Gallone — Principe di Tricase

“Nunc et semper”

A manuscript “Genealogy of the Gallone Family” of 1765 mentions three “Greek priests” (Don Clemente, father of Don Cesario, himself father of Don Mariano) who came to the Terra d’Otranto around 1240. It also mentions two documents from the Archives of Naples (destroyed in 1943): in the first (Register of Charles I, year 1291, Book A, folio 258) a “dominus Johannes Gallonus de Ciplo, miles notatur possidere feuda in Summa” is cited; in the second (Register of King Robert, years 1339 and 1340, Book B, folio 168), other Gallone, “most honoured persons”.

The GALLONE are probably of Cypriot origin, having come to Italy in the train of Hugh III of Brienne, who had inherited possessions on the island through his mother, Mary of Lusignan.

In the draft of a petition addressed to the king by Giuseppe Gerardo Gallone (1766–1806), 6th Prince of Tricase, he states that his ancestors served the Angevins (from 1284) and later the Aragonese, that the proofs of his claims are held in the Great Archive of the Royal Chamber of the Mint of Naples, and that he therefore requests to be admitted “among the gentlemen of the Chamber in office”.

Don Mariano is said to be the father of Angelo I († 1546), the first attested figure and founder of the family, married to Graziosa Mecchi, of a well-to-do Tricase family.

From the mid-16th century the Gallone appear permanently settled in Tricase with the sons of Angelo I, the Barons Stefano I († 1586) and Alessandro I († 1589), wealthy oil merchants who manage to acquire the fief of Specchia Minervino (later called Specchia Gallone), then organised as a large agricultural estate.

The activities of the Gallone are manifold, from oil production and agrarian investment to financial credit and the growth of capital, all with a shrewd inheritance and patrimonial policy.

The holdings are considerably enlarged with the purchase of the fiefs of Tiggiano and Caprarica del Capo by Alessandro I; the expansion of the Gallone landed estates then continues with his son, Giovanni Angelo II (1572 – † 1616), 3rd Baron of Tricase, who buys the fief of Depressa and obtains part of the fief of Tutino through his marriage to Silvia Trane, of the Dukes of Scorrano.

On the premature death of the 4th Baron, Alessandro II (1598 – † 1623), he is succeeded by his brother, Stefano II (1601 – † 1662), who brings to completion the work of his predecessors aimed at the growth of the domain, the consolidation of power, and the rise of the House, which culminates in the “status” of Prince, a title granted in 1651 by Philip IV, King of Spain.

How does this social leap occur, from Baron (albeit very wealthy) directly to Prince? This “promotion” is probably to be related to a profitable financial operation within the policy of the Viceroy of Naples.

The needs of provisioning, military expenditure, the costly life of court, and the reduction of the tax burden on the people led the rulers to rely on the merchant and capitalist class, which towards the mid-17th century was gaining importance in the economic and financial policy of the kingdom of Naples. It was also necessary to reward the barons who remained loyal to the Crown.

Stefano II possessed all the necessary prerequisites: a loyal feudatory, he held in Naples various merchant agencies and solid capital deriving both from commercial revenues and from loans granted.

A central figure in the history of the Gallone, Stefano II manages, within twenty-five years, to obtain the barony of Tiggiano (1627), the important hamlet of Supersano (1640) with the Belvedere Wood (12,000 hectares), the hamlet of Caprarica del Capo (1644), the fief of Salve (1648), the rest of the fief of Tutino (1648), the fief of Miggiano (1660) and part of the fief of Nociglia (1662).

It is to Stefano II that we owe, in 1661, the building of the central body of the Palazzo Gallone, the princely castle of Tricase.

Stefano II is succeeded by his son, Alessandro III (1638 – † 1675), 2nd Prince of Tricase, who completes the acquisition of the barony of Nociglia (1663), and he by his son, Stefano III (1666 – † 1733), 3rd Prince of Tricase, already motherless and still a minor at his father’s death, and thus under the guardianship of his uncle Carlo Gallone, Abbot of Caprarica del Capo and founder of the church of Sant’Angelo in Tricase.

Stefano III spends his adolescence in Naples, and his uncle Carlo manages to arrange, in 1681, an advantageous marriage contract for the fifteen-year-old Prince with Giovanna Teresa Colmenero de Andrade, daughter of a high officer of the Spanish Army, Governor of Vercelli, and of Giovanna Arborio, of the Marquesses of Gattinara, a very wealthy member of the Piedmontese aristocracy at the Court of Savoy.

The young Giovanna Teresa soon takes the upper hand in the patrimonial management of the Gallone, and in 1695 Stefano III cedes to his wife the fiefs of Supersano, Torricella and Floresta, and secures for his son Francesco Alessandro (1684 – † 1753) the rights of designated heir, as 4th Prince of Tricase.

After the death of Giovanna Teresa, in 1703, Stefano III remarries Lucrezia di Capua, of an ancient and noble Neapolitan family, and moves from Naples to Tricase. By now the social “status” of the Gallone, with prestigious matrimonial alliances, is well established in the high Neapolitan and Piedmontese nobility (a daughter of Stefano III, Deodata, marries a member of the powerful Piedmontese family of the Natta d’Alfiano).

But the economic situation deteriorates, both because of the considerable expenses occasioned by Neapolitan life and because of the negligence of Stefano III, a very religious man more inclined to literary work. In 1700 the fief of Specchia Gallone is lost; then, in 1733, it is the turn of the fiefs of Andrano, Tricase, Caprarica del Capo and Nociglia. Prince Francesco Alessandro partly restores the situation by taking the administration of the patrimony firmly in hand.

On the death, without heirs, of Francesco Alessandro, he is succeeded, as 5th Prince of Tricase, by his half-brother, Giuseppe Domenico (1706 – † 1766), and he by his son, Giuseppe Gerardo (1766 – † 1806), 6th Prince of Tricase, born in the very year of his father’s death and thus under the guardianship of his mother, Beatrice Sersale, of the Marquesses Sersale, until his majority.

After his emancipation, Giuseppe Gerardo restores the financial activities of his agencies (essentially loans to the great Neapolitan Houses) and in 1796 marries, in second marriage, Maria Emanuela Pignatelli, stipulating mortgage contracts on the possessions of Maria Emanuela’s brother, Girolamo III Pignatelli, 3rd Prince of Moliterno and 5th Prince of Marsiconovo, laden with debts and fallen into political disgrace. Giuseppe Gerardo thus recovers the fiefs of Moliterno and Marsiconovo with the prestigious princely title attached to them.

Giuseppe Gerardo’s successor, Giovanni Battista (1800 – † 1868), assumes the titles of 7th Prince of Tricase, 6th Prince of Marsiconovo and 4th Prince of Moliterno. Giovanni Battista’s son and heir, Giuseppe (1819 – † 1898), already named by his father Count of Nociglia, becomes in 1868 8th Prince of Tricase, 7th Prince of Marsiconovo and 5th Prince of Moliterno, and plays an important role in Neapolitan politics, becoming a Senator of the Kingdom of Italy, after the fall of the Bourbons of Naples and the advent of the Savoy.

Despite Giuseppe’s marriage to Maria Antonia Melodia, of the Barons of San Pietro in Melicozza, a very wealthy heiress in the Terra di Bari, the economic situation of the Gallone declines, under the effects of the French law of 1806 on the abolition of feudalism and the misgovernment of the last Princes, more drawn to Neapolitan high society than to the management of their landed estates.

Giuseppe’s successor, Pietro Giovanni Battista (1855 – † 1931), known as “Gino”, 9th Prince of Tricase, 8th Prince of Marsiconovo and 6th Prince of Moliterno, a great organiser of Neapolitan festivities, follows in the footsteps of his predecessors, squandering the family patrimony through numerous alienations and divisions of property (he cedes the title of Prince of Marsiconovo to his sister Maria Bianca, married to Baron Compagna).

Worth noting is the fraudulent skill of the various agents, attorneys, stewards and accountants, which gives rise to frequent legal battles with the intervention of lawyers themselves adept at profit.

The House of the Gallone becomes extinct with the only daughter of Pietro Giovanni Battista, Maria Bianca (1895 – † 1982), 10th Princess of Tricase and 7th Princess of Moliterno, who marries Augusto III della Posta, 7th Duke of Civitella Alfedena.

Their only daughter, Simonetta della Posta of the Dukes of Civitella Alfedena (1916-1986), married to Aldo Guerri dall’Oro (1913-2004), obtained by a nobiliary measure (“motu proprio”) of King Umberto II, on 19 November 1967, the title of Countess (mpr.) for herself and of Count for her husband.

Furthermore, Simonetta della Posta of the Dukes of Civitella Alfedena (1916-1986) obtained, by Decree of 21 January 1999 of the Minister of Grace and Justice of the Italian Republic, the addition of the surname Gallone di Tricase e di Moliterno (cognomisation of the predicates) for her sons.

The eldest son, Count Guido Guerri dall’Oro Gallone di Tricase e di Moliterno (1941-2019), is “de jure” 11th Prince of Tricase and 8th Prince of Moliterno (according to the rules of the “Neapolitan female succession”). His son, Count Simon Guerri dall’Oro Gallone di Tricase e di Moliterno (1985), is currently 12th Prince of Tricase and 9th Prince of Moliterno.

Noble titles of the GALLONE

Princes of Tricase
Princes of Moliterno
Princes of Marsiconovo (ceded)
Barons of Caprarica
Barons of Tutino
Barons of Depressa
Barons of Principiano
Barons of Nociglia
Barons of Bernarda
Barons of Luforni
Barons of Supersano
Barons of Belvedere
Barons of Picerno
Barons of Sarcuni and San Chirico Raparo
Barons of Foresta and Torricella

The Possessions and Fiefs of the GALLONE

Map of the fiefs and possessions of the Gallone family — The fiefs of the Gallone

The question of the Regio Assenso in Neapolitan nobiliary law

According to a widespread but erroneous thesis, the Regio Assenso (royal assent) would always have been necessary in the hereditary transmission of noble titles, especially in the case of transmission through the female line. In reality, the Regio Assenso was neither necessary nor required in the case of the simple transmission of the title, when it had become merely honorific — that is, emptied of its link with a feudal property, as in cases of succession following the sale of the fief under the formula “extincto seu retinenti titulo”.

Indeed, such a transmission constituted a perfect right, requiring no confirmation, but founding its legitimacy on the normal hereditary succession from father to son (or from father to daughter, or from mother to son / daughter, in the case of the Kingdom of Naples, where the Neapolitan female succession was in force), provided it was consistent with the succession laws in force at the time of the succession of the title itself.

Ancient and modern nobiliary jurisprudence, including that of Republican Italy (cf. annexed Document), agrees in holding that in the former Neapolitan Provinces, until the Law abolishing feudalism (1806), no formal measure was necessary for the transmission of the title alone, neither through the male line nor the female line.

After 1806, when noble titles were reduced to mere honorific distinctions and to simple additions to the family name, personal investiture was no longer required, whether the titles were transmitted through the male or the female line.