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House of Gallone Princes of Tricase · the family coat of arms Personage · House of Gallone · Historic Princes
Pietro Giovanni Battista «Gino» Gallone.
9th Prince of Tricase, 6th of Moliterno, 1855 – 1931.
A great promoter of the Neapolitan festivities, the last male Prince of the house. His union with Giuseppina Moncada, formerly Duchess of Laurenzana, scandalises Naples; their daughter Maria Bianca, born in Paris and acknowledged at once, would be the last Gallone Princess.
Biography.
Pietro Giovanni Battista Gallone, known as «Gino», is born in Tricase on 23 September 1855, son of Giuseppe Gallone, 8th Prince and Senator of the Kingdom, and of Antonietta Melodia, of the Barons of San Pietro in Melicozza, a very wealthy heiress in the Terra di Bari.
On his father's death, in 1898, he succeeds him as 9th Prince of Tricase, 6th Prince of Moliterno and 8th Prince of Marsiconovo, as well as Count of Nociglia.
Gino is remembered as a "great promoter of the Parthenopean festivities". Like his predecessors, more attracted by Neapolitan high society than by the management of their lands, he squanders the family patrimony through numerous alienations and divisions of goods.
He also cedes the title of Prince of Marsiconovo to his sister Maria Bianca Gallone (1852–1939), married in 1872 to Baron Francesco Compagna: from her the title continues collaterally towards the cousin branches. No deed or date of the cession has yet been found.
Giuseppina Moncada (1860–1946), of the Princes of Paternò, already married to Nicola Gaetani, Duke of Laurenzana, leaves her husband to live with Gino. "A huge scandal in Naples": this is why their daughter, Maria Bianca, is born in Paris on 2 November 1895, and why the birth certificate is silent on the mother's name.
Gino acknowledges her immediately. At her birth, family memory relates, he orders two days of celebration: the palace of Tricase is decked out in its entirety. After the death of the Duke of Laurenzana the parents marry — in 1924 according to the account of the decree, in 1925 according to the genealogies — and Maria Bianca is legitimated ex tunc, entering the line of succession in her own full right.
Gino dies in Rome in 1931; with him the male line of the Gallone Princes comes to an end, and Maria Bianca succeeds him as 10th Princess of Tricase. He is buried in the old cemetery of Piazza Cappuccini, in Tricase.
On 4 June 2026 his remains, with those of his daughter, his wife and his mother, are translated to the Confraternita di Maria SS.ma Immacolata di Sant'Angelo — the church founded, three centuries earlier, by the abbot Carlo Gallone.
Family tree.
Sources.
- 1 G. Guerri dall'Oro, historical text on the House of Gallone published on the family website (Google Sites version) — titles, Neapolitan life, cession of Marsiconovo.
- 2 Historical Archive of the Senate of the Republic, Repertorio dei senatori del Regno, record GALLONE DI NOCIGLIA Giuseppe, IT-SEN-SEN0001-001061 — the Senator's children, among them Maria Bianca, married to Baron Francesco Compagna.
- 3 "Nuove Opinioni", August 1982, and TeleRamaNews, Storia dell'ultima principessa Gallone, television report (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lnsBkeBZ6c) — the two days of celebration for the birth of Maria Bianca.
- 4 Date and place of birth (23 September 1855, Tricase) and of death (1931, Rome): the Heredis genealogical database of Guido Guerri dall'Oro, GEDCOM export of 8 June 2026.