Castelvetere and Caulonia
The thing we found a little odd about Francesco Piscioneri and Caterina Ceracitano was the birth and marriage location of Castelvetere. Their son Nicola was also listed as being born in Castelvetere. How far from Caulonia might that be? How and why would they have left their ancestral home to go to Caulonia and raise a family? Lots to speculate on there. And Nicola is listed as being born in Castelvetere and yet dying in Caulonia. So Dad started doing some map research……
It turns out that there is no town of Castelvetere, but there are a couple places with additional names near Naples (e.g., Castelvetere sul Calore). However, there were two streets near Caulonia: Via Castelvetere and Largo Castelvetere, both on the coast, not in the actual village of Caulonia. There must be some connection…..so the research continued.
In the middle of this, Dad just happened to mention to me that there is a neat site about Caulonia: http://www.caulonia2000.it — just make a note of it and visit sometime. Well, I was right here, so I went to it, and so did he, and guess what was the first word that jumped off the page at him: Castelvetere!!!! It’s all in Italian so we weren’t getting too far, but then he recalled having read something about Castelvetere in the history of Caulonia, so we went here: http://www.caulonia2000.it/pagine/guidatur/en_stori.htm — the history of Caulonia in English. Wahoo…..we’ve got it now!
Caulonia was the town’s original name, of Greek origin, named for it’s location near Mount Caulone. The settlement of the area called Caulonia dates back to about 722 BC!! But there were wars and such, and eventually, about 200 BC in the Punic Wars……
“By wish of the conquerors, the Greek name of Caulonia was changed to the Latin name of Castelvetere and, as a consequence, the remaining survivors had to forget their Magna-Grecian traditions. The ancient inhabitants of Caulonia however, found comfort and hope in the Evangelical message of the Redeemer. With the passage of time, through the turbulent events of that era, Castelvetere once more shone in the firmament of Calabria.”
This is just amazing — they’re talking about the earthly life of Jesus Christ here!! Caulonians — although their town was now called Castelvetere — were around for that historic event, and it gave them hope in a time of defeat. Absolutely amazing.
The town remained Castelvetere (derives from Latin Castellum Vetus, meaning Old Castle) until — get this — 1862. That is 2000 years later — and it’s the year Nicola was born!
On the 30th of June 1862, following the territorial unification of Italy, by the Ministerial Decree N.123830 of the Italian Home Office, Castelvetere changed its name back to the ancient glorious one of Caulonia.
Nicola was born a few months later, in October, and perhaps the name change hadn’t quite caught on yet….after all it had been Castelvetere for about 2000 years!!! So there is no discrepancy of location, and our ancestors did not travel from Castelvetere to Caulonia to raise their family — the name simply changed back and forth. Nicola actually was born and died in what we now know as Caulonia, and his parents were born, married and died there too. For that matter, come to think of it, the reverse is also true: ANY of our relatives (including my g-g-grandmother Teresa) who were born before June 30th 1862 in what we now refer to as Caulonia, were actually born in Castelvetere!