Cesare Gallone

Cesare Gallone (1586–1624) belongs to the cadet branch of the feudatory family of Tricase. Deeply devout to the Virgin, he links his name to two legacies of great significance for the community of Tricase: the church of San Michele Arcangelo, of which he is the commissioner — as attested by the epigraph on the entrance portal — and the stone statue of the Madonna and Child, today visible on the cornice of the mother church, above Piazza Pisanelli.

The Madonna and Child

Of the statue makes memory father Luigi Tasselli da Casarano (1622–1694), Capuchin, in his Le Antichità di Leuca, published in Lecce in 1693. On page 15 one reads:

“Tricase, Monte Sardo and Tutino wished to have, in those early times, by instruction perhaps received from the Bishops of Leuca, as their Titular and Protectress the Blessed Virgin under various titles; wherefore, to this end, the Lord Cesare Galloni, most devout of the great Mother of God, had displayed, sculpted and in relief, the Image of that Mother of Graces, before the Parish of Tricase, on high, which some said to be the Idea of Saint Mary of the Foggiaro, others of Saint Mary of Leuca, of whom he was very devout, so good a Lord.”

The statue, sculpted for the second matrix of Tricase, was preserved and placed, at the end of the 18th century, on the third matrix church — the present one — where it still today protects from on high the square and the people of Tricase who gather there.

The testimony of Michele Paone

On this legacy also intervenes the scholar Michele Paone in the essay La chiesa nuova, collected in Tricase. Studi e documenti (Congedo Editore, Galatina 1978, pp. 135–136):

“…the Virgin was the celestial patroness, the maternal guardian of Tricase, that its major church was dedicated, precisely to Mary and, finally, that of the Mother of God Cesare Gallone had had sculpted the statue that is perhaps to be recognised in the stone figure which, hoisted on a cornice of the new matrix, holds under its gaze the delightful little square of the town.”

The church of San Michele Arcangelo

Alongside the patronage of the Virgin of the cornice, Cesare Gallone is the commissioner of the church of San Michele Arcangelo of Tricase, erected in the early 17th century. The epigraph on the entrance portal preserves its memory, sealing the bond between the cadet branch of the Gallone and the sacred patrimony of the community.

Place in the Gallone family

Cesare Gallone is a contemporary of the first Gallone feudatories of Tricase: Giovanni Angelo II (1572–1616), 3rd Baron, and Alessandro II (1598–1623), 4th Baron. He belongs in all probability to a cadet or collateral branch of the house and does not figure in the direct line of succession of the Barons and then Princes of Tricase: the first Principality would be granted to Stefano II Gallone only in 1651, twenty-seven years after the death of Cesare.

Record to be expanded. The precise genealogical link of Cesare with the baronial and princely line of the Gallone remains to be clarified from the family’s personal sources. This record is a skeleton intended to be enriched by Simon with the archival documentation.

Close genealogy

Close genealogy documented only for the paternal link with Alessandro I Gallone (cf. lineage data gallone-baroni-e-principi). The mother, the possible spouse and the direct descent of Cesare are not to date documented in the Gallone archive consulted; developments are expected from future archival extractions.

Sources

• Father Luigi Tasselli da Casarano OFM Cap, Le Antichità di Leuca, Lecce 1693, p. 15.
• Michele Paone, La chiesa nuova, in Tricase. Studi e documenti, Congedo Editore, Galatina 1978, pp. 135–136.
• Ercole Morciano, La Madonnina che protegge i Tricasini, in Il volantino, no. 41 of 18 December 2021.