Gasparo Defranceschi (husband of Maria, fl. 1744)

5 May 1744: «patrini fuerunt Dominicus del Corvo … et Maria uxor Caspari Defranceschi». Magnified and read letter by letter. He settles a question this archive had left open between two wrong candidates. Gasparo de Franceschi's dossier weighs the 30 March 1773 marriage entry «Joannes Volge, et Maria relicta q.m Gasparis de Franceschi» — a widow of a Gasparo remarrying — against two men: the twin baptised 1737 and the Domenico Gasparo baptised 1732. Neither of them can be the husband. A man whose wife is named in a godparent line in May 1744 was married by 1744. The twin was six; Domenico Gasparo was eleven. The archive was choosing between two boys. The wife's name matches, twenty-nine years apart. Maria is Caspar Defranceschi's wife in 1744 and Maria is the widow of the late Gaspar de Franceschi in 1773. One couple, one lifetime, and the 1773 entry is his death notice in all but name. (doc for both entries; the identification of the two Marias as one woman is inf, on the forename, the surname of the husband, the single parish and the ordinary span of a marriage.) So the castle held a third Gasparo, older than both the boys — born about 1715, married by 1744, dead by March 1773. Film 005497885, image 137 — Births 1709–1764 of Svetvinčenat, read on the plate 23 September 2026. In no index anywhere. A second attestation seven months later. 29 November 1744, at the baptism of Joanna Magdalena, daughter of D.nus Jacobus Zuecht: «Patrini fuere, D.nus Marius Zocchi Chirurgus, et Maria Uxor Caspari Defranceschi». Magnified. His wife stands beside the parish surgeon, which says something about the household's standing. (doc.) Film 005497885, image 139. And a third attestation, which is now the earliest. 15 February 1744: «Patrini fuere D.us Jacobus Zuecha, et Maria uxor Caspari Defranceschi» — magnified. Maria is named as his wife three times in 1744 alone, in February, May and November, each time in the same formula and never with a different husband. That steadiness is the whole argument: she is not a clerk's slip, she is a wife. (doc.) Film 005497885, image 136. And in 1746 he appears in person, twice. 15 September 1746: «Patrini ad Sacrum Fontem fuerunt, Casparus Defranceschi, necnon Maria filia Joannis Barcovich». 23 October 1746, at the baptism of twins, the boy's godfather is «Casparus de Franceschi» while the girl gets her own pair. 24 November 1746: «Paulus Venier, et Maria uxor Caspari Defranceschi» — her fourth. So the couple is attested in person across three years, and the man is standing at fonts in 1746 when the twin baptised in 1737 would have been nine. (doc.) Film 005497885, image 144. Still standing at fonts in 1747. 21 September 1747: «Patrini ad Sacrum Fontem fuerunt Casparus Defranceschi, et Lucia uxor Viti Biasich». Film 005497885, image 146. (doc.) Maria a fifth time, 6 October 1748: «Patrini fuerunt ad S. Fontem, Martinus Paicovich, et Maria uxor Caspari Defranceschi». Film 005497885, image 150. (doc.) Maria a sixth and seventh time, and then the two houses stand together. «Maria uxor Caspari Defranceski» on 14 December 1748 and 19 January 1749. 17 August 1749 — «Patrini ad Sacrum fontem fuere, Caspar Defranceschi, et Pascasia uxor Jacobi Defranceschi», magnified. Two households of the name in one godparent line, as Vittorio and Pietro's Jacoba had done the year before. And he is still standing at a font on 26 February 1751. ⚠ An open question about his death, which this archive cannot presently settle. On 11 March 1751, thirteen days after that last appearance, a godmother was read here as «Batistina filia q.m Caspari Defranceschi» — the late Caspar. If that reading is right he died inside a fortnight, leaving a grown daughter. But the archive already holds a Battistina De Franceschi, born at Svetvinčenat on 18 November 1731, whose own baptism names her father «S.r Gio: Battista de Franceschi» and her mother Maria — and Maria is the name attested six times as Caspar's wife. Either there are two Battistinas, or one of the two readings is wrong. The 1751 frame was magnified once and the working copy has since been lost twice to a failing disk, so it cannot be re-checked today. Recorded as a reading to verify, not as a fact. No person has been created, merged or split on it. (the 1749 and 1751 appearances are doc; the parentage of that godmother is open.) Film 005497885, images 151–162, read on the plate 27 September 2026. --- 28 September 2026 — a «M.ro Gasparo de Franceschi» in the marriage register, twelve years later, and this page does not claim him. 6 November 1762, at the marriage of Domenico Bulcich and Gioanna Bulcich: «alla presenza mia di And.a Venier q.m Nadal, di M.ro Gasparo de Franceschi, e di molte altre persone Testimonj» — film 005497886, frame 43, the first page of the 1762 marriage volume. (doc for the appearance.) «M.ro» is Maestro, a master craftsman — the first trade-style ever recorded for a Defranceschi of this parish, and the register does not say which craft. ⚠ It may not be this man. Two other Gasparos of the name could be living in the parish in 1762 — Gasparo de Franceschi born 1737, then twenty-five, and Casparus di Jacobo Defranceschi (1743), then nineteen. A style of address is not an identification. This man, about forty-five in 1762 and last seen in 1750, is the likeliest of the three and that is all — the entry gives no father, no wife, no age and no trade. (unassigned.) --- 28 September 2026, an hour later — the register names his father, and two of the three candidates fall. 13 August 1766, at the marriage of Mattheus Razzan and Catharina Percovich: «Testibus ad hoc adhibitis Perill.re D.no Jacobo Zaveri Rectore … ac Gaspare de Franceschi q.m Ant.o ex hoc Castro» — film 005497886, frame 55, read at 2.5×. «q.m Ant.o» — son of the late Antonio, of this castle. (doc.) And four days earlier, 9 July 1766: «Testibus ad hoc adhibitis D.no Franc.co Fabris et D.no Gasparo de Franceschi» — frame 54. (doc.) ⚠ This retires the «unassigned» filed above. A patronymic does what a style of address could not: · Gasparo de Franceschi b. 1737 is excluded — he is the twin of 26 December 1737, and his father is Jacobo de Franceschi × Anzola, named in his own baptism. · Casparus di Jacobo Defranceschi (1743) is excluded — his father is Jacobo too, named in full in the act this archive corrected this morning. · This man is not excluded. No father is recorded for him, so «q.m Antonio» contradicts nothing here, and the fit is otherwise exact: a settled householder, wife Maria named as his six times 1744–1749, of this castle. (inf — the identification rests on elimination plus fit, not on a document that names him and Maria together with his father.) Two dates follow if he is the man. His father Antonio is dead by 13 August 1766. And he himself is alive on 13 August 1766 — which, set against the 30 March 1773 entry this page already carries, «Joannes Volge, et Maria relicta q.m Gasparis de Franceschi», brackets his own death to 1766 × 1773. The style of address is worth a caution, not a conclusion. He is «M.ro» in 1762 and «D.no» twice in 1766 — but the scribe changed in between, from Arciprete Simon Zadro to D. Mattio Adamich, and the second writes «D.no» over almost everyone he names. That is a habit of the pen, not a promotion. His wife now has a page of her own: Maria de Franceschi, wife of Gasparo (fl. 1744–1773). And his father now has one too: Antonio de Franceschi of Svetvinčenat (d. by 1766) — a man who exists on the strength of one word, «q.m Ant.o», and whose page says so.