mediterranean gypsies routes mediterranean sea...

Massimo Aresu

Mediterranean Sea routes2.5

INTRODUCTION

The circulation of ‘Gypsies’1 in the Mediterranean has not been studied extensively. Other than for a few exceptions, official aca-demic historiography has either shown a lack of interest in the topic, or falls into using generalisations and arbitrary simplifica-tions often based on inaccurate historiographical categories. In general, the categories mainly used to describe the history of Eu-ropean ‘Gypsies’– diaspora, nomadism and marginality – perpet-uate the idea of a minority constantly persecuted, with no local roots nor significant relationships with the rest of the population. These views link the history of ‘Gypsies’ to that of the so-called ‘dangerous’ social classes which, from the end of the 15th century onwards, became one of the main concerns for the governments of the then-budding nation states. Conversely, specialised stud-ies developed under the impulse of the ‘Gypsy’ Lore Society at the end of the 19th century and focused mainly on the continen-tal movements of ‘Gypsies’, whose presence is first recorded in Europe in the first half of the 15th century. Attention was mainly

1 In order to avoid anachronistic terminology in relation to the period examined in this publication, I will avoid the use of the autonym ‘Rom’/’Roma’ which is the preferred term today. I will refer to the terms used in Mediterranean sources – such as Cingani, Egipcianos, Grecianos, Bohemians, and similar [see ill. 7].

devoted to the so-called ‘Egyptians’: groups coming de orien-talibus partibus (from the East), who were part of what scholar Adriano Colocci defined as the ‘Gypsy’ Gran Banda (the Great Company). These groups, whose leaders boasted noble titles like ‘Duke’ or ‘Count of Little Egypt’, moved along the routes linking the main commercial and religious towns in Europe [Ill. 2]. The groups varied in number – from a few dozens to hundreds of peo-ple of both sexes – and its members were considered pilgrims. They primarily sustained themselves through trade and public donations in the cities in which they were hosted.

The continental ‘Gypsy’ groups eclipsed in importance the Mediterranean ‘Gypsy’ communities – whose members were less exotic and extravagant than their continental ‘relatives’ – in both historical appraisals and collective imagination. This article investigates this research gap by focusing on the dispersion across the Mediterranean Sea of groups and individuals with various names (e.g. Cingani, ‘Egyptians’ and ‘Greeks’) which are ascrib-able to the multifaceted Romani world. By using published ma-terials and unpublished archival sources, this work seeks to cast light on the strategies of dispersion and settlement, from the 15th to the 17th century. These movements, although partly influenced by the wars which had occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean area af-ter the invasion of the Balkans by the Ottomans, point to a broader principle of dispersion that determined the movements of groups and individuals in the Mediterranean region during the late Mid-dle Ages and the first part of the Early Modern period.

Although understudied, the presence of ‘Gypsy’ groups in the Mediterranean area is largely documented between the 14th and the 17th century. Of particular relevance is the circulation of the so-called Zingari or ‘Greeks’. They travelled from the Eastern Mediterranean region through Southern Italy and the islands of Si-cily, Sardinia, and Mallorca, up to the Iberian Peninsula. Their movements were not always diasporic, as they were sometimes part of a wider range of mobility strategies.

FACTSHEETS ON ROMANI HISTORY

Ill. 1 Mediterranean Gypsies Routes

(15th-17th Century)

PROJECT EDUCATION OF ROMA CHILDREN IN EUROPE

THE GREEK-VENETIAN LABORATORY

The first evidence available goes back to the first half of the 14th century in Crete, which at the time belonged to Venice. A 1304 notarial deed executed in Candia (now Heraklion) records the relinquishment by a certain Andrea Corner of the power of attor-ney he had received by Nicola Cingano. A few years later, there is evidence in Candia of the first laws explicitly against ‘Gyp-sy’ populations. In 1316, the administration of Venice officially banned ‘Gypsies’ of both sexes (cinganus nec acingana) from entering the city, a measure that would be reiterated in 1319. Such bans must have been of little effectiveness, however, given that a few years later, in 1326, the Franciscan Friar Simeon de Simeonys took note in his travel journals of the presence in Can-dia of people de genere Chaym se esse asserentem (claiming they belonged to the genus of Cain, i.e. probably ‘Gypsies’). In the second half of the century, legal documents show that something had changed in Candia. Alongside resident ‘Gypsies’ like Nicola Acingani, who appears as the owner of a Tartarian slave in a 1378 deed, there were travelling ‘Gypsies’ like Mavrangello Acingano vagabando (travelling ‘Gypsy’), who was wounded following a brawl with another Cingano.

The circulation and settlement of ‘Gypsy’ groups is re-corded not only in Crete but in all overseas Venetian domains, an area that anthropologist Leonardo Piasere defines as laboratorio greco veneziano, ‘the Greek-Venetian laboratory’. In Corfu, for instance, there are documents, spanning from the times of the Anjou domination (1267-1386) to the second half of the 19th cen-

tury, that prove the presence of a Feudum Acinganorum whose subjects were required to pay hefty taxes and were forced to car-ry out corvée labor on a regular basis. This type of juridical con-dition was also common to other ‘Gypsy’ communities settled in territories that were not subject to Venice. From the chronicles of Florio Bustron, we learn that between 1464 and 1468 ‘Gypsy’ people settled on the island of Cyprus, which was then a kingdom financially subject to the Mamluk Sultanate, and were required to pay a levy to the Royal Treasury, the so-called dretto delli cin-gani (right of ‘Gypsies’). Traces of their presence can also be found in the Aegean Islands, which were under the dominion of the Republic of Genoa. In Lesbos, for instance, a 1456 notari-al deed mentions the name of an Azinganus serventis (‘Gypsy’ servant), while in Chios an Acingano called Gioanni Drozzo, a privateer bankrolled by the Turks, was taken to the Inquisition Tribunal as a renegade in 1555.

If we return to the overseas domains of Venice, we learn from a 1444 document that the ‘Gypsies’ in the island of Nau-plion (now Nafplio) were under the command of a military leader who went by the title of drungarius acinganorum (which roughly translates to Captain of ‘Gypsies’). Between the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries, military service was still a way of social integration possible for Cingani groups in the territories of the Serenissima, as evidenced by the case of Paulo Indiano, segnore de zingari (lord of the ‘Gypsies’) and capo de squatra della gente d’arme dei Venetiani (leader of the soldiers of the Venetians), who was interred in Orvieto in 1506.

Very detailed information is available about the port of Methoni on the Western coast of the Peloponnese, an important

FACTSHEETS ON ROMANI HISTORYMediterranean Sea routes2.5

Ill. 2 European places visited by the ‘the Great Company’ – Carta della diffusione degli Zingari in Europa – Itinerari della Gran Banda. Map taken from A. Colocci’s Gli Zingari. Storia di un popolo errante, Bologna: Forni Editore, 1981 Anastatic reprint of Torino, 1889

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defensive stronghold and commercial hub on the road to the Holy Land. As early as 1384, the Jerusalem-bound nobleman of Flor-ence Lionardo di Niccolò Frescobaldi would report the presence of many Romiti, wanderers of probable ‘Gypsy’ origin, engaged in the atonement of their sins. Many other references follow, as sev-eral travellers, for the most part of French or German backgrounds, record in their travel journals the ‘Gypsy’ presence in Methoni. Historical testimonies agree that the ‘Gypsies’ dwelled not far from the city itself, next to a hill named Gypte – a place name as-sociated with Egypt, from which some authors believe derives the exonym ‘Egyptians’ which was used to describe ‘Gypsies’ in Western Europe countries. The main activity of the Gypsy com-munity in Methoni was metalworking. Over time, the members of the community decreased in number, from the 300 tuguria (huts) reported by the German pilgrims Berhhard von Breindebach in 1483 and Konrad Grünenberg in 1486 to the 200 huts documented by Alexander Pfalzgraf bei Rhein in 1495 to, eventually, the 100 huts recorded by Arnold van Harf two years later. The last pieces of information are offered by the Swiss chronicler Ludwig Tschudi, who mentions that only 30 dwellings remained in 1519.

SETTLEMENTS IN THE BALKANS

In contrast to the population decrease recorded for Methoni, other documents illustrate the strong presence of ‘Gypsy’ communities in the Eastern Mediterranean area, even after the Muslim expan-sion in the Balkans in the 15th century. An instance is that of the Re-public of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik), which, since the second half of the 14th century, has enjoyed a substantial political autonomy after

freeing itself from the tutelage of Venice, although it remained sub-ject to the double protectorate of the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Between the first known document (a notarial deed dating 1362) and the beginning of the 16th century, the pres-ence of ‘Gypsy’ groups is recorded. They were openly settled in the city, primarily engaged in trade activities, and were not the sub-ject of specific legislation. The testimonies available for Ragusa point to the presence of two distinct groups, since – along with the names Cinganus, Cingalus and Azinganus – one finds also Egip-tius, Egiupach and Jegupach.

Overall, across the Balkan area, and even in the territo-ries under the direct control of the Turks, the stable presence of the ‘Gypsies’ seems to be the rule, rather than the exception. Tax records compiled by the Ottomans in 1552-1553 for Rumelia (an administrative zone including present-day Bosnia, Serbia, Monte-negro, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Thrace) report 17,191 ‘Gypsy’ registered abodes. Most of them (10,294) were family units which were of Christian faith and thus required to pay a spe-cial levy called ğizya. This seems to confirm that, in the territories controlled by the Muslims, the westbound movements involved only single ‘Gypsy’ communities that, because of reasons that are yet to be fully researched and understood, shared the choice of mi-grating with their Greek, Albanian and Slavic neighbours.

WESTWARD BOUND: THE ‘RUTA DE LAS ISLAS’

There were three main maritime trajectories in the migrations of the ‘Gypsies’. Controlled by Venice, the first route started in Jerusalem, skirted the islands of the Greek archipelago and,


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Ill. 3 Anonymous note on the oriental origin of the Gypsies, in handwritten marginalia (f. 179r) of Discursos. Jurídicos Politicos en razón. De que los gitanos vandoleros de estos tiempos no les vale la Iglesia para su Inmunidad by Pedro de Villalobos, Salamanca: Diego de Cossio 1644. Copy held at the Romani Collection of the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds ©

Ill.4

Pila de los Gitanos (Gypsy font), in the Baptistery of Santa Ana’s Church in Triana (Seville) leyendasdesevilla.blogspot.com


after coasting Dalmatia, reached the Venetian mainland. This was probably the maritime itinerary followed by the bohe-mien natif de la Petite Egypte (‘Bohemian’ native of Little Egypt), George de Pamperon, who in 1460, during his trial at Château-Landon (France) for manslaughter, claimed that he had arrived in Venice six years earlier to escape from the Turks. The second route, overseen by the Genoese, went from the Black Sea coastline to the Aegean Islands, and then crossed the Tyrrhenian Sea to reach the Port of Genoa. Cor-sica was essential as a stopover for ‘Gypsy’ travellers as well, as is evident from the record of the sale of a horse by a Cin-garo trader in Bonifacio in the 15th century. Finally, la ruta de las islas (the route of the islands) was the sea itinerary that, following a diagonal trajectory, passed through a number of city ports in Italy and Spain – such as Naples, Palermo, Ca-gliari, Maiorca, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, and Cádiz – to reach the English coast in Southampton. It is for this route that the most significant testimonies of ‘Gypsy’ presence are recorded, especially after the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples by Alfonso the Magnanimous in 1443, a military operation that strengthened the hegemony of Spain in the Southwestern Mediterranean area. With regard to the ‘Gypsy’ Mediterranean itineraries, an anonymous 18th-century Span-ish commentator wrote in his handwritten marginalia to a 1644 pamphlet that:

The Gypsies originate from the Orient. However, they have lived in these realms for more than three hundred years, as we are told by the writings of brother Sebastian de Burgillos who, coming from Cephalonia to Majorca, saw them in the ships that transported them. And they said they were Greeks whose ancestors fled from Turkey and, before that, further from the East. [Ill. 3]

THE GRECIANOS IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA

Thanks to the studies published by the historian Amada Lopez de Meneses, it is possible to partly reconstruct the migratory wave of ‘Gypsy’ people in the Western Mediterranean area, whose pres-ence became stronger and stronger after the Byzantine Empire collapsed in 1453. Documents between 1448 and 1505 show the dispersion of several groups and families on the Iberian Peninsu-la, who were generally from Greece or Greek-speaking areas that were under the rule of Venice, such as Constantinople, Trebizond, Cyprus, Peloponnese, Negroponte, Crete, Andros and Lefkada.

The vicissitudes of the ‘Greek Gypsies’ (Grecianos), the ‘lords’ and ‘captains’ in the Mediterranean area, are not too dis-similar from those of the ‘Lords of Little Egypt’ in the mainland continent. ‘Greek Gypsies’ presented themselves as pilgrims who had been expelled from their homeland by the Turks, and formally accepted the power of the Spanish kings which enabled them to travel through the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon which had been unified through the marriage of Ferdinand II and Isabel-la I in 1469. At times, sharp conflicts between the different ‘Gyp-sy’ groups that moved throughout the Iberian territories would emerge. In 1484, for instance, the Catholic Kings granted the royal pardon to a Givio natural del regne de Grecia (native of the Kingdom of Greece) convicted for killing another ‘Greek’, Lluc Nantel. Similarly, in 1492, a real provision was issued for Miguel de la Torre, a Greciano who had accused Luys Arixal (probably a ‘Greek’ himself) of being the assassin of his brother Bartolomé de la Torre. The intervention of the king was also requested on several occasions by ‘Gypsy’ leaders to solve their disputes with Joan de Costa militis regni Greciae (soldier of the Kingdom of Greece). Because of rights granted to him by the Spanish royals, Joan de Costa imposed levies on pilgrims and, on top of that, of-


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Ill. 5 Plan of Palermo, with the districts of Kalsa and Albergheria highlighted. Plan taken from Braun & Hogenberg’s Civitatus Orbis Terrarum, Cologne, 1572www.raremaps.com

ten attempted to force other ‘Gypsy’ groups to join his own. Once it was confirmed that Costa’s misused his privileges, the Catholic Kings stepped in to stop his mistreatment of the other ‘Gypsies’ groups, who were under royal protection as well.

The artisan abilities of the Grecianos was held in high es-teem, especially for professions such as blacksmiths and stokers. These jobs were characterised by a strong tendency to mobility, which was typical for both, the Grecianos as well as the Iberian Egipcianos or Bohemians, who traded in horses. All groups were stripped of their privileges with the publication of the Pragmatica de Médina del Campo in 1499, a royal ordinance promulgated by Ferdinand II and Isabella I which forced them to renounce their itinerant lifestyle and choose between surrendering themselves to the service of a lord or leave the Spanish territories altogether.

Within the Iberian area, in the early modern period the ad-ministrative usage of the word Gitano (a contracted form of Egip-ciano) was progressively extended to encompass all communities, thus erasing the distinctive traits of the different ‘Gypsy’ groups to the eyes of non-Gypsy people. Cultural differences, however, must still have been evident to the members of the individual groups, so much so that in 1580 the ‘Gypsy’ woman Isabel Hernandez, que-ried by the Inquisition Tribunal in Cuenca, confirmed that in Spain two distinct groups of ‘Gypsies’ were active: the Grecianos and the Egipcianos. Still, the boundaries are often difficult to draw. The 1474 records of the city of Lleida in Catalunya, for instance, re-port the presence of Bohemians who adopted Grecia as their fam-ily name, and in 1499, in Barcelona, Juan d’Aragon, crown prince to the kingdoms of Castille and Aragon, issued a safe-conduct to Nicolas de Negropont compte en Egipte (from Negroponte, count of Egypt). The early-modern ambiguity in the categorisation of ‘Gypsies’ is also visible in documents from Andalusia: in 1531, no-tarial protocols in Seville show traces of a Gitano called Raimondo Tinto who is defined as of natural del Reino de Grecia (native to

the Kingdom of Greece), and in 1570, during the uprising of the Moriscos of the Alpujarras, the local authorities in Seville chose to include Gitanos or Grecianos when running a census of those fit for enlistment into the Spanish army in different areas of the city.

The affluence of Seville, which was the gateway to the New World after the inauguration of the Casa de Contratación (1503), attracted continental and Mediterranean ‘Gypsies’ alike. Both mostly found their dwellings in Triana, an area of the city whose inland port was rapidly expanding. In 1512, the records of the Santa Ana church – where the baptismal font known as Pila de los Gitanos (‘Gypsy’ font, see ill. 4) is preserved to this day – already report the first christening involving a ‘Gypsy’ family. Comparisons of documents such as church records, mar-riage licenses and censuses show that the Gitano and Greciano settlements in the area were stable throughout, and even after, the early modern period. Most ‘Gypsies’ who were resident in Tri-ana worked as blacksmiths. Despite the ordinances imposing a fixed abode, some ‘Greek Gypsies’ worked not only in town but in rural areas too; a Gitano (Greciano) blacksmith called Nicolas Maldonado, for instance, obtained permission to live in the An-dalusia village of La Zubia, near Granada, in 1588.

KINGDOM OF SICILY

As in the Iberian Peninsula, the presence of ‘Gypsies’ in the Mediterranean kingdoms of the Spanish Crown was also tied to the migration waves of Greek-Albanian migrants who crossed the sea to seek their fortune between the second half of the 15th and the first half of the 16th centuries. For reasons of geographi-cal proximity, groups of Greek ‘Gypsies’ often ended up in the Kingdom of Sicily. Commenting on their background, the Bolog-nese chronicler Girolamo Albertucci da Borselli noted in 1498 that “Zingani gens est de quibusdam insulis contra Siciliam si-


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Ill. 6 Notarial deed concerning the sale of a horse by a zingaro called Magister Michail Pecta, 1484State Archive of Palermo, notaio Giacomo Randisi, vol.231, s.n. ©

Ill. 7 Names given to Gypsies in the Mediterranean area between the 14th and the 15th Century, their origin and source language (Cat. – Catalan, It. – Italian, Lat. – Latin, Sar. – Sardinian Sp. – Spanish).

Singular Plural

Cinganus / Cingalus (Lat.)Cingano / Zingano (It.)

Cingani / Zingani (It.)Zinganos (Lat.)

Acingano/Acingana (Lat.)Azinganus (Lat.)

Acingani (Lat.)

Zingaro / Cingaro (It.)Cingaru (Sicilian)Xingano / Xingana (probably It.)Xinganu (probably Sar.)

Cingaros (Lat.)Cingari / Zingari (It.)

Egiptius (Lat.)Egipciano (Sp.)

Egipcianos (Sp.)Gipsiis (Lat.)

Gitano (Sp.) Gitanos (Sp.)

Greciano / Greciana (Sp.)Grec / Greg / Grega (Cat.)Gregu (Sar.)

Grecianos (Sp.)

Bohemians (Sp., Cat.)

tis” (the ‘Gypsies’ are people coming from the islands located in front of Sicily) – likely a reference to the Greek-Venetian islands in the Aegean and Ionian archipelagos. Their ‘Greek’ origin finds some confirmation in the Sicilian-Latin dictionary, written by the Spanish priest Lucio Cristobal de Escobar and printed in Venice in 1519, in which, under the heading Cingaru, it is reported that the ‘Gypsies’ in Sicily came from the Peloponnese (or Morea, as this area was usually called in the sources available from the late Middle Ages and early modern period).

The first known Sicilian document dates back to 1474. It is about two Cingari brothers, Mastro Aloysi Argenteri and Mas-tro Joanne, who landed in Messina and – after having married two local women – were granted full citizenship and were thus allowed – along with their relatives – to freely move in the king-dom. After this date, the presence of ‘Gypsies’ in Sicily becomes quite ordinary. In a 1480 cherca (i.e. a census) of the Kalsa area of Palermo, one of the dwellings that are mentioned is that of a Cingari called Mastru Bartholomeu, an artisan who owned una scavota e la matri pichula (a slave and her young mother). Some notarial deeds of the time show that the Cingari were fully inte-grated within the economy of Palermo, as demonstrated by the records detailing the registrations of a Zingaro called Magister Michael Pecta (who in 1485 sold a saddled horse, see ill. 6) and a Zingaro blacksmith called M. Thomeus in 1490. Church records too show that during this age ‘Gypsy’ communities were settled rather than itinerant, particularly in the Albergheria district of Palermo [Ill. 5]. While the adjective Zingaro occasionally occurs alongside the term Greco, the latter word does no longer refer to origin nor religious confession but is instead used as a family

name – a case in point being the 1611 death certificate of a Mas-tro Marco Greco zingaro in the church of San Nicolò di Bari.

At times, Sicily was a layover in a longer migration route. This appears clearly in a 1521 document about Giovanni de Argu-mento, known as ‘Greek’ and ‘duke’, who was leading a party to Santa María de Guadalupe and Santiago de Compostela and is re-ported to have shown a safe-conduct signed by Charles V in 1518. The presence in Sicily of ‘Gypsy captains’, at times explicitly re-ferred to as ‘Greek’, is widely recorded throughout the 16th century, particularly in the deeds of the Protonotaro del Regno (head of the notaries of the Royal Chancery), now preserved in the State Ar-chives in Palermo. Usually, ‘Gypsies’ had official licenses that en-abled them to move through the kingdom freely and granted them some degree of legal autonomy. On top of this, these licenses also allowed the members of ‘Gypsy’ groups to engage in commercial activities which were otherwise prohibited, such as the trading of horses, as it was case with a certain Alfonsus greco capitaneus cin-garos (Alfonsus Greco, the ‘Gypsy’ captain), recorded in 1548.

Besides the ‘Gypsy’ groups that arrived from Greece, there were also those who made their approach to Sicily after stopping in the Kingdom of Naples, such as the party captained by a Zingaro called Thomaso de Marco which came from Ca-labria in 1569, or those groups that travelled directly from the Iberian Peninsula, as for instance the ones led by Baldassarre de Magla and Aloysio Maldonato recorded in 1556. The latter ex-ample proves that ‘Gypsy’ groups had already been travelling from the West to the East since the first half of the 16th century, rather than going in the opposite direction. Free movement in ru-ral areas and the ease of settling in the city for ‘Gypsy’ groups are


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Ill. 8 View of Naples. In evidence the suburb of Case Nuove. Image taken from Braun & Hogenberg’s Haec est nobilis florens illa Neapolis, Campaniae civitas, Cologne, 1572www.raremaps.com

two singularities of the Sicilian territory – no doubt promoted by the lack of any major acts of political repression through pub-lic authorities. This context helps explain the full assimilation of the ‘Greek Gypsy’ families, at least within the urban areas, by the end of the 17th century. It is in this period that the ethnonym Zingaro disappears from the church records of the Albergheria quarter of Palermo, although several family names typical of ‘Gypsy’ families in Sicily remained in use, such as Greco, Ama-to, Valenti and Bevilacqua.

KINGDOM OF NAPLES

In the synodal decrees of 1635, Deodato Scaglia, bishop of Melfi and Rapolla, included a chapter on the ‘Gypsies’, who were be-lieved to be part of the Eastern Schismatic Church or Moham-medans, and whose origins were identified as ex illis Graeciae Regionis seu Egypti Regionibus (from Greek or Egyptian re-gions). Indeed, the different ‘Gypsy’ groups in the Kingdom of Naples came primarily from the Greek coasts, as well as from Albania and probably Dalmatia. Some elements in the names of ‘Gypsies’ seem to offer further confirmation of this. In the status animarum (records of parish residents compiled by household or address) of the village of Galatone in Apulia in 1574, the Greek origin of the ‘Gypsy’ families is in some cases evident from their patronymics. Heads of households such as Stefano, Melchiorre and Paduano are described as being the sons of the magnifico Marco Greco, alias zingaro. Here too, the Greco ethnonym seems to have had the function of a family name, as in the case of the Calabrian Geronimo Greco, to whom the most important

political and jurisdictional council in the Kingdom of Naples, the Consiglio collaterale, gave the title of capitano degli zingari (captain of the ‘Gypsies’) in 1648. Paradoxically, however, the first known testimony does not refer to groups of Greek origins but to the presence of ‘Egyptian’ groups recorded in Central Italy (in Bologna, Forlì, Lucca and Fermo). Indeed, the memoirist Lo-ise de la Rose writes about having seen the “duca de Egitto co’ la mogliere et y le figlie a/ndare pecczendo p(er) Napole” (the Duke of Egypt with his wife and daughters going around begging in Naples) during the reign of Joanna II of Naples (1414-1435). While certainly attested by documents, the presence of ‘Egyp-tian Gypsies’ in the south of Italy is not as strong as that of the ‘Gypsies’ who claimed Greek-Albanian origin. The coexistence of these two groups is noticeable in the cities too: The church re-cords of Santa Maria della Scala in Naples, for example, show that in the 16th and 17th centuries families resided in the area of the Case Nuove (the new houses, known at the time as borgo delli Cingari, or the suburb of the ‘Gypsies’, see ill. 8) whose origins are clearly evident through the epithet Zingaro/Cingaro or by be-ing described as Gipsiis, d’Egittio, d’Egiptio – all epithets that re-ferred to continental, rather than Mediterranean, ‘Gypsy’ groups.

KINGDOM OF SARDINIA

The first known notarial deed in the Kingdom of Sardinia is a 1495 lawsuit filed by a Greciana called Elena, who requested a refund of 200 ducats from Juan de Acosta for forcing her to dis-embark in Cagliari. In the 16th century, the central position of Sar-dinia in the Western Mediterranean area facilitated the settling of


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Ill. 9 Page naming Messer Juhan de Egipte Comte dels zingars and other ‘Gypsies’State Archive of Cagliari Antico Archivio Regio, Procurazione reale, BC 16, fol.12r ©

Ill. 10 Map of Cagliari. On the right the district of Villanova. In ‘Calaris Sardiniae Caput’, in S. Münster’s Cosmographie Universalis, Basel, 1550 https://commons.wikimedia.org

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aresu, Massimo and Henriette Asseo (2014) Zingari: una storia sociale. Quaderni Storici 149, pp. 333-532Asséo, Henriette (2010) Les Tsiganes: une destinée européenne. Paris: GallimardFraser, Angus (2007) The Gypsies, Malden: BlackwellLopes de Meneses, Amada (1971) Novedades sobre la immigraciò gitana a Espanya al segle XV, Estudis d’Historia medieval IV, pp. 143-161Martínez Martínez, Manuel (1998) La minoria gitana de la provincia de Almería durante la crisis del Antiguo Régimen (1750-1811), Almería: IEANovi Chavarria, Elisa (2007) Sulle tracce degli zingari: il popolo rom nel Regno di Napoli, secoli XV – XVIII, Napoli: GuidaPiasere, Leonardo (2009) I rom d’Europa: una storia moderna, Rome: LaterzaPym, Richard (2007) The Gypsies of Early Modern Spain, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacmillanRadenez Julien (2016) Contribution à l’histoire des Tsiganes en Europe. Hommes & Migrations 1314 (2), pp.151-155

Archives and Libraries:

Romani collection Brotherton Library (University of Leeds); Archivo Historico Nacional (Madrid); Biblioteca Nacional de España (Madrid); Archivo Provincial de Sevilla; Archivio di Stato di Palermo; Archivio Storico Comunale di Palermo; Archivio Parrocchiale San Nicola di Bari (Palermo); Archivio Storico Diocesano di Cagliari; Archivio di Stato di Cagliari

The data presented in this factsheet come from a research project financed by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement N. 796215.

FACTSHEETS ON ROMANI HISTORYMediterranean Sea routes2.5

families of ‘Gypsies’, particularly those engaged in horse-trading and metalworking.

The Procurazione reale, which oversaw the royal rev-enues in the island, kept records of many ‘Gypsies’ who bought and sold horses, either on their own behalf or for third parties, in the northern city of Castelgenovese (now Castelsardo) between 1518 and 1521. Two of the most eminent figures are the capita de dits zyngars (Gypsy’s captain) Francisco Descano and the Comte dels zingars messer Juhan de Egipte (Mr. Juhan from Egypt, count of the ‘Gypsies’) [Ill. 9]. Through these records it is possi-ble to reconstruct the Neapolitan origins of some of the registered matchmarkers, such as Jacomo de Napoli alias Zingaro (Jacomo from Naples also called Zingaro) in 1520.

Later documents seem to explicitly confirm the link be-tween Neapolitan ‘Gypsies’ and Sardinia. The name of Pedro Fer-rando, gitano del Reyno de Napoles (‘Gypsy’ from the Kingdom of Naples), for instance, appears in the records of the Sardinian Inquisition Tribunal on an auto-da-fé (judgment of the Inquisition condemning or releasing persons accused of religious offenses), that took place in Sassari in 1583. Pedro Ferrando’s presence in Sardinia suggests that the ‘anti-Gypsies’ measures that had been established by the Viceroy Alvaro Madrigal in 1561 had not been applied. These measures were based on a decree of the Sardinian Parliament led by the previous Viceroy Fernando d’Heredia (1553-1554) which ruled that Zinganos or Bohemians were to be expelled from as well as banned from entering Sardinia.

The rulings of the Viceroy did not reach the goal of re-ducing the number of itinerant ‘Gypsies’ in Sardinia, nor did they hinder their settlement in a number of cities. Between 1561 (when Perla Caterina Esperança, daughter of the Greg, Joan Nag-na, and the Grega, Catelina was baptized) and 1595 (when the Zingano Salvador Sica died), the records of the Church of San Giacomo in the Villanova district of Cagliari are proof of the steady presence of a dozen families, whose members are some-

times referred to as Greg/a and other times as Zingano/a [Ill. 10]. Over time, the term Greg gradually disappeared, so that after 1556 the only term found in official documents is Zingano. An important example is the case of “Nicolau greg” and “Catelina grega”, recorded for the first time in a baptismal record in 1564, who make another appearance one year later as “Nicolau gregu zingano” and “Catelina grega zingana” and, upon the early death of one of their sons, are put down in the 1575 church records as “Nicolau Xingano” and “Cathelina Xingana”.

The use of the word mestre (master artisan) suggests that in Villanova there was a prevalence of male ‘Gypsies’ that traditionally worked as artisans. As first-wave ‘Gypsy’ families progressively disappeared from the records of Villanova, in the 17th century new ‘Gypsy’ families of Iberian origins make their appearance, especially those from Majorca who were referred to as Gitanos instead of Zinganos. These were the families of the Mallas, Ximenes, Martines, Maldonado, Bustamante, Hernandes, Torres and Beltran – names which can be found in Sardinian doc-uments for quite a long time.

The diverse information available in the local church re-cords, as well as in other documents (both Sardinian and Span-ish), allows a more detailed representation of the events concern-ing the Iberian ‘Gypsy’ families that in Cagliari replaced the old ‘Greek’ families. In particular, the marriage licenses preserved in the archives of Majorca not only show the movements of newly-settled Cagliari-based ‘Gypsy’ families between Sardinia and the Balearic Islands – evidence that reveals their native cities (for ex-ample Valencia, Barcelona and Marseille) – but also show that the movements of the groups of ‘Gypsies’ were often the result of specific work-related strategies, such as the trading of horses and metalworking. The case of Sardinia demonstrates that while mi-grations of a diasporic nature happened, they were not necessarily the preferred mode of movement for the ‘Gypsies’ in the Mediter-ranean area in the early-modern period.