Jacobo de Franceschi (of Svetvinčenat, fl. 1737–1752) — at least two men

The best-attested man of the name at the castle in these years, and he is nearly always somebody else's godfather. 26 December 1737 he baptises twins. «…baptizavit duos infantulos geminos natos hodie mane a Jacobo de Franceschi, et Anzola ejus legitima uxore ambobus ex hac Parochia, quibus fuit positum nomen, uni [Cesare?] alteri Antonij» — two boys born that morning, godparents Natale Zanzevich (?) and Clara, widow of Bartolomeo Braccato. In no index anywhere. And he stands at other people's fonts through the whole stretch — 27 November 1737, 12 January 1738, 16 February 1738 — which is what a settled householder does. By 1752 his wife has a different name. Twice that year the register writes the godmother as his wife: «Franca Marcario uxor Jacobi Defranceschi» on 26 March and «Francisca uxor Jacobi Defranceschi» on 17 December. And within ten months the register gives him three different wives. Anzola at the twins' baptism, 26 December 1737; «Agata uxor Jacobi de Franceschi» on 10 August 1738; «Jacoba uxor Jacobi de Franceschi» on 7 September 1738; and then «Angela uxor Jacobi Defranceschi» on 1 March 1739 — Angela is Anzola, so she is alive on both sides of the other two. One man cannot have had three wives in those ten months, which leaves two possibilities and this archive prefers neither: either more than one Jacobo de Franceschi was living in the parish at once, or the godparent formula is not reliable about husbands' forenames — and there is a reason to suspect the second, because Jacoba is named six weeks earlier as the wife of Pietro, and a clerk writing «Jacoba uxor Jacobi» may simply have been pulled by her own name. (See the method note.) By 1752 the wife is Francisca Marcario. Whether that is a remarriage or a second man is the same unanswered question, fifteen years later. (doc for every appearance; the identity across 1737 and 1752 is inf and flagged.) Film 005497885, images 115–117 — Births 1709–1764 of Svetvinčenat, read on the plate 22 September 2026. --- 23 September 2026 — a second baptism, and then a withdrawal. The baptism is real. «Casparus filius legitimus Jacobi Defranceschi, et ~~Francisca~~ ejus legitimæ uxoris, amborum ex hac Parochia» — ⚠ the mother's name in this quotation is wrong; she is Pascasia, re-read 28 September 2026, see below and /corrections/ — born 1 June 1743 — Casparus di Jacobo Defranceschi 1743. (doc.) ⚠ What this archive published on the strength of it, for about an hour, was wrong. It said the Jacobo of 1737 and the Jacobo of 1752 were one man who remarried — Anzola dying after 1739, Francisca from 1743 — and that the two women's dates did not overlap. They do overlap, with a third woman this page never consulted. The archive's own households file already carried [h107] Giacomo de Franceschi × Pascasia, four children 1750–1759, read off the same volume at images 155, 163, 169 and 179. Francisca is his wife in 1743 and twice in 1752. Pascasia is bearing his children from 1750. One man cannot have both. And h107 is not the only one. The parish holds [h108] Giacomo × Anzola (1737), [h113] Giacomo × Francisca (1743), [h107] Giacomo × Pascasia (1750–1759) and [h109] Giacomo × Nicolina Teserati (1773–1778) — besides «Domenico Gasparo, son of Giacomo» baptised in 1732. Forty-six years of one forename fathering children. That is two generations at least, and the archive cannot yet say which act belongs to which man. So the original doubt stands, restored: either more than one Jacobo de Franceschi was living in the parish at once, or the godparent formula is not reliable about husbands' forenames. The first is now the likelier of the two, and the 1738 Agata and Jacoba lines are no longer explained away — they go back to being unexplained. The failure was not a misreading. Every entry quoted on this page was read correctly. The conclusion was drawn without checking it against the households this archive had already built — the contradiction was sitting in its own files, in a volume it had already read. Recorded on /corrections/. --- 23 September 2026, an hour later — frame 135 settles it, and the answer is two men. Eight days of 1743, on one page of the register: · 1 June 1743 — «Casparus filius legitimus Jacobi Defranceschi, et Francisca ejus legitimæ uxoris». A full baptism entry, both parents named, both «ex hac Parochia». · 24 November 1743 — «Patrini vero fuere, Georgij Bratolich, et Pascasia uxor Jacobi Defranceschi». · 1 December 1743 — «…nec non [Franca] Mar-/:cario uxor Jacobi Defranceschi» — the surname split across the line break, and the same woman the register names «Franca Marcario uxor Jacobi Defranceschi» nine years later. Francisca Marcario brackets Pascasia by five months on one side and a week on the other. No widower remarries and is widowed again inside eight days. And each woman is attested repeatedly, over years, which is not what a slip of the pen looks like. Francisca Marcario: June 1743, December 1743, 26 March 1752, 17 December 1752. Pascasia: November 1743, and then four children to a Giacomo de Franceschi between 1750 and 1759 ([h107]). So Svetvinčenat held two contemporary men of this name, and in the last week of November 1743 both their wives stood at the same font. One is married to Francisca Marcario, the other to Pascasia. (inf, and the firmest thing this page has ever carried — two independent series of attestations that interleave rather than succeed one another.) What it does to the rest of the page. The 1738 Agata and Jacoba lines no longer need explaining away as clerical error: there was a second Jacobo for them to belong to. The archive still cannot say which man fathered the 1737 twins, or which is the Giacomo of [h109] who married Nicolina Teserati in the 1770s — but it no longer has to pretend the register was confused. It was not confused. It was describing a parish with two Jacobo de Franceschis in it, and this archive read that as one man for a day. Film 005497885, image 135 — read on the plate 23 September 2026. Image 137 adds three more appearances, all as godfather, all in 1744 — 3 March, 19 April and 1 July, the last two written «Jacobo Defranceschi» and «Jacobus Defranceschi». No wife is named at any of them, which is the only reason they add nothing to the question of how many men carried the name. (doc.) --- 23 September 2026, image 143 — the two men are now proved from baptisms, not godparent lines. 31 March 1746: «Martina Antonia filia legitima Jacobi Defranceschi, et Pascasia ejus legitima uxoris amborum ex hac Parochia, nata 28 currentis» — Martina Antonia di Jacobo Defranceschi 1746. That is the second woman named as a Jacobo's wife in a full parental entry, three years after Francisca in Casparus di Jacobo Defranceschi 1743's. Until now the case rested partly on godparent lines, which this archive has twice shown to be unreliable about husbands. It no longer does. Two baptisms, two mothers, one forename — and the godparental attestations interleave across the same years rather than succeeding one another. Jacobo × Francisca Marcario = [h113]. Jacobo × Pascasia = [h107], which begins in 1746 and not 1750. --- 27 September 2026 — a joint line settles Pascasia, and convicts the formula twice over. 29 April 1753: «patrini fuerunt, Jacobus Defranceschi, et Pascasia ejus uxor» — husband and wife in one phrase, in one hand, with no room for a clerk to attach her to the wrong man. That is the proof Pietro de Franceschi of Svetvincenat (fl. 1738) and Jacoba have, and it is now Pascasia's. Which makes two entries provably wrong, in the same register, about the same woman. «Pascasia uxor Caspari Defranceschi» on 16 December 1751 and again on 3 February 1752 — magnified. She was never Caspar's wife. Caspar's wife is Maria, named as his six times between 1744 and 1749. This is a stronger demonstration of the godparent-formula failure than the 1738 case the method note was first written about. In 1738, «Agata uxor Jacobi» and «Jacoba uxor Jacobi» could be checked against nothing — the doubt was the whole finding. Here the right answer is known independently, from three baptisms and a joint line, so the two wrong entries can be convicted rather than merely suspected. The clerk wrote the wrong husband twice, for one woman, fourteen months apart. And Francisca is still Jacobo's wife in 1753: «Francisca uxor Jacobi Defranceschi», 6 February 1753 — while Pascasia bears his children in 1746, 1747 and 1750 and is named his wife in a joint line that April. Two men, and now harder to doubt than ever. (doc for the joint line and the two Caspari entries; the separation of the men is inf.) Film 005497885, images 151–162, read on the plate 27 September 2026. --- 28 September 2026 — the 1743 evidence is re-read, and it no longer says what this page built on it. One word, magnified to 8× and checked against the clerk's own hand twice, changes all three of the 1743 lines above. 1 June 1743 is not Francisca. It is Pascasia. Set beside the same clerk's «Franciscus» on the facing leaf (carta 119v, 8 October 1743) and beside his «Pascasia» nine images on (image 143, 31 March 1746), the word on carta 119 is the 1746 word, stroke for stroke, and shares only two letters with «Franciscus». Recorded on /corrections/. So the eight days collapse. This page argued that «Francisca Marcario brackets Pascasia by five months on one side and a week on the other» and that «no widower remarries and is widowed again inside eight days». In 1743 there is one wife, not two: Pascasia in a full baptism on 1 June, Pascasia again as godmother on 24 November — and then one line, «Mar-/:cario uxor Jacobi Defranceschi», on 1 December. A lone godparent line is the weakest thing in this volume, and this page proved it twice. «Pascasia uxor Caspari Defranceschi», 16 December 1751 and 3 February 1752 — both wrong about the husband, convicted from three baptisms and a joint line. The 1 December 1743 line is that same object, and nothing independent stands behind it. ⚠ What this does and does not do. It does not withdraw the two men. It withdraws 1743 as the thing that settled them. The case now rests entirely on 1752–53, where nothing has been re-read and where the evidence is of a better kind: «Francisca uxor Jacobi Defranceschi» on 6 February 1753 against «Jacobus Defranceschi, et Pascasia ejus uxor» — husband and wife in one phrase, no room for a clerk to misattach her — on 29 April 1753, ten weeks later, with Pascasia bearing his children in 1746, 1747 and 1750. (inf.) And [h107] Jacobo × Pascasia now begins in 1743, not 1746 — the third start date this archive has given that household, and the first one read at magnification against a control. Film 005497885, images 134, 135 and 143, re-read on the plate 28 September 2026. --- 28 September 2026 — Pascasia is a widow by October 1765, and she remarries. 22 October 1765: «Domenico Calluzzi q.m Pietro hà contrato il matrimonio per verba de presenti con Pasqua Ved.a q.m Giacomo de Fran-/ceschi in 2di uoti» — film 005497886, frame 53, read at 2.5× where the surname breaks across the line. (doc.) Three things at once. · «Pasqua» is Pascasia, and the marriage register confirms her as Giacomo de Franceschi's wife — independently of the baptism volume, in a different book, by a different clerk. Until now every attestation of that marriage came from the baptisms. · Her Giacomo is dead by 22 October 1765. «q.m». This archive has never before been able to date the death of any Jacobo of this castle. · She married again, «in 2di uoti» — second vows — to Domenico Calluzzi, son of the late Pietro. She had borne Giacomo at least four children between 1743 and 1750. ⚠ And it hands the two-men question a test it never had. If the register shows a living «Giacomo de Franceschi» acting after 22 October 1765 — as godfather, witness, or father — then he cannot be Pascasia's husband, and the second man is proved by simple arithmetic rather than by interleaved wives. That is a cleaner test than anything this page has rested on, and it costs only reading forward. (The converse proves nothing: silence after 1765 is what one dead man looks like, and also what two quiet ones look like.) What it does not do is say which Giacomo died. Pascasia's husband is [h107]. Francisca Marcario's husband, if he is a different man, is untouched by this act. --- 28 September 2026 — the three women now have pages, which is the honest way to hold an unsolved question. · Anzola / Angela de Franceschi (fl. 1737–1739) — the twins' mother, alive on both sides of the 1738 confusion. · Pascasia de Franceschi, later Calluzzi (fl. 1743–1765) — four children, a joint line, and a dated widowhood. · Francisca Marcario de Franceschi (fl. 1743–1753) — four godparent lines and not one baptism, which is exactly why she is the weakest leg this page stands on. Giving each of them a page does not decide how many men there were. It stops the question being hidden inside one man's biography, and it puts the strength of each woman's evidence where a reader can weigh it. The fourth name, «Agata» of 10 August 1738, has no page — one godparent line and nothing else, and this archive will not make a person out of that.