Genzano it story

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Friday, October 30, 2015

Old town of Southern Italy

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, Old towns of Southern Italy
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Old towns of southern Italy

This photo shows the oldest part of Genzano town, it is situated on top of a hill between two chasms. This is a typical way of how the old towns were built in the past, it was done for safety reasons, so that the citizens could defend themselves from aggressions.
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Old towns of southern Italy

Dear readers, this is the continuation of our last post, the town I came from. So now, let us go back to our discussions about the towns of Southern Italy; in fact let us go back one more step in time; to those ancient times when some people of this region used to live in the caves, not only in Genzano the town I come from, but also in other towns of this region, as we are going to see in the following explanation

In the old continent of Europe as well as in Southern Italy, lots of medieval towns were built on a rugged hill, or something similar for reason of safety, as we all know that in ancient times and in the Middle Ages towns had to be built in such positions, in order to make it hard for the enemy to get into town, and easy for the inhabitants to defend the town from aggressions. Today some of these towns are a sight to see like this photo that I have come across on the Internet. This here under is one of the scenic towns of southern Italy; it is in the same region of Genzano and similar in the ways that the towns were built in the middle-age.

Very old town Matera

This part of the old town of Matera is one of the extreme ways of how the towns were built then. What we are seeing here in the town of Matera is an old castle, today I believe it is called palazzo, Lanfranchi, as you can see, it is a very old strange place.

This is a very old church in Matera town, the church is called, Saint Peter cavoso, as the name suggests part of it has been dug out inside the rocks, or sassi as they are called over there, but there are a lot more dug outs in Matera and this is all explained, if you read our text.

-----------------------Here under is a report that I found on the internet; And here I quote;

It seems as though everyone in this region moved into caves, which came to be known as i sassi (stones). You would think Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano (which begin at Piazza V. Veneto) were just typical Italian hilltowns until you realize the "houses" are all windowless grottoes with damp walls and earthen floors, where the family's animals slept side-by-side with the humans.

Far from being uncivilized, these rock towns had intricate hydraulic systems that kept water fresh and cool year round. Eventually the caves gained façades and roofs, but the interiors remained virtually unchanged. Nearly 15,000 people were still living in them in 1952, when the government finally declared them unhealthy and outlawed their use. There are several places where you can visit a typically furnished sasso: the most indicative is probably the one at Vico Solitario 12, in Sasso Caveoso.

End Of quote:

Dear readers, we have taken the liberty of showing you another place in southern Italy, so that in a way it shows you the way that some of the people of this region used to live for a very long time, the reason for doing this is to show you that Genzano the town I have come from has a similar story, but the inhabitant of the caves left the caves a long time ago to live in the town. So let us go back to talk about Genzano again.

The old Genzano town

Here we need to say that the history of the existence of Genzano the town I come from is very ancient, as there is some evidence that the town of Genzano already existed when Christianity began in the Roman times. Some historian says that perhaps were the Romans that started Genzano town about the VI century BC when they had this ‘Pagus Gentianum settlement to control this part of their territory, there are other stories also. But in this story that we are talking about here is that very old and part of Genzano of the thirteenth century or there about that is built on a strip of land which is situated between two chasms, and these chasms are situated at the edge of a high plateau 588 meters above sea level; and the modern Genzano is a continuation of the ancient part of this town, which has kept steadily growing onto the high plateau itself up to the present days.

In the old continent of Europe as well as in Southern Italy, lots of medieval towns were built on a rugged hill for safety reasons, some of these people that went to live in these towns were people that used to live nearby, in all sorts of rugged accommodations, some of these rugged accommodation could have been caves where the terrain was right to have caves, so, some of them used to live in these caves, but they were not real cavemen, as they were just people who later on became the inhabitants of the towns. Also the town of Genzano has a similar story and a large part of its inhabitants came from these caves below the town itself. And here dear readers we would like to describe in general terms, if you don’t mind us telling you the ancient nature of these caves, the terrain where they stand, and perhaps take an educated guess why these caves were made there in the first place, who made them and why they have been made there.

In the beginning of current Era, because of the nature of the terrain of the high plateau which was sandy at one end, allowed the rainwater to erode the soil easily away, forming two chasms of considerable depth; which by memory I would consider them to be 30 meter plus in depth. So Genzano that part of the ancient town was built on the remains of the edge of an old high plateau, which the rainwater’s had slowly dug and taken away the soil downstream, leaving a high strip of land which was narrowing till the chasms met. And upon this triangular and narrow piece of high land, the inhabitant of Genzano began to build their own town.

But before they built or rebuilt their own town of Genzano, some of these people must have been living somewhere else, and they must have overgrown the place where they were living in, and this was part of the reason they started building their house in Genzano town. Now, the place that they could have been living in was in the caves in the chasm, which their forbears as the first and permanent inhabitants of this region had dug in the walls of the chasms.

The walls of the chasms being Tuffaceous and very compact, and sandy in nature with a few layers of sandstone at different levels, it had been possible for the first inhabitant to dig in the walls of the chasms and make a cave. And the caves although they are large they are reasonably safe from cave-ins; an average cave could be 6 or 7 meters wide, and 6 or 7 meters high at the entrance, and some twenty meters long becoming a bit smaller at the far end.

Now if you stop and think just for a moment, how hard it must have been to dig in the walls of the chasms in order to make caves, and then also to carry all the soil outside and away from the caves, even if they used to dump the soil at the bottom of the chasms, and then wait for a good torrential rain to take away the soil downstream, it would really be a mammoth of a job to dig those caves.

So here we can easily say and demonstrate that life is and always will be a struggle, as it was a struggle even then to dig those caves. And we believe that perhaps life then was much harder than nowadays. Because to hand excavate those caves must have been hard work indeed, and it must have taken them ages and millions of men’s hours, as there are lots of caves in the chasms, in fact it could be that there are one hundred caves in Genzano territory. Now because all this happened a very long time ago, nobody these days seems to know who they were the first inhabitant of the caves in the chasms, or where they came from, and how many of these caves they made in the beginning.

Who could they be

Who could they be?

The first inhabitant of this region might have been just a group of shepherds grazing their herds, and having found a sort of shelter in the chasm, from the cold winds or rain in winter times, they stopped there and tried to improve this natural shelter; so they started to dig these caves for themselves and for their flocks. Or they could have been people that were fleeing away from their enemies, and having found a sort of shelter in the shape of the chasms, they stopped there and made it their home. Really they could be both, and perhaps even more different groups of people.

Today one of the chasms is still called the Greek chasm from the elders of Genzano, and this means that at least sometime in the past people from Greece have lived there, or owned one of the chasms since they were living there. About the Greek people there is still another story, which is somehow different in nature from what we are trying to say at this moment, so we will have to come back to it later on, when we are ready to tell you the story of the Greek chasm and the Madonna story.

Genzano Greek chasm and Madonna story

But now we would like to tell you, about when the inhabitant of the caves build their own houses on this strip of land at the top of the chasms; which later on would become the town of Genzano, and which was named very likely after one of their leaders, or perhaps it is indeed an ancient name, as there is a legend about two lovers (Yens and San, since even today in the local dialect this name of Genzano is pronounced Yensan) or was it this Roman name of Pagus Gentianum that slowly changed to Genzano, we can only guess, therefore the name of the town and the time when Genzano came into existence as a town for the first time nobody knows but in another hub that we are going to call, Genzano di Lucania history, we are going to describe what we believe happened. So, see you there.

Anyhow whatever we can say about our own native town, whether we like it or not when somebody asks me, Where you come from? I will say, Genzano is the town I came from.

That is all for this post; See you soon.

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Genzano it story
old towns of Southen Italy
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, Genzano is the town I came from
------------------------------

Some other useful links

Australian houses in Brisbane, Australia affordable houses

Some of our hub links

Travel Videos - Fountain cavallina, Genzano, Italy - The Compulsive ...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsPrg1ucmsQ

Where is Genzano di Lucania in Basilicata, Italy located?

Most interesting photos from Genzano di Lucania, Basilicata, Italy

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

The town I have come from

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, the town I have come from
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Today is the year 2017, and I found a beautiful photo of the fountain in the Villa of Genzano, so I am posting photo because it is a rare photo, people that have lived in Genzano will be amazed.

This is one of Genzano main streets, it is called the 'Corso' in this photo the 'Corso' seems deserted, but there are special times in this town, when most people all dressed up stroll up and down, it is like a parade and the walk very slowly just to see who is there and to be seen; this really happens every Sunday afternoon and also on other days.

One of the main event of this town is the feast of this Madonna. In this photo you can see the statue of this Madonna in front of the church, while they are getting ready to take this Madonna out in a procession around town.

This photo here is another feast that happens in this town, at this old fountain called Cavallina it is very likely the labour day feast on the first of May. Now you might have an idea what the town I came from looks like.

The town I have come from

Genzano is the town I came from

Dear readers, wherever we are, people always ask these questions, where we come from? Of course this makes us think first of all where we come from originally, so we start thinking about creation and something similar; we start thinking that life is the best gift that God or Mother Nature has given us, it is always wonderful to think about our life and trying to live it the best way we can; at the same time we are wondering sometimes where we come from and most of us would like to know why and what is the reason for being here on earth; some of us have their own beliefs or just we go along with other people beliefs, but this reasoning is about where we come from originally, whether God has created us or we are just a product of evolution.

But here in this post we are not going to talk about this philosophic question, we are only talking about where we come from, meaning whether we are local people that have lived there for many generations, or we are new to this place, this is what other people most times want to know. So, when you are not living in your native town anymore, because you have left your native town and gone to live somewhere else to earn a living, then the most likely question that people would always ask would be; where you come from?

While we try to answer their question the best way we can we start thinking about our own fife journey and indeed about the town that we have came from; in my case I would answer I have come from Genzano di Lucania; so, Genzano is the town I came from. Then we may start thinking that we might be born with our own destiny, since we see that there were certain reasons why we left our native town, at least some of us might believe we do have a destiny, just because we would like to believe that it is so. You see for this reason I believe that somehow my own destiny has played a part and has taken me away from my native town. Some people may say that since you left your town for your own personal reasons, you would forget about your native town altogether, and you would not say a word about it since this town could not give you what you wanted when you were young, so you left your native town.

Some people might think that you don’t like your native town, but it is not like that at all, because wherever you are born and grow up it is going to be your native town for the rest of your life. You see every one of us is proud of its native town or country, if we were not proud of our heritage we would be unworthy of ourselves, so, I hope that you my dear readers understand why sometimes I would like to talk about Genzano my native home town. After all Genzano di Lucania is really a good town that one could be proud of to come from, so let us talk about Genzano di Lucania the town that I come from.

Where is Genzano di Lucania in Basilicata, Italy located?

Click on the link above to see the map, another map is in our hub, Genzano di Lucania.

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The town where I came from

Dear readers, allow me to describe to you the town where I was born, lived when I was young and later on I had to leave; because of the changes that were occurring at that time, it would not be financially sound to continue to work this small family farm; so, I left our farm and migrated to Australia. Now, I would like to talk about my native town so that you could understand the ways that we used to live in this town, at the time when I was young; after all we want also to compare the ways of living of those time with today’s ways of living: we would like to do that not only to compare the difference, but also because you may perceive and feel my life story in the same way and depth as I have perceived and felt it, while I was living my young life at that place and at that particular time. About my life in the farm I have already written several hubs and some of them you can check them out at these addresses:

My life my struggles, An old man life story , A man life journey, An old man story, My farm life experience, and there are more.

As we were saying the town that we are talking about here is the town where I was born and lived my youth before I came to Australia, its name is Genzano di Lucania.

Therefore let us go back to the time when I was young, so that I could describe to you the town and their costumes, so that, you may be able to understand the ways that these people have lived their lives for centuries; And therefore the reason why they were living the way they were living at the time when I was young. Now because I was born there I was caught in their own ways of living, which left a lot to be desired for, if one compares it to the ways that we live our lives in Australia nowadays, and also most of the advanced countries in the world.

The town where I came from happens to be situated in Southern Italy; its name is ‘Genzano’ but its full name is ‘Genzano Di Lucania’, only to distinguish it from ‘Genzano di Roma’. But when we talk about this town, we just talk about Genzano, and this causes a curious fact of life here in Australia, because to most people living in Australia the name of ‘Genzano’ sounds very much like ‘Cinzano’ which is a famous wine brand. So they start asking questions whether my native town is the town where such a good wine originated. But unfortunately ‘Genzano’ the town which I have come from has got nothing to do with that famous wine brand. Although we had and still have some good vineyards in the town territory, and they make good wines, and here we have to add that also my family owned some vineyards at the time when I was young, from which we used to make good wines too. The wine that our family made from our vineyards was mainly for our own family use, but usually it was more than our family could use, so we would sell the extra wine locally. I will tell you more about this wine making in another hub, here is the link to check it out: Wine making the old ways

But talking about wines and wine making, it makes me think of something very unusual and scenic in this town of Genzano, which people from outside town and not familiar with this sort of set up would be amazed to see. (Check our hub, Wine making the old way in the subtitle, life and sound of the chasm) Now, if we were to say that the people of Genzano make their wines inside cellars, which are large caves, dug in the walls of a chasm, it would certainly leave too much to your imagination, and you may be forgiven to imagine that there are cavemen too living in these caves, but let us see or imagine how all this wine making in the cave came about, in this southern region of Italy. But first let us look at the ancient towns of this region of Italy.

Anyhow I believe that this post is already long enough, so see you in our next post that we are going to call, old towns of southern Italy.

-----------------------------------------------
Genzano it story
The town I have come from
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, old towns of Southern Italy
------------------------------

Some other useful links

Australian houses in Brisbane, Australia affordable houses

Some of our hub links

Travel Videos - Fountain cavallina, Genzano, Italy - The Compulsive ...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsPrg1ucmsQ

Where is Genzano di Lucania in Basilicata, Italy located?

Most interesting photos from Genzano di Lucania, Basilicata, Italy

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Aquilina Sancia queen of Monteserico

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, Aquilina Sancia queen of Monteserico
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Aquilina Sancia queen of Monteserico

This is the Moneserico castle, where Aquilina Sancia was living about the beginning of the 14th century, it has a story of its own that we are going to tell, in our future posts.

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Aquilina Sancia queen of Monteserico

This is how the modern Genzano came into being;

The story and folklore of Genzano says that it was Aquilina Sancia, who happened to own the castle of Monteserico at the time when Genzano needed help to restart again, we say restart again because there wasn’t a real Genzano town when this happened; so, this princess in the very early 14 century she helped the town restart. Aquilina Sancia some people say is a Spanish Princes, other people say that this Aquilina Sancia had to do something with the Sforza family and she was a queen. But, anyhow this castle of Monteserico that we have been talking about above, at that time happened to be owned by this rich and powerful family and queen named ‘Aquilina Sancia’ who most likely used this castle as a resort only; because today this castle is only a small square building, it is a solid coarse fortress built on a treeless roundish hill with extensive views of the countryside,

Which at that time were mostly grazing lands, with sheep shepherds and some other livestock, and perhaps some wheat farming in a small way? So it would have been ideal for a queen to get away from it all, and still feel safe in that small fortress. (Nowadays that grazing land which is several thousand of Hectares is top arable land, used mainly to grow durum wheat, and is one of the best lands for this purpose.)

Anyhow, this Aquilina Sancia Queen of Monteserico, while she was living in this castle, she liked very much to travel in her stagecoach or on horseback between Monteserico castle and then would be new Genzano of those times, Genzano was then only a small town but she liked it, so she helped it to become it a real town. The folklore story goes that she used a secret tunnel, or a secret way between these two places, as no one could understand how she could manage to travel without being seen, because, while she was thought to be in Monteserico castle, suddenly she would appear in Genzano without seeing her coming or going. She must have been very rich because it is said that, she hid a treasure that to these days has not been found, and the most valuable items consist of a ‘Gold Mother Hen with Chicks’ which has been hidden somewhere in Monte-Serico castle or in the secret tunnels or there about.

To me all those hidden riches and the large secret tunnel that she could run in with her stagecoach is all folklore fantasy. But perhaps there was a small tunnel in Monteserico castle and also one in Genzano small castle that she turned into a monastery, this could allow her to come and go without being seen. In theory it could have been possible that she could drive her stagecoach in one of the caves in the chasm bellow the monastery, and from there through a supposed small tunnel find the way into the monastery above. Therefore, there may be some truth about the tunnel story, even if the rest is all folklore fantasy.

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How the modern Genzano came into being

Because this queen liked Genzano, she built a monastery where the old first building was, and because of this monastery the people in the country started moving back in the new town of Genzano, this is how the modern town of Genzano was found and she was loved from building this monastery. It is said that in her old age she moved in this monastery and died there. She wrote her will in the year 1327 before she passed away.

But let us tell the story; we could only imagine that the people of those times had an exaggerated benevolent fantasy for this Queen, because of the good turn she gave to the folks of the new Genzano of those days; since one can say that she was the real founder of the new Genzano, because she financially built the first monastery and a church in Genzano called ‘L’Annunziata’ together with a rich monastery for the order of ‘The Sacred Nuns’ which has lasted up to 1905 the early part of the twentieth century. (Nowadays the church and the monastery have been restored for heritage values) But as it happened in those times, the building of the church and the monastery brought a change of life to those people that were still living in the caves of the chasm and in the fields, because; after that church building they really started to build more houses nearby their church and monastery, and slowly Genzano became a real town.

The reason why most of them left the caves and came to live into town is not clear, the reasons that they left the houses in the fields it was because there was malaria associated with this sort of living. Of course there are other reasons to leave the caves, and it could have been for reasons of safety, or perhaps they had become too many and so had overgrown the caves.

But in moving to town they set a new way of life that would split the community in two, because some of the man folks had to stay put in the chasms and in the fields to look after their flocks, and whatever else they had to do in order to earn a living, either in the caves or in the working fields; while the rest of the community would live in town. So from that time onward there were town’s people and country people belonging to the same town, which is a typical way of life of the rural towns of Southern Italy. Of this typical way of life I intend to talk about in more details, as it has affected my own way of life adversely during my younger days.

But now let me go back to the main story: After most of the cave people moved to live into town, the caves became partly empty. But by now the inhabitant of the caves new that those caves, which in the beginning had been excavated for survival could still be put to good use, because they would be ideal to make wine in them, since they have a constant cool temperature throughout the year, therefore the wine would keep well for a long time, and since then they have made their wines in those caves. Looking at the caves when I was young, the front of the caves have been closed in with a masonry wall, which has a door opening in the centre with a segmental arch above. The doors openings are fitted with a double hung oaken timber doors, which are very solid, even though they have air vent panels built in them, in order to have some ventilation in the cave as there is no other opening in the cave.

Now as I was saying before, that you would be amazed to see when they make their wines, and indeed it is an interesting thing to see, if you happen to be there at the time when they harvest their grapes and they make their wines, as the whole place, which is only a chasm with so many caves, but at that time the chasm becomes alive in its own archaic ways, see our article, Wine making the old ways I think we have said enough in this hub, so I say see you in our next article.

-------------------------------------------
Genzano it story
Aquilina Sancia queen of Monteserico
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, the town I came from
------------------------------

Some other useful links

Australian houses in Brisbane, Australia affordable houses

Some of our hub links