. Elvira and Gautier had to practically take them back and, for that, they needed an army. This is where we can spot Innocent’s ambivalence. He was still protecting his pupil and his rightful claims, but at the same time he planned to undermine Markward von Annweiler’s (who had reclaimed the title of Regent, with the support of Philipp of Swabia, Federico’s uncle, and represented and obstacle for the Papacy’s plans to actively rule the Kingdom during Federico’s minority) powers and for that he had planned to use the Earl of Brienne and his warfare ability. In spring 1201 Gautier and Elvira, supported by an army, entered the continental part of the Kingdom of Sicily. The skilled Frenchman defeated the Sicilian army in many occasions, occupying Teano, Presenzano, Aquino, Melfi, Montepeloso, Matera, Otranto, Brindisi, Barletta and Lecce. By the second part of 1201 Elvira is referred to as Countess of Lecce, while her rival Roberto di Biccari retained only Ostuni and the nominal title of Prince of Taranto.
Gautier kept achieving many important victories, while in Sicily Markward had managed to get his hands on the young King. Innocent then urged the Earl of Brienne and Giacomo di Andria (Innocent’s kinsman) to invade Sicily, after rewarding them with the title of Chief Justiciar of Apulia and Terra di Lavoro. Despite Markward’s death in 1202, the invasion would never take place since Gautier must have realised Innocent’s ambiguity. The Pope was, in fact, negotiating for the betrothal of Federico and the princess Costanza of Aragon and an alliance with Aragon would eventually limit the Frenchman’s influence.
Innocent III died in Anagni in 1203 and Gautier was at his deathbed when Brindisi, Otranto, Gallipoli, Matera, Barletta and many other cities revolted against him and his oppressive rulership. The Earl of Brienne died two years later, in 1205, while besieging Sarno. On June 11th he was captured in his own tent and died three days later of the wounds he had sustained during his seizing.
At that time Elvira was already pregnant and would soon give birth to posthumous son, called Gautier after his late father. According to some historians, Elvira had previously given birth to a daughter, Marguerite, who would later marry Balian Granier, Lord of Sidon. But Balian appears to have married Ide de Reyne, Gautier’s niece.
Elvira married for a second time, perhaps just a couple of months after Gautier’s death. Her second husband was Giacomo I (also known as Giovanni) Sanseverino, earl of Tricarico (according to an unknown source, this Giacomo is to be identified with Giacomo of Tricarico, married to one Mabilia, daughter of Landulfo Earl of Ceccano). Since her first husband had died in captivity, the County of Lecce and the Principate of Taranto (although hers by right) reverted back to the Hohenstaufen. Her marriage to a member of the powerful House of Sanseverino had been then a matter of necessity, a way to keep her anchored to her native land and a protection for her child and herself. Nonetheless, by marrying an Italian nobleman she stated then her intention to not return in France thus preventing her infant son, the new Earl of Brienne, to grow up in his inherited dominions, plus losing her rights to act as Regent during her son’s minority (as well as all of her ties with the House of Brienne), that role played by his uncle Jean.
TheThomas Tusci Gesta Imperatorum et Pontificumrecords that Giacomo and Elvira had two children, Simone and Adalita (“comitem Symonem et dominam Adalitam”), although it doesn’t specify their date of birth, nor we possess further details about their lives, except Simone might be identified with the “filium comitis Tricaricensis ” cited in the Ryccardus de Sancti Germano Chronica, who (together with other Southern Italian aristocrats like Ruggero de Aquila and Tommaso the Elder Sanseverino Earl of Caserta) rebelled against Federico II in 1223 and got incarcerated. Giacomo II of Tricarico, Lord of Serino, Solofra and Abriola, sometimes counted among Giacomo I’s children, might actually be Simone’s son and thus Giacomo I and Elvira’s grandson.
Around 1220, once again widowed, Elvira would marry for a third and last time. Her third husband (chosen by Federico II) was another Italian nobleman, Tegrimo (also known as Teugrimo or Teudegrimo) Guidi, younger son of Guido Guerra III Guidi and his second wife, Gualdrada Berti, and founder of the line of Modigliana and Porciano.
It was a lavish ceremony, with Tegrimo spending 10 thousandlire on it (a subtsantial amount which in the future, when the family would find itself in a precarious economical situation, his brothers would blame him). Federico granted Elvira the County of Lecce and Principality of Taranto as part of her dowry, although she got them back in name only. Actually, 30 years later (in 1252), Pope Innocent IV would take these lands from the Guidi (pro-imperial) to ostentatiously give them to Doge Marco Ziani, pro-papal as well as Elvira’s brother-in-law.
Elvira moved to Modigliana, where her presence is documented through the bill of sale of the villages of Larciano, Cecina, Casi and Collecchio, sold to the town of Pistoia for 6000 lire in 1226. Two years later, together with her husband, she donated two plots of land to the Church of Santa Maria di Pietrafitta. On 1231 she gifted the Abbot of San Gaudenzio of her feudal rights over a baron and his children and, on 1254, she gave her consent for the sale of Montemurlo to Firenze for 5000 lire.
Elvira and Tegrimo’s son and only child, Guido, was born shortly after 1220. A skilled man of war, he would follow his father and fight in Federico II’s Italian military campaigns. As podestà of Arezzo, he would manage to conciliate the pro imperial and pro papal factions. Following the Hohenstaufen king’s death and the resulting political change, Guido’s (as well as his family) fortunes declined and he would be forced to sell many of his castles. He would die in 1293.
As for Elvira’s firstborn, Gautier IV, as a teen, he would be sent to Outremer, at the court of his uncle Jean, King of Jerusalem since 1210. In 1221 Gautier received the title of Earl of Jaffa and Ascalon and around 1233 he married Marie of Lusignan, eldest daughter of Hugues I King of CyprusandAlix of Champagne.
He retained his status of one of the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s most important vassals even when Federico II snatched the kingdom from Jean of Brienne. He was taken prisoner by the Muslim forces after the disastrous battle of La Forbie in 1244. Ceded to the Sultan of Egypt and taken to Cairo, he would die the same year, strangled by the guards after he had killed an emir guilty of having hit him on the face during a chess match. He would be succeeded by his firstborn Jean, and after he died childless, by his second son Hugues who, loyal partisan of Charles I of Anjou, received for his services the County of Lecce in 1266 (which, of course, was his by right). From later on until 1356, the County would be owned by the House of Brienne.
Finally, we don’t know in which exact year Elvira died, although we can suppose it happened after 1261. We only know the day, May 23th, a date recorded in the obituaries of the Monastery of Camaldoli, one of her beneficiaries, whose clergy commemorated her through annual masses in remembrance. Her husband would outlive her and die before 1270.
Sources
Bicchierai Marco,GUIDI, Guido, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 61
But Sofonisba of Cremona, the daughter of Messer Amilcaro Anguisciuola, has laboured at the difficulties of design with greater study and better grace than any other woman of our time, and she has not only succeeded in drawing, colouring, and copying from nature, and in making excellent copies of works by other hands, but has also executed by herself alone some very choice and beautiful works of painting.
Sofonisba(ofSophonisba) was born in Cremona (at that time, part of the Duchy of Milano, ruled by the Austrian pawn, Francesco II Sforza) around 1532. She was the eldest child of nobleman (but not wealthy) Amilcare Anguissola (also spelled Angussola or Aguisciola) and his second wife, noblewoman Bianca Ponzone. Following Sofonisba, Bianca would give birth to five other daughters (Elena,Lucia, Europa, Annamaria – all future painters - and Minerva, a writer and Latin teacher) and a son, Asdrubale.
Amilcare Anguissola was an art lover and part of the culturally vibrant Cremonese high society. It’s no wonder then that he introduced his daughters to the study of literature, art and music, although he had another much prosaic reason behind it. He couldn’t afford to pay a dowry for six daughters, and so he hoped they could provide for themselves and secure additional incomes to the meagre familial funds.
From 1545 to 1549, Sofonisba studied fine arts at Bernardino Campi’s workshop (although Vasari affirms it was Giulio). When her maestro left Cremona, she moved to study under artist Bernardino Gatti(calledil Sojaro).
As an art appreciator, Amilcare must have noticed his daughter’s talent and also thanks to his (perhaps interested) support, he contributed to making Sofonisba well known outside Cremona. He, for example, sent two of her drawings as a gift to the Duke of Ferrara and in 1554 the proud father sent to Michelangelo Buonarroti one of her works, a drawing representing a laughing girl. It’s said Michelangelo appreciated her style but challenged the younger painter to draw a good crying face. She then proceeded to draw and sent to him Fanciullo morso da un gambero, where she sketched her younger brother, Asdrubale, crying because his sister Europa had just pinched him. This earned Sofonisba Michelangelo’s appreciation and guidance. The sketch, alongside Buonarroti’s Cleopatra, was sent to Cosimo I de’ Medici.
Amilcare introduced Sofonisba’s art to some of the most notorious Italian dynasties, such as Gonzaga, Este and Farnese, on whose behalf she painted some portraits.
In 1557 she stayed for about a month in Piacenza to study miniature under the great artist Giulio Clovio, who also showed her many masterpieces, like Raffaello’s Madonna Sistina (now in Dresden). In 1557, she was commissioned a portrait of Massimiliano Stampa, the young son of Ermes Stampa second marquis of Soncino, one of the most important noble families in Lombardia. By the time she finished the portrait (1558), Ermes had died and Massimiliano had become the third Marquis.
Sofonisba’s life changed dramatically in 1559. In June of that year, 14-years old Élisabeth of ValoisbecameFelipe II of Spain’s third wife. The Duke of Alba, at that time Governor of the Duchy of Milan, convinced the Spanish sovereign to hire Sofonisba (already a famous artist at European level) to give the young new Queen painting lessons. The whole Anguissola family moved then to Milan, where they stayed, personal guests at the Governor’s mansion for about two months before Sofonisba left for Madrid, where she arrived at the beginning of 1560.
The artist and the teen Queen became fast friends. She held the office of official portrait painter as well as lady-in-waiting and art teacher for the Queen and her two daughters, the princesses Isabella Clara EugeniaandCatalina Micaela, for almost twenty years, enjoying the Royal couple’s sponsorship and a very generous annual pension of 100 ducats. It is known she used part of her salary to support her family back in Cremona, especially following her father’s death in 1573. Sofonisba financially helped her brother Asdrubale, to the point of granting him an annual stipend of 800 lire and, later in 1606, she requested that her lifetime pension from the Spanish crown be transferred to him.
Following his third wife’s death, Felipe II became interested in marrying off Sofonisba (who was already 36 at the time) to one of his noblemen, perhaps to keep her anchored in the Spanish court, and provided her a dowry of 12 thousands scudiplus an annual income of 1000 ducati. In 1571 she married by proxy Sicilian nobleman Fabrizio Moncada Pignatelli. Fabrizio was the second son of Francesco I Moncada de Luna, earl of Caltanissetta and prince of Paternò, and Caterina Pignatelli Carafa. In that same year, his older brother Cesare had died, leaving his title and possessions to his 2-years old son Francesco II. Fabrizio had then stepped in to act as regent for his infant nephew and was named governor of the city of Paternò (nearby Catania).
It is not known for sure when she had moved to her husband’s Sicilian domains, what is certain is that in 1578 her brother Asdrubale had meant to join her in Palermo. At that time Sofonisba was already a widow (and childless) since Fabrizio had died that same year in a pirate attack off the coast near Capri. Moncada had drowned after desperately trying to defend his ship. The painting representing the Madonna dell’Itria, preserved in the Church of Santissima Annunziata of Paternò, dates back to this period.
By the end of 1579, the widowed Sofonisba sailed from Palermo together with her brother headed for her native Cremona. Surely she would have never thought another chapter of her life was about to begin. During the journey, she met and fell in love with the Genoese sea captain Orazio Lomellini, widowed with a son. Lomellini was the illegitimate son of wealthy shipowner Nicolò and some 15 years younger than Sofonisba. Because of bad weather, the ship had to dock in Livorno, from there Orazio escorted Sofonisba and Asdrubale in Pisa since in Livorno they couldn’t find a proper accommodation. Defying her brother’s opposition, she married Orazio and moved with him to Genova, where we can find her surely in 1584. This marriage too would be childless, but it appears Sofobisba got along quite well with her step-son, Giulio.
She’ll live in Genova for about 30 years, becoming the city’s leader portrait painter and hosting in her house many famous artists and literates. In 1585 she might have traveled with her husband all the way to Savona where she paid homage to her former pupil, Catalina Micaela of Spain, headed for Torino to marry Carlo Emanuele I Duke of Savoy. It has been hinted Anguissola had often been a guest of the new Duchess of Savoy from then on, although this hasn’t been yet proved.
ThePortrait of three kids, the Game of tric-trac, the Portrait of a Lady of the Galleria Borghese presumably date back to this period. In 1599 she met another one of her august pupils, Isabella Clara Eugenia had stopped in Genova to meet her former art teacher on her way to Brussels to marry Archduke Albert VII of Austria. On this occasion Sofonisba painted the Spanish princess and the artwork was later sent as a gift to Isabella Clara’s half-brother, Felipe III.
In 1615 the Lomellini couple decided to move to Sicily, where Orazio would better pursue his business deals and in Palermo they bought a mansion in strata Pilerij nearby Palazzo Branciforte. Sofonisba was already over 80 and her eyesight had started to fail her and in 1620 she painted her last self-portrait. She compensated her loss of sight by becoming a patron of the arts and her mind showed to be sharp even past the 90s. On July 12th, 1624 Sofonisba was visited by a young Anthony van Dyck, her successor as official portrait painter for the Spanish court, who was impressed by her clear-headness. He recorded their conversation and sketched the old artist.
On November 16th, 1625 she died of old age. She was buried in San Giorgio dei Genovesi, church of the Genoan community of Palermo. Seven years later, in 1632, on what would have been her 100th birthday, her widower Orazio placed an inscription which reads:
February 13th 1177. Joan of England marries William II de Hauteville and is crowned Queen of Sicily in Palermo Cathedral.
In May 1176 an embassy from Sicily visited Henry II’s court in London. King William II wanted Joan as his bride. As the largest island in the Mediterranean, situated more or less in the middle of that great watery corridor connecting Europe, Asia and Africa, Sicily’s strategic importance had been obvious since pre-classical times. Its climate and its volcanically enriched soil also made it fertile and productive: the island’s abundance of grain meant that it was one of the richest places in Europe, but it also produced oranges, lemons, tomatoes, cheese, olives and wine. The Spanish Muslim, Ibn Jubayr, visited Sicily over the Christmas and New Year of 1184–5. Although, according to him, the prosperity of the island ‘surpasses description’, he still tried to describe it: it is ‘a daughter of Spain in the extent of its cultivation, in the luxuriance of its harvests, and in its well-being, having an abundance of varied produce, and fruits of every kind and species’. Sicily was therefore a tempting, even a necessary target for those seeking to dominate the Mediterranean, and for centuries the island had been fought over, won and lost by a variety of occupiers. The Greeks had been replaced by the Romans; the Germanic invaders who threw out the Romans in the fifth century were themselves removed by the Byzantines in the sixth; they in turn lost out to Muslim invaders from north Africa. By the middle of the eleventh century, Sicily was still largely Muslim-controlled. However, it was also cosmopolitan and culturally diverse. Christians from western Europe and Constantinople, Jews and Muslims, coexisted largely peacefully.
So languages and beliefs were already and uniquely mixed together when adventurers from Normandy fixed their greedy stare on the riches of Sicily in the decades either side of 1100. These men originally came to southern Italy as pilgrims en route to and from the Holy Land. Having become mercenaries in the pay of the aspiring native rulers of southern Italy, they soon decided to take power into their own hands. The most spectacularly successful of them all were two of the many sons of the Norman lord Tancred de Hauteville: Robert ‘Guiscard’ (the nickname means ‘crafty’ or ‘cunning’) and Roger.
By the time he died in 1085, Robert Guiscard had carved out a territory for himself that stretched across most of southern Italy. In 1059 he had been formally recognised as duke of Apulia and Calabria by the papacy, and in 1061 he had invaded Sicily with his brother Roger, so beginning a prolonged but inexorable takeover of the island. After they had captured Palermo in 1072, Robert made Roger count of Sicily, but it was not until the early 1090s that the Norman conquest of the island was completed. In 1105, Roger’s second son, also called Roger, became count of Sicily, and in 1112, at the age of sixteen, Roger II started to rule the island in his own right. Then, when Roger’s cousin, William II of Apulia, died in 1127, Roger claimed all the Hauteville family possessions in southern Italy and, during the 1130s, when there were two claimants to the papal throne, he managed to have himself recognised as king of Sicily by both of them. Roger had to face internal revolts and foreign invasions during his reign, but he dealt with every challenge and he was able to harness and increase Sicily’s economic strength to complete a remarkable piece of statebuilding and become one of the greatest rulers in Europe. At the time of his death in 1154 the kingdom of Sicily comprised the island itself as well as most of mainland Italy south of Rome. It was Roger’s grandson William, who became king of Sicily in 1166 at the age of eleven, who asked for the hand of Princess Joan in 1176. If the marriage went ahead, Joan would become queen of one of the most dynamic, successful and wealthy kingdoms of the Middle Ages.
After meeting his councillors to discuss the marriage proposal, Henry II agreed to allow the Sicilian envoys to visit Joan, who was at Winchester. At great cost to the city authorities and to the bishop of Winchester personally, the embassy was entertained lavishly when it reached the city. But this was not just a courtesy call; it would have been quite normal for the prospective groom’s officials to have a formal ‘view’ of the nominated bride so that they could make a report on her appearance, her voice, her manners and her conduct to their master. The visitors were delighted with what they found and impressed by Joan’s beauty; and after discussing matters with King Henry, the latter gave his consent to the match.
After the Sicilian deputation returned home, Joan was prepared for her long and arduous trip, and for the rest of her life. Money had to be raised for the journey and her wedding. The king imposed a tax ‘for the marriage of his daughter’, and the royal records of the later 1170s are full of entries setting out the contributions of the English shire communities to the collection. Joan’s wedding dress alone, it seems, cost well over £100, an enormous sum at the time. She eventually left England in August 1176, sailing from Southampton to the Angevin territories in northern France. She was received there by her eldest brother Henry, the Young King, and he escorted her on the next part of her journey to Poitou, where she was met and taken through his territories by another brother, Duke Richard of Aquitaine. Then, the final leg of the trip took her to St Gilles in Toulouse, where in November the marriage party found twenty-five Sicilian galleys awaiting them. The voyage to Sicily was rough and unpleasant. Winter storms in the Mediterranean made Joan so ill that her ships had to stop at Naples for Christmas so as to continue the journey by land, and she finally arrived in Palermo late in January 1177. Night had already fallen when she landed, but the city’s inhabitants were still waiting to meet her. The streets were dazzlingly illuminated by torchlight. So many and so large were the lights, one account claimed, that the city almost seemed to be on fire, ‘and the rays of the stars could in no way compare with the brilliance of such a light’. Mounted on one of King William’s horses, Joan processed to her new apartments through the cheering crowds that filled the Palermo streets. A few days later, on 13 February 1177, she and William were married in the Palatine Chapel at Palermo, and Joan was crowned queen and given a golden chair for her own use.
Richard Huscroft,Tales from the Long Twelth Century. The Rise and Fall of the Angevin Empire, 157-159
February 5th 251 aD - Martyrdom of Saint Agatha of Catania
The traveller Blunt, during a stay in Italy in the beginning of this century, was struck with the many points which modern saints and ancient gods have in common. He gives a description of the festival of St Agatha at Catania, of which he was an eye-witness, and which to this day, as I have been told, continues little changed. The festival, as Blunt describes it, opened with a horse-race, which he knew from Ovid was one of the spectacles of the festival of the goddess Ceres; and further he witnessed a mummery and the carrying about of huge torches, both of which he also knew formed part of the old pagan festival.But more remarkable than this was a great procession which began in the evening and lasted into the night; hundreds of citizens crowded to draw through the town a ponderous car, on which were placed the image of the saint and her relics, which the priests exhibited to the ringing of bells. Among these relics were the veil of Agatha, to which is ascribed the power of staying the eruption of Mount Aetna, and the breastsof the saint, which were torn off during her martyrdom.Catania, Blunt knew, had always been famous for the worship of Ceres, and the ringing of bells and a veil were marked features of her festivals, the greater and the lesser Eleusinia. Menzel tells us that huge breasts were carried about on the occasion. Further, Blunt heard that two festivals took place yearly in Catania in honour of Agatha; one early in the spring, the other in the autumn, exactly corresponding to the time when the greater and lesser Eleusinia were celebrated. Even the name Agatha seemed but a taking over into the new religion of a name sacred to the old. Ceres was popularly addressed as Bona Dea, and the name Agatha, which does not occur as a proper name during ancient times, seemed but a translation of the Latin epithet into Greek.
The legend of Agatha as contained in the Acta Sanctorum places her existence in the third century and gives full details concerning her parentage, her trials and her martyrdom; but I have not been able to ascertain when it was written. Agatha is the chief saint of the district all about Catania, and we are told that her fame penetrated at an early date into Italy and Greece.
It is of course impossible actually to disprove the existence of a Christian maiden Agatha in Catania in the third century.Some may incline to the view that such a maiden did exist, and that a strange likeness between her experiences and name on the one hand, and the cult of and epithet applied to Ceres on the other, led to the popular worship of her instead of the ancient goddess. The question of her existence as a Christian maiden during Christian times can only be answered by a balance of probabilities. Our opinion of the truth or falsehood of the traditions concerning her rests on inference, and the conclusion at which we arrive upon the evidence must largely depend on the attitude of mind in which we approach the subject.
The late Professor Robertson Smith has insisted that myths are latter-day inventions which profess to explain surviving peculiarities of ritual. If this be so, we hold in the Eleusinia a clue to the incidents of the Agatha legend. The story for example of her veil, which remained untouched by the flames when she was burnt, may be a popular myth which tries to account for the presence of the veil at the festival. The incident of the breasts torn off during martyrdom was invented to account for the presence of these strange symbols.
Instances of this kind could be indefinitely multiplied. Let the reader, who wishes to pursue the subject on classic soil, examine the name, the legend and the emblem of St Agnes, virgin martyr of Rome, who is reputed to have lived in the third century and whose cult is well established in the fourth; let him enquire into the name, legend and associations of St Rosalia of Palermo, invoked as a protectress from the plague, of whom no mention occurs till four centuries after her reputed existence.
Byron’s death in Greece affected his reputation, both in Britain and on the Continent, but in different ways and for different reasons. Immediately after he died in 1824, British public impressions of Byron as a person rose slightly, though the critical appraisal of his poetry did not. Britons applauded Byron’s efforts to help Greece, which ultimately freed itself from Ottoman domination and gained independence with the Treaty of Constantinople in 1832. Many, however, viewed his political actions as dilettantish attempts to redeem himself from the consequences of a hedonistic lifestyle. Contemporary Italians saw the situation differently, believing that Byron fought for Greece as he had prepared to fight for Italy. They connected Greek and Italian nationalism, in part because both peoples share the classical heritage of ancient Greece and Rome. In antiquity, the Greek Empire of Magna Graecia included parts of the Italian peninsula and Sicily. Later, during the Roman Empire, an elite that included emperors, senators, and wealthy citizens studied Greek texts and discussed them in Greek, often in homes near Naples not far from former Attic settlements. Consequently, in Italy, where Byron garnered praise as a liberator of Greece, many people viewed his actions as a complement to his support for Italian nationalism. Francesco Guardione identifies this sentiment in the lyric “Lord Byron a Missolonghi” by mid-nineteenth-century Sicilian poet Giuseppina Turrisi-Colonna: “Italy and Greece, two great muses and one heart”. This typifies the attitude of many Italians who associated Byron with their shared Greco-Roman heritage. More generally, after Byron’s death in Missolonghi, his already prominent reputation on the Continent consistently grew, while in Britain, it declined through the mid-nineteenth century. […]
Consequently, the Byron whom Italians encountered proved very different from the one presented by British critics. Zuccato differentiates among nineteenth-century Italian characterizations of Byron, which vary from one region of Italy to another. He describes Italian responses to Byron in Milan, between 1816 and 1830, by authors like Giacomo Leopardi and Pellico as “Catholic” and “Sentimental,” in Florence between 1829 and 1850 by Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi and others as “anti-clerical,” and in southern Italy between 1840 and 1870 by Pasquale De Virgilii as “wildly romantic”. Despite these differences over time and space, writings about Byron, his work, and his influence, even into the twentieth century, share certain common tropes. […]
Byron became a favorite of another Sicilian writer, Turrisi-Colonna, as she grew up in Palermo (Corniani 329–330), feeling the influence of nationalist events, including the unsuccessful revolt by and the execution of the Bandiera brothers. A supporter of the revolution of 1848, she died before seeing it fail. Turrisi-Colonna came from a patriotic family. Her father took part in resistance to Sicily’s Bourbon powers, participating in the provisional government during the revolution of 1849, receiving an honor from Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1860, and serving terms as senator of the Italian parliament and as mayor of Palermo. Turrisi-Colonna, a child prodigy who learned English, French, German, Greek, Latin, and Spanish, composed poetry that brought her the praise of Massimo d’Azeglio, Guerrazzi, and Giuseppe Nicolini (Corniani 329–330). Turrisi-Colonna translated “Maid of Athens” and “On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year,” and featured Byron in several narrative dialogues that appeared in various editions of her work between 1846 and 1887. Guardione, in the preface to Turrisi-Colonna’s letters, praises her for choosing Byron as a subject, observing “that George Byron, in his immeasurable love of unhappy Italy, awakened patriotic feelings and forced a great tear [constrinse a lungo pianto] from the Italians, bowed down prostrate before foreigners … With the Prophecy of Dante andLament of Tasso, the English poet … induced [instigò] magnanimous sensations denied to Italy by the poetry of the court,” then written for money, rather than inspired by truth (Turrisi-Colonna, Lettere12–13). In the introduction to an 1890 edition, Bice Milizia-Tacchi describes Turrisi-Colonna’s poems about Byron as “a gracious garland that she hoped to append with tears to his glorious sepulchre,” important because they revolve around “his example [tipo], his ideas”.Four of her poems on Byron warrant special attention because their rhetoric incorporates and deploys elements of his biography and mythology, his texts and his nationalist identity in ways that typify much of the Italian poetry of the period. Turrisi-Colonna does not formally link these dialogues, but they do recount a chronological narrative that begins with Byron’s private life with Teresa Guiccioli and ends with his death in Greece. “Lord Byron” (titled in some editions “Giorgio Byron”) centers on a visit to Ravenna that Byron makes to Guiccioli on hearing of her illness. Turrisi-Colonna bases the narrative on a biographical incident, creating a sense of the psychological in a poetic dialogue that blends fact and fiction, incorporating telling references to Byron’s poetry that enhance her characters’ inner lives. The poem opens as a “gloomy and menacing wind howls” amid a scene whose melancholy Byron praises: “Oh, beautiful vivid scene! Oh, what transport I feel! … this sea, this sky, this horror” (Poesia189). […]
“Lord Byron” blends together Byron’s biography, characters, and reputation in ways that conflate the man, the poet, and the legend. Turrisi-Colonna presents a series of familiar tropes: the melancholy lover, the author identified with his characters, the patron of Italy, the seeker of glory and death in a dialogue that sanitizes Byron’s tendentious associations. Incorporating sentimental and gothic tropes, it presents him as a sincere, monogamous partner, countering images of him as rake and philanderer. Byron’s tenderness toward Teresa during her illness implicitly combats gossip about him as unfaithful. The closing stanza has a wish-fulfillment quality, as Byron seems to deny the possibility that he will fight and perhaps die for Italy or Greece, but instead will find satisfaction living only for Teresa. Significantly, the poem’s focus on the ardor and sincerity of Byron’s private relationship with Teresa reinforces his public image as a worthy nationalist hero, countering unflattering images of his personal life from biographies or satires.
In “Lord Byron a Ravenna” (Lord Byron in Ravenna), Turrisi-Colonna brings together a variety of themes, praising Italy’s literary heritage, advocating a national, not provincial identity, and linking Byron with both Dante and Greece. It opens with a brief interchange between Teresa and Byron, who in the second stanza admits that he feels himself “in the middle of the path of my life” (“a mezzo del cammin sento la vita”), echoing the famous opening line of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Byron then leaves to visit Dante’s tomb, reminding him of Florence’s Basilica di Santa Croce, which holds the tombs of Alfieri, Machiavelli, and Michelangelo and serves as a central scene in Childe Harold IV. Byron enters Dante’s tomb, and, in a motif that Turrisi-Colonna borrows from The Prophecy of Dante, calls forth the Italian poet’s spirit. Dante mentions various episodes from the Divine Comedy, offering himself as an example of an Italian identity linked with the peninsula’s classical heritage, characterizing himself as “neither Guelph … nor Ghibelline… . I was Latin” (Liriche88.18). The poem then moves forward through time, alluding to renaissance works by Ariosto and Tasso, praising eighteenth-century authors Alfieri and Parini, and arriving at Napoleon and “the fatal point of risks and frauds” (90.26). Dante addresses Byron: “nor will you fail the glorious task … go: Greece awaits you … Among the tyrannous swords he is fortunate who conquers and falls” (91.29). In the final stanza, Byron interrupts: “Yes … even I have a thirst for glory among the dust and the dead and the blood and the arms, nor do I fear death” (92.30). Then, as the morning arrives, Byron urges Dante’s return to the grave.
“Addio de Byron all’ Italia” (Byron’s Farewell to Italy) illustrates another common way that Byron figures in Italian writing of the period. In 1825, Alphonse de Lamartine published his continuation of Childe Harold, entitled Le dernier chant du pelerinage d’Harold. The work proved quite successful, but provoked a scandal among Italians for the way that they felt he represented the peninsula as a land of the dead. Though, as Anne O’Connor points out, Lamartine merely employed a familiar theme that focused on Italy’s great past rather than on its lackluster present, the publication resulted in a famous duel between the Neapolitan soldier-patriot Guglielmo Pepe and Lamartine, ending with a slight wounding of the author (31–32). Though Byron himself explores the theme of Italy’s past greatness in Childe Harold and elsewhere, quotes from his work frequently appear in response to Lamartine’s.“Addio” opens by countering Lamartine’s sentiments with echoes of Byron’s preface to Childe Harold IV. There, Byron urges those who think of the peninsula and see only the past to note that “Italy has great names still,” among them the neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova, the saloniereand author Teotochi Albrizzi, and neoclassical authors Vincenzo Monti, Ugo Foscolo, and Ippolito Pindemonte. Byron goes on to note that the
man must be willfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who is not struck
with the extraordinary capacity of this people … the fire of their
genius, their sense of beauty, and amidst all the disadvantages of
repeated revolutions, the desolation of battles and the despair of ages,
the still unquenched “longing after immortality,”—the immortality of
independence. (2: 123)
“Addio” praises Italy as the “beautiful land [patria] of the arts” and condemns its treatment under Napoleon, who brought “liberty worse than tyranny” (Poesia94–95). The narrative follows Byron’s thoughts as he prepares to leave and fight for Greek independence, and closes as he says “Farewell, my true country, Italy farewell” (96), another familiar motif, one that locates Byron’s home in Italy, rather than Britain. This poem received particular praise from Isabella Rossi Gabardi Broschi, the Florentine poet and novelist who in 1878 published a tract advocating the rights of women entitled “Emancipation.” In a letter to Turrisi-Colonna, she lauds “Addio de Byron all’ Italia,” “since here I distinguish the citizen more than the woman,” pleased that the work avoids exploring the “individualism” of her own sensations, adopting instead an outward-looking nationalistic perspective. In its representation of Byron, the poem presents “broad effusions, spaciousness of spirit, that launch one over great national subjects interesting to every heart, every person, and every class” (Turrisi- Colonna, Lettere52).
The narrative presented by these poems ends with “Lord Byron a Missolonghi” (Lord Byron in Missolonghi). Opening with an apostrophe to Greece, home of the muses, of Homer and Sappho, of Marathon and Salamis, Byron calls out to “my Greece” that “the yoke of opprobrious servitude has broken” (Liriche97). He wants no “condolences,” but only that his blood sets an example (97), since the time has come for the nation to “revive itself in ardent thoughts of liberty” (98). Cognizant “of the victories, of the risks, of the attempts” (98) over the years, Byron recognizes that “the warrior’s life must end quickly” (99). He remembers his “days of childhood” at Harrow and Newstead, then, weary and unhappy, thinks again of hopes and delights, of bitter thoughts “that torment future dreams” (99). Turning to his Suliote warriors, he admonishes them to fight bravely: “Today, what cowardly spirit will death deny the strength to vindicate with me” (102). The poem ends with a roar: “death to the barbarous oppressors of Greece, the indomitable troops shouted trembling,” and closes with Byron’s final wish: “if ever by fortune or heaven you conquer [prostri], your children will enjoy the full victory of it” (102–103).
Arnorld Anthony Schmidt,Byron and the Rhetoric of Italian Nationalism, 44-45; 62; 68-72
