Some History Of Marsico. Home of my ancestors

[EllenCatusco]

History

Random archaeological finds have allowed us to attribute with certainty to the town of Marsico pre-Roman origins.

A fortified and strongly connoted center, perhaps the Abellinum Marsicum, already mentioned by Pliny, occupied the highest part of the current settlement already between the fifth and fourth centuries BC.

The city was part of the federation of the city of Lucania, which opposed to the Roman penetration in lucania, presumably playing a decisive role for the strategic position occupied to control the entrance of the Agri valley and the roads that led from here to the Potentino and Salerno area.

After the Roman conquest and the creation of the colony of Grumentum the old Lucanian center of Marsico risked falling into oblivion, suffering the fate of many other cities in the area.

However, by finding itself on the main route of the Herculea route, which crossed the entire region connecting the Roman colonies of Venusia and Grumentum, it was able to preserve the economic and political vitality necessary to guarantee its survival. Near the city (perhaps in the locality of San Giovanni) there arose a "statio" of the important Roman road which in the ancient documents is referred to as Acidios (or Aciris = Agri).

The numerous epigraphs found here (including a milestone of Herculea itself) attest to the importance of the place and testify to the vitality of the ancient center of Marsico even in Roman times. No document can bear witness to the life of the city during the long period of the early Middle Ages and only with the arrival of the Longobards are certain news of Marsico again.

In these centuries the city assumes great strategic importance in the economy of the struggles between the Lombards, Byzantines and Saracens for the possession of Southern Italy. Coming to the southern border of the Lombard principality of Salerno, around 940, the city was elevated by Prince Gisulfo to the rank of County and placed at the head of a vast border territory.

Marsico soon became a military stronghold capable of keeping the Saracen invasions and the Byzantine armies on their way to Salerno at bay. Having inherited the political-military leadership role of the area, once belonged to Grumentum, the city soon registered a substantial population growth that made it one of the few Lucanian centers to be able to boast the title of "Civitas". The prestige of the city grew further in 1054 when the transfer to Marsico of the early Christian diocese of Grumentum was made official. With the arrival of the Normans the territorial jurisdiction of the county of Marsico had spread over almost the whole of Diano and the lower Cilento. Roberto il Guiscardo, who became Prince of Salerno,

In 1144 we find instead Count of Marsico an Altavilla. This is the Count Silvestro, son of the Count of Ragusa and a direct cousin of the King of Sicily. To the Altavilla succeeded the Guarna and in the XIII century the county of Marsico passed to the Sanseverino.

The Counts of Marsico, almost all of the Great Constituents and royal advisers, greatly influenced the politics of the kingdom throughout the Angevin period, and with the Aragonese they also became princes of Salerno. The last count of Marsico and prince of Salerno, Ferrante Sanseverino, entered in conflict with the viceroy of Naples was exiled in 1552 and his fiefdoms were put up for sale.

The Marsican Universitas succeeded in collecting the sum necessary for the ransom and was therefore ascribed to the Royal State.

In 1638, however, since the viceroy coffers were failing and the citizens were unable to find the sums necessary for the maintenance of administrative "autonomy", the city was again put up for sale and bought by the Pignatelli family under the title of Princes. In 1647 the city was devastated by popular riots linked to the revolutionary movements of Masaniello.

Prince Francesco Pignatelli was forced to flee while a dozen courtiers were slaughtered by the revolted crowd.

The plague of 1656 halved the population and only in 1800 the city was able to regain a significant demographic weight surpassing the ten thousand inhabitants in the middle of the century.

In February 1799, following the Neapolitan revolution, the symbolic "tree of freedom" was also raised in Marsico.

The people, in fact, encouraged by the sympathy that the feudal lords Diego and Vincenzo Pignatelli and the bishop Bernardo Maria Della Torre nurtured against revolutionary ideas soon joined the Neapolitan republic. The Sanfedist bands that preceded the Bourbon restoration brought all mourning and destruction to Marsico. The city, however, did not abandon the libertarian ideas and in 1820 it was already home to a "sale" carbonara (the School of Costumes) contributing during the revolts of 1820/21 that in those subsequent to the struggles for national unity and independence. In 1857 it was devastated by the terrible earthquake that razed most of the neighboring countries to the ground and a few years later, due to the ransom of brigandage,

Impoverished by the migratory waves following the two world wars, the city has undergone decades of deep crisis and today tries to re-tie the strings of its past to draw new stimuli for civil and economic growth.

[EllenCatusco]

Its translated from Italian. So I can't be sure if all words are correctly translated.

[erudita74]

Thanks for sharing this, Ellen. I'm sure there are others researching in this town who will find what you posted of value to them. I think that knowing something about the history of one's ancestral town is important to understanding the life of an ancestor there. Too often, when starting our genealogical research, all one cares about is finding the names and dates of our ancestors and charting them. Over the years, I have discovered that there are many topics one needs to explore to truly understand who our ancestors were and what their lives were like in their native land. You're off to a great start!
Erudita

[EllenCatusco]

Thank you. I always add something to the ancestors I find. I want to know their story. I found in my research my great great greatgrandmother lost her parents with in a week of each other. I wanted to make sure I included that in my tree facts. How she must have felt..These are people, my people, and without them I would not be here. I am their voice and memory. And as crazy as it sounds when I say their name out loud I'm hoping they hear me. And know they are not forgotten.