Sunday, November 2, 2014

Town heritage

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
-
Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and our post, Town heritage, or Genzano heritage chapter.
-
The Cavallina fountain, in the foreground the large trough where the horses and other large animals would be taken to water, in the background the fountain with several spouts.








This is one of the feasts at the town's fountain












The heritage chapter
In this post we are going to discuss about some history of Genzano di Lucania, therefore we are going to mention what sort of heritage we inherited in Genzano di Lucania.
So, let us talk about our heritage; in Genzano there is a chasm called the Greek chasm, and perhaps we should have called this article, Genzano Greek chasm heritage, but anyhow, let us discuss here and now about this chasm, which is the other chasm on the other side of Genzano; for the readers that have not read our previous hubs I repeat here that the old town of Genzano was built between two chasms and in our last article we have talked about (Sant Antun) chasm where the Genzanesi make wine in the caves dug in the walls of the chasm below the town, but here today we are going to talk about what the local call the Greek chasm.
So, let us try to explain the name of this Greek chasm; some writers that have written about Genzano history lately all seem to admit that a very long time ago the Greek were living here in this part of southern Italy, and therefore in the chasm that we are going to talk about as well, and that is the reason why it is called the Greek chasm even today from the elders of Genzano.
There are reasons to believe that it is so if one keeps in mind how the human race migrated from the Middle East to Europe; and also history tells us that 700 BC or there about Greece had colonies in southern Italy, which might have lasted until the Romans took over. So let us assume that the Greeks were there anyhow, because what is going to follow later on is only going to reinforce this assumption. As there is also another story about this Madonna of Genzano that we are going to tell you in our future posts, we can only say here that this Madonna effigy is very much the effigies that the Greek were making about the Roman times.
----------------------------
The town history and heritage
Looking at old history books, we have to admit that there is not much written about Genzano town history in the distant past. However the myth says that Genzano is very old and it was named from a legend that tells us that a young guy called Iens (yens) fell in love and eloped with a young princes called San, they went to live in the caves that were in the chasm below Genzano and later on started to build the town above the caves a small castle, the name is virtually the two name of the lovers put together Iens-san (yensan, or jenzan) I am saying this because I know that in strict dialect of the town even today it is pronounced Yenzan with no G at the beginning and no O at the end.
Now 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 seems to be the oldest record found written in Genzano history and not much else; so, let us go back to the Greek chasm story.
Because in this post we would like to tell or describe to you the chasm on the other side of Genzano that we call the Greek chasm, we have to say that this chasm starts about fifty meter from the fountain Cavallina, or perhaps I should say that at the beginning of the Greek chasm is where the fountain Cavallina is, then suddenly the chasm becomes very deep and a real chasm; this part of Genzano is called the Greek chasm, so, by this very name it is understood that a very long time ago there must have been a colony of Greek people living there, and perhaps also in the surrounding country side.
About the Greek people and whatever happened to them nobody seems to know today, as there is no trace of them and there are no records to check with. So one is forced to assume that very likely that there was a war, or something of that sort and they were driven out. Or perhaps they just mixed with the rest of the inhabitants of Genzano and nobody remembers; or perhaps, as time went by things changed and it became impossible for them to live in the chasm, because of the erosion and other natural factors which slowly changed the shape of the chasm, and the use of the chasm.
However nowadays the Greek chasm has been deserted from the people of Genzano for a long while, because most of the people would be afraid to go into this chasm, and there are good reasons for it: Apart that it can be dangerous because of the abrupt drops in the level of the land, it can also be unsanitary as lots of rubbish used to be dumped into this chasm, and this would include also the human excrement that used to come out at the bottom of the chasm, when there was no proper sewer laid in town; and plus most of the men that lived in the old town when they had to go, they used to go and squat on the shoulders of the chasm and do it there, in order to save their women folks the extra sanitary work that they had to carry out: And this unpleasant task I am going to explain later on how it was done.
In the Greek chasm nowadays there are only a few good caves that can still be used, and most of the rest have been abandoned because it is impossible to get at them, since the erosion has made the chasm deeper, so now some caves are left exposed halfway up the vertical cliff of the chasm.
I believe that the erosion became worse in this chasm because: there is the fountain Cavallina upstream at the very beginning of the chasm, and also because, as the town grew larger most of the town’s storm water drainage was diverted into this chasm, and together with this drainage they built also a simple and effective sewerage system for the town of those days. The dunghill masonry was built all underground, except for the opening where they used to drop the dung, and it was connected through a drain which came out at the bottom of the chasm. All this may seem ridiculous today, but I am sure that in those times was seen as a great improvement.
Now at this point I would like to point out to you that there are some large masonry works in this chasm, because across the chasm there are two massive masonry walls, and one of them is so massive that seems as if it wants to hold the banks of the chasm apart. These two walls have been built for several purposes in mind, and the most important one would be to prevent any landslide which would endanger this part of the town, and to stop the erosion that could undermine this part of the town, and also to hide the drainage and sewer system. So the only thing that could be seen of the sewer system was only a large barred opening about three feet square at ground level, which was situated a short walking distance from the town’s fountain Cavallina; and this archaic but effective old sewer system was still being used when I was young. Not from my family, because we were lucky enough as we were connected to the modern sewer system long before I was born. But it still was used only from those less fortunate people in the community, which for some reasons of their own had not been able to connect to the modern town’s sewer yet, so they had to use the old system as it was done in the old days and this was the most hated job of them all.
-------------------------------
The most hated job of them all
Before we start to tell you about the most hated job of them all, we would like to point out to the modern generation to compare those times and the ways that even the best people had to make do, in order to live a decent life then; today all this may seem crazy even to talk about it, but in those times that was how most things were done.
Now looking back at the time when I was young, I still remember how the unspeakable job was done, from the women folks of those last unfortunate families that were still using the old sewer system, they had to do this horrible job two or three times a week, and they would feel so ashamed while they were doing it, and what a shame it was compared to nowadays living standard.
Now that I am older and wiser I would have felt sorry for those women that had to use the old sewer system: But them as a young man; I and my teenager male friends thought that it was very funny, when we would see in the evening just before dusk, a couple of women per household come out of their houses with their own dung balanced on their head so to speak. One of them would carry this round and wide rimmed ceramic container balanced on her head, the other would be carrying a bucket and a sort of little broom which was a sort of brush with a long handle.
They would be coming out of their houses, and they would try to go the back ways as much as they could, and try to be invisible if they could as they didn’t want to be seen. Can you just imagine some teenager girls doing this low and unspeakable service, while some teenager boys would be prying on them from a distance? What a shame! Those girls must have felt terrible to say the least, only because they were doing the most hated job of them all, which was to dispose of their own human excrement; but, it was necessary and inevitable. Anyhow when they reached the square opening of the sewer, they would help each other to bring the contains down from their heads and would throw the dung down the square hole; and then the one with the bucket would go to the fountain and bring a bucket of water to wash the ceramic container. And finally return to their homes relieved that their dirty job was done, and they would be all right for a few more days.
Can you just imagine any young girls that are living today to do such a shameful job, I have nothing else to say but just compare. So, when old people say that today generations are better off and lucky to be born now and not then, they are telling us the truth, because I am pretty sure that there is no one that would volunteer to do that job.
See you next time, where we are going to tell you about the Madonna story

---------------------------------------------------
 Genzano it story
Historic events in brief
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED; 
Next time with, another post about the castle
-------------------------------------------
Some useful links

Some hub links


Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Today world happenings

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
-
Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, today world happenings
-

This is an old man view of the world

Today world happenings point out that Southern Italy could be about to see another invasion of its territory, this time it is not going to be like the old times, when people fought many wars in order to gain control of some territory; you see today we the people that believe in democracy and humanity let these people in our countries with open arms as brothers, but the question here is: are they going to be our brothers in the future, or are they going to turn nasty as they are nasty in their own country and instead of living in peace with us are going to overrun their new country with their violent ways, as they have done in their own country? 
    
I am an old man now and when I look at the world and see what is happening, I think that the world is going mad these days; I feel that the human race that was supposed to know how to behave these days, because we are supposed to have reached the age of reason does not know what to do in these hard times; so, what is wrong with humanity I would like to ask?
Looking at the news on TV or reading the news on the Internet is almost impossible to avoid the terrorist news that is happening just about every day. I know that the news are news and most time the bad news are more important than the good news to tell the people, they are important because they have happened and the public needs to know, but really we are becoming tired of all these bad news, because they are so ugly that one wants to switch off the TV and turn off the computer.
So, my dear readers, I wish that I could have been writing happy news, because that is what most of us would like to hear; instead I am stuck with these bad news that seem to surround us around. I have to say here that I feel within myself that my heart is crying my dear readers; My heart is crying because there are so many wrong things going on in the world today, so forgive me if I try to write what I see is wrong and still going on, because I would like to say what I feel into my heart, while I am writing this article. You see by writing this article I might feel at least that I have tried to warn the people what I see could happen next, I would like to say a few things here, because there are very few people that say anything positive, or at least suggest anything positive about what is happening in the world today, so some discussions could become helpful to say the least, who knows somebody might come up with a solution, so let me write my painful article the best way I can, even if this article may not appeal to a large section of our readers, because these days readers like to read easy stuff and not this sort of article that is going to make them think about the world and what is happening.
As you will see from the following paragraph, this article is about the world present history that is just happening these days, so even though I have named this hub, an old man view of the world, this old man needs to attach this story to a particular region of the world, in order to make his story real. Now as it happens I have written a few hubs about my native town of Genzano di Lucania and also about the second castle of this town called, the castle of Monteserico, which has a real history of its own, sense this castle was the castle of the Normans and Robert Guiscard duke of Southern Italy in the year 1047 or there about, it was also the castle of another famous person Fredrick ll that owned this castle around 12 century in Southern Italy.
We have to say here that the events and wars in those past times were very violent, so there have been some violent happenings around this castle. Today again history is taking its course and something might happen again around these regions of Southern Italy, because there are so many illegal emigrant coming in, and the view of this old man that is writing this article is that: they seem to occupy the whole country and we Italians are letting them in and welcoming them with open arms, but I don’t see that this is going to last long, because most regions of Italy are not rich and will not be able to sustain all these emigrants, so is this event of what we are witnessing going to be another violent story that could soon unfold in the future, we just wonder, if history is going to repeat again.
--------------------------------------
Italy modern history

The refugees from Tunisia





Another boat full of refugees







So, dear readers, make no mistakes and think that the subtitle of this article says it all, and everything that we are going to talk about in this article belongs strictly to this region of southern Italy, no, dear readers what we are going to talk about here is a worldwide problem, but above all I would like to tell my own country people what I see coming, in the hope that they would be able to see the other side of the story, you see from down under here in Australia we might be able to see things that are not very obvious to those that live in southern Italy, and also those people that by their actions cause history to be written, after all these people are forced by circumstances to run away from their native countries, but the question here remains; could this running away be prevented by doing other things one needs to ask?
The idea of writing this article, is that we were writing about the past history of this regions of southern Italy, because I come from this region, and therefore there are lots of times that I go back to talk about it, but today we are going to talk about what the future could hold for this region, because there are some historic things happening presently.  
I believe that there is a link between the past the present and the future, so, let me explain the link that already exists here; as you all know I have been writing my life story in Hub Pages and also some of the history of my native town of Genzano di Lucania; and then, recently we have written about the history of the castle of Monteserico, so we have looked at some of the good things but also the bad things that have happened around this castle and also about Genzano town. Now having seen what has happened in the past, our minds looks at the present times and tries to forecast the future, we know that our human history keeps going on indefinitely, so, we wonder what the future holds for us; here I have to say that there are a few negative signs for the future of this region, which we will be trying to explain as we keep on writing this article.
Now; they say that it would be better not to say anything unless you can say nice things to the public, but what about saying things that might help prevent some catastrophic event in the future, because we see this danger that could be coming, but people of this region do not seem to see it and they completely ignore it. I know that by saying this I might be called many nasty names for starting this unpleasant conversation, but so what, I believe that I would not do the duty of a good citizen if I don’t speak out.
So what are you talking about you would ask and why it seems to you that you have to speak out and for what reason?
To understand what I am going to say next, it is necessary to know a bit more about this region of Southern Italy and the inhabitant that have lived and are living there. You see this region is not rich, the only thing that it is going on there is farming; there are a lot of small farms that would be able to sustain the native inhabitant only. We have also to say that there are times when these small farms do not produce enough and people leave the farms and go to work somewhere else, if and when they are able to find another job. You see this is the main reason why I left our small family farm and migrated to Australia.
We know that a few things might have changed since I left Italy, but if they have changed it is not a great deal, as there are no industries of any sort beside farming, so the way of life over there is very much the same as it was in the fifties or there about. What I want to point out with this article is that this region of southern Italy could not support any outside people that would like to come here and that is the worry that comes to my mind, so let me explain what I mean, because I think that this is a real problem for this region of Italy. But as we have said already this would also apply to several other regions in the world, so whatever warnings that this article may suggest they are also warnings for the rest of the word and above all the western world. 
The Italian problem of today
If you have paid attention to the news, you must have noted that there are many illegal migrants in the world today; they are illegal migrant because they forcefully go everywhere even when they are not wanted at all; here I am afraid that I have to say that when they do this forceful migrating they could easily upset the way of life of the people that are forced to receive them against their will; but let us see what could be the causes of this migration, and then extend our search to what could be the outcome of this forceful emigrants that come in unwanted, because I am worried that something might happen in southern Italy soon.
The causes of migrating in search of a better life are many, but above all of them is poverty, sometimes poverty is so bad that people could even starve to death, now that is really when people are very poor and they are forced to find a way how they would be able to feed themselves; here the rest of the world that are better off should really try to help them and there is no question about it.
But on the other hand there are people that are not that poor and they want more because they are greedy, they may start to believe that the rest of the world is better off than they are and therefore they want to grab whatever the others have, and this seems to be the main problem that the entire world is facing today; anyhow here we want to talk about the Italian problem, mainly because I am an Italian that has emigrated from southern Italy, and therefore in this article I would like to talk about Italy and my native town and the surrounding towns and countryside. So we would like to start thinking and imagining what could be like in the future to live in southern Italy, in these towns with all these new migrant coming in. But first of all who are these emigrant we have to ask and why they are migrating
------------------------------------
The emigrant problem
People that emigrate are usually poor people that happen to live in a poor nation, the reason that their native towns and their nation are poor have many reasons, but above all the poverty is lack of good management of the resources that they might have; but sometimes this may also be due to changes that are unavoidable. Now, in general terms we believe that if a region has been able to provide for a living to a certain number of people for a very long time, the same region should be able to provide that same amount of people indefinitely, if that region has good management and the people that live there try to do their best.
Therefore our views are that those people that live there are not the best people that are able to plan ahead for themselves, in such a way that they could support themselves, so they slowly find themselves that they are becoming poor. Because they are becoming poor they start looking around and see that some of the other people are better off than they are; now they do not ask themself why the other people have been able to have a better standard of living, they only see that they would like to have that higher standard of living, at least that is what they see, or what they believe the world owes them just because they are living in this world. So when people emigrate in great number most of them emigrate because where they are they are not able to look after themselves.
Now the main problem that these emigrants have is going to stay with them with the rest of their lives. We have to admit here that a few of them are going to be able to look after themselves if they are offered a good chance. But when they emigrate in bulk wherever they go they are going to bring their own problem with them, so the nations that are forced to accept them should be very careful that they do not end up like the emigrant themselves, and therefore one day their own people are going to emigrate, because they have become poor just like the emigrant that they were supposed to help; I hope that I have explained myself clear enough. Now let us see what their problem might have been and the reasons why they have fallen behind the rest of the world.
-----------------------------------------
What could be the reasons?
First of all when we look at the illegal emigrant in Italy we see that today most of them are African emigrants, this makes us think that perhaps it is the changes of temperature that has impoverished these countries to the point that people have to go to live somewhere else. Therefore first of all, it has been humanity themselves that have brought about this problem, so, if that is the case than we have to be reasonable and we have to help those people that emigrate the best way we can, after all it was us the rest of the world that has caused this global warming; but is it possible that there are several reasons why these people emigrate.
The second in line is the political scene; people belong to one party or another, they struggle for power, the struggle becomes so great that they end up in violence and wars, so there are refugees that run away from their own country, who is to blame here would be hard to say because both sides blame each other; but the rest of the world end up that has to help those refugees on humanitarian grounds.
Why these wars are started is really unbelievable but they are started anyhow, as we know these days there is this war still going on in Iraq, and it is one of the most horrible wars that the world has ever seen, it is so bad that it is hard even to talk about it.  
To be continued  

-----------------------------------

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Historic events in brief

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
-
Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, Historic events in brief
-


Historic event in brief
In this post we are still talking about the castle of Monteserico, so we continue to look at the history around this castle. 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 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 territory.
Now let us go back to talk about our castle Monteserico; 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 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.
After that 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 of these people 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. 
--------------------------------
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.
-----------------------------------------
Imagining old history of Monteserico
Let us just imagine how this small castle might have been built, since nobody seems to know who, when or the real reason it has been built, but from what we have found we have formed some possible ideas of its history, so let us say how we see this castle story.
In the beginning there must have been people of this region living in the caves where today stands the castle, they could have been local shepherd or perhaps other outside people, anyhow everything has to have a beginning, some of these people could have originated from Greece or somewhere else, they came up the valley of the river Bradano and settled here in Monteserico and also in the town of Genzano, since in Genzano even today there is this chasm called the Greek chasm, of course this is very early in history.
Then came the Roman Era with their conquest of southern Italy and then most of the known world, so, the Romans ruled over this part of Italy for a very long time; during that time some of the Roman leader may have started a holiday villa or just a building to live in and rule over the countryside, that is what the Roman did best, they usually would build something wherever they went so that they would be able to run that part of their conquest easily and at the same time bring civilization to the people in that region. So we believe that since the Roman times there has been a building there that some Roman landlord used and looked after, it might also have grown and modified many times.
When the Western Roman Empire collapsed around in 475-76 AD, when the German Odovacer deposited Romulus Augustulus, and in affect became king of Rome.
After the fall of the Roman Empire there wasn’t any real peace in Italy, so people had to try to protect themselves the best way they could, this in affect made people build castles, so this villa or whatever was built in Monteserico started to take the form of a small castle.
The first time that a sort of a castle or fort is mentioned is in the 800 AD. You see there were many wars so Monteserico castle and other castles in this part of the region became fortified forming a line of defence against the enemy; please note that this is before the Norman came to southern Italy, so when Robert Guiscard came to this part of Italy the castle was already there, as we can see from some important battles that happened in those times.  

Some known Monteserico history
Let us mention the owner that we know or we think we know that have owned the castle of Monteserico, So, let us start with famous owners like Robert Guiscard duke of southern Italy in 1047 of Apulia and Calabria and later on the Two Sicilies etc.  Born 1016 died 1085
Another famous one is Fredrick II that owned this castle, after Frederick II, 1194-1250, of course it is not easy here to follow a chain of event, but we know that these castle and other holdings always changed hand, it is said in history that there was a Roberto D’Angio who had married a Sancia he donated the castle to a family member del Bosco who saw husband of Aquilina Sancia, and when he died Aquilina Sancia became owner of Monteserico.
From Aquilina Sancia it was inherited from her daughter Giacoma Rachele who married Roberto San Severino the count of Carignano and Terlizzi, and then it was passed to the family Dentice delle Stelle under the queen Giovanna and the to the Ruffo.
During this time Monteserico had also a small town or suburb, but around 1400-1430 it slowly vanished, there was not an explanation why this happened but it happened.                    
After Aquilina Sancia there were the Sanseverino who had the castle. After that in 1603 was a Genoese Grimaldi, in 1613 was the Doria, at the end of 1700 was some descendents of the Sancia family and after that was abandoned.
It was bought from the Baron Dell’Agli-Certi the 30-01-1857, and then it was sold to the Cafieri the 30-03-1875 but by then it was too run down to live in.
After world war 1 the tenant Gardini bought a portion of the land from the Cafieri and the castel of Monteserico, it was used for holiday or resting place from this actress: Lyda Borelli (22 March 1884 – 2 June 1959) was an Italian actress ofcinema and theatre. She was born in Genoa, and died in Rome. Her career in theatre started when she was a child, acting on stage with Paola Pezzaglia in the French drama I due derelitti.
There might be other things to add but I don’t know what else to say at the moment, except that this military castle of Monteserico is a small fortress that has got many unknown stories, whether we will be able to tell these stories one day we do not know.
Anyhow, we hope that we have told you this story of Monteserico for everybody to read, but it has also been especially written for those people that come from Genzano, so that they can remember their native town and our Monteserico castle.
See you in our next post, which might be written about what is happening around this castle of Monteserico and Genzano of southern Italy.  


Thursday, September 11, 2014

The other castle of Genzano

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
-
Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post The other castle of Genzano
-
The castle of Monteserico

This is the castle of Monteserico 








Welcome to our article, ‘The castle of’
We could have called this hub, The Norman castle of Monteserico, since The Normans first they fought around this castle to conquer it and then used it to run their conquest in this part of Southern Italy around 1040 AD, in second place we could have called it, ‘the castle of Federico II’, since he used this castle as sit for the “magister massarium Apuliae” while he was master of Southern Italy around 1220- 1250, but because it has many names and many owners, today we all call it the castle of Monteserico, because that is how is called the zone of southern Italy. So, let us talk about the castle of Monteserico, in Genzano di Lucania 
First of all we would like to explain to our readers the following situation: Strange as it may seem the town of Genzano di Lucania has two castles, one is in the town itself and another one is in the country, the castle that is in the town has been modified and today is used as the Town Hall (Municipio), but we are not going to talk about the castle in the town today, we have just mentioned this to explain to our readers the town of Genzano, as this involves both castles; so, today we are going to talk about the castle in the country and we call this castle, Monteserico castle; here we need to say that the name of “Monteserico” in Genzano, not only refer to this castle but it also refer to the county itself; in fact this name would cover about three quarter of Genzano territory.
Monteserico castle is a very old castle that a long time ago had a small town or village of its own, some people believe that the Normans built it, but most people don’t agree with it and have other explanations of how this castle came about before the Normans, and the Normans may have modified it and used this castle, while they were ruling over their conquest in Southern Italy, we will talk about this again as we continue with this story.
Now if we connect what historically is known today, we will soon see that this castle of Monteserico was there before the modern Genzano came into existence, we say the modern Genzano because there is some evidence that Genzano existed in the Roman times, as it is mentioned in the archive of Potenza that two martyrs Donato and Secondo were executed in Genzano around 258 AD, for more details see our hub Genzano di Lucania history, therefore the town of Genzano existed even then but for some reasons it is not motioned much as if it did not exist until later on as our story will show.
Now let us go back to talk about Monteserico castle, this castle is/was completely independent from the town of Genzano di Lucania, in fact the modern town of Genzano seem to have come into existence well after the Norman invasion of Southern Italy. We are saying this because even though today Monteserico Castle is situated in the territory of Genzano, the founder of the existing Genzano came from this castle, history tells us that this castle of Monteserico is the castle that the queen Aquilina Sancia lived in before Genzano town was built or perhaps it would be more correct to say rebuilt and Aquilina Sancia is said to be the founder of Genzano, today we know that it is not true, because there has been a very old Genzano before.
Anyhow nobody knows exactly who started to build this castle of Monteserico, and it has many stories about its origin, what we know today is that this was one of the main castles that the Normans used to rule over Southern Italy in the beginning of the second millennium, and that in this part of southern Italy there have been many wars and this castle has had many owners, another historically well known owner was “Frederick II” about 1194-1250, check the links below. 

Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen - YouTube

Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor - Wikipedia, the free ...

 Frederick the Second, 1194-1250 - Google Books


 Some other owner of the castle we will try to mention in our text here under. Anyhow today it happens that this castle has been restored to safe keep the heritage of this part of Southern Italy; but it is a very quiet country place, it seems almost forgotten except for the people that work around in the fields that produce some of the best durum wheat that is used to make pasta and other wheat products. However if one is keen to know this part of Italian history one can learn something about it from this post and then try to visit the place preferably during spring or summer.
-----------------------------------
Explaining these photos above and below.
This is the chapel near the castle of Monteserico, if you can find this picture in my Facebook account you will be able to navigate to many more picture of the castle.  
Here above is the chapel of the Madonna of Monteserico, but the original Monteserico Madonna picture has been stolen, and somebody replaced by a cheap picture; so the town of Genzano ordained the painter Pedota to paint a portrait of our Madonna Maria SS Delle Grazie and in 1953 they had a feast and relaced the cheap picture with this new painted image. So today this chapel of Monteserico has this new picture of, Maria SS delle Grazie patron Saint of Genzano as the main Madonna, It is said that, here the inhabitant of Genzano need to make a feast at least once a year otherwise they lose possession of Monteserico chapel and the possession will pass to the family De Chio of Spinazzola, as they were the last owners or tenants of the place.
Below is a photo of the castle taken from a far away field, you see in this part of the country there are only fields that are used to grow wheat or other produce and not much else stretching away for miles. This photo reminds me about the thousands of time that I have seen this castle from our family farm, when I was young.

The castle seen from the fields. 











Then there is this photo of this poster about the inauguration of Monteserico Castle after the restoration, where the names of people that have contributed and other things are shown.
--------------------------








About the castle of Monteserico
Monteserico castle seems to be built different from most other castles. It is shaped rectangular or almost square, one can say that it is more a military fortress than a real castle; it is built in stones of every shape and size, and today it would be hard to find builders or tradesmen that would be able to build something like that, even though there are some tradesmen as we can see from the entry pathway that looks almost new, and it is almost identical to the castle masonry; however we know that it has been added later, because this castle had a trench around it a long time ago for reasons of defence, but this added entry pathway makes it easy to enter the castle, so it is a later addition and it looks good. Anyhow these two photos one above and one below are there to show you how the castle is like today.
Anyhow let us look at some history of this castle of Monteserico, but before we do that we need to point out that the castle of Monteserico looks exactly like one of the Norman castle in Normandy France; see our hub Genzano di Lucania history, in the subtitle section The Normans in Italy; where I ask this French army captain about the castle in Normandy and the way he explains it to me. So first of all we need to prove that the Normans were in these parts of Southern Italy and then we could link what is historically known with our own understanding of the situation, so here under is some evidence that we are going to quote from:
  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia
The Norman conquest of southern Italy spanned most of the 11th and 12th centuries, involving many battles and many independent players conquering territories of their own. Only later were these territories in southern Italy united as the Kingdom of Sicily, which included not only the island of Sicily, but also the entire southern third of the Italian Peninsula (save Benevento, which they did briefly hold on two occasions) as well as the archipelago of Malta and parts of North Africa.
Opportunistic bands of Normans successfully established a foothold in Southern Italy (the Mezzogiorno). Probably the result of returning pilgrims' stories, the Normans entered the Mezzogiorno as warriors in 1017 at the latest. In 999, according to Amatus of Montecassino, pilgrims returning from Jerusalem called in at the port of Salerno when a Saracen attack occurred. The Normans fought so valiantly that Prince Guaimar III begged them to stay, but they refused and instead offered to tell others back home of the prince's request. William of Apulia tells that, in 1016, pilgrims to the shrine of the Archangel Michael at Monte Gargano were met by Melus of Bari, a Lombard freedom-fighter, who persuaded them to return with more warriors to help throw off the Byzantine rule, which they did.
(End of quote)
In some written stories or history about Genzano and this castle of Monteserico, there is this famous Norman leader (Roberto il Guiscardo) Robert Guiscard that is said to own the castle of Monteserico as also some battles that happened around this castle, here is a link about Robert Guiscard. 




Robert Guiscard











Robert Guiscard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From what we have been able to write and explain here, it is that for certain the Normans have used this castle extensively and perhaps modified it or partly built it, and since Robert Guiscard (Duke of Apulia) was there, we would guess that this castle might really have been the main Norman castle of Southern Italy from where the Norman ruled over their conquest.
I believe that this post is becoming to long, so we will continue to talk about the castle of Monteserico in our next post. 
-------------------------------
 Genzano it story
The other castle of Genzano
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED; 
Next time with, another post about the castle
-------------------------------------------
Some useful links

Some hub links



--------------------------