Joannes Baptista de Franceschi «ex Cargna» (1742)

«Die 20 Xbris 1742 … baptizavi unam infantulam spuriam, natam heri, a Gregorio Bercar et Maria Simebich ex Parochia Barbana, cui positum fuit nomen Victoria. Patrini fuerunt Joannes Baptista de Franceschi, ex Cargn., et Maria uxor Gasparis Perlar.» He is the only person of this name in the whole register who is given an origin. Everyone else is «ambo ex hac Parochia» or nothing at all — the clerk marks him because he is not of the parish. Cargna is the Venetian and Italian form of Carnia. The word is abbreviated with a suspension stroke and is given here as read. (The expansion is inf; the letters C-a-r-g-n are doc.) Why this matters more than another godparent line. «Ex Carnia» is the exact phrase the Fiume marriage register attaches to Valentino de Franceschi on 28 February 1737 — and Joannes Baptista is the forename at the centre of the Fiume question, where a man of that name and unknown origin fathers a child at Fiume in 1748. This is not that man, and is not claimed to be. It is the first document this archive has found that puts the right surname, the right forename and a Carnian origin together inside Istria in the right decade. (lore for any connection to Fiume; doc for the entry.) And it unsettles the two Joannes Baptistas already here. One was dead by October 1737; one stood godfather in April 1739. Whether the 1739 man and this one are the same — and therefore whether the Svetvinčenat Battistas are themselves Carnian incomers — the register does not say. Film 005497885, image 132 — Births 1709–1764 of Svetvinčenat, read on the plate 23 September 2026 and magnified three times. In no index anywhere. A third time, and the fullest spelling yet: «ex Cargno». 14 September 1744, at the baptism of Michael son of Mari Milovar: «Patrini ad Sacrum fontem fuerunt Joannes Baptis-/:ta Defranceschi ex Cargno, et Catharina Uxor Bene Mesciarovich» — the surname broken across the line, the origin whole. Magnified. Film 005497885, image 138, read 23 September 2026. (doc.) A fourth time, ten months later. 1 June 1745, at the baptism of Vitus son of Gregorio Barbar: «Patrini fuere, Joannes Baptis-/:ta Defranceschi ex Cargno, et Cata uxor Caspari Venier». Magnified. This entry is on the page the loose slip covers on image 140 and is legible only on image 141. (doc.) Four statements of Carnia across four years — 1742, 1743, 1744, 1745 — and he is the only man of the name the register ever places.