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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.
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 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.
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Genzano it story
Genzano di Lucania post
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, Genzano di Lucania history
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Genzano it story
Genzano di Lucania post
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, Genzano di Lucania history
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Some of our hub links
