Gens Braghetta

With the excuse of the "dean" of the family, my cousin Renzo, promoter of this nice, easy-going initiative, in assigning the tasks to each of us, has assigned to me the following tasks:

- to prepare a coat of arms that from today on, will have to represent the Family ( unless somebody of the " brothers away" does not make us aware on something of already existing in last centuries );

- to brief the assembly on the origin of the Braghetta family; matter that I started immediately with    seriousness but very pleasantly.

It is my personal opinion that the subject had to be turned towards some fundamental lines:

The origins of the family, of the people, of the clan in genetic sense. Tracing, as much as possible, the genetic map of the descendants with reference to the places and going back to the ethnic-historian-geographical origins

When and where the Braghetta surname is born

The female descents, which I will face in epilogue, bring me to a series of considerations I will do later on.

And we directly pass to the point 1.

The origins of the family in genetic sense
It is almost impossible producing documents preceding at the centuries XIII and XIV, on the origin and the roots of the family. And I have so proceeded by logic.

a)      Above all,  the geographic map obtained by Renzo by searching in Internet, locates the Braghetta core majors in the neighbourhood, besides of Scrofano (Sacrofano today), of Padova and Ferrara; all historical-geographic sites colonized by the coming of the Etruscan people from some part of India (Maghadi, Nepal)?
(Possible dissertation on the Etruscan ones)
 
b)      I pick up today and codify more organically those traditions and familiar tales received by child from the dean of the family about 60 years ago. In particular of uncle Peppino (1864-1951), brother of grandfather Lallo, that was acting, between other duties, as historian and conservative of the familiar archives. He was amusing telling us, while we were observing with admiration his "facocchio" work ( or rather builder of chariot ), that our family, coming from Petra Pertusa (5 km South of Sacrofano), had rooted in the area of Sacrofano, or better in the multitude of forests, partially existing also today, after the Vejo fall (the first Etruscan place not so far from here, town gained by Romans and close to today's Via Cassia). At that time they could not be named as Braghetta but, in 1400 certainly yes.
To testimony of that, uncle Peppino, in his wardrobe-archive, was preserving and showing to us with a certain pride, a small book in parchment with some annotations which the passed generations of Braghetta were updating with facts and important episodes of their epoch. In particular I remember a sort of stamp or brand, all faded, that uncle Peppino was making go back at the XV century. It testifies that not only the Braghetta were existing since such a period, but that also loved to preserve track of their family for the following descendants.
 Such a treasure, of which only today we appreciate the immense value, disappeared after his death together with the ancient books and memories (carabattole), due to the fact that the daughters, Margherita and Marietta, staying one in Rome and the other to Campagnano, rented the house to third. The circumstance was recently confirmed to myself by my cousin Laura.
 
c)      The first Etruscans, arrived to Italy from the East since the IX-VIII century b.C., after the big migrations which began in the second millennium b.C., have left to us the testimony of their physical configuration, representing in terracotta bodices, cinerary urns, painted vases, with their oriental effigy and such a peculiar eyes in almond shaped; features which, getting through the centuries, disappeared because they mixed with the autochthon populations.
Well now allow me a playful note. A thing which surprised me when I was young, was the aspect of the face of my cousin Lallo (who unfortunately prematurely left us) and my cousin Caterina (here present) with a crack in place of the eyes, as well as my daughter Livia when she was a baby. Characteristics I found, still evident and marked, in Franco (Lallo son) who was nicknamed from his contemporaries "The Chinese". Undoubtedly the DNA and the chromosomes come back again!
It is at last notorious that anciently the same Romans were already defining the Etruscan ones "the skilled bellies" .So, look at some of us and decide!
I like therefore thinking that also these considerations based on the likeness, can make our descent and the genetic map go up again to the Etruscan people.

Established the first point which classifies us as indo-europeans or better coming from the Resena (Etruscan), we pass to examine the second point: where and when we drawn this surname?
Here the clues and the hypotheses are supported by documents and registers which can be found in the archives (municipal, Churches, State etc) that strongly deny the amusing hypothesis enunciated in a "sonetto" of the dialectal poet Alcide Passeri.
My friend Alcide left us in this direction the explanation on the origin of the name: (sorry but it is almost impossible to translate it in good English!)

The pope, looking that in the "Sistina"chapel
Mr Bonarroti, ugly pig,
had painted dozens of angels and saints
with the dangling thing

so that, even Saint Catherine
seemed embarrassed to such a vision
ordered Mr Daniele from Volterra
to cancel them all with discolouring.

But this one, real stubborn genius,
to one put a drap to another a scarf
to one a trouser to another a Braghetta

To the point that the newspaper "Gazetta"
gave him the name of  "Braghettone"
that afterward, with time became Braghetta.

But we come back to the reality. It happened to me, in the 60s, to consult in the municipal archives an ancient tomo of 1500 where an Olisse Braghetta was a representing signer, among the others, of an act decided by the Scrofano community. The Ulisse name handed down itself until today, even if with another surname because of female descent.
There is still a contract drawn up between a Serraggi and a Francesco Braghetta for the rent of a couple of oxes for the summer season of 1583.
Therefore it is sure that our family had been already present in Sacrofano since 1500.
Other tracks: in 1617, we find  the existence of an altar of the family in the left nave of the San Biagio church and in 1700, a legal action from the prince Chigi to a Francesco Braghetta (said Traioni) for a discrepancy on some jobs contracted for the building of the Vinciguerra palace, today of Gasparri.

The Braghetta denomination seems to be of Venetian origin. The "braghetta" was a cloth, a kind of trouser up to the shin-bone, worn by a corporation of artists, artisans, entrepreneurs still to become a uniform or badge and up to be given as name to some family.
The period should be fixed around the XIII century, when the surnames  started being born, frequently drawn in the corporations of limbs and jobs, surnames we still find nowadays.
It would be also useful that the cousins of Padova-Ferrara-Bologna (Ravenna) area would bring us some news or documents.

It is also possible that, still in the same period, in which the job of soldier to the retinue of mercenari was frequently moving troops around the peninsula to the money of this or that gentleman, some Braghettas established in the zone of Rome, where the Pope's presence was creating opportunities of shifting not necessarily of military character; it is also reasonable thinking that some Braghetta, for the same reason, subsequently took place in the current Italian Switzerland giving origin to another branch of the family.
With such a purpose, a theatrical pièce, to take therefore with caution, tells that

Niccolò III d'Este, who governed Ferrara from 1384-1441, went to Rome in the attempt to calm down the Pope Boniface IX, which was very resentful for his libertine behaviour and licentious. His behaviour was in fact considered absolutely as not consonant to the casata the Pope had granted few years before, in the vicariate of the town.

Since the Pope was refusing to receive him, Niccolò stayed in Rome with his sequel of dignitaries, collaborators and servants for about two months.

A certain Francesco Braghetta is mentioned among his retinue (still, as before, to the firstborns of the family are assigned the names of Angelo and Francesco)

Niccolò d'Este and his considerable group headquarter was located in a area included between the current Saxa Rubra and the Foro Italico (peripheral zone of Rome in the line for Sacrofano), from which they could easily reach San Pietro.

The search of provisions for his men and pasture for the horses could have driven the Francesco Braghetta to stock up, frequently, in the agricultural area above, where, besides the business, he would have intertwined affectionate friendships which, together with the healthiest climate with respect to that of Ferrara, induced him to establish there (or did he return afterwards?).

Had he given origin to the Braghetta surname in the zone of Rome?

Going back to Sacrofano I mention a last track which charms me, on which I reserve in the future to develop cadastral researches of archive.
The residences which came to us in inheritance from the family, placed immediately outside the North door of the old city centre of Sacrofano, allow to infer that the Braghetta were proprietary of a considerable zone of ground and habitations, which from the cadastral maps turn out of about two hectares, with perimeter: to South from the walls of the Castello. To West from the current abattoir. To East from the ditch of Fontana Mancina and the way for Castelnuovo. To North from the property of San Pietro.
So, for the age of the reunderstanded buildings, the presence of the Braghetta family, confirmed at least since the XV century and its extension, allow to classify it like a family of a certain relief.
In such area of about two hectares, was rising and still rises , a core of old houses called in dialect "o spidale" to be read in the sense of "hospitalis" not already of hospital. Certainly it was an overnight stay place and a rest for those pilgrims who were coming from the North in pilgrimage towards Rome, probably managed from the knights of San Giovanni in Jerusalem ( the more ancient church of Sacrofano is in fact dedicated to San Giovanni ).
So, at a first glance appears quite significant that the buildings reached us in inheritance are all placed in such a area, intimately mixed with those of the ecclesiastical organizations of the arci-brotherhood of the S.S Sacrament and the Fratelloni.
An hypothesis just to be proved, but that could also explain the existence of our surname both in Sacrofano or in Padova-Ferrara, is that the Braghetta were engaged in some way to the management of the hostels and the vigilance of the principal access roads of the pilgrims from and for Rome.

Sacrofano, being to the confluence between the Franchigena road and the Germanic road and at a day of walk from Rome, could represent a frequented base. May be they acted in support of pilgrims entering Italy from the East part (Austria, Slovenia) through the via Romea and the via Flaminia.
In fact, when I saw with cadastral maps in my hands,  the residences of the descendants of that Francesco Braghetta, died in the second half of 1800, I obtained a leopard's skin map extent of aforesaid land.
And then, observing more in detail the map trying to insert also the properties of the female descendants of Francesco, Beatrice and Apollonia, it appeared a reality which would otherwise never being assumable. The leopard's skin filled immediately (see enclosure).

And being stated the importance of  the female descent of the Braghetta, I decidedly pass to analyse the point 3.

Well, in antithesis with my cousin Renzo, who limited the search of the surname via Internet, I find very limitative and misleading to concentrate the research only on the "patronymic", or rather to the current system to call the families, and so the Gens.
But such a custom was anciently obliged and imposed before from Greeks, then Romans and at last from the Cattolic Church until our days. Greeks had relegated the women in the "ginecei"" and they were showing off their elegance with young guys and efebi. And the Romans, competing with Greeks, they were using women, relegated in the "matronei" (except for just rare cases) only for the procreation and the continuation of the Gens. And in antithesis with the people of their period (Cartaginesi and Etruschi) they were classifying the Etruscan women as libertine and of easy virtue, because they ate and sat together with the men on the same cline as the husband, they were taking part to the discussions and participating, in other words, to the management of the family, of politics and the state.
I will mention, only as chronicle title, a few finds reached us that show the sarcophagus with a woman sat together with her husband and on all funeral enrolments they counted the name of the deceased followed by the patronymic, by the matronimico and the age (see the tomb of the Claudi in Cerveteri, tomb of Piana di Chiusi, ecc). Needless to talk about  the treatment reserved to the woman given by Catholics, from the emperor Constantine on….
Ascertained such not negligible reality, I am ready to wrap up the conclusions of my analysis. That are:
1. I consider beyond discussion the genetic origin I want to attribute to the Etruscan people.
2. The Braghetta in the Middle Age were involved in the management, both in Sacrofano and along the Via Flaminia and Romea, of the property of "spitaliero" ("hospitalis") of the Knights Gerosolimiti (maybe builders or engaged in buildings maintenance)?
3. Afterwards, will be necessary in the future to search in the archives so as to support our hypotheses in a more detailed way.
Also, I would like to urge someone of the followers to a sound cooperation.
 In addition, I think that the adoption of a coat of arms, of a badge and even of a seal to be delivered in the hands of "seven wises" chosen inside various tribes, could represent a nice initiative, even if anachronistic, but, may be for this reason typical of the Braghetta style!