Home | Valente and DiRenzo Family History - From Our Correspondent in Geneva
Largo del Castello, Gambatesa
The small square or open space in front of the Church of San Bartolomeo Apostolo is named Largo del Castello [Photograph below].
The pathway in the foreground leading to the front door of the church is Via Eustacchio, and the massive structure to the viewer's right is the Medieval Castle of Gambatesa. Alongside the church runs Via del Serrone.
San Bartolomeo Apostolo, the chiesa madre ("mother church") of Gambatesa, was where all baptisms, marriages, and funerals took place during the years for which this Web site has documents.
The part of the street shown in the foreground leading up to the doorway of the church is called a piazza in Gambatesa. I know, it doesn't look like a piazza but everybody says la piazza, or a chiazz' in dialect. When my grandparents would say quan' isce mezz a chiazz, là sta u negozie ("When you go to the middle of the piazza, the shop is there"), I used to wonder what place they were talking about.
This street was used as a market (I don't know when). It is one of the older streets in Gambatesa and on the walls of the houses you can find many interesting things (engraved stones). The street itself is named Via Eustacchio, but only the last section of the street near the castle is called a chiazz'.
In Via Eustacchio near the castle there is a stone called, in dialect, u tummele mezz'a chiazz' or, in Italian, il tomolo in mezzo alla piazza ("The measuring place in the middle of the piazza"). The tomolo is a measuring stone that is hollow at the top with exit holes in its sides. The Romans used these kinds of stones for the measurement of goods sold in the market. There are 3 holes; each one is a different unit (una misura); the size of the hole gives you the quantity of what you want to "weigh".
The Romans used a lot of stones like this (I saw one in Switzerland too). It is something very old.
There are still shops in Via Eustacchio.
Via Municipio is also called Piazza Municipio (There is a stone plaque in the wall just around the corner from a plaque with the name Piazza Vittorio Emanuele), but there did not used to be a market there.
[The Italian word piazza may be variously translated "Square", "Place", "Market".]
[According to Giambattista Masciotta (monografia di Tufara), 1 tomolo of wheat is equivalent in volume to a little less than 1/3 cubic foot. (The plural of tomolo is tomoli.)]
Related Pages:
- Postcard photograph of the Church of San Bartolomeo Apostolo from 1929.
- Postcard photograph of the Bell Tower of San Bartolomeo Apostolo from 1930.
- Photograph showing the western side of San Bartolomeo Apostolo and of the Medieval Castle.
- Two tomoli, Roman unit-measurers made of wood and of stone, that were used in Gambatesa until the end of the 1950s. The tomolo was used to measure oil and wheat and other commodities, which were often used by the poor of Gambatesa in place of money.
The Lamb and the Cross Panel
The baptismal font inside the Church of San Bartolomeo Apostolo ("Saint Bartholomew the Apostle") dates from 1523. The right-most of the three panels set into the bell tower has the same symbol of the Lamb and Cross that is found over the doorway of Gambatesa's Chapel of Our Lady of Victory.
Above: Largo del Castello, the small square or open space in front of the church. The words del Castello mean "of the Castle", but the open space is much nearer to the church than it is to the castle.
Color photographs by Angelo Abiuso, mid-August 2001
The URL of this Web page: https://www.roangelo.net/valente/largocst.html
Last revised: 12 September 2005 : 2005-09-12 by Robert [Wesley] Angelo.
Home | Site Map | Site Search | Valente and DiRenzo Family History - More From Our Correspondent in Geneva