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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, monteserico historic events in brief
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This is another photo of the castle of Monteserico, it shows the castle walls very clearly how they were built with stones, if you know about building you would understand what we want to convey here; you see, in those old times they built very different from today.
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Historic events in brief
Dear readers, this
post is also the continuation of the history of the castle of Monteserico, you
see, in this post we are still talking about the castle, so, we are continuing to
look at the history around this castle. Anyhow, the history during the first
millennium of this castle is not know very much, but it is believed that there
were some caves that the shepherds and other inhabitant of this region used for
themselves, before the castle of Monteserico was built. Some people say that
this part of Southern Italy has seen many battles; they even suggest that
Spartacus with his other slave friend have been here, while they were in
Southern Italy, as history tells us when the slaves rebelled and formed their
own army under their leader Spartacus, they went to live near the Ionian Sea,
now Monteserico is part of the territories that runs into the Ionian Sea
through the river Bradano and its tributaries, there might be also another
story why Spartacus could have come this way; you see in Genzano town even
today there is this chasm called the Greek chasm, the only thing that this can
mean is that there was a Greek colony living in this chasm; and Spartacus being
Greek for sure would be attracted from this countrymen community, so even
Spartacus could have come in Monteserico and in Genzano territory.
Now let us go back
to talk about our castle of Monteserico and let us imagine how this castle came
into being a castle; as we all know everything most time starts small and then
starts growing, so, some people say that at the beginning, this could have been
a Roman villa used to run the countryside and for holiday, then turned as a
monastery of the Greek orthodox religion. Then as the time went by and many
wars and other things happened around this place it kept growing until we find
that the Normans at the beginning of the second millennium have this castle,
and they rule over most of southern Italy from this castle of Monteserico; well
at least this is how this castle history looks like.
After the Normans
the castle of Monteserico changed many owners, and some of which we are going
to mention as soon as we get around; one of the most known historic people was
the Swedish duke of southern Italy Frederic 2nd, but the most known historic
person known from the inhabitant of Genzano is Aquilina Sancia queen of
Monteserico. The reason for this is that while this Aquilina Sancia was there
she built a monastery of the Clarisse in Genzano and this monastery attracted
people that lived around to move and live around this monastery and for this
reason Genzano town is said that Aquilina Sancia is the founder of the existing
Genzano, today we know that this is not correct, since there is some historic
evidence that the town of Genzano has existed since the Roman times.
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More historic events
Here we are saying that we are
going to look at some historic event that would help establish the history of
this castle, today it is hard to do that because there isn’t any history
written properly about this Monteserico castle, so we are going to rely on
search done about sixty years ago from the writer Ettore Lorito who has done
some search and written a book about Genzano including the castle of
Monteserico:
The writer Ettore Lorito suggests
that the beginning of the castle is ancient, but nobody really knows when it
was started; anyhow we would like to tell you what he has written in this very
shortened and translated version, since here we are writing this article about
this castle; we are doing this since the original is written in Italian. Now if
there are some people that would like to read the original Italian version they
should go to this link; http://genzanoit.blogspot.com/,
this is one of my blogs, so I am going to explain how to navigate to this link,
first of all click on the link above, once you have reached the blog, you need
to navigate down the left side column until you reach Home pages, in Home pages
find the link, Genzano in Italiano, (it 1) and click on it, go down the
page and then click on the link, Scrittori e poeti, a few names of writers come
up, click on Ettore Lorito, some links for two books come up, click on GENZANO
DI BASILICATA Cronografia; within this book there is also the story of the
castle of Monteserico.
Now that I have explained how to
find the Italian original version, let me start to tell this shortened version
in English.
It is thought that very early at
the place where the castle is today there were caves below it that the local
people used to live in; today it might seem strange to think that people lived
in caves, but they did, so that was already a start for people to continue to
live there. So very likely when the Romans conquered southern Italy some of
them might have built a villa, this was only natural as this gave them the
control of the country side, this is one of the possible ways how this castle
was started. It is also believed that Spartacus and his Roman slave’s friends
have been in this country and fought with the Romans, and also that even the
Roman council Marcello and Hannibal have fought on this territory, but there is
no mention of the castle in those times.
Some people say that the castle
was built around 900 AD just because they have found some written story; one of
this is the following.
The writer Deblaisiis in his
Norman Conquest said that in the year 929 AD Guaimaro and Ladolfo to repay the
Norman for the help they had given at Monte Serico and Monte Peloso gave them
some castles including one in Spinazzola; so the castle of Monteserico was
already there and perhaps it had been there as a villa at the beginning and
then modified into a castle after the fall of the Roman empire, when most
localities had to look after themselves, since there was not a Roman army to
guard the country. Anyhow, because in 929 the castle was already there, it was
not built by the Norman as some people believe.
Now just to make this story
shorter, let us go to when the Norman had somehow got possession of the castle
of Monteserico after many battles, you see even today after a thousand years
there is a hill called (Serra della battaglia) this laterally means “the hill
of the battle” But even though the Norman and their allied won that battle on
this hill, they were not able to take the castle this time, because the castle
was well defended; but somehow they got there some years later.
Anyhow, we know through history
that Robert Guiscard a Norman by birth became duke in southern Italy, I would
like to say more who has owned the castle, but for me to name other names that
owned this castle is hard to know unless I find an historic list, but we can
say that through marriages, exchanges and other things the castle of
Monteserico was ruled from this Spanish princess Aquilina Sancia around 1300
AD.. In those times there was also a suburb near the castle, but it slowly
disappeared around 1400 and 1430 AD.
I believe that this post is
becoming too long and we have still a few things to say about this castle, so
see you in our next post, where we are trying to work out about more history
about this castle.
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Genzano it story
Monteserico historic events in brief
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, more history of this castle
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Genzano it story
Monteserico historic events in brief
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, more history of this castle
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