"Fiumi di parole" (rivers of words) might be said about these beautiful documents, written slowly in trembling or elegant handwriting, at the bottom of which there are the crosses of those who could not write or, as in this document from 1819, the original signature of Francesco, just below the signature of his father Domenico: two "bracciali" (farm-labourers) who, in a period where schools did not certainly exist in villages, had learnt to write - at least to write
their signatures.
And the municipality archives now stop. To go still backwards, we need other starting points, which are the birth records of these early-19th century citizens, and from there we proceed to the parish churches of Santa Giusta di Sassa (on the left) and San Bartolomeo di Scoppito (on the right).
At Santa Giusta the search is soon over: a young man is working in the church backyard, we ask about the "parroco", he says "Sono io il parroco" (it's me) and informs us that the church has documents only for the 19th century. He does not know what happened of the older registers. A few km away beautiful St Bartolomeo (one of the oldest churches in
Abruzzo, from the 11th century) awaits where it has always been for nearly one thousand
years, watching silently over the spectacular view of the valley and mountains
There, in the chilly october air, Don Valente is talking to some people from his parish. He greets us, and invites us in. There, inside a big oaken wardrobe, a number of old registers, and one, small as a copybook, with the whole 18th century: in beautiful Latin handwriting, all the children baptized starting from 1714 in over one hundred years at the church. Going backwards from father to father, we get to the (maybe...) earliest record, the birth of
Bernardino Fiamma in 1729 Here is the Latin text on the Liber Baptizatura (see a scan on the left):
Ego, D. Franciscus Cappelletti huius
Ecclesiae Parochus baptizavi infantem
natum die 23 hs mensis ex Dominico
Flamma et Livia Aniballi huius Parochiae
coniugibus cui impositum est nomen
Bernardinus Antonius, Matrina fuit Angela
Maria Mennella uxor Ignatii Cappelletti
huius Parochiae.
English Translation: "24 September year 1729 -
Bernardinus Antonius - I, D. Franciscus Cappelletti parish
priest of this church, baptized an infant
born on the day 23 of this month from
Domenico Fiamma and Livia Aniballi
married couple of this parish to whom the
name of Bernardinus Antonius was given,
Godmother was Angela Maria Mennella
wife of Ignatius Cappelletti from this
parish."
Well, there's really something special in reading these pages, in their original handwriting, stained and at points almost unreadable, telling about a father going to this very church among these same mountains to register the birth of his child,when Napoleon was not yet born and Australia still to be discovered, California still the reign of native Americans, while in this small ancient municipality here people rejoiced together to celebrate the birth of Bernardino, Domenico's Fiamma's son!
And this small child, an ancestor to the lovely little girl on the right, surely played, hurt himself, smiled at his mother, climbed up trees, became a man, met Giovanna from San Panfilo d'Ocre, a faraway village at that time, just 25 minutes by car now, married and got children and grandchildren (all their names written down in this small book), and then was cried upon by those who loved him, in this very San Bartolomeo, and was buried in that little mountain cemetery some hundred meters from
here
They seem so real, and at the same time there's a feeling of generations passing like a
breeze through and reaching small Sophia in the United States, who has in her genetic heritage something of this remote child, born on that day in September 1729. We are really "put on earth a little space, so that we may learn to bear the beams of love"!
