The following history was passed on to Michael from his father, Michael J. Armenia, son of Giovanni Armenia, son of Carmelo and Michela Armenia listed at the end of this document. It is published here in its original and unedited text.

“The Armenias in History” was compiled under the direction and through the generosity of Dr. John Armenia, Niagara Falls Ontario, Canada. 

THE ARMENIAS IN HISTORY

In beginning the most important chapter in the historical monograph of the Armenia family, we would like to illustrate the criteria on which this work is inspired.

It’s specific task is to present an organic, overall picture in an attempt to resolve the problem of the origins, the expansion and the geographical diffusion of the name in question, as well as illustrate in a proper light the more representative persons with that name.

It has also the task to place in evidence not only the persons, but as well the places and the times which were theater of their works, and it proposes to pause on those achievements without which knowledge we would not obtain a whole picture of the greatness and the values of those people who reached them.

Once completed the gathering of all the existing information, from the most distant past up to the threshold of the XIX century, it is then necessary, whenever it is possible, to interpret the data.

The genealogy by direct line of our name begins around the XIX century. This is not an arbitrary decision but for a precise reason. Beyond that date, which practically coincides with the French Revolution, registration of the citizens was not compulsory.

Before penetrating into a narration of the historical events of which the major exponents of the family surname were protagonists it is opportune to open another brief parenthesis. It is necessary to clarify and underline that families are not fixed entities but are instead subject, in their various branches, to continuous movements, at times for historical reasons, at others for economic or sentimental reasons, intrinsic or external to the family itself.

It was the same for the Armenias, as we have already said, so that by developing the historical analysis on the branches and the more illustrious representatives that honored that name, we will occupy ourselves, first of all, with a general panorama of the stock, and then conclude with a detailed examination of our branch of the family, keeping in mind that it is not our aim to establish a direct lineage between this branch and those for which we have precise historical information.

The first problem we are presented with is that of the origin of the family. As far as it is known, indeed, it originates from Armenia. Normally, to resolve problems of this type heraldry resorts to a convention: to consider as place of origin of a family the region or the locality where one can trace back the oldest pertinent evidence.

 But in our case even the resort to this convention gives inconsistent results.In fact, the remotest attestation relative to the family not only sends us to diverse locations, but more importantly, – and here is the impossibility to avail oneself of the convention – they are attestations nearly contemporaneous:they all are located in the second half of the XIII century in various cities of North Italy and the extreme South.

One branch of the Armenia is remembered in “L’Elenco delle famiglie veronesi blasonate.”About the same time we find that the Armenias of Piacenza, move to Sicily, at the time of the independent kingdom of Sicily of Peter of Aragon in 1282.

But in this same period the Armenias were already established in another center of the island, Messina, where there is information dated from 1294, as we shall see. 

All of this should not surprise us more than necessary because, as we remember the dramatic circumstances in which the Armenian populations were leaving their country, we can well understand how they spread and how with their peregrinations they did not always find a secure residence.

The branches which interest us most directly are those developing in Messina and in Lentini, closer to us. In first place, we will study those Armenias of Messina, who, according to some students, originated from one Giorgio, Armenian to be exact, who transferred to this city. It is not known precisely when.

The first man belonging to this branch of whom there is a dated historical information is Ruggero Armenia. He was in 1294 “giudice straticoziale” and senator of that city.He devoted himself to juridical matters with reference to problems of a military character and filled a post which, born in the Roman world, had maintained, in the period we are considering, the heredity more in name than in substance.

One characteristic, however, remained fundamental: to achieve the post of senator it was necessary to have passed a given age and to have a well-determined social position. From this it can be seen how to have such an important office was a sign of nobility.

In the Roman world the Consiglio of the Elderly, or senate, was one of the three original elements of the state, instituted, according to tradition, by Romulus, composed by one hundred members, although the normal number of senators was historically three hundred.

The very word “senatus” indicated that it was a council of elderly those task was to ratify the deliberations of popular assembly and the accession to the imperium, that the supreme command, in case the holder died before the successors were designated. But the prevalent task of the senate was in every period to give its opinion if it was requested by the magistrate, opinion which in theory was not binding.The value of that opinion must have depended, in the monarchical period, first of all on the personality of the king and the state of his relationship with the senate.But after the institution of the republic of the aristocracy, it became the collective organ of those in power.In this way the senate became in Rome the true agent of government, with requisites of stability, continuity, authority and competence which made it far superior to transient magistrates.

The last mention of the Roman senate is of 603 a.d. In the centuries of the hich Medioevo the senate is not mentioned but begins to come to light again in documents of the XI and XII century with reference to the meeting sof the Roman nobility, standing alongside the pontifical government.But the senate was taken, in other political situations, by other assemblies. It was, at any rate, in every place and every time a highly honorific office.

In Messina the Armenia family affirmed itself more and more so that from the XIV to the XVI century—time when this branch became extinct—it enjoyed the privilege of the nobility of that city.

At this point the question arises about how it was possible to become a member of the nobility of the city, as it happened to hose ancestors of Messina.

In first place, we must distinguish three types of nobility: the patriciate, the feudal nobility and the civic nobility, which is the one that interests us the most. The first represents the most ancient and superior—those Romans born in noble families.The second was obviously of more recent origin and was made up of those people who during the feudal period had been assigned by various kings titles and feuds, often in recognition of their assistance in military campaigns. This last nobility was identified with the land; noble was that person who possessed more land.From the feud, the noble derived sustenance and independence, as well reknown for the family whose members gravitated around the court of a prince.

The civic nobility was instead the form of nobility which had been part in previous centuries of the administration of the communes when these were governed as independent republics. The members of the civic nobility belonged to the highest and wealthiest social class.In time, this nobility took an hereditary character and gave birth to the formation of special books held by the communes in which were listed the members of the families which could be elected to public office.

Following the tradition of Roman law, these citizens came to be call “patricius,” or “nobilis and patricius,” “nobilis.” They were part of what was called “Consiglio Nobile” or Senate. The registries where their names were annotated took the name of “Libro della patrizia nobilta,” “Albo dei nobili,” “Libri d’Oro,” “Libro rosso” as well as other names.

The civic nobility was then born, in the early times of communal liberties, from the need to insure the proper functioning of the civic administration beyond any intervention of the king.

The branch of Lentini originated, as we are told by the authoritative student from Crollalanza, from Piacenza and would have transferred itself to the Sicilian city under the Kings of Aragon when Peter III of Aragon, son-in-law of Manfred, the Swabian heir killed by Carlo of Angio. Peter was crowned king of Sicily on the 4^th of September 1282 after the Palermitan rising known as “Sicilian Vespers” which had brought about the expulsion of the French of the island.

Fourteen years later with the acclamation of Frederick III as king of Aragon began the independent kingdom of Sicily. It is then around these times that the transfer to Lentini of the Armenia took place.Here, the house of Armenia resided a long time and we know that there were many notary publics in that family.

This is an important piece of information as the profession of notary has always been a noble one, always restricted to a limited number of persons privileged by census and culture.

In Roman law, the notarius was originally a person who took notes of judicial proceedings.The modern notary corresponds more to the tabularis. He was entrusted with receiving all acts or contracts and with conferring to such documents the required authenticity; in preserving the originals and in giving authentic copies of such acts.

In time these two groups became fused into one association giving birth to a closed class which handed down the exclusive right to the exercise of the profession and it remained such even with subsequent governments.

The notaries acquired even a greater importance in the Carolingian age when the emperors established that each bishop, count and abbot had to have his own notary who now had public functions. The notaries were nominated by the imperial messengers.

Every official act of the State or the City-State was to be drawn up exclusively by them so that in the Medioevo they constituted a true authority places with full jurisdiction on the members. Their powers increased more with the resumption of the teaching of Roman law.Great teachers dedicated their efforts to the formation of new notarial formularies regulated by Roman law to substitute those compiled in the High Medioevo.

Numerous notarial schools were born and the profession became regulated more precisely.In the XIV century some communes – first, Modena, then Bologna and Ferrara – instituted proper registries in which the notaries transcribed all their acts to avoid alterations and losses. Then came public archives in which were conserved the acts of dead notaries.They were founded in Naples in the XV century and in Toscane in the XVI. The other Italian states arranged various organisms to oversee the activities of the notaries.

During the Medioevo and to the end of the XVIII century notaries had their own corporation as any other craft or trade and the officers of these corporations exercised jurisdiction on those belonging to the association.With the Napoleonic domination, on the other hand, were instutued chambers of the notarial discipline.From these come the “Collegi Notarili.”

But let us return directly to the story of our family to remember that one branch of it, in more recent times, established itself in Siracusa; it is likely that members of this line came from Malta since the first date given is of a Peter Armenia, captain of a Maltese ship who on November 10, 1503, obtained payment from the King’s court for damages sustained by his boat.

Finally, we would like to remember that in the XVIII century a Armenio de Armenia is mentioned, doctor of law, who in 1746 had the powers of a civil judge, and two years later, that of a criminal law judge.

As we have seen so far, almost all the history pertinent to our family had as theater Sicily.One of its branches was established in Pozzallo, in the province of Ragusa. It the one whose representative is Doctor Armenia to whom goes the merit to have promoted this search of his ancestors.

The oldest information which we are able to trace are the fruit of a search at the Archivio di Stato of Ragusa. In this inquiry we have been able to go back in time by means of a collection of documents which is referred to as “processetto matrimoniale” relative to the civil matrimony of the great grandfather of Dr. Armenia, Giovanni with Virginia Di Stefano, celebrated on the 28 of February 1851.

In the course of our research in Ragusa we have been able to reach back to Antonino Armenia whose birth date can be placed around 1720. Of him it is known that he married Pasqua Profetto, which whom he had a son in 1745, who was given the name Giuseppe.

All these events took place in Pozzallo, one of many towns which sprang in the Iblea region during a period when the population grew considerably, in the XIII century, together with Monterosso Almo, Chiaramonti Gulfi and other enters in the vicinity of Modica, one of the counties of Sicily which had been a feud of Manfredi I of Chairarmonte.

All this region is famous for the decoration of the fishing boats, typical product of local craftsmen:the “sardare,” the “acciutare” and the boats “da conzo,” all slender boats, built for fast fishing. The Pozzallo boat, in particular, has the “telamonio” in the bow, cut at an angle above the water line and has a group of figures, dead souls amidst flames or three saints. In the internal border of the keel there is a series of cherubs wrapped in the curved lines of a Greek braid.

But today Pozzallo has an intense touristic activity; it is in fact, the most frequented seaside resort, even though it lacks modern facilities.

In this region of Southern-Eastern Sicily were born and lived our ancestors.Giuseppe Armenia was united in marriage to Carmela Agosta and they has a son when Guiseppe was 49-years-old.When, five years later he died, he left a small son, Michelangelo, our great grandfather.

During the course of our search some perplexity was caused by the year of birth of this ancestor.When he went to report the birth of his son Giovanni in 1832 he declared that he was 38, while those people who reported in death in 1837 said that he was 57.One must take as true what he had said himself when he was alive rather than what was reported by others when he was already dead.

It is not known exactly when Michelangelo married Ignazia Borrometi, three years younger than he, but both were very young, as it was frequently customary in that period, if their first daughter Elizabetta came into the world in 1811:in this year Michelangelo was seventeen and Ignazia barely fourteen. After that child came five other daughters – Ignazia in 1814, Annunziata in 1817, Pietra in 1819, Teresa in 1822 and Carmela in 1829 – and finally on August 19, 1832, at 10 p.m., was born Giovanni, our great-grandfather.

Certainly, Michelangelo had very little time to enjoy this child, destined like his father, to become an orphan at only five years of age: a cruel fate took our Michelangelo on July 18, 1837. Comforted and helped by the mother and the older sisters, Giovanni did not live an easy childhood, but grew up healthy and honest as his father would have wished him and at only nineteen years of age he decided to form his own family, marrying with a townswoman, Virginia Di Stefano. She had been born on July 31, 1833, the daughter of Giovanni and Vincenza Cannizzaro.She became his wife in a civil ceremony on February 28, 1851, while the religious ceremony was celebrated two days later. Their union was gladdened by the birth of eight children; the first, born on December 2 of the same year, was given the name of his paternal grandfather who had died so prematurely. Then came, two years later, Maria, and after her Salvatore, Guiseppe, Annunziata, Concetta and another Maria and finally on February 27, 1873, our grandfather Carmelo.

On fifteen of February, 23 years later, Carmelo wedded Michela Agosta; this happy occasion was saddened by the absence of the husband’s father who had died five years earlier, in 1891. But before we leave this ancestor we need to remember that besides being a good husband and father, an honest worker and a man worthy of respect and honor, Giovanni was courageous and fervent patriot. When Garibaldi with his soldiers disembarked in Sicily, Giovanni Armenia was among those who answered the call of his country: he became part of the Garibaldine troups, and participated in the struggle fro the unity of Italy.

Carmelo and Michela Armenia had many children: nine to be exact: Giovanni, Michelangelo, Virginia, Maria, Salvatore, Francesco, Giorgio, Maria, and Rosaria.

© 2002