Antonio de Franceschi (witness 1773)

Named on a dozen entries between January 1773 and April 1775, and never as a bridegroom — always as the man the parish asked to stand witness. (This page said «six times in ten months of 1773» until 28 September 2026; the marriage film gives many more, and they run two years past where the count stopped.) On 25 January, twice on 27 January, on 2 May, on 5 August and on 31 October 1773 the Svetvinčenat marriage register closes the entry «testibus Ant.º de Franceschi et Jo: Sain», or the same with Vincentio Vemir or Stephano Petrovich in Sain's place. He has a grown son. On 4 February 1773 the witness is «Victorio de Franceschi filio Antonij» — Vittorio, son of Antonio. That single phrase is what dates him: a son old enough to witness in 1773 puts Antonio's own birth about 1730 at the latest, and possibly a decade earlier. (doc for the appearances and for the son; the birth year is inferred from his son's age.) He is not merged with anyone. The archive already carries an Antonio De Franceschi born 1704 at Svetvinčenat, who would have been sixty-nine in 1773 — possible, and not proven. A name and a decade is not an identification. See Vittorio de Franceschi, son of Antonio. He was the bell-ringer, and that is why he is on so many pages. Three entries of 1774–75 give him an occupation, one of them with the word in front where it cannot be misparsed: «e del Campanaro Antonio Defranceschi» (25 September 1775), «Ant.º Defranceschi Campanaro, ed altri» (27 February 1775), «d'Ant.º Defranceschi Campanaro» (29 October 1775). This archive first read his six 1773 appearances as a mark of standing. The duller explanation is the right one: he worked at the church, and the priest reaching for a witness reached for the man already in the building. (doc.) He does not hold the title alone. «Zne Sain Campanaro» appears in February and July 1776 and January 1777. Either the office changed hands or the parish had more than one bell-ringer. (inf.) Eleven appearances in all, 1773 to 1775, and then nothing: after 1775 the name in the witness line is Domenico. See Domenico Defranceschi, witness 1777. His own marriage is not in the book. The whole volume, 1762–1779, has now been read frame by frame. With a son old enough to witness in February 1773 he married about 1750–1756, before this register opens — inside the gap between 1623 and 1762 that the parish's marriage books do not cover. (doc, for the negative.) He is a grandfather in the record too. His son Vittorio's children are in this archive's burials: Antonia (1804–1808), Giovanni Pietro (1809), Antonio (1811) and Gioanni Maria (d. 1813). The grandson carries his name, which is what the parish's naming habit would predict. (inf.) Three generations of the name at Svetvinčenat now run Antonio → Vittorio → Antonio, on the strength of a witness line, a burial and a naming pattern — no baptism among them. And here he is as a father, which is what eight days of reading were for. The baptism register of 1764–1791, at 9 December 1769, carta 26: «Fran.ca figlia di D.no Ant.o De Franceschi e Donna Mattia … nata li 8 corrente». Magnified and read letter by letter. So Antonio was a householder at Svetvinčenat by 1769 — not a man who arrived about 1770, which is what this archive had been inferring from his absence as a parent in volume one. He is styled D.no, Dominus, a courtesy the register withholds from most of the parish. (doc.) His wife is Mattia — the Matthea who stands godmother in 1780 as «Matthea uxor Antonij Defranceschi». (doc for both entries; the household is inf.) Their children, so far: Vittorio de Franceschi, son of Antonio (b. about 1758) and Franca de Franceschi (b. 1769) (b. 8 December 1769). A second daughter, and she was a twin. On 21 January 1776 the register has «Dom[enic]a filia legit[i]ma et natu[rali]s D[omi]ni Antonij Defranceschi, Matthæque ejus [conjugis], nata gemina hac nocte elapsa» — magnified. Domenica de Franceschi (b. 1776) joins Franca (1769) and Vittorio (c. 1758) as his children. The twin has not been found. (doc.) A fifth child, found in somebody else's baptism. Frame 112, 18 January 1786: «Patrini fuere Matthaeus Doblanovich, et Maria filia Antonii de Franceschi». Magnified. Maria de Franceschi, daughter of Antonio joins Vittorio, Franca, Domenica and Domenico. Her own baptism has not been found, and no birth year is inferred for her. (doc for the daughter; her age is open.) His children now stand at the font in his place. By 1785–86 it is Vittorio, Vittorio's wife Euphemia, and Maria whose names fill the godparent line — the same office Antonio himself held through the 1770s. And he is still alive in 1788. Frame 123, 12 October 1788: «Patrini fuere Antonivs Defranceschi, et Helena uxor Dni Benedicti Fiorencij» — godfather to Martinus, son of Joannes and Catharina Xivolich. Magnified. He was last seen in person on 10 September 1783. This adds five years. If he was born about 1730 — which his son's age in 1773 requires — he is about fifty-eight here. (doc for the entry.) The identification is inference, and narrow inference. The entry says «an Antonio Defranceschi», not «the». But the only other men of that name this archive places at the castle are his own grandson, born 1811 and not yet alive, and an Antonio of 1671 long dead. No other candidate exists in the parish in 1788. (inf.) --- 27 September 2026 — an Antonio with a different wife, sixteen years earlier, and this archive will not say whether he is this man. 14 February 1753: «patrini fuerunt, Vincentius Bergam, et Agnes uxor Antonij Defranceschi» — image 162 of the Births 1709–1764. Agnes is a name new to this parish's Defranceschi, and she appears nowhere else in this archive. Three readings, and the register does not choose between them. · A first wife of this man. He is estimated born about 1730, so twenty-three in 1753; Mattea is not attested as his wife until 1769, sixteen years later. A first marriage ending in the interval is entirely ordinary and would leave exactly this trace. · Another Antonio. The parish held an Antonio born 1704 — twice over in this roster, itself an unresolved pair — and an Antonius of 1671. Either could be «Antonij» in 1753. · The clerk writing the wrong husband, which this register is now proved to do: it gave Pascasia to Caspar twice in fourteen months while she was demonstrably Jacobo's wife. «Agnes uxor Antonij» is a godparent line, which is the exact kind of line that failed. No wife has been added to this man and no household built. The archive spent this week learning that a godparent line is not a marriage, and that a second wife-name is as likely to be a second man — or a slip — as a remarriage. Recorded, and left open. (doc for the entry; whose wife she was is open.) --- 28 September 2026 — a second Antonio, and this page is not him. The marriage register names «Gaspare de Franceschi q.m Ant.º ex hoc Castro» on 13 August 1766 — film 005497886, frame 55. That Antonio was dead by August 1766, seven years before this man begins witnessing. He now has his own page: Antonio de Franceschi of Svetvinčenat (d. by 1766). So the castle held at least two Antonios de Franceschi in the eighteenth century, and this page's six witnessings of 1773 belong to the later one. (doc for the separation — it rests on «q.m» in 1766 against a living witness in 1773, not on an estimate of age.) His 1773 appearances were re-read on the plate the same day, frame 64, at 2.3×: «testibus Ant.º de Franceschi et Jo: Sain» (25 January) and «Jo: Sain, et Victorio de Franceschi filio Antonij» (4 February). Both confirmed as published. --- 28 September 2026 — he does not stop in 1773, and three entries give him a parish office. This page had him «named six times in ten months of 1773». Re-reading frames 65–70 finds him well beyond that: 22 and 27 November 1773, 27 and 29 January, 3 February and 3 July 1774, and four more times between February and April 1775 — including as a witness at Fusca de Franceschi's wedding on 17 November 1773. He is a fixture at this church for at least three years, not ten months. (doc.) ⚠ And three times the clerk writes a trade after his name. «D.n Antonio Defranceschi Campanaro» (29 January 1774), «D.no Antonio Defranceschi Cap.ro» (3 February 1774), and «d'Ant.o Defranceschi Capanaro» (27 February 1775) — campanaro, the bell-ringer, and in each the word follows his surname with no other name between. It would explain everything about him — a man who is at the church anyway is the man you ask to witness — and this archive is not going to say it, because the same register calls somebody else the bell-ringer in the same years. «Zvanne Sain campanaro» appears on 11 December 1773 and again in May, June, August and twice in November 1774. Either the collegiate church had more than one, or the office changed hands twice, or the word is doing something in these three entries that is not obvious. (The appearances are doc; the office was left open for a day — see below, where it closes.) --- 28 September 2026, later — the office is settled, by word order. Frame 72, 25 October 1775: «…alla mia presenza del R.do Sig.r D. Giuseppe Crisanaz, e del Campanaro Antonio De Franceschi: Testimonj.» — the title stands before the name, where «del Sig.r» or «del R.do» would stand, and it cannot attach to anyone else. Read at 2.3×. (doc.) That makes five. «Antonio Defranceschi Campanaro» (29 Jan 1774), «Antonio Defranceschi Cap.ro» (3 Feb 1774), «Ant.o Defranceschi Capanaro» (27 Feb 1775), «Ant.o Defranceschi Campanaro» (19 Oct 1775), and this one. He was a bell-ringer of Svetvinčenat, and that is why the parish kept asking him to witness: he was at the church already. ⚠ And he was not the only one. «Zvanne Sain Campanaro» carries the same title on at least a dozen entries across the same years — 1773, four times in 1774, three times in 1776, and January 1777. Two men held it at once. The likeliest reason is on the same pages: this parish is a collegiate church with others around it — the register marries people at S. Vincenzo, S. Rocco, S. Germano and S. Maria Maddalena. A parish with four churches has more than one bell to ring. (inf — the register never says which church either man served.) One more appearance, no title: 19 November 1776, witness with Mattio Bergamo. He runs 1773 to 1776 on this film. And later still. He witnesses again on 22 November 1779 — «alla sua presenza, d'Ant.o Defranceschi, e di D.no Z.ne Volfe Testimonj», frame 85. His run on this film is January 1773 to November 1779, nearly seven years, against the «six times in ten months of 1773» this page began with. --- ⚠ 28 September 2026 — he was styled «Capo», and he was alive in 1783. Twice in six weeks the new archpriest, D. Paolo Cossaich, gives him a title, in a hand with nothing covering it: · 13 March 1783: «Vittorio figlio di Capo Antonio de Franceschi contrasse li primi sponsali con Eufemia figlia di Mattio Bergamo» — film 005497886, frame 93, read at 2.2×. This is also the first document to state outright that Vittorio is his son. · 28 April 1783: «…qual esposero alla mia presenza di Capo Antonio de Franceschi, di Mattio Percich q. Piero, e pur Sime Percich q. Piero» — he is a witness himself, still. (doc for both.) ⚠ «Capo» is recorded, not translated. The same act carries a second one — «Capo Mattio Buzzalovich q. Zuanne da Lisignano» — so it is a title this clerk gives to men, and it took a second construction before this archive would read it at all. What it meant at Svetvinčenat is not established here: head of a contrada, head of a household, master of a boat — the register says none of it. Both weddings touch the coast (one is celebrated at Parenzo, one witness comes from Ližnjan), which is suggestive and is not evidence. (doc for the word; its meaning is open.) ⚠ And it overturned this archive's own reading of the morning. Frame 86 had been published as «Gregorio Defranceschi q.m Ant.o» — of the late Antonio — from a glyph with an ink blot on it. «Capo», twice, in 1783, says otherwise, and the clerk marks his dead in the same sentences with «deff.o» and «q.». The correction is recorded. This page no longer carries a death year, inferred or otherwise. What is still certain is that the bell-rope had moved on. Through 1780, 1781 and 1782 the register names the campanaro five times and every time it is a Bratulich — Gasparo q.m Vittorio and Zorzi q.m Vittorio — and by February 1783 a Pietro Brunetti. That is consistent with this page's long-standing finding that the office moved between men, and it no longer needs a death to explain it. (doc.)