Morgillo
266 Morgillo are recorded in this archive. Until 2026 almost none of them were joined to each other. The Arienzo death registers of 1826, 1827 and 1828, read act by act, put two Morgillo households on the ground for the first time.
Why the Morgillo matter
Raffaele Falco, generation four, married Angela Rosa Morgillo — born at San Felice on 24 February 1818, daughter of Orazio, dead at Arienzo six days before her husband in April 1880. That marriage is the second of the two welds that make this family: the Crisci married in twice in generation two, the Morgillo once in generation four.
But Angela Rosa arrived from outside, and for years Orazio Morgillo's own house could not be reconstructed at all. It can now. Her birth act has been found at San Felice a Cancello — see below — and it gives him an age, a trade and an address.
The house on Monticello de' Cappuccini
A hamlet on the hill above the town, beside the Capuchin convent. Its Morgillo and its Rivetti declare each other's deaths again and again.
| Name | Dates | Trade | Where | What the register says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angelo Morgillo | b. c. 1758 | colono | strada Cappuccini | Alive and declaring, 31 October 1828, aged seventy. Almost certainly the father of Nicola and Vincenzo, and of Saveria. |
| Nicola Morgillo | b. c. 1794 | contadino | Monticello de' Cappuccini | 34 in 1828. Married Maria Majone; their eight-year-old Raffaele died in May 1828. He declares his brother's child's death as «zio della defunta». |
| Vincenzo Morgillo | b. c. 1797 | contadino | Monticello de' Cappuccini | 29 in May 1828, 32 in December. Married Felicetta Rivetti; their one-year-old Grazia died on 30 October 1828. |
| Saveria Morgillo | b. c. 1779, d. 29 Nov 1827 | contadina | strada Rejola | «figlia di ANGELO MORGILLO». Married Carlantonio Porrino; buried a fourteen-month-old Raffaele in September 1826. |
Nicola and Vincenzo are proved brothers by a single word: on 31 October 1828 Nicola declares the death of Vincenzo's one-year-old daughter as «zio della defunta» — her uncle. Angelo, seventy and a colono of the same hamlet, declares beside him.
The house on strada Nuova di San Gaetano
| Name | Dates | Trade | Where | What the register says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angelo Morgillo | b. c. 1768, d. 4 Oct 1826 | contadino | strada Nuova di San Gaetano | «figlio di AMORE MORGILLO e di CATERINA LAUDATO». Married Marianna di Silvio. His son Biagio declared his death. |
| Biagio Morgillo | b. c. 1796 | contadino | strada Nuova di San Gaetano | 30 in 1826, when he declares his father's death as «figlio del defunto». Married Vincenza Vece; their 26-month-old Clementina died in March 1828. |
| Antonio Morgillo | b. c. 1801 | contadino | strada San Gaetano | 27 in March 1828, declaring his niece's death as «parente». |
| Domenico Morgillo | b. c. 1803 | contadino | strada San Gaetano | 25 in September 1828, declaring as «parente». |
| Simone Morgillo | b. c. 1804 | contadino | strada San Gaetano | 24 in March 1828, declaring as «parente». |
Antonio, Domenico and Simone all declare for Biagio's household as parenti, all live on the same street and all are within eight years of him. They are very probably his brothers — but no act says so, and this archive does not say so either.
Two men called Angelo Morgillo
This mattered more than it looks. In November 1827 Saveria Morgillo, forty-eight, died «figlia di ANGELO MORGILLO». The only Angelo Morgillo then in the archive was the man buried in October 1826, given as fifty-eight — which would have made him eleven at her birth. The archive recorded the impossibility rather than explain it away.
The 1828 register resolves it. On 31 October a second Angelo Morgillo, seventy, a colono of strada Cappuccini, walks into the town hall alive. Born about 1758, he is twenty-one at Saveria's birth. There are two men of that name, one on the hill and one on San Gaetano, and the age conflict was the evidence for it.
The generation the registers name backwards
Four Morgillo women died old enough that their acts name parents born in the seventeen-twenties and thirties — the deepest the civil series reaches for this surname.
| Name | Dates | Parents | Married |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grazia Morgillo | c. 1741 – 20 May 1826 | fu Nicola Morgillo & fu Orsola Diglio | m. Giacinto Migliore |
| Anna Morgillo | c. 1743 – 3 Sep 1828 | fu Nicola Morgillo & fu Rosolina Bruno | ved. Sabato Cossi |
| Ovidia Morgillo | c. 1736 – 14 Jun 1826 | fu Gennaro Morgillo & fu Maddalena d'Ambrosio | ved. Raffaele — or Pasquale — Diglio |
| Vittoria Morgillo | c. 1798 – 4 Sep 1828 | fu Giuseppe Morgillo & Gelsomina Rivetti | — |
Two Nicola Morgillo and a Gennaro stand at the head of these, all dead before 1826. Amore Morgillo, father of the Angelo of San Gaetano, is the strangest forename in the whole archive and ought to be findable in the parish books.
Two d'Addio women married two Morgillo men
Rosa d'Addio, seventy, widow of Biagio Morgillo , died in the Ospedale di Ave Gratia Plena on 23 May 1828. Mariantonia d'Addio , thirty-one, a filatrice of strada Capodichina and wife of Pellegrino Morgillo , was murdered in the spring of 1827 — her body found buried in a wood, her face disfigured, part of the skull gone. The Royal Magistrate's own letter about it is sewn into the 1827 death register, asking the sindaco for a copy of the act «per allegarla ad un processo criminale». The letter is on the Documents page.
Carlantonio Morgillo, three times over
There are at least three men called Carlantonio Morgillo alive in Arienzo in the eighteen-twenties: one of strada Capodiuomo who married Anna Arrigale, one of strada Capodichina aged thirty in 1828, and one of strada Camellara aged forty-six in 1826. The last of these is the one that matters — on 28 October 1826 he signed a death act beside Giuseppe Falco, both forty-six, both of Camellara. It is the first act in the whole Arienzo series in which a Falco and a Morgillo stand together, twenty-odd years before the two houses married.
The 1842 register names two of them in one line. On 1 June 1842 Carlantonio Morgillo, seventy, a contadino of strada Porta di Sopra and widower of Rosa Fabio, died in the Ospedale d'Ave Gratia Plena — «figlio di CARLANTONIO MORGILLO defunto, di professione contadino». Father and son of one name, in one household. The seventy-year-old was born about 1772, which makes him too old to be the man of thirty in 1828 and a plausible match for the forty-six-year-old of 1826 — plausible, and nothing more. Which of the three men above these two are is not settled here, and the archive is not going to settle it by arithmetic.
Eleven more Morgillo, from 1841, 1842 and 1843
The three volumes read in 2026 name Morgillo on almost every street in Arienzo. They are set out here not because they connect to this family — none of them does — but for the opposite reason. The surname was common. A Morgillo in a record proves nothing on its own, and this table is the evidence for that caution.
| Act | Who | What the act says |
|---|---|---|
| 1843, atti 49 & 54 | Francesca, 56, and Nicola, 50 | Sister and brother, dead nine days apart, both «figli di GAETANO MORGILLO defunto e MARIA CIOFFI defunta», strada Capodiconca. The repetition is what settles the mother's surname. |
| 1842, atto 7 | Angela, 80 | «figlia di SIMONE MORGILLO defunto e VITTORIA DIGLIO defunta», widow of Gaspare Ummarino. Born about 1762. A Simone Morgillo is one of the San Gaetano brothers above — same name, right generation, not merged. |
| 1842, atto 31 | Carlantonio, 70 | Son of Carlantonio Morgillo ; died in the ospedale. See above. |
| 1841 atto 21; 1841 atto 82 | Nicola, 55 and 50 | A colono of Capodiconca and a calzolajo of strada CAMELLARA. Different streets, different trades, five years apart in age. Two men, or one clerk guessing twice. Not merged — and the second is a Morgillo living on the Falco street. |
| 1841 atto 19; 1841 atto 54; 1843 atto 38 | Gennaro, vaticale | Of strada Sant'Andrea, across three acts. His son Simone died at sixteen months in 1841. The register makes him 45 in 1841 and 40 in 1843. |
| 1841 atto 71; 1842 atto 80 | Maria Giuseppa | Wife of Angelo Cioffi of strada Cioffi. The 1842 act writes her simply «Maria Morgillo»; the 1841 act gives the full name. She is not the Maria Morgillo who married Luca Zimbardo — that is a different woman, on a different street. |
| 1841 atto 47; 1842 atto 46 | Maria | Wife of Luca Zimbardo , strada Capodiconca. They buried two sons, both named Antonio — one at sixteen months in August 1841, one at twenty-two days in August 1842. The name was given again after the first died. |
| 1841, atto 66 | Giovanna, 10 | Daughter of Pasquale Morgillo and Carmina Cioffi, strada Cioffi. |
| 1842, atto 81 | Costantina, 16; Marco | Daughter of Leopoldo Morgillo and Giulia Petrella, strada Capodiconca; Marco Morgillo declares. |
| 1842, atto 85; 1842 atto 11 | Giovanni, 55 | With Lucia di Lucia; their son Antonio died at eleven. He declares on strada Cioffi in February and is named as a father on strada Santa Lucia in December. |
| 1842 atti 12, 24, 52, 60; 1841 atti 9, 23, 50 | Teresa · Giuseppe · Giuditta · Maddalena · Andrea · Angela | Scattered singletons — a mother on Porta di Sopra, a declarant on strada Costa, a dead mother, a wife on Capodiconca, a declarant of 32 on strada Cioffi, a wife on Terra Murata. Recorded, unjoined. |
Angela Rosa Morgillo, who married Raffaele Falco, is not among them, and no act in these three volumes reaches her. Her father Orazio was of San Felice a Cancello, whose registers this archive has still not opened.
Every Morgillo this archive holds
266 entries. Most are not kin to this family and are here because they were found. Open them in the register →
| Year | Entries |
|---|
Angela Rosa Morgillo's birth act — found
L'anno mille ottocento diciotto a' dì ventiquattro del mese di Febrajo ad ore tredici … è comparso ORAZIO MORGILLO di anni ventisei, di professione bracciale, domiciliato in detto Comune MASSARIA DELLE FOSSE, ed ha dichiarato che nel detto dì ad ora sette è nato una bambina nella sua propria casa di esso dichiarante, e da VINCENZA PESCE d'anni ventisette, di professione filatrice, sua legittima moglie … a cui si è dato il nome di ANGIOLA ROSA.
San Felice a Cancello, Nati 1818, atto 32. the act
This is the first primary record of generation four's mother-in-law and father-in-law. Orazio Morgillo and VINCENZA PESCE were carried on the family tree and nowhere else. They are now in a register, with ages, a trade and an address:
- Orazio Morgillo, twenty-six in February 1818, so born about 1792 — a bracciale, a day-labourer.
- Vincenza Pesce, twenty-seven, a filatrice, so born about 1791. The first date this archive has ever had for her.
- The Massaria delle Fosse — a massaria is a farmstead, not a street. Angela Rosa was born on a farm, at seven in the morning, in her father's own house.
- Her name at the font is Angiola Rosa.
And it settles the shape of the search that found it. The 1817 marriages of San Felice were read first and did not contain this couple — a negative published below. The birth act reached them anyway, which is the better lesson: a birth act names both parents outright, and a marriage act has to be found first.
One caution, recorded rather than resolved. An Orazio Morgillo, aged twenty-six, of strada Travo at ARIENZO, declares a death there on 6 July 1818 — the same name and the same age, in a different town, five months later. One man with land in both places, or two men of an age. Not decided here.
San Felice a Cancello — reachable all along
This page said, until 13 September 2026, that San Felice a Cancello was “a separate comune with its own registers, none of which this archive has read.” The truthful version was that none of which this archive had looked for. They are on Antenati, and they have been the whole time. They are catalogued under the town's older name — «San Felice (oggi San Felice a Cancello)» — which is why five years of searching never turned them up.
Marriages run from 1809 at an_ua50221, one volume a year. The town's own clerks call it something else again: in its acts it is the «Comune di sei Casali d'Arienzo» — the Six Hamlets of Arienzo.
The 1817 marriages, read — and Orazio is not in them
Read this after the birth act above, not instead of it. This sweep was the first attempt and it failed; the birth act is what succeeded.
Angela Rosa was born at San Felice on 24 February 1818, so her parents should have married in 1816 or 1817, and in the bride's parish. San Felice's marriages for 1817 — twenty-two images, about forty acts — have now been read act by act. There is no Orazio Morgillo and no Vincenza Pesce in them. That is a negative, and it is published as one.
But it was not an empty sweep. It puts both surnames in the town for the first time:
- Morgillo at San Felice — Andriana Morgillo, mother of a bride; Antonia Morgillo, mother of a groom; a second Antonia Morgillo, forty-two; and Angiola Morgillo. The Morgillo were established there, which this archive could not say before.
- Pesce at San Felice — GIOVANNA PESCA, forty-eight, a filatrice of strada detta de' Giannacci, «figlia delli furono FELICE PESCE ed ANTONIA CERRONE», married on 8 March 1817; and VENERANDA PESCE, about fifty, the mother of another bride.
The lead, stated as a lead. If Vincenza Pesce was Giovanna's sister, then Angela Rosa Morgillo's mother's parents were Felice Pesce and Antonia Cerrone, and this line gains a generation. Nothing whatever supports that yet beyond a surname in a small town — which is exactly the reasoning this archive refuses everywhere else. It is written down to be tested, not believed.
What would test it, in order: San Felice's marriages for 1816 (an_ua50228), still unread; and better, Angela Rosa's own birth act of 24 February 1818, which would name both her parents outright.
What would settle the rest
- Orazio Morgillo of San Felice. Angela Rosa's father — and the search has started at last. See below.
- The Arienzo marriage registers. A marriage act names both fathers. One would join the Monticello brothers to Angelo, and the San Gaetano brothers to Biagio, in a line of print.
- Amore Morgillo. A forename that rare should be traceable in the parish books back into the seventeen-hundreds.