Pescolamazza, Italy
Pescolamazza, known today as Pesco Sannita, is a comune located in the province of Benevento in the region of Campania northeast of Naples, Italy. Originally Pesclum and over the centuries Pesco, Piesco, Lo Pesco, and Lo Pesco de la Macza, is a name transformation attributed to the village as a dedication to heroic feduatory Pesco Della Marra. My 2x Great Grandpa Giovandomenico Langiano was born in Pescolamazza in 1867 along with two brothers. All five of Giovandomenico's children were also born in Pescolamazza where they lived until they immigrated to America in 1913.
History
Pescolamazza was a castle that was already in existence during the time of the Lombards. The castle had it's moment of glory in February 1133 when the heroic defense of over a hundred armed men commaned by Robert della Marra resisting the attack of Rolpotone di S. Eustachio.
From the beginning of the fifteenth century, and until the abolition of feudality in the early 19th century, Pesco was almost always united with Pietrelcina. As early as 1415, in fact, these two lands were part of the feudal property of Filippo Caracciolo and in 1458, after the conspiracy of the Barons, they found themselves still united under Nicola Caracciolo. At the death of the latter, which occurred in 1493, the fiefs of Pescolamazza and Pietrelcina were inherited by the eldest son Giovan Battista who obtained solemn investiture from the king of France, Charles VIII, with a diploma signed in Naples on March 8th, 1495. The daughter Dionora, in 1511, brought them as a dowry to Giovan Tommaso II Carafa, Count of Cerreto, who in 1522 sold the income to Carlo Mormile for the sum of 9000 ducats with the pact of rewards. In 1523, while he was serving under the insignia of Charles V in Milan, during the war against the king of France, Giovan Tommaso was killed in a duel by Fabrizio Maramaldo.
He inherited his title and its substances the first son, Diomedes III, who, being then just five years old, had as his guardian the paternal grandfather Diomede II, count of Maddaloni. At the death of the latter, Diomede III, after having been for a while under the tutelage of an unspecified "prior of Naples", he married, still adolescent, Roberta Carafa who also acted as a tutor. And in 1537, with the assent of his wife, it was he who definitively got rid of the fiefs of Pesco and Pietrelcina, selling to Bartolomeo Camerario. Camerario, in turn, in 1550 alienated these two fiefs to Lucrezia Pignatelli, wife of Giovan Vincenzo Caracciolo. At the death of the latter took over his son Marcello until his death in August 1585 also died leaving the first born Giovan Vincenzo II heir of his title and of the lands of Casalbore, Ginestra degli Schiavoni, Pietrelcina, Pescolamazza, Torre di Pagliara, Saggiano and some feudal territories near Montesarchio. Giovan Vincenzo II, in 1603, gave the lands of Pescolamazza and Pietrelcina to his brother Francesco.
In 1614, at the request of the Marquess of Casalbore, the court of the Sacred Royal Council awarded these two feuds to Giovanni d'Aquino who, in July 1623, was given the title of prince of Pietrelcina. After the death of John, which took place on March 4th,1632, the first son Caesar took over, who, with royal assent of February 9th, 1661, gave his brother Francesco the land of Pescolamazza. Cesare was assassinated on February 27th,1668, at the age of 43. On March 8th,1669, daughter Antonia was declared heir to her feudal property. In 1676, however, by decree of the Sacred Royal Council, the land of Pietrelcina was assigned to Jerome, brother of Caesar. However, at the death of Francesco and Girolamo d'Aquino, Pescolamazza and Pietrelcina returned to their nephew Antonia with the addition of the fief of Monteleone which, in the meantime, Girolamo had bought from Giacomo II de Brier. After the death of Antonia, which took place without heirs on September 6th, 1717, Ferdinando Venato, duke of S. Teodoro, his fourth degree relative, took over in 1724 upon payment to the tax authorities of 20,200 ducats. On April 30th,1725 the duke of S. Teodoro sold these three fiefs, for the sum of 75,000 ducats, to Francesco Carafa who, with a diploma sent from Vienna on November 17th,1725, obtained the title of prince of Pietrelcina from Emperor Charles VI of Austria. Francesco Carafa died on January 9th,1768; but only on November 20th, 1772, with decree of the Grand Court of the Vicariate, Pietro Maria Firrau, prince of Luzzi, was declared heir of his feudal property. After the latter's death, which took place on November 24th, 1776, his son Tommaso Maria was recognized by decree of the Grand Court on January 21st, 1777. Francesco Carafa was the last baron of Pesco. It was right under the last two feudal lords that the most significant events of the nineteenth century were recorded for the country. In 1802, in fact, Luigi Carafa donated to the people of Pescolamazza the body of S. Reparata martire, received in Rome on October 7th,1801 by Cardinal Benedetto Fenaja, assistant to the papal throne. Actually, the fishermen had initially been assigned the body of S. Pio martire, which is now in the church of S. Anna a Pietrelcina.
The most reliable hypothesis that can be made about this change of destination of the gift of Luigi Carafa is that Don Basilio Veteri, the archpriest of the time, did not consider the body of St. Pio corresponding to his expectations not only because of its poor state of preservation (a pile of bones in a wooden box) but also, and above all, due to the limitation of worship expressly imposed in the witness letter that accompanied it. In fact, it took much more to bring back to the parish of the SS. Salvatore the people of Pescolano, who for centuries have been linked to the church of S. Nicola, which, since 1518, has fallen under the iuspatronato of the university (that is the municipality), The Carafa, considering this importance correct, would go back to Rome to procure the body of another martyr who could be revered by the people without any limitations whatsoever. And that this has actually happened is confirmed by the dates of the concession of the two martyrs (August 18th, 1801 for St. Pius and October 7th, 1801 for S. Reparata) and by the fact that the limiting clause in the first letter no longer appears in the second witness letter. At this point the baron, once assigned to the fishermen the remains of S. Reparata, would have donated to the archpriest of his other fief of Pietrelcina the mortal remains of St. Pius not knowing perhaps how to conserve them. Then, it turned out that this unsolicited gift gave the most beautiful fruit if it is true, as it is true, that it was precisely thanks to it that the young Francesco Forgione, at the moment of entering as a novice in the convent of Morcone, he chose to be called Fra Pio. And so the bond of blood that unites the fishermen to the Saint Pietrelcinese (one of his great-great-grandmothers, Maddalena Angela Marino, was actually from Pesco) is considerably strengthened by this truly singular fact that took place two centuries ago.
The second significant event for Pesco occurred in the time of Francesco Carafa, his last baron. In fact it was right below him that, taking advantage of the law on the subversion of feudality promulgated in 1806 by Giuseppe Bonaparte, three courageous citizens of the city, Dionisio Guerra (archivist chancellor), Antonio Orlando and Gennaro Vetere, undertook a long legal action to obtain that the fief of Monteleone was divided into shares among all the heads of families. The affair, in which interested the likes of Winspeare, royal deputy attorney general in the Grand Court of Cassation, G. Mazas, intendant of Avellino, G. Zurlo, minister of the Interior, and the same Gioacchino Murat, ended with the victory of the count of Policastro on March 31st of 1812. Only after about twenty years, the town of Pescolamazza, having obtained the relative authorization with real rescript dated December 7th,1836, summoned Francesco, Laura and Teresa Carafa to support this right in the name of some private citizens. Having the court of Avellino rejected this petition, an appeal was lodged with the Grand Court of Naples, which, by decision December 27th,1840, invited the applicants to prove the existence of the colonies with titles and witnesses.
The process that dragged on for another eleven years eventually ended with the final victory of the Carafa heirs. The aforementioned Grand Court, in fact, declared the perpetual colony unjustified and condemned the municipality and private citizens to pay court costs amounting to 634.38 ducats. In 1853, finally, due to the changed legislative orientation in feudal matters, and certainly not for the repeated and unfortunate legal actions of the fishermen, the Carafa family granted in perpetual emphyteusis to the municipality of Pescolamazza the former fief of Monteleone which, divided into shares, it was then distributed among all eligible citizens in exchange for an annual fee of 23.45 lire per capita. Pescolamazza, due to its geographical position, had a certain importance in the nineteenth-century administrative structure. Already starting from 1812, when it was still part of the Principato Ultra (Avellino), it was chosen, in fact, as the chief town of the district in place of Fragneto Manforte. Even after the birth of the province of Benevento, it maintained this prerogative, becoming the seat of a trial court, a mandate prison and a stamp and registry office for about thirty years, until the application of the law of March 30th,1890.
This last graphic name transformation of Pesco della Marra (Pescolamazza) was changed again to Pesco Sannita in the council session of February 11th, 1947 at the request of veterans, tired of the state of moral unease in which they had been in all circumstances in which they had been forced to declare their personal details and with them the country of origin.