Origins of the FLORETTA surname in Cloz, and its expansion to Cles and other places, where it became FIORETTA. By genealogist Lynn Serafinn.
My ‘Christmas Surname Countdown’
This holiday season, I am publishing a new surname study every day between December 15th and December 24th (Christmas Eve). To keep it a surprise, I’m not going to announce which surnames I’ll be posting on which days.
This FLORETTA article is number 2 of 10 in this series. If you enjoy it, and you want to keep it to print out or share with family, you can purchase it as a 9-page PDF for $1.50 USD, using the form below.
| Buy eBook 'The FLORETTA and FIORETTA of Val di Non' | |
|---|---|
| Buy LETTER-size PDF: | |
| Buy A4-size PDF: | |
| CLICK HERE to see all of Lynn's eBooks in the Digital Shop. | |
Linguistic origins of the surname
Variants: Floreta; Fioretta; Fioreta; Fioret, etc.
Native to the parish of Cloz in Val di Non, Floretta is one of several surnames said to be derived either from the medieval male personal name Fiore, or the female personal name Flora.[1] These names are taken from the Latin word ‘flora’, which means ‘flower’. It is the word from which we get the words like ‘flower’ and ‘floral’ in English. Historian Enzo Leonardi has stated the word ‘Floretta’ is a diminutive form of the surname ‘Flor’, which is also found in Cloz,[2] but I have not yet found any historical connection between the two surnames.
When spelled with an ‘L’ (i.e., ‘Floretta’) the word is using the original Latin form of the root. Over the centuries, the consonant blend ‘F + L’ shifted to ‘F + I’ in the Italian language. Thus, the modern Italian personal name is usually not ‘Flora’ but ‘Fiore’. Similarly, the modern Italian word for flower is fiore, not flora.
This evolution in the language is relevant to this surname study because, as we will see, some branches of the Floretta who migrated from Cloz to other parishes would ultimately change the spelling of their surname to ‘Fioretta’. Those who stayed in Cloz, however, retained the original spelling.
In both cases, we will occasionally find it written with a single ‘T’ (e.g. Floreta, Fioreta), but the double ‘T’ continues to be the most frequently preferred spelling in modern usage.
MAP: Northern Val di Non. The RED marker indicates the location of the church of S. Stefano in Cloz. (Made with Family Tree Maker 2019).
Medieval Origins of the Floretta of Cloz (Val di Non)
The surname Floretta has existed in Cloz at least back to the mid-1400s. The earliest reference to this surname I have found so far is in a Last Will and Testament of Guglielmo ‘called ‘Floreta’ of Cloz, dated 1 March 1458, in which he leaves a legacy to the churches of San Stefano and Santa Maria.[3]
A few years later, in 1470, we find a Blasius (i.e., Biagio) Floreta of Cloz, son of the late Guglielmo mentioned above, named in a payment agreement in which his is acting as legal guardian for the heirs of a late Biagio ‘Zachioll’ of Caldaro (in South Tyrol).[4] Below is a close-up of a small section of that document; I have underscored the name ‘Blasius Floreta’ in yellow highlighter. We find this name ‘Biagio’ again in later Floretta generations.
For some unknown reason, we do not find the names of any Floretta men listed in the earliest surviving ‘Carta di Regola’ (Charter of Rules) for Cloz, which was drafted on 8 February 1550.[5] I notice there seem to be fewer men on the list than we typically see in other places, so perhaps they decided to assemble only a small group of decision-makers to the meeting.
In any event, we know with certainty that the Floretta were still there in Cloz, as we find inferential evidence that there were multiple households Floretta present in Cloz in the late 1500s. From what I have been able to deduce from the baptismal register for Cloz (which does not start until 1599), there were at least 7 Floretta men born in latter decades of the 1500s, who were heads of households in the first two decades of the 1600s. As some of these men had the same personal name, we know they had different fathers.
The Floretta of Cloz in the 1600s
We find the Floretta of Cloz appearing right from the beginning of their parish registers. The first surviving baptismal record for a Floretta is dated 14 March 1601, for Antonio, son of Giacomo Floretta of Cloz and his wife Agnese:[6]
Between this 1601 record the end of 1620, there were at least 27 Floretta baptisms registered in Cloz, spread across 7 households.
By the time of the 1620 Tax census for Cloz, some of these Floretta householders appear to have already died, as we find four Floretta householders paying taxes in the form of grains, etc, namely: Giovanni, Giacomo, Biagio, and Cristoforo Floretta (spelled ‘Floreta’ in the document).[7]
Using the Cloz baptismal register,[8] we find all of these men had large families (albeit with several infant deaths).
- Giovanni and his wife Marina had at least 9 children between 1610-1633.
- Giacomo and his wife Agnese had at least 5 children between 1601-1611.
- Biagio and his wife Barbara had at least 8 children between 1605-1624.
- Cristoforo and his wife Angela had at least 2 children in 1605 and 1611, but I suspect there were others I missed.
One Floretta household – that of Marino and his wife Cattarina – is missing from the Tax census, even though they were clearly still alive. Perhaps they were living with one of the other households (sadly, the Tax census is not very detailed). At least two of their sons (Antonio and Federico) went on to marry and have children later.
At present, I do not know how these men (nor the other who may have died before 1620) were ancestrally connected.
By the second half of the 1600s, we start to see a few soprannomi appearing among the Floretta births. For example, we see a Giovanni Floretta with the soprannome ‘Casetta’ in 1644.[9] In 1663, we find a Nicolò Floretta with the soprannome ‘Zorzeti’.[10] A variant of ‘Giorgetti’, this soprannome may infer the line was descended from an earlier patriarch named Giorgio. As soprannomi are used to distinguish lines of families who have the same surname, their presence is always a good general indicator that there were multiple branches of a surname living in the same place at the same time.
A Brief Appearance in Romallo
In 1690, the Giorgio, son of Nicolò ‘Zorzeti’ Floretta of Cloz, whom I mentioned in the previous section, married Domenica Salvaterra of nearby Romallo in the parish of Revò.[11] The Google map below shows the distance between Cloz and Romallo (only about 3 kilometres).
Rather than stay in Giorgio’s native village of Cloz, the couple settled in Romallo. There, they had at least 7 children between the years 1691-1704, but at least four of these died in infancy.
Giorgio himself did not live to an old age, dying in 1705 at the age of 41.[12]
The only son from this marriage that I know survived was Giovanni Antonio Floretta (often known only as ‘Antonio’), who was born on 26 August 1697.[13] But perhaps because his father died when he was a young child, Giovanni Antonio did not remain in Romallo when he grew up, effectively ending this short-lived appearance of the surname in Romallo.
Where Giovanni Antonio went is the subject of the next section.
The Fioretta of Cles
On 30 April 1721, Giovanni ‘Antonio’ Floretta of Romallo married Maddalena Pancheri of CLES.[14] The couple settled in Cles to raise their family. [The RED marker indicates Cles on the Google map].
What is especially interesting about this marriage is that both couples had their roots in Romallo. Equally interesting is that both of their fathers had died when they were small children.
Maddalena was the daughter of the Giovanni Andrea Pancheri of Romallo,[15] who had moved to Cles after marrying Domenica Flora Brentonico of Cles on 29 April 1699.[16] In his Cles death record dated 22 September 1709, it says he worked as a miller there,[17] which may be the reason why he had moved to Cles.
Giovanni Antonio Floretta and Maddalena Pancheri had at least 7 children, but once again, at least 3 of these died in infancy. A subtle but important shift in the surname took place in Cles, however, as it is almost never seen in its original form of ‘Floretta’; rather, it is nearly always written in the Italianate version of ‘FIORETTA’ (occasionally ‘Fioreta’ or even ‘Fioret’).
EXAMPLE: Above are the baptismal records for two of the sons (both named Giorgio) of Giovanni Antonio Floretta and his wife Maddalena Pancheri. In the top record from 1725, the surname is written ‘Fioret’. In the second record from 1731, it is written ‘Fioretta’. The first record specifies that Giovanni Antonio was from Romallo.[18]
Among the children who survived were their sons Giorgio (1731)[19] and Giovanni Antonio (1735),[20] whose descendants bore the Fioretta surname in Cles for about two more centuries.
The Fioretta seem to have disappeared in Cles sometime in the early 20th century.
Expansion of the Cles Line
While the Fioretta may have disappeared from Cles, their descendants have continued to carry on the surname in other parts of the province. In the late 19th century, we start to see Fioretta in the parish of Malé in Val di Sole, but a look at the baptismal records of the children in this family tell us that the line was started by Giovanni Fioretta of Cles.
Then, in the early 20th century, we start to see a few Fioretta living in Mezzolombardo. But these too can be traced back to the Fioretta of Cles.
The Floretta and Fioretta in Trentino Today
Both versions of the surname flourished in Trentino throughout the 19th century, and are still present in the province today, albeit in lower numbers.
On the Nati in Trentino website, there are nearly 200 FLORETTA births (a few spelled Floreta) recorded in Cloz between the years 1815-1923.[21] Priest-historian P. Remo Stenico lists three Cloz priests with this surname (although he enters them under ‘Fioretta’), the most recent being Arcangelo Raffaele Floretta, who was born 8 Dec 1867, and died 10 September 1947.[22] The surname still exists in Cloz today, with an estimated 33 individuals with the surname currently living there, with half dozen or so living in other parts of the province.[23]
As to the variant FIORETTA that expanded from Cles (where it is now extinct), it has not fared quite as strongly, but we still find a handful of people living in Malé, Mezzolombardo, as well as in Pinzolo in Val Rendena.[24]
Lynn Serafinn, genealogist
16 December 2024
COMING UP TOMORROW…
This was article 2 in my special 10-part ‘Christmas Surname Countdown’.
If you liked this article and want to keep it to print or share with family, you can purchase it as a PDF for only $1.50 USD here:
| Buy eBook 'The FLORETTA and FIORETTA of Val di Non' | |
|---|---|
| Buy LETTER-size PDF: | |
| Buy A4-size PDF: | |
| CLICK HERE to see all of Lynn's eBooks in the Digital Shop. | |
Tomorrow will be a brand new surname history. If you want to receive an announcement each time one of my ‘Christmas Surname Countdown’ articles/eBooks is published, be sure to subscribe to this blog in the subscription box below.
If you have any questions, comments or insights to add, please do not hesitate to post them here on the blog, or to write to me via https://trentinogenealogy.com/contact.
Until next time!
Warm wishes,
Lynn Serafinn
16 December 2024
P.S. I am currently taking client bookings for February 2025 and beyond. If you would like to book a time to discuss having me do research for you, I invite you to read my ‘Genealogy Services’ page, and then drop me a line using the Contact form on this site. Then, we can set up a free 30-minute chat to discuss your project.
Join our Trentino Genealogy Group on Facebook: http://facebook.com/groups/TrentinoGenealogy
Lynn on Twitter: http://twitter.com/LynnSerafinn
View my Santa Croce del Bleggio Family Tree on Ancestry
(please note that the online version is VERY out of date, as I have been working on it offline for the past 6+ years):
https://trentinogenealogy.com/my-tree/
NOTES
[1] BERTOLUZZA, Aldo. 1998. Guida ai Cognomi del Trentino. Trento: Società Iniziative Editoriali (S.R.L.), pages 137 and 139.
[2] LEONARDI, Enzo. 1985. Anaunia: Storia della Valle di Non. Trento: TEMI Editrice, page 371.
[3] PROVINCIA AUTONOMA DI TRENTO. ‘Testamento, 1 March 1458, in the Church of Santa Maria in Cloz.’ Guglielmo, of the village of the church of Santa Maria of Cloz, called ‘Floreta’, freely dictated his own Last Will and Testament in which he left several legacies to the churches of Santa Maria and San Stefano in Cloz. Archivi Storici del Trentino, https://www.cultura.trentino.it/archivistorici/unita/1483883. Accessed 31 August 2020.
[4] PROVINCIA AUTONOMA DI TRENTO. ‘Cession di censo, 8 May 1470, Caldaro.’ Biagio, son of the late Guglielmo ‘Floreta’ of Cloz cited as legal guardian of the heirs of the late Biagio ‘Zachioll’ of Caldaro. Archivi Storici del Trentino, https://www.cultura.trentino.it/archivistorici/unita/1606134. Accessed 23 November 2024.
[5] GIACOMONI, Fabio. 1991. Carte di Regola e Statuti delle Comunità Rurali Trentine. 3 volume set. Milano: Edizioni Universitarie Jaca, volume 1, page 499-500.
[6] Cloz parish records, baptisms, volume 1, page 4.
[7] ARCHIVIO DI STATO DI TRENTO, APV Sezione Latina. Capsa 9, 169 1620 Tax Census (Revò, Cloz, Dambel, Romeno, Fondo, Livo, Bozzana).
[8] Note that the marriage register in Cloz does not begin until 1672. The deaths begin in 1662.
[9] 27 September 1644: Baptism of Marino, son of Giovanni Floretta called ‘dalla Casetta’ and his wife Maria [Cloz parish records, baptisms, volume 1, page 147].
[10] 26 February 1633: Baptism of Giorgio, son of Nicolò Floretta, called ‘de Zorzeti’, and his wife Maddalena [Cloz parish records, baptisms, volume 1, page 119].
[11] The couple married in the parish church of San Stefano in Revò on 3 April 1690 [Revò parish records, marriages, volume 1, no page number].
[12] Giorgio died in Romallo on 24 January 1705 [Revò parish records, deaths, volume 2, no page number].
[13] Revò parish records, baptisms, volume 2, page 414-415.
[14] Cles parish records, marriages, volume 1, page 144.
[15] Giovanni Andrea Pancheri was born in Romallo on 16 June 1674 [Revò parish records, baptisms, volume 2, page 146-147].
[16] Her name is actually MISSING in the marriage record, but we know it from other sources [Cles parish records, marriages, volume 1, page 123].
[17] Cles parish records, deaths, volume 1, page 71.
[18] Cles parish records, baptisms, volume 3, page 343-344.
[19] Giorgio was born in Cles on 15 May 1731 [Cles parish records, baptisms, volume 3, page 343-344].
[20] Giovanni Antonio was born in Cles on 28 July 1735. The record specifies that his father was from Romallo [Cles baptismal records, volume 4, page 53-54].
[21] NATI IN TRENTINO. Provincia autonomia di Trento. Database of baptisms registered within the parishes of the Archdiocese of Trento between the years 1815-1923. https://www.natitrentino.mondotrentino.net/.
[22] STENICO, P. Remo. 2000. Sacerdoti della Diocesi di Trento dalla sua Esistenza Fino all’Anno 2000. Indice Onomastico, page 165.
[23] COGNOMI IN TRENTINO-ALTO ADIGE. ‘Floretta’. https://italia.indettaglio.it/ita/cognomi/cognomi_trentinoaltoadige.html. Data accurate as of 23 November 2024.
[24] COGNOMI IN TRENTINO-ALTO ADIGE. ‘Fioretta’. https://italia.indettaglio.it/ita/cognomi/cognomi_trentinoaltoadige.html. Data accurate as of 23 November 2024.
Very interesting account, Lynn. Looks like Cles lies midway between the homes of my ancestors in Cagno, Revo, and Castelfondo. (Have you ever visited these 3 villages in your many trips to Trentino?) While the names Floretta and Fioretta don’t appear in the surnames of the research you recently completed of my ancestors, the name Pancheri (spouse of Giovanni Antonio Floretta) figures prominently in the branches of my family tree.
Hi Jim!
Nice to hear from you.
I have been to Cles and Castelfondo, and I have driven past Revo’/Romallo (I need to go back some day). I haven’t visited Cagno’ yet.
I spent a few hours in Castelfondo, as I have some ancestral links there myself via the Genetti.
Regarding the Pancheri, I haven’t written a specific article about them yet, mainly because my client Gene Pancheri published a book about them a few years ago (although it is very out of date as per more recent research I did with him and his colleague), and I figured people at least have some source of historical information about them in English.
– Lynn