The Falco Archive
Three hundred years, six regimes, one parish

Under Whose Rule

Arienzo did not sit still under one flag while this family was in it. Spanish viceroys, Austrians, Bourbons, the French, the Bourbons again, then Italy — and four kilometres away, across a border, a papal enclave. The bands are who governed the place; the red is this family's own records; the ochre is what the town was living through.

Who governed Arienzo, Arpaia and Benevento while this family lived there This family 1759 — Matteo Falco witnesses a marriage at Arienzo — the earliest sighting of the line 1767 — Pasquale Falco baptised at Sant'Andrea, 24 October 1789 — Pasquale and Chiara Rivetti begin baptising children 1805 — Two of their children die within six months 1814 — Vincenzo Falco marries Andreana Crisci, 15 December 1818 — Raffaele Falco baptised 1820 — Anna Falco dies at twenty-two 1831 — Vincenzo Falco declares a death as «parente» — the kinship link on strada Camellara 1832 — Giovanna Falco, 70, dies — naming a second founding couple, Michele Falco and Vincenza Esposito 1833 — Pasquale Falco, three years old, dies on strada Camellara 1834 — Pasquale Falco dies, 1 October, at five in the morning 1843 — Chiara Rivetti dies a widow, aged eighty 1850 — Carmine Antonio Falco born 1873 — Raffaele Falco born 1875 — Vincenzo Falco dies 1897 — Filomena Annecchino born at Forchia 1901 — Carminantonio Falco born, 11 January 1913 — Gerardo Falco registered at Arpaia — the family crosses the provincial line 1928 — Francesca Zampiello born at Arpaia, 27 April 1930 — Carmine Falco born at Forchia, 8 June 1938 — Angelo Zampiello receives the Croce al Merito di Guerra 1955 — Carmine Falco marries Francesca Zampiello at Arpaia, 15 January 1964 — The ship Sydney reaches Brisbane, 26 March 1985 — Carminantonio Falco dies at Brisbane Arienzo Terra di Lavoro · Caserta 1650–1707 — Kingdom of Naples — Spanish viceroys 1707–1734 — Austrian Habsburg 1734–1806 — Bourbon Kingdom of Naples 1806–1815 — Napoleonic — Joseph Bonaparte, then Murat 1815–1860 — Bourbon restoration — the Two Sicilies 1860–1946 — Kingdom of Italy 1946–now — Italian Republic Arpaia & Forchia the Valle Caudina · Benevento 1650–1806 — Kingdom of Naples — Principato Ultra 1806–1815 — Napoleonic 1815–1860 — Bourbon restoration 1860–1946 — Kingdom of Italy — province of Benevento from 1861 1946–now — Italian Republic Benevento city a papal enclave until 1860 1650–1806 — Papal State — an enclave inside the Kingdom of Naples 1806–1815 — French occupation — Talleyrand's principality 1815–1860 — returned to the Papal State 1860–1946 — Kingdom of Italy 1946–now — Italian Republic 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 What they were up against 1656 — Plague sweeps the Kingdom of Naples; perhaps half the capital dies 1707 — Austrian armies take Naples from Spain 1734 — Charles of Bourbon takes the kingdom back and rules it from Naples 1764 — Famine across the kingdom — three years before Pasquale's baptism 1799 — The Parthenopean Republic, and the bloody restoration that followed 1806 — The French invade; feudalism is abolished by decree 1809 — Civil registration begins — the reason the records this archive reads exist at all 1815 — The Bourbons return; the registers are renamed «della restaurazione» 1820 — The Carbonari rising and the constitution granted, then withdrawn 1837 — Cholera through the province 1860 — Garibaldi crosses; the Two Sicilies fall; the Papal enclave at Benevento ends 1861 — Unification, then a decade of brigandage in these hills 1884 — Cholera again, chiefly at Naples 1915 — Italy enters the First World War; the class of 1895 is called up 1935 — Italy invades Ethiopia, 3 October — the campaign Angelo Zampiello was decorated for 1943 — The Allies land at Salerno; the front runs through Campania 1946 — The Republic 1955 — Assisted migration to Australia gathers pace
Hover or tab any marker. Red above the bands is this family; ochre below is the world around it.
Kingdom of Naples · SpanishAustrian HabsburgBourbon Naples / Two SiciliesNapoleonic 1806–15Papal StateKingdom of ItalyItalian Republic

Why this is on an archive of one family

Because the regimes made the records. Everything this archive can read about the Falco before 1809 comes from a parish priest, because the parish was the only institution writing anything down. Then the French arrived, abolished feudalism, and in 1809 ordered civil registration — births, marriages and deaths recorded by the mayor, in duplicate, on printed forms, with the parents of the deceased named in every death act.

That single administrative decision is the reason Pasquale Falco's death act exists and can be read two hundred years later. The parish books say a man died; the civil act says whose son he was. The whole spine of this archive above generation three rests on a Napoleonic filing requirement.

The Bourbons came back in 1815 and kept the system, which is why the volumes are catalogued as Stato civile della restaurazione — the restoration's civil registers. The name on the spine of the book is a regime change.

What this page is, and is not

The red markers are evidence — every one is a document reproduced or cited elsewhere on this site. The bands and the ochre markers are not. They are ordinary published history, put here as context so the family's dates can be read against the world that produced them. Where the two touch — 1809, 1935, 1955 — that is said explicitly.

One local detail worth its own line: the 1831 death acts give Arienzo's district as Nola, and the 1832 acts onward give Caserta. The district appears to have been redrawn between them. Observed in the registers; not yet verified against an administrative source.