Part I of the book
The name, and where it begins
Part I · 🇮🇹 🇭🇷
A surname written down under eight sovereigns, in four languages, and spelled at least nine ways, and the place where every account the family gives of itself begins: the valleys of Carnia, where the documents run out. This part reads the name, then the mountain villages, then Istria town by town, then the historian of the province, whose letter answers, in his own hand, most of what the archive has spent its time trying to establish.
- 1The NameEvery shift has a cause: a change of ruler, clerk or language.
- 2Say Your NameOne person, written down six different ways by six different clerks.
- 3Arms & FlagsWhere the internet lies to people, and the honest position.
- 4The Other FranceschiSome are certainly kin to this family, most are certainly not; the point is the name.
- 5Back to CarniaTwelve De Franceschi across three villages, and the name still at Mione in 1939.
- 6Every Town in IstriaTwenty-one towns carry the name, thirty-nine do not.
- 7Carlo De FranceschiThe historian of Istria, and this family's own.
- 8Carlo's LetterHis reply to a question about the families of Fiume who carried the surname.
- 9Carlo's BookA history of his province, online all along, that gives the home parishes a diocese and is silent about Carnia.
- 10The Library in ZagrebThe books and the family archive from the house at Gologorica were not destroyed in 1945.