My Italian Ancestry By Francisco Andragnes
I was born in Argentina and my surname is Basque, however 75% of my ancestry is of Italian origin. My ancestry comes from Trapani, the westernmost town in Sicily, all the way to Borgo Sacco, a town in Trentino close to the Austrian border, including also ancestors from Crocefieschi, Voltri, Finale , Laigueglia and Savona in Liguria, Meta and Piano di Sorrento in Campania, Lugo in Vicenza, and Ora in Trentino.
Both my maternal grandparents were born in Italy. Their paths would have never crossed in Italy as my grandmother was born in Milan and my grandfather was born seven years later in Meta di Sorrento, near Napoli and grew up in Genova. However, they both decided to leave Italy to look for better opportunities. My grandmother Elena Benetti first moved to Egypt to teach at the Italian school and then to London, to run the Italian school there. At her school, Nicolò Piacentino, a young Italian economics laureate came to make a presentation to the students, and somehow they fell in love. Sometime later he got hired by the Costa and Preve families from Genova and Laigueglia, to establish an oil maker in Argentina, and asked my grandmother if she would go with him. They got married in Argentina, where Nicolò had a successful career as a grains trader, and Elena lived up to the age of 102, surrounded by the love of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Elena Benetti was born in Milano from Ilario Benetti from Sacco di Trento and Emma Lanaro from Lugo di Vicenza, both families from northern Italy.
Sacco di Trento, now a suburb from Rovereto, was under Austrian control at that time, at the base of the Alps. The Benetti family worked as zattieri (rafters) who traded and carried along the Adige river wood from the alps that was used for construction in Verona and Vicenza. Ilario’s mother was a Vulcan, one of the clients of his father Achille, and his grandmother was a Bissaldi, a family of merchants and lawyers in Sacco. Upon their father’s early death my great grand father Ilario Benetti and his brother Ruggero relocated to Lugo to run the Cartiera Nodari (later renamed Cartiera Burgo), the largest and most modern paper mill in the region, and were made Cavaliere because of their contribution to the economic development of Italy, and married wives from that town.
Ilario Benetti married Emma Lanaro. Lanaro was a family of landowners in the town of Lugo north of Vicenza. My great great grand father, Giuseppe Lanaro (1840-1912) was also the mayor of his town and fought together with Garibaldi in 1859 as part of the 7th regiment of infantry. Giuseppe Lanaro met his wife Paolina Maglione in Laigueglia when we was raising investment money for the Nodari cartiera.
My ancestors Maglione, Preve and Stalla, were some of the strongest families of Laigueglia and Marseilles, and of distant Spanish origins. Their business mainly consisted owning fleets that would bring oil from southern Italy to Marseilles where it was used to make soap, with family members located in Laigueglia, Marsiglia, Naples and other towns where they traded with. The family histories are well documented in local literature, including stories about how they fought the fleets of corsaries and “turks”. A colorful one told how once they run out of bullets from their cannons they started using silver coins as ammunition. Maglio means hammer, and the family crest includes a lion holding a wooden cane. Among the better known ancestors we have Matteo Maglione, aka “Il Garo”, Francesco Maglione, known as Il Garotto di Marsiglia, and Lorenzo Preve, aka il Canosso.
My ancestors Maglione, Preve and Stalla, were some of the strongest families of Laigueglia and Marseilles, and of distant Spanish origins. Their business mainly consisted owning fleets that would bring oil from southern Italy to Marseilles where it was used to make soap, with family members located in Laigueglia, Marsiglia, Naples and other towns where they traded with. The family histories are well documented in local literature, including stories about how they fought the fleets of corsaries and “turks”. A colorful one told how once they run out of bullets from their cannons they started using silver coins as ammunition. Maglio means hammer, and the family crest includes a lion holding a wooden cane. Among the better known ancestors we have Matteo Maglione, aka “Il Garo”, Francesco Maglione, known as Il Garotto di Marsiglia, and Lorenzo Preve, aka il Canosso.
TMy maternal grandfather, Nicolò Piacentino, was son of Giuseppe Piacentino from Trapani in Sicily and Maria Sofia Scarpati, from the Sorrento peninsula.
My grandfather’s grandfather, also called Nicolò Piacentino, was born in Trapani and died in Tunis. The Piacentino family had been running salt mines in Trapani for almost three centuries. Salt was mainly used to preserve the tuna fished in the Mediterranean. After the economic impact of the Franco Prussian war forced many people in Trapani to relocate in Tunis, until the French imprisoned many of these Italian immigrants during WWII, and these Italian families came back to Italy or France.
There are two main Piacentino branches in Trapani, but all Piacentino descend from the same couple, Sebastiano Placentino and Giacoma Paneri.
Nicoló Piacentino, the father of Giuseppe Piacentino, married Maria Cernigliaro (who was a first cousin of his mother María Antonia Cernigliaro), from family of sea merchants from Trapani. Most of my ancestors in Trapani lived in the central/port area near the church of San Pietro. Other ancestor last names in the area include the Virzi, Ricevuto, Mancuso, Savalli, and Cassisa, all families with long traditions in the area as well.
The Scarpati was a family of sailors and navigators. Ferdinando Scarpati, a great uncle of him, established a well-known school of Navigation. He also descends from the Maresca, Iaccarino and Lauro families from Piano di Sorrento also in the maritime business. Francesco Saverio died at sea from yellow fever that he acquired trading at the Cape Verde islands in Africa.
Francesco Saverio married Rachele Cafiero, family of rich and established merchants and navigators, also of distant Spanish origins, including the Admiral Gioavanni Cafiero who was very close to the Borbon King of the two Sicilies. Actually Cafiero was the last name of three of her four grandparents, but her paternal grandfather was an Esposito, who changed his last name because “Esposito” means abandoned child, which he was. Her uncle wanted to become a priest and would not have been very successful with the wrong last name.
While my paternal grandmother, Delia Morando was born in Argentina, all her grand parents were born in Liguria:
Her father Lorenzo Morando was also born in Argentina son of two recent immigrants, Giovanni Battista Morando and Rosa Tacchella, both from Croce Fieschi. Morando was a family of merchants, some of them noble, from Croce Fieschi and Genova. Morando comes from “Moro” (Moorish). The family crest, which consisted of three moorish heads with silver headbands and a golden background, was sculpted in 1686 outside the Santa Croce church in Croce Fieschi and destroyed during the revolutionary uprisings in 1797. By the second half of the 19th century the family had lost it’s wealth and become mainly farmers. However this tradition of building churches was continued by my great grandfather who helped build and ornate the church of San Nicolas de Bari in Buenos Aires.
Lorenzo Morando married Adela Pignone in Argentina. Adela had two Italian parents, Pellegrino Pignone from Votri and Anita Bottaro from Savona, who married in Argentina. The Pignone were fabbroferrai (Blacksmiths) working at the factories outside Voltri, now abandoned. Bottaro, family of merchants and maritime captains in Savona. Among my ancestors Capitano Carlo Giovanni Bottaro and his father Capitano Giovanni Battista Bottaro. They both married into the Bottino family, who worked as osti (hosts) and fishermen in Finale Ligure.
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