GESUALDO (AV)

  A BRIEF HISTORY OF GESUALDO

 

A Beautiful Site

Gesualdo is a pleasant little town, rich in wide natural landscapes as far as the eye can see. As Alfonso Fontanelli wrote in 1594, its air is really sweet, fragrant and healthy. This little town stands 670 metres above sea level. It is exposed to the south, on the right side of the river Fredane Valley; the Fredane is a tributary stream of the river Calore.

The territory of Gesualdo has been inhabitated since prehistoric times. The scholar Arturo Palma of the University of Siena discovered, from July to October 1975, ‘lithic industry ... of the clacto-taycoide type’ in the spot Cave di Pietra.

Some smooth flint axes ‘of conoid lenticular kind, with an isosceles triangular profile on a convex base’ have been found out in the spot Capo di Gaudio, and we can see them in the local museum. They witness a settlement of the last part of Neolithic (3000-2500).

Some remains of a settlement and a necropolis with ditch tombs, explored by Mr Penta in 1893, date back to the third millennium B. C. They are in the spot ‘Fiumane’, near the river Fredane, and witness traces of human inhabitants in the Paleolithic, Aeneolithic and Neolithic Ages.

There are also some Roman remains such as necropolis and villas, in the countryside, at San Barbato, Paolina and Volpito, not far from the historic centre.

 

A Longobard Hero

Nowadays, the town shows the remains of a fortress around which some houses, in a concentric-circle shape, have been added in the past centuries. In fact, Gesualdo historic centre is the result of many buildings around the fortress, built in longobard times to protect the Dukedom of Benevento.

According to the well-known local historian Giacomo Catone, Romualdo, Duke of Benevento, gave the fortress and some land around it, rich in woods, to the descendents of the legendary knight who died to defend his lord during the war between the Longobards and the Byzantines led by their Emperor Costante 2°, when he tried to conquer the West.

 

The Name ‘Gesualdo’

According to the historians Scipione Ammirato, Giovanni Antonio Summonte, Alessandro Di Meo and others, the longobard hero was Duke Romualdo’s knight commander and his name was Gesualdo or Sessualdo. So the land the duke gave to his descendents was called ‘Gesualdo’s Land’, and later simply ‘Gesualdo’.

Cipriano De Meo, in his ‘La Cittą di Gesualdo – Contributo di Studi e di Ricerche’ supposes that this knight’s name was GIS or GHIZ. In those times, the lands around the fortress were covered with woods. The German word for ‘wood’ is ‘wald’; so ‘Gis-wald’ means ‘Gis’s wood’. Later Gis-wald became ‘Gisualdum’ and finally ‘Gesualdo’. 

 

 

The Norman Dynasty

We don’t know much about the times between the Longobard and the Norman age, of course: in those times barbaric peoples dominated, destroying every cultural and historical remain. We can suppose that the descendents of the longobard knight GIS ruled over the above-mentioned fortress and the land around it. The ‘Gesualdo’s fortress’ was mentioned for the first time in 1137 by the monk Pietro Diacono in his ‘Chronica Sacri Monasterii Casinensis’, book 4. So, it was just in the Norman age that Gesualdo began to develop around the fortress. This became a ‘castrum’ and, in the following centuries, was transformed in an habitable building. Finally, it became the powerful and magnificent castle, typical in our landscape, which we admire nowadays.

The Normans who ruled over Gesualdo originated from Ruggero 1° Borsa, 2° Duke of Puglia and Calabria, the so-called ‘Ruggero il Normanno’. He was the son of Roberto il Guiscardo, about whom Dante wrote in his ‘Paradiso’, and the grandson of Tancredi d’Altavilla, the legendary hero in the First Crusade (1096-1099) who was immortalized in the ‘Gerusalemme Liberata’ by T. Tasso. This origin is testified by the inscription that the last and most famous lord of the dynasty ruling over Gesualdo, the ‘Prince of Musicians’ Carlo Gesualdo, wanted to be written in the castle courtyard: ‘ .. Rogerii North.ni Apuliae et Calabriae Ducis .... ‘.

 

Carlo Gesualdo   

The castle was inhabited by the Prince Carlo Gesualdo, son of Fabrizio Gesualdo and Geronima Borromeo, St. Carlo Borromeo’s sister. The Prince had the same name as his uncle, who is a Saint.

When Carlo Gesualdo was 19, he published his first ‘mottetto’: “Ne Reminiscaris, Domine, Delicta Nostra” (O God, Forgive Our Sins). He had a strong passion for music and became one of the most famous composers of madrigals.

He lived in Gesualdo for twenty years and, thanks to him, three churches and two monasteries were built in that time. He also wanted the famous Forgiveness Altar-Piece be painted in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie; in this church and in the monastery near it ‘Padre Pio’ studied in 1909.

Carlo Gesualdo died in the Gesualdo castle on 8th September 1613, at the age of 47.

He was a daring artist and innovator; his harmonic combinations can be compared to modern music.

Thanks to his musical talent, his chromatic upheavals and his astonishing artistic inventions, his music expresses what words can’t express, so that he has deserved the title of ‘Prince of Musicians’

 

A Special Visit

Coming to Gesualdo is a particular and extraordinary emotion. When we walk through Gesualdo’s streets, we realize that this noble town has a very important art heritage and its monuments and corners preserve an ancient tradition.

Seeing this land and its scenery, walking through these streets, putting our feet on these stones, breathing this fragrant air, we feel special vibrations and are in contact with the deep heart of this land and of the important people who lived here.

 

Traduzione a cura della prof. Adela Agostinelli

 

                                                                                             

 

Note tratte dal libro ” CARLO GESUALDO l'albero genealogico e la sua cittą” di Michele Zarrella.

 

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