Saturday, September 26, 2015

Genzano history, as we know it

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, Genzano history as we know it
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Genzano history, as we know it



This is the oldest church in Genzano, it was built from Aquilina Sancia queen of Monteserico and also Genzano, it is attached to the monastery of the Clarisse, where Aquilina Sancia retired in her old age and she died in this monastery that she founded.
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This is one of the old fountain in Genzano di Lucania, it is called la Cavallina, as you can see there is this very large trough where the horse and other large animals were watered in the old times, and even today if somebody still has animals to be watered.



This old building, today is called 'il municipio', which would translate in the town hall; but this old building was once the castle of Genzano, so it has seen many leading families owning it, as it was used in the old days.






This is one of the main streets of Genzano, we call is the 'Corso' even though in this photo it seems deserted, at certain times of the day and especially Sundays afternoon is full of people, strolling up and down while chatting with their friends.



Genzano history, as we know it


Welcome to, Genzano history as we know it:

Dear readers, we would like to write a few things about the history of my native town, Genzano di Lucania; so I am going to write a few posts for this reason; so, this post is being mostly written for the people that come from Genzano di Lucania most of all, since for these people it is easy to visualise and remember what we are going to talk about in this article, I know this because I have come from this town myself and today I would like to say a few things about my native town. What I am going to write here is not an exact history article, because I am going to write this article just the way I know it and what I remember.
While I am writing this article, one of the first things that come to my mind is my school teacher, because when I was at school in Genzano di Lucania, my teacher (Ettore Lorito) who was also a writer was writing a book about Genzano di Lucania, So, I wish I had this book with me now, so that I could find many more things to say about Genzano, but this book is very hard to find these days, so I have to say only those things that I remember and know.
So, let us begin; since there isn’t a real history written about this place, therefore, for the people of Genzano’s town, how Genzano came into existence is not exactly known today; there are a few very ancient stories that go around, but they may just be myths, one of these stories tells us that there was a youth called Yens, he was an excellent flute player, he fell in love with a princes called San who also fell in love with him; because they loved each other one day this princess San ran away from home with the help of Yens and she joined Yens and Yens family from there on; they lived in the caves in the chasm below the future Genzano of today.
Knowing that this girl was a real princess, Yens and his family decided to give her a better place to live in, so they started to build something fit for a princess on the hill above the caves. This is how Genzano started the very first time and the name of Genzano is the name of the two lover put together (Yens-San) I know this might be just another folklore story, but that is how I know it. We believe that we have mentioned this in another hub in a more detailed way and this is the link: The heritage chapter
Of course there are other more recent story that leave this story behind and say that it was the princess Aquilina Sancia that found Genzano, and of course other stories as well and some of them we will tell you as we keep writing about the story of Genzano, the other stories that will be left behind do not matter, because we don’t see why we need to tell them all, since the one we have told seems most fitting for our story. Anyhow let us continue to tell more stories, where some written evidence has been found about Genzano history.
Some Genzano written history
Apart what we have said above, let us see what other sources say about Genzano history:
Now, there is no certainty about the following, because as we all know the origins of places and things sometimes are very hard to know with certainty, but what follow here is a very compact history of Genzano di Lucania. So, let us write this compact version down:
Some historian says that perhaps were the Romans that started Genzano town about the VI centure BC when they had this ‘Pagus Gentianum settlement to control this part of their territories. There are a lot of things left unsaid here, but we want to keep this compact and jump several centuries. Next most important historic event is the Normans in Italy, this part of Italy was under the Normans control for a while and they ran most of their conquest from the castle of Monteserico, one of the names of these Normans leaders was Roberto il Guiscardo; Anyhow after the Normans this part of the country passed several other owners, as it was used in the old system of feudality; this lasted until the year 1806 when the king of Naples Giuseppe Banaparte, abrogated feudality; so today everything is under modern current system. This is just a very short history of Genzano di Lucania.
 Now let us start to tell other stories in between what we have not said above. Another one of the earliest and first written stories about Genzano, goes back to Roman times again, or about when the Roman Empire started to crumble, see the report below that I have found on the Internet, where it states when the Western Roman Empire collapsed.
The Western Roman Empirecollapsed in 476 as Romulus Augustus was forced to abdicate to the Germanic warlord Odoacer.
But even before the Roman Empire collapsed there is an event somewhere in the Roman history where they talk about a Genzano town, whether that Genzano is Genzano di Lucania or Genzano di Roma as we know them today is not clear, but anyhow there was a Genzano town during the Roman Empire, since I am talking about Genzano di Lucania, let us assume that it could well be Genzano di Lucania.
There is also another comment that I have written already somewhere about two martyrs that were definitely in Genzano the Lucania, and this is what I said: let us talk for a moment about more recent history that a recent write has discovered in the archive of Potenza; one of the first times that Genzano is mentioned in the archives is that of two brothers Secondo and Donato who were Christian martyr in the year 258 AD, as they were beheaded in Genzano ordered from council Valeriano, which I guess was a Roman council for that part of Italy, this event has also been mentioned in our hub called, The heritage chapter the link is within these article. This seems to be the oldest written record found about Genzano history and not much else; now, let us go back to talk about Genzano of today. 
Apart the fact that these articles are being written for the first time for Hub Pages readers, we hope also that our countrymen Genzanesi will come across these hubs or post about Genzano town and follow us and our articles and also write a few comments if they feel like writing anything.
There is a lot more that could be said, for a start beside here there are a couple of photos about Genzano the way we remember and it is today, but there is more that could be said, therefore we invite you to continue reading and if you would like to know more about Genzano di Lucania, click on the link below.
Here we need to say that there are many stories and legends about this town of Genzano; it is just like many other ancient towns, some of these stories are going to be written in our next posts and next post we are going to talk about, Saint Anthony protector of Genzano town.