Happened in Genzano di Lucania.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

You can see more at this addresses, DIY brickwork  and,  http://diybrickwork.com,   

This article can also be found at this link, Massacre in Genzano di Lucania. 

Today I am reposting this story, just to keep it in my diary, it is a sorry story that it is better if we can forget, but these things happen in life, so, we need to remember. Anyhow, it is hard to believe what happened, in a town that believes in God and saints, to understand that look at this beautiful Madonna statue, that we take around town for three days, when we have this feast that all the town participate. But anyhow, let me tell this sorry story.  

Massacre in Genzano di Lucania  

Welcome to our article, Massacre in Genzano di Lucania

Dear readers, this is the town I came from, so, I am sorry to say that a terrible thing has happened, which will make this town look, as if it is the wild American west. But people over there are good people; so, to show you what they are like over there and soften the shock that this story will bring you, I am going to show you first a few good things that happen in this town. Then we will tell you about the massacre that this madman caused in the town of Genzano.

 My heart cries in pain while I tell the story

Dear readers our hearts cry in pain, when we hear this terrible news that has happened in Genzano. We want to think about the town we came from as a peaceful town, but there has been this nut that has upset everything, and at Christmas eve killed a few people, what a shock it has been, because we believe that Genzano is a peaceful religious town, as most of the towns of Southern Italy are; therefore, we as emigrant want to remember all those happy things that happen there, especially those religious events that the entire population seems to take part, I believe that those emigrant that for one reason and another have left their native town, they want to remember their town’s happy events and not this tragedy that has shocked everybody.

So, here we want to show our readers what we mean when we say that Genzano is a quiet religious town, because the most important events that everybody takes part are religious, there is very little else that would get the entire population of the town interested in a single event; one of this is Christmas of course, the other one for the people of Genzano is this feast of the Madonna that is celebrated for three days every year.

So, here I want to show you photos of this popular feast for two reasons; one is that it lessens the shock of the bad news that follows, the other is that we are not so bad in this town, and we the people that left this town, want to remember our town, when there is a feast and everybody is happy. Then we will talk about this tragedy, and the tragedies that have happened.

 

Massacre in the town I came from. 

This year 2011 in Genzano di Lucania there won’t be any joy for Christmas, no matter which way you look at it, it does not look good. Christmas is supposed to be a peaceful and happy family gathering, and everybody should cherish the company of their friends and close relatives; but this year in Genzano di Lucania this will not happen, and if some people will be able to put aside what has just happened in Genzano will be a small minority.

When such terrible things happen at Christmas Eve, one should be forgiven to thing that there is no God, otherwise why God let these horrible things happen one may ask?

Here are some links that show how the local media reported this crime, they are of course written in Italian as this is the native language of the place.

Potenza: strage di Genzano, condanna dalla famiglia dell'omicida

Famiglia sterminata in Lucania, oggi l'autopsia. L'omicida in ...‎‎

A meno di 24 ore dalla tragedia che il 24 dicembre ha sconvolto Genzano di Lucania dove Ettore Bruscella ha quasi annientato una famiglia.

--------------------------

What has happened is shocking. 

Listen! My heart cries to hear this horrible news; you see this is the town that I came from, and I have always thought that nothing violent can happen it this friendly town where everybody knows everybody, so, to thinking of murdering people in this town was impossible until today, because today has happened something so horrendous that has changed everything, as a triple murder has happened, and it has happened on Christmas Eve, so, what sort of Christmas will the inhabitant of Genzano have this Christmas?

I am afraid to say, but this Christmas will be a very said one for the people of Genzano, just to think that one of their own has killed three people, it is incomprehensible one can only think and say that the killer has lost his mind, what else can it be?

The killer is 77 years old, that means that he is an old man and he should have known better. I must say that I have talked to the killer a couple of times when I was in Genzano about thirty years ago, he seemed all right then, but when I think about it I have always known that he was a man that would easily turn to violence; So, what sort of man is he one may ask?

He is a skinny man of average height very alert and sensitive, I know that he was restless even when he was a kid, and as the story goes he peeked up one of those unexploded petard too soon after it fell, but the petard exploded, so, he was wounded and became lame. He happened to do that because he belongs to a family that are specialized in firework, and that is why he happened to be there when that unexploded petard fell. Notwithstanding this incident he continued to work at the family fireworks factory, and this is what he has done most of his life, except when he migrated to Australia for a few years in the seventies. This is how I can describe this heartless killer, Ettore Bruscella.

You see I have migrated to Australia from this Genzano town when I was young, and I am still in Australia today, therefore, we are wondering today to which family the victim belong, there are too many Menchise families in this town, so, we wonder whether we can be related to them, there are no description on the Italian news for us old Italians to understand that, you see, we want to see written the names of the parents of the victims, so, that we could recall who they are, or a given name that some families have, or even where they lived in the town, or their farm possessions, just to give us a better idea who they are. So, we are wondering who they are.

Anyhow I am going to publish what I have written, and by doing that I will be informing my countryman what has happened, and I also hope that some of my countryman will let us know a few more details about this terrible event, so, we may learn the facts as they are.

-----------------------------------------

Who are they? 

Who are the victim’s relatives we wonder?

As I have said above, for lack of more detailed information, at this stage we don’t know who the victims are, even though we know their names, we don’t know to which family they belong, they can even be our relatives who know. For us that have been away from our native town of Genzano for 50 years or more, it is near impossible to figure out who the victims are, just by using what we have learned from the Italian news, but we would like to know anyhow, so, I and my wife who is also from Genzano have tried to assume to which family the victims could belong, so, at the moment we have assumed that the victims may indeed be some distant relatives, I am saying distant as they may fall in that category when we start thinking that we are not related anymore because the link is too far back.

Although I am a Menchise, I believe that they are not related to me because of this name, but they could be related to me in a different way. For instance, I assume that the victims could be related to me in this way on my mother side, starting from me and working my way back I can see; me, my mother, my grandma and my grandma parents Ceruzzi, from here I can go forward to the present generation of the victims. So, from my grandma parents Ceruzzi who had a large extended family including my great uncle Leonardo who had I believe a son Gerardo who once was vice mayor in the town of Genzano in the fifties and a daughter Marietta who married a Menchise and had a family including Leonardo Menchise who is the husband and father of the victims, this is what we believe they are. I wonder how close we are to the truth.

---------------------------------------

One more shock for Genzano town. 

What we have written above took place in December 2011 and that was really shocking, but for Genzano di Lucania that quiet town in Southern Italy the troubles are not yet over, as there is another murder in June 2012.

An old lady aged 75 was found dead from one of her relatives, who was wondering why she did not return to Rome, when she had rung them and said that she was returning, anyhow this person went in her house and found her dead.

This is what was reported from the Italian and local media, unfortunately these reports are written in Italian, anyhow these are the links: ( quanto scrive La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno)

(Update (28/06/2012) - È stato fermato dai carabinieri) Stopped by the Carabinieri (Carabinieri is the old way the police were called when there was the monarchy in Italy, today the monarchy is gone but the name remains for this type of police force.)  

Anyhow, the police have stopped this Tunisian, who is the prime suspect and he was living near the house of said old lady murdered and he was about to move or run away from Genzano. Check the link below: 

 

Genzano di Lucania: fermato un tunisino per l'omicidio di ...

The reasons for this murder are not yet known, but this is another horrible murder, as she was raped and violently beaten causing death, perhaps it was a robbery gone wrong for a start, but who knows?  

At this point of time one should question some other reason why this has happened, since the murder is this Tunisian that broke free from the prison during the civil war in Tunisia and Libya. One should ask whether it is wise to allow all these refugees freedom on the Italian soil, and whether they should be restricted. Until the authorities make sure that they are refugees that the war has forced them to flee their country of origin.

Today having come back to this article for my own reasons, it made me remember this last murder above that this Tunisian did, and thinking about Tunisians, I believe that the terrorist in Germany is a Tunisian. I believe that we should learn how not to trust these people, it is the only safe way.      

Anyhow, this is all we are going to write in this article for the time being, until something else comes up about, Genzano di Lucania murderous happenings, or something that can be reported in an article like this. So now, let us go back to talk about Genzano history. We are going to talk about this country castle, The Norman castle of Monteserico. 

To see more click on this link,  Massacre in Genzano di Lucania.

-------------------------------------- 

My twilight story at the fountain.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

You can see more at this addresses, DIY brickwork  and,  http://diybrickwork.com,   

This article can also be found at this link,  Personal twilight stories. 

Today this fountain is an old time monument, because it is not anymore the important place it used to be, when everyone was fetching water and meeting other people while doing it. So, today this forum is used a lot less, but sometimes they may have a feast or a play, and this is one of them, here the fountain is being used as a stage to play whatever they are playing. 

This is how the Cavallina fountain looks like, when we visit it from the town. The photo above this photo is the fountain in the background, as you can see for yourself.   

Welcome to our article, Personal twilight stories. 

This is another article of my life stories when I was young. 

So, let me begin telling this personal twilight story. Dear readers, we believe that there are people that believe in the spiritual world, and they believe many things that we are not sure whether we should believe them or not. Here I am talking about the twilight stories, ghostly stories, and dreams from the other side. You see, I believe that wherever we go in the world, when you visit old town or castles there are ghostly stories going around, some of them are hard to believe, but at the same time, we cannot prove that they do not exist, so, we have to give them the benefit of doubts; we have also to understand that dreams from the other side might be possible, as we don’t know enough to say that it is only our imagination and what we dream cannot exist; but that is our personal choice to believe whatever we want to believe.

Having said that, now let me tell you this story that I call, Cavallina fountain twilight story. Now as we have said, wherever you go, where there are ancient buildings or old places that have a history of their own, they have their own story to tell and they may have strange ghostly stories to tell; also in my native town of Genzano di Lucania there are old places with a history of their own. So, my native town of Genzano has also these ghostly stories, because old people say that these things exist and have happened to some of them. So, let me tell you a story that has happened to me and to some of my friends, when I was young. It may seem strange to believe that these ghostly things exist. Anyhow, here under is my own true story and what happened that night and why, and I believe that we were lucky it did not end in tragedy.

Now, we need to say that my mother, my grandma and other elders of the town of Genzano kept telling us not to go alone to this town fountain called Cavallina when it was dark, because people have seen strange things happening there, so, we young people were warned not to go there and if we had to go there not to go alone; but as we know, most young people do not believe their elders and want to find out for themselves, if what they say is true, and so did I and some of my friends one early night.

Anyhow, let me tell you why I want to tell you this story. Now because I was talking about Genzano town and this fountain, I remembered this ghostly event and a dream that I had about this fountain, and other creepy happenings and ghostly stories about this fountain; so, I want to tell you those stories that I was personally involved, not only at the time when I was young but also later on in my life. So, I hope you would like to hear them.

------------------------------------- 

The fountain twilight zone.

As we have said above, when I was young my mother, grandma and other elders of the town kept telling us not to go alone to this fountain Cavallina when it was dark, because people had seen ghostly sights; but if you had to go there not to go alone and go early evening, so, even when we were coming back from the fields from that side of town, and we had to go past this fountain we had to be careful as soon as it was dark, if you had to water your horse or donkey or whatever animals you had to water, we tried to water them during the day or early before dusk. We must say that there were other unspeakable activities that went on before dusk near this fountain, which we are going to tell you later in another article, because now we are talking about ghostly happenings at this fountain.

To cut a long story short, we are going to tell you what happened to me and some of my friends. As you know, young men in their later teens or early twenties are not easily scared and they start thinking that these ghostly stories are not true, so, we wanted to see it ourselves, therefore, I and a few friends of mine were going to pay a visit to this fountain Cavallina at night; so, one late evening we went to see this fountain Cavallina, we approached the fountain from above and there was nobody to be seen, so, we said to each other, you see there is nobody here and there are no ghosts around, we really thought that we were going to see something unusual at this fountain, so, we were disappointed saying to each other there are no ghosts to be seen.

So, we kept going to the fountain when we saw a white rabbit in a corner and soon we gave chase as we wanted to grab this rabbit, not just for fun, but because we wanted to eat the rabbit as meat was expensive those days. There were four of us giving chase to this white rabbit, but the rabbit kept escaping us, but we kept running after it and the rabbit was taking us very close to a ravine which had a drop of over ten meter and any one that would fall down there would instantly end up dead.

Anyhow, suddenly one of us said; what rabbit that is not a rabbit? Suddenly, we realized that we were not chasing a rabbit at all, but we were chasing a ghost or an evil spirit that was trying to take us over the ravine to kill us if we had followed it to the end, anyhow all four of us escaped unhurt, we were lucky that the rabbit chase ended that way. Now, let me explain these ghostly beliefs. It is said that ghost or evil spirits lose their full power when people realize that they are a supernatural apparition, so, in this case we were lucky when we realized that what we were chasing was not a rabbit, but it was an evil spirit; well at least this is what we were made to believe from the elders, when we told them our rabbit story.

What we have written above was one real life happening, but what I am going to tell you next is only a dream, but you can say that this dream that we are going to tell you belongs also to the twilight zone, just like my life story about chasing the white rabbit belongs to the twilight zone, because it involves spiritual beliefs.

--------------------------------------

 The fountain twilight dream. 

What we have written above, was one of my real-life happenings; but what we are going to tell you next is only a dream, but we can say that this dream belongs to the twilight zone, like the story above about chasing the white rabbit belongs to the twilight zone.

So, let me tell you, my dream; you see, I was dreaming about an old person who wanted to teach me something at the Cavallina fountain, which is the same fountain where we were chasing the white rabbit, in the story above. I know that you are thinking that this is a stupid reason to tell you a dream. But before you judge me and my dream read what I have to say, because it could be interesting, if you believe that dreams have some useful meanings, or they can come from the spiritual world or afterlife world.

To understand my dream, I need to explain that this old person might have been the spirit my great, great, great grandma who lived not far from this fountain Cavallina, and who had used this fountain during her life many times; perhaps she had lived through one of this contagious disease that require washing everything properly to avoid contamination, because this is what she wanted to teach me during the dream.

When I dreamed this dream I was in Australia in my late forties, but in my dream I was only a boy about ten or eleven years old, (I suppose that this difference in age in the dream wanted to show me that the old lady was very ancient spirit compared to me), so, this very old lady was standing beside me at this fountain Cavallina; strange as it may seem, I had taken some dishes and other eating utensil from the old house, where my grandma lived to wash at the fountain; the old lady was telling me to wash everything under the first spout of the fountain and keep everything in the first bay near this first spout, so that they would not be contaminated, and so I did; but as you know dreams sometime are very strange and suddenly I found that some of my dishes were in the second bay of the fountain, so, I started to worry about it, but the old lady said to me not to worry about it, I was protesting to her saying that you said that the other bays are contaminated, and she said don’t worry just for this time and you will soon know why, when you wake up.

When I woke up I realized that it was only a dream, so, I understood why the old lady had said do not worry about the dishes in the second bay of the fountain, it was because it was only a dream and the dishes even though had been contaminated in my dream, I was not going to use them, because they were only in my dreams, and they were thousands of miles away, in another era and in another place. I believe that the old lady was one of my forbears who popped up in my dreams to teach me a lesson about food contamination or something like that, and she did.

Well, today you can say that we know that to avoid contamination you have to keep everything clean and that is true; we can also use some disinfectant that can kill all germs, so, there is not much to learn from this dream. But you see, the old lady did this in a dream using the level of general knowledge when she was alive, which most likely was a lot lower than today standard. Anyhow, that is what I dreamed, and I think it is cool, if we believe in dreams. And now let us see what else I can tell you about my personal twilight stories.

------------------------------------------

Strange things happen. 

We have already told you a couple of our twilight stories above. So, let me tell you another story that is very similar to the stories above, and can be said it is another twilight story.

To understand this story, it is necessary that first I describe the place where it has happened and the reasons why it has happened there, and then tell you what happened.

This is another twilight story that happened to me when I was a teenager, I think that I could have been 17 years old, and I was sleeping alone in our family farm. Our farm buildings consisted of two large rustic rooms plus other small buildings beside them, one of these buildings was used to store all the farm carts and machinery and the other was our main building that we used for the farm animals and ourselves. Now before I continue, I need to say that our farm was wall to wall with other farmers next door, so, I was not completely alone in the middle of nowhere. The reason I have said that, is to explain that while I was left alone in charge of all the animals in our building at night so young, it was possible because our farm was besides this other farm building, where other people were sleeping at night, so, it was safe from robbers and other things, as we could always call on each other for help. 

The main and larger building where I was sleeping, consisted of a rustic building about 12 meters long and 8 meters wide or there about; two third of this building was used for the farm animals, like horses, mules, donkeys and cows who were tied to their mangers’ during the night, the other third was used for ourselves, here we stored some oats and other valuable produce that we would use to feed the animals and the rest of this space was for us humans, where we could cook our meals and sleep at night while we were attending the farm animals. Now before I tell you the twilight story, I need to say that in this building there was also two pair of domestic pigeons that nested there and they would fly around the building during the day, at night they stayed in their nest or perched on some place in the building.

Now that we have explained the set-up, let me tell you what happen one night, this was the night when my grandpa died, and this farm house was his farm house and it had been their family farm for generations, so, the old man was very attached to his farm; anyhow, I was alone and sleeping in the farm the night he died and while I was sleeping I could somehow feel that something was flying around the farm house, whatever it was, it was going and stopping for a few seconds here and there as if it wanted to inspect the place, once it had done that it flew out of the small open window at the back of the farm building, and that was all I felt in my sleepy rustic bed.

Next day the news came that my grandpa had passed away that night, and that I had to go to town to attend his funeral. One may say that this is a strange story and perhaps I was only dreaming that night about this something that went around the farm building, but one should also consider that if souls really exist, then my grandpa soul came to say goodbye to his earthly possessions and to me his grandchild.

That is all for the time being, but I know that I can add here another twilight story, but this story is going to be very difficult to tell, so, I will write it another time.

Anyhow, we have been talking about Genzano di Lucania, which is the town that I have come from. So, we want to write a couple more articles to complete our first group about my Italian life story, then I will be talking about my Australian life story.

But then, in Genzano something terrible has happened, so, our next article, is one of those things that one wishes they would never happen, and we can only tell you the sad story, Massacre in Genzano di Lucania. 

To see more click on this link, 

---------------------------------------------------- 

The town I came from.

WELCOME TO OUR BLOG YOU ARE INVITED , TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE. Anyhow, here I will publish my own diary and what I see happening in the world, and when I do not have much to say, I will write posts from my life story. 

Anyhow, you can also find this article at, http://oldman-lifeworks.blogspot.com,  

My other sites; http://frankmenchise.com,http://diybrickwork.com,http://manneedsgod.co.uk  

You can see more at this addresses, DIY brickwork  and,  http://diybrickwork.com,   

This article can also be found at this link, The town I came from. 

This is an areal photo of Genzano di Lucania. It does not look much seen from the air, but Genzano is one of those towns that has an history of its own, as most old towns do, anyhow, this is the town that I have come from. 

The town I came from

Welcome to our article, The town I came from. 

Dear readers, I am an emigrant, so, let me tell you about the town I have come from. My native town is Genzano di Lucania. Anyhow, when we are in a foreign country, I believe that it does not matter where we come from, we are always proud of our heritage; we should be proud of it, because it makes us feel better.  

But we who had to leave our native towns, to find a better way of life somewhere else, when we are asked this question where we come from, we want to avoid a straight answer, for fear that the people that are asking us want to upset us. Apart from that it can be a philosophical question meaning where we human have come from, or if we come from another country. So, we are careful to answer that.

While we try to answer their question the best way we can, we think about our fife journey and the town that we have come from; in my case I would say I have come from Genzano di Lucania. Then, while we continue to answer their questions; we start thinking that we might be born with our own destiny, since we left our native town, at least some of us believe that we have a destiny. You see for this reason I believe that my destiny has played a part and has taken me away from my native town.

Some people might think that you don’t like your native town, and that is the reason why you left it; but it is not like that at all, because wherever you are born and grow up it is going to be your native town for the rest of your life. You see, every one of us is proud of our native towns or country where we are born, if we were not proud of our heritage we would be unworthy of ourselves, so, I hope that you understand why I want to talk about Genzano my native home town. After all, Genzano di Lucania is a good town that one can be proud to have come from, so, let us talk about it.  

Where is Genzano di Lucania in Basilicata, Italy located?

Click on the link above to see the map, another map is in our article, Genzano di Lucania.

------------------------------------------------------

The town where I came from. 

Dear readers, allow me to describe the town I left, when I migrated to Australia. Now, I want to talk about my native town, so that you can understand the ways that we used to live in this town when I was young. We want to do that to compare the difference, and to perceive and feel my life story in the same way and depth as I have felt it, while I was living my young life at that place. About my life in the farm I have written several articles, they are at these addresses: 

 My life my struggles,  An old man life story ,  A man life journey,  An old man story,  My farm life experience.

Anyhow, let us go back to the time when I was young, to describe the town and their costumes, so, we can understand the ways that these people have lived their lives for centuries; therefore, the reason why they were living the way they were living at the time when I was young. Now because I was born there, I was caught in their ways of living, which left a lot to be desired for, if we compare it to the ways that we live in Australia today.

The town where I came from is situated in Southern Italy; its full name is ‘Genzano Di Lucania’, to distinguish it from ‘Genzano di Roma’. But when we talk about Genzano, it causes a curious fact in Australia, because to most people living in Australia the name of ‘Genzano’ sounds like ‘Cinzano’ which is a famous wine brand. So, they start asking questions whether my native town is the town where the good wine originated. But unfortunately ‘Genzano’ the town which I have come from has got nothing to do with that famous wine brand. Although we have some good vineyards in the town territory, and they make good wines.

The wine that we made from our vineyards was for our family use, but sometimes we would sell the extra wine locally. I will tell you more about this wine making in the article: Wine making the old ways

But talking about wines and wine making, it makes me think of something unusual and scenic in this town of Genzano, which people from outside town and not familiar with this set up would be amazed to see; because the people of Genzano make their wines inside large caves, dug in the walls of a chasm. Now let us imagine how all this wine making in the cave came about, in this southern region of Italy. To understand that, let us look at the ancient towns of this region of Italy. 

L`Annunziata church

This must be the oldest part of Genzano still existing, if there was anything else we do not know. Anyhow, this church and monastery was built around 1300 AD. It is said that after this monastery was built, the present Genzano was built.   

Old towns of southern Italy. 

Now, let us go back to those ancient times when people used to live in the caves everywhere, then they evolved and built towns; the towns were built according to their geographical position and the need of the people. So, the town of Genzano and other towns, were built according to the following explanation.  

In the old continent of Europe as well as in Southern Italy, lots of medieval towns were built on a rugged hill, or something similar for reason of safety, as we know in ancient times and in the Middle Ages towns had to be built in such positions, in order to make it hard for the enemy to get into town, and easy for the inhabitants to defend the town from aggressions. Today these towns are a sight to see like this photo that I have come across on the Internet. This here under is one of the scenic towns of southern Italy; it is a bit similar to my hometown of Genzano.

Very old town Matera

And here I quote;

It seems as though everyone in this region moved into caves, which came to be known as i sassi (stones). You would think Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano (which begin at Piazza V. Veneto) were just typical Italian hilltowns until you realize the "houses" are all windowless grottoes with damp walls and earthen floors, where the family's animals slept side-by-side with the humans.

Far from being uncivilized, these rock towns had intricate hydraulic systems that kept water fresh and cool year round. Eventually the caves gained façades and roofs, but the interiors remained virtually unchanged. Nearly 15,000 people were still living in them in 1952, when the government finally declared them unhealthy and outlawed their use. There are several places where you can visit a typically furnished sasso: the most indicative is probably the one at Vico Solitario 12, in Sasso Caveoso.

End Of quote:

Dear readers, to see what I have just said, you have to visit my original article and hope that the photos load up. 

Today this old massive building is the Town Hall of Genzano, but in the past it was the castle of Genzano. From this side today, it looks easy to reach the castle walls, but it was not so in the past.  

The old Genzano town. 

Here we need to say that the history of the existence of Genzano is ancient, as there is some evidence that the town of Genzano existed when Christianity began in the Roman times. Some historian says that the Romans started Genzano town about the VI century BC when they had this ‘Pagus Gentianum settlement to control this part of their territory. But in this story we are talking about Genzano of the thirteenth century or there about; it is built on a strip of land situated between two chasms, and these chasms are situated at the edge of a high plateau 588 meters above sea level; and the modern Genzano is a continuation of the ancient part of this town, which has kept steadily growing onto the high plateau.

In the old continent of Europe as well as in Southern Italy, lots of medieval towns were built on a rugged hill for safety reasons, some of these people that went to live in these towns were people that lived in rugged accommodations, these rugged accommodation could have been caves where the terrain was right to dig caves, but they were not real cavemen, as they were just people who later became the inhabitants of the towns. Also the town of Genzano has a similar story and a large part of its inhabitants came from these caves below the town itself. And here we would like to describe the ancient nature of these caves, and why these caves were made, and who made them.

In the beginning of this current Era, because of the nature of the terrain of the high plateau, which was sandy at one end, allowed the rainwater to erode the soil forming two deep chasms; which by memory I consider to be 30 meter plus in depth. So, the ancient part of Genzano town was built on the remains of the edge of an old high plateau, which the rainwaters had slowly dug and taken away the soil downstream, leaving a high strip of land which was narrowing till the chasms met. And upon this triangular and narrow piece of high land, the inhabitant of Genzano began to build their own town.

But before they built their own town of Genzano, these people must have been living somewhere else. It is most likely that they were living in the caves of the chasm, which their forbears as the first and permanent inhabitants of this region had dug in the walls of the chasms.

The walls of the chasms being Tuffaceous and very compact, and sandy in nature with a few layers of sandstone at different levels, it had been possible for the first inhabitant to dig in the walls of the chasms and make a cave. And the large caves are reasonably safe from cave-ins; an average cave can be 6 or 7 meters wide, and 6 or 7 meters high at the entrance, and some twenty meters long becoming a bit smaller at the far end.

Now if you stop to think for a moment, how hard it must have been to dig in the walls of the chasms to make caves, it must have been a mammoth of a job to dig those caves.

So, we can easily say that life is a struggle, as it was a struggle even then to dig those caves. In fact, we believe that life then was much harder than today. Because to hand excavate those caves must have been hard work, and it must have taken them ages and millions of men’s hours, as there are lots of caves in the chasms, in fact, it could be that there are one hundred caves in Genzano territory. Now because this happened a long time ago, nobody knows who the first inhabitants of the caves were, or where they came from, and how many of these caves they made in the beginning.

 Who could they be? 

We believe that the first inhabitant of this region was a group of shepherds grazing their herds and having found shelter from the cold winds or rain in the chasm, they stopped there and tried to improve this natural shelter; so, they started to dig these caves for themselves and for their flocks. Or they were people that were fleeing away from their enemies and having found a sort of shelter in the shape of the chasms, they stopped there and made it their home.

Today one of the chasms is still called the Greek chasm from the elders of Genzano, and this means that at least sometime in the past people from Greece have lived there. About the Greek people there is another story, so, we will come back later to tell you about it in, Genzano Greek chasm and Madonna story

But now we want to tell you, about when the inhabitants of the caves build their own houses on this strip of land at the top of the chasms, which later became the town of Genzano.

Now there is a legend about the name of Genzano; there were two lovers (Yens and San, since in the local dialect is pronounced Yensan), or was it this Roman name of Pagus Gentianum that slowly changed to Genzano, we can only guess, therefore, the name of the town and the time when Genzano came into existence nobody knows.

Anyhow, whatever we can say about our native town, when somebody asks me, where you come from? I will say, Genzano is the town I came from.

That is all for this article, see you soon in our next article,  Personal twilight stories. 

To see more klick on this link, The town I came from. 

--------------------------------------------------