Family Strategies and Transregional Mobility: The de Piro in Eighteenth-Century Malta and Sicily

Introduction

On 12 February 1752 the Tribunal of the Inquisition in Malta made public the last will and testament of Marquis Giovanni Pio de Piro. ¹ Among the stipulations in the will outlining provisions made for the Marquis' funeral, the celebration of masses and recitation of prayers for his soul, and the division of his family's patrimony among his heirs, is the following striking clause:

And firstly, since it has always been my sentiment that my family, being presented with the favourable opportunity, should be able to depart this island and to reside and establish themselves in another place, where perhaps with greater advantage and ease they may proceed to further grades, and uses, and honours; therefore, in the case of my family's transmigration from this to foreign countries, I dispose and will. ²

The six provisions subsequent to this clause outline how the de Piro household's patrimony was to be divided should the Marquis' descendants' attempt to establish themselves beyond Maltese shores. It would be easy to interpret the ‘sentiment’ referred to in the above clause as simply an expression of the Marquis' wish to see the further advancement of his lineage, had he not devoted considerable energy and resources to achieving that same goal himself in the Kingdom of Sicily between the years 1724 and 1740, efforts which led him to acquire state offices in the Regno and establish ties with the minor Sicilian nobility through marriage.

Current historical scholarship often notes the ‘international’ character of Europe's nobilities, manifested through a shared culture and ease of movement in pursuing military careers, for example, or in acquiring a noble education. ³ The equation of geographical mobility with social mobility, as expressed in the above extract from the Marquis de Piro's will, is a noted feature in the development of nobilities within particular states. ⁴ Attempts at migration by entire noble households between different states, however, do not often feature in current scholarship, making the Marquis' attempt at migration an intriguing example to consider.

Historical questions surrounding transregional and transnational migration and kinship are the subject of a recent collection of essays edited by Christopher H. Johnson, David Warren Sabean, Simon Teuscher and Francesca Trivellato, which explore the ways in which aspects of kinship shed light on these practices and the patterns that emerged from them. ⁵ In their introduction to the volume, which is not solely dedicated to the European nobility and extends from the Medieval period to modernity, Sabean and Teuscher identify the general questions involved in the study of international families as being those concerning the motivation and methods behind migration, how these affected and were affected by systems of property ownership and inheritance, how they were adapted to the demands of the state, and how they reflected the division of roles within families in terms of age and gender. ⁶

Drawing on the perspectives offered in that volume, this case-study of a Maltese noble family in the eighteenth century analyses the family strategies involved in attempts to relocate a noble household, the obstacles faced in pursuing such a goal, and the familial arrangements that followed from this process. Doing so will provide insights into family strategies directed towards mobility and the formation of kinship ties across political and geographical boundaries. Historical developments surrounding the Maltese nobility in the early modern period provide interesting opportunities for the researcher to tackle questions concerning transregional mobility and kinship, while the extensive range of documentary sources on the de Piro, gathered in the family's private archive in Valletta, makes it possible to explore these questions in some detail.

The de Piro in Eighteenth-Century Malta

The islands of Malta, Comino and Gozo form an archipelago lying 80 km south of Sicily with a combined surface area of approximately 316 sq. km. From 1530 to 1798 the islands were the territory of the Order of St. John, a Catholic, aristocratic and military order of knights, with their headquarters on the island of Malta where, at the end of the sixteenth century, they constructed the fortified capital city, Valletta. ⁷

The islands were granted to the Order by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in whose territory they lay as part of the Royal domain of Sicily, and their transfer to the Order had important repercussions for the small group of noble families that had dominated the islands over the preceding century. In 1427 this group of fief holders and notables, for the most part resident in the Città Notabile (modern-day Mdina), had secured their dominance over Maltese society through an agreement establishing the islands as crown lands and preventing their alienation to a feudal overlord in return for a fee of 30,000 florins. ⁸ Gérard Delille has described a similar situation for the urban elites in the Kingdom of Naples, who gave over large sums of money to the crown in order to preserve their status as direct vassals of the monarch. ⁹ Other historians have noted that the relative status of Italian urban elites was partly determined by whether they were subject to a feudal overlord, a factor that affected their admission into the Order of St. John. ¹⁰ Charles V's grant of the islands to the Order overturned the agreement of 1427 and immediately resulted in a decline in the status of this elite.

The arrival of the Order resulted in the exclusion of the Maltese nobility from positions of power. From then on, the secular power on the islands rested with the Grand Master of the Order who governed through the institutions of the Magistracy. It remained possible for members of the local elite to hold state offices, but this capacity was severely restricted by their exclusion from full membership of the Order as Knights of Justice, a policy the Order had followed on its previous territory, the island of Rhodes. ¹¹ The Maltese nobility's loss of status and power were two factors that led several families to leave the islands in the course of the sixteenth century. ¹² These migrations in turn contributed to a decline in the number of noble households during the sixteenth century, alongside derogations and the extinction of lineages. Conversely, the eighteenth century saw an increase in the number of noble families due to the ennoblement of individuals who had forged careers in the service of the Magistracy or of other sovereigns from whom they subsequently acquired titles. ¹³ The expansion of this elite was also related to the increased prosperity of the Maltese islands from the late sixteenth century on, manifested in the steady growth of population, urbanization, and the increase in commercial activities on the islands. ¹⁴

The contraction and expansion of the Maltese nobility over this period affected marriage patterns among the Maltese nobility. In his survey on the Maltese nobility in the early modern period (the only scholarly work on the topic), John Montalto gives examples of Maltese nobles marrying those from outside the islands, mostly from Sicily. While few in number (Montalto gives an estimate of one in eleven noble marriages), the incidence of these marriages follows a pattern that coincides with periods when the Maltese nobility was at its most populous, namely the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Montalto suggests that the contracting of such marriages in the sixteenth century may have been a corollary of the migration that occurred following the arrival of the Order, while the marriages in the eighteenth century were made for reasons of prestige. ¹⁵ To this can be added another factor given that, even when their numbers were at their greatest in the eighteenth century, the Maltese nobility was relatively small in size and the number of possible marriage partners was therefore limited. What is left to describe, however, is how these marriages and the transregional kinship ties they created were brought about, and what the implications were for the Maltese noble households that sought them.

The de Piro were one of those families that benefited from the increased prosperity of the eighteenth century and took advantage of opportunities for advancement through the hospitaller state. Lorenzo Ubaldesco de Piro occupied several offices both in the Inquisition and in the Magistracy. In 1676, following the death of his wife, Lorenzo entered the clergy as a conventual chaplain of the Order, one of the grades open to the inhabitants of the islands, eventually becoming a Canon of the Cathedral at Città Notabile. ¹⁶ Giovanni Pio de Piro, Lorenzo's only surviving child, also followed a career in the Magistracy and subsequently as a procurator for the Inquisition. His marriage to Anna Antonia Gourgion, daughter of Giovanni Gourgion, an official in the Magisterial government, helped secure his career advancement and in 1703 he was appointed Ambasciatore de Grani (literally ‘Ambassador for Grains’) for the Università of Malta, that is the administration of the grain fund for the provision of the Maltese islands from Sicily, an important and potentially lucrative post which he held until 1706. ¹⁷ He went on to hold several other offices in the Magistracy, eventually being appointed to the office of Secreto, or chief administrator, to Grand Master Marc' Antonio Zondadari from 1720 to 1722. ¹⁸ Giovanni Pio's eldest son, Antonio Felicissimo de Piro, followed in his father's footsteps as an official in the Magistracy, also holding the office of Secreto to Grand Master Despuig in 1736. ¹⁹ Giovanni Pio took over the responsibilities of Secreto following Antonio's death in 1738 and held it until the end of Despuig's magistracy in 1741. ²⁰

In the course of the first half of the eighteenth century, Giovanni Pio de Piro also acquired two noble titles. In 1716 Grand Master Ramon Perellos y Roccaful granted him the title of Baron of the fief of Budach. ²¹ In 1742 he acquired a second title of Marquis of Castile from the Kingdom of Spain, for which he paid 572, 500 Maravedis de Vellon. ²² The question of how Giovanni Pio acquired these titles will not be addressed here as it is not integral to his attempts to establish his household in Sicily.

Patrimonial Strategies and Migration

The de Piro's rise from minor officials of the hospitaller state to the ranks of the Maltese nobility occurred in parallel to a dramatic increase in their fortunes. The de Piro's initial economic success was down to the efforts of Giovanni Pio de Piro's father, Lorenzo Ubaldesco de Piro. In 1673 Lorenzo was the proprietor of two houses and a plot of land in a village near the main port of Valletta. Over the course of his lifetime Lorenzo was able to make substantial additions to these assets, as did his son Giovanni Pio, so that by 1721 the de Piro were drawing income from forty properties across the Maltese islands. ²³

The de Piro added to the assets of their household mainly through dowries, a fortuitous succession of inheritance and donations (donationi) from extended kin, and by buying up plots of land around the Maltese islands. ²⁴ These latter acquisitions were funded, for the most part, through returns from investments in partite bollali. The partite were personal loans to individuals or groups of individuals for amounts ranging between 40 to 3,000 scudi Maltesi at an annual interest of around 4 percent. An inventory of the de Piro's household assets for the period 1711 to 1721 lists thirty-one such partite. ²⁵ In adopting this means of acquiring further properties the de Piro were following an established practice among the nobilities of early-modern Italy that was principally directed towards the acquisition of land, especially fiefs. ²⁶ Personal loans figure prominently in the de Piro's sources of income until Giovanni Pio's death in 1752, after which, or so their relative absence from the existing records appears to suggest, his heirs ceased to invest in them. ²⁷ Before his death, Giovanni Pio had augmented the patrimony even further to include 112 properties across the Maltese islands. ²⁸ By then the de Piro were drawing an annual income of around 5,000 scudi Maltesi from rents and personal loans. ²⁹

At the time of his move to Sicily in 1724, Giovanni Pio was able to draw on substantial economic resources to further his ambitions and certainly provided his descendants with a secure economic footing from which to do so following his death. These ambitions and the strategies he adopted to achieve them were, however, conditioned in two important ways. In the first instance, the Magistracy came down very hard on absentee landlords and always strove to reduce their number. One of the Magistracy's first acts upon settling on Malta was to issue a decree forbidding the transfer of funds derived from the rent of land in Malta to other territories. ³⁰ So determined was the Magistracy to prevent the flight of capital from the islands that in one case from the sixteenth century the nobleman Giacomo Angarao Inguanez was only able to effect such a migration through an appeal to Emperor Charles V. ³¹ In the context of the micro-politics of the hospitaller state, then, Giovanni Pio's ambitions for his household would have encountered official resistance and jeopardized his family's standing with the Magistracy.

The second set of conditions affecting the possibility of migration related to legal restrictions placed on the family patrimony to preserve its integrity and determine its transmission to future generations. As with other nobilities across Europe, these restrictions took the form of entail (fedecommesso), a legal instrument by which the heir to a family estate held that estate in trust, drawing the revenues from it but prevented from alienating any part of it. In 1699 Lorenzo Ubaldesco de Piro had established an entail consisting of four properties with the provision that these could be added to in the future. Succession to the entail was to proceed through the eldest son along the male line, excluding those sons who took holy orders or entered the clergy (unless as professed members of the Order of St. John), and those who committed a grave crime. ³² When Giovanni Pio acquired the title of Baron of Budach in 1716 the act conferring the title referred to the entail set up by Lorenzo and from then on the entail was known as the Primogenitura Budach. The grant of the title did not confer ownership of the fief of Budach which, as had occurred with previous grants of the title, was retained by the Magistracy. ³³

Two of Giovanni Pio's sons, Giulio Adriano, the eldest, and Angelo, the youngest, were set on the path to a clerical career, so that succession to the entail fell to the second eldest son, Antonio Felicissimo de Piro. ³⁴ In 1724 the de Piro contracted a marriage for Antonio to Eleonora Costanzo, whose wealthy family, though not titled, was firmly established among elite Maltese households. On his marriage Antonio was assigned twenty properties from his family's assets along with eleven personal loans, and one of the clauses in the marriage contract designated Antonio as the heir to the Primogenitura Budach. ³⁵ Various records show that Antonio administered the family estate in Malta during the period when his father was in Sicily alongside those of his own household. ³⁶ It can be surmised from this that, before leaving Malta for Sicily, Giovanni Pio set up Antonio in a separate household through which to administer the family patrimony in an attempt to sidestep the Magistracy's hostility towards absentee landlords.

As has already been outlined above, Giovanni Pio made substantial additions to the patrimony following the death of his father Lorenzo in 1725. In his will of 1752 he instituted these additions to the family patrimony as a second entail, which he attached to his second title as the Maggiorasco de Piro. ³⁷ The Maggiorasco consisted of one hundred and six properties scattered across the Maltese islands, all declared to be allodial. Inheritance to the entail was to proceed by nomination along the male line with no preference to the order of birth, to the extent that nomination to the entail could skip a generation and pass from grandfather to grandson. Women were excluded from possessing the entail, but not from nominating a subsequent possessor in the absence of males from the direct line of descent, with the same applying to those males who entered the clergy or any religious order. Along with the entail the nominee would also inherit the title of Marquis, but this was held separately so that if the title fell into abeyance then the nominee would still inherit the entail. ³⁸

Among the clauses in Giovanni Pio's will establishing the Maggiorasco De Piro are several strict prohibitions on its dissolution or fragmentation, except for the carefully defined eventuality of the household's migration. In that case, the Marquis de Piro's will states that all capital and property included in the entail could be sold and the revenues be employed in purchasing new properties in the state or city where his heirs were to establish their residence. The Marquis' only reservation to these provisions was that his heirs could not reside in capital cities, or near the courts of sovereigns, as these would require too great an expenditure and severely deplete the family fortune. Once acquired, these new properties were to be subject to entail under the same name and with the same provisions for succession and inheritance that governed the Maggiorasco. ³⁹

The clauses on migration could not apply to the Primogenitura Budach, implying that even if the de Piro managed to establish their household successfully in some other state they would maintain a connection with the Maltese islands. This arrangement would appear to envisage a scenario in which an eldest son would succeed to the Primogenitura, while a cadet son would be able to establish a separate household outside the Maltese islands through succession to the Maggiorasco. Whatever possibilities the provisions in the Marquis' will offered to his descendants they were not acted upon by his immediate heirs. Giovanni Pio's eldest son and heir to the Primogenitura, Antonio Felicissimo, predeceased his father in 1738 leaving a son and daughter by a third marriage contracted only a few years previous. The Marquis' two other sons, Giulio Adriano and Angelo, had embarked on clerical careers, with the former also predeceasing his father while the latter was effectively barred from succession after denouncing himself to the Inquisition in Malta for practising magic. ⁴⁰ It was therefore the Marquis' grandson, Vincenzo de Piro, who succeeded to both titles and entails, thereby deferring the possibility of migration to subsequent generations.

Ventures in Sicily

There were several reasons why Giovanni Pio selected the Regno as a suitable place to pursue further honours and advancement for his household, aside from the general ones that the proximity of the Maltese islands to Sicily made it a more convenient destination and that they had an official language in common (Italian). These cultural and historical ties between Malta and Sicily would have made the Baron's migration easier to accomplish.

More specifically, by the time the Baron de Piro embarked for Sicily sometime early in 1724 he had already acquired considerable knowledge of the Regno and the opportunities it could offer during his time as Ambasciatore de Grani for the Università of Malta, during which time he resided in the port of Licata. Furthermore, as Secreto to Grand Master Zondadari he had held one of the highest offices in the Magistracy open to those who were not members of the Order, but with Zondadari's death in June of 1722 his tenure of that office came to an end and it was unlikely that he would have accepted an appointment further down the scale. With career opportunities in the service of the Magistracy seemingly exhausted, de Piro sought opportunities for advancement in the state that was second most familiar to him. Finally, and perhaps more speculatively, in 1722 Charles VI Holy Roman Emperor appointed Joaquín Fernández de Portocarrero as Viceroy of Sicily which office he held until 1728. Portocarrero was also a Bailiff Grand Cross of the Order of St. John and while there is no record of de Piro acquiring his patronage, he may have seen an opportunity for preferment through his connections with several other high-ranking hospitallers. ⁴¹

In his first efforts to establish himself and his family in the Regno, Giovanni Pio set about acquiring an economic base for his household by investing in state enterprises and offices. In 1726 he acquired the rights to the office of the Segrezia of Syracuse, which he leased out to other prosecreti in return for an annual fee of around 50 onze a year. ⁴² He also entered into a partnership with other aristocratic investors to administer the provision of troops in the Regno. ⁴³ In 1728, in a further attempt to increase the fortunes of his family, de Piro took over a sugar producing enterprise near the town of Avola, just south of Syracuse. ⁴⁴ That all of Giovanni Pio's ventures were located on the south-east coast of Sicily was not a matter of chance. That was the region of the Regno with the most consistent and easy links to the Maltese islands. Indeed, the port of Syracuse has been described as the main hub connecting Malta and Sicily in the eighteenth century, an assessment that is corroborated by the frequent mention of Maltese vessels and cargo in the customs records of the Segrezia. ⁴⁵

These ventures did not meet with the success that Giovanni Pio desired, as is made clear from the draft of an undated memorandum intended for submission to the court of Vienna. In this document de Piro complained about the low price of sugar in the Regno, chiefly influenced by cheap imports from Portugal which affected his profits from Avola, an enterprise he finally relinquished in 1740. ⁴⁶ It is not clear what advantage the Baron hoped to gain from this memorandum or that it was ever sent, as its composition most likely coincided with the outbreak of the War of the Polish Succession following which, in 1734, the Sicilian crown passed from the Habsburgs to Charles VII Bourbon. ⁴⁷

The change of regime in Sicily did not end de Piro's attempts to gain some advantage from his ventures so that, sometime after 1734, he composed and sent a second petition. In his attempts to curry favour with the new administration the Baron related in this submission how, in 1718, he had contributed financially towards the refitting of Spanish ships which had sought shelter in Maltese harbours following the Battle of Cape Passaro. He also described how in 1723 his father Lorenzo Ubaldesco had contributed towards the grain fund (Massa Frummentaria) at Messina but had not been compensated for his investment, resulting in a protracted and, until then, unresolved lawsuit. On the basis of his service to Spanish interests and on account of the various difficulties and financial losses his family had faced in Sicily under the previous regime, he requested reimbursement from Messina or an exchange of the Segrezia of Syracuse for some other more lucrative office, a pension, or even a small fief. ⁴⁸

This reference to a fief is indicative of the Baron de Piro's ambitions for his family, as the possession of one would have firmly established his household among the upper echelons of Sicilian society. In this respect he was following a conventional practice among upwardly mobile Sicilian families, who were willing to incur significant financial losses in order to acquire a fief. ⁴⁹ Gérard Delille has also noted that Genoese financiers sought to accomplish the social advancement of their families by purchasing fiefs in the Kingdom of Naples during the sixteenth century. ⁵⁰ De Piro's agents and patrons in Sicily were aware of his ambitions and sent him information on the availability of fiefs. ⁵¹ Nothing ever came of these enquiries, however, nor does it appear that de Piro's second petition had any result, although he may have recouped his father's investment in the Messina grain fund. ⁵²

The Baron de Piro's attempts to establish his household in Sicily were, by his own account, thwarted by a lack of profitability and obstructionism. This lack of success helps explain why de Piro did not pursue further opportunities for investment, such as the administration of salt production and of a state-owned soap factory, when these were reported to him by his agents and patrons in Palermo. ⁵³ At the time the second memorandum was composed the Baron's only secure and profitable investment was the Segrezia of Syracuse, which did not generate sufficient revenue to secure his household's migration. Yet this was not the only avenue de Piro pursued to achieve his goals. At the same time he was also seeking to establish kinship ties with minor Sicilian noble households and here again existing links between Malta and Sicily were a factor.

Marriage Strategies

In the same year that Antonio contracted his first nuptials (he married a further two times) Giovanni Pio arranged a marriage for one of his three daughters, Eugenia de Piro, into a minor Sicilian noble family from Syracuse, the Bonanno. ⁵⁴ The agreement fell through, however, for reasons that are unclear, although a letter from Giovanni Pio's brother-in-law, the Canon Gourgion, indicates that they must have been serious as the mere thought of what occurred was enough to give the Canon a severe headache. ⁵⁵ Gourgion had been an enthusiastic supporter of the match and initially thought that ‘malicious gossip’ by ‘jealous persons’ had changed Giovanni Pio's mind. The Canon also remarked that the Baron de Piro should ignore the Bonanno's lack of economic resources and use his own wealth to restore the fortunes of that ancient family. ⁵⁶ If the Canon Gourgion's assessment was correct the Bonanno boasted a long lineage but little wealth, giving the Baron de Piro an opportunity to establish ties with the Sicilian nobility through generous dowries for his daughters.

This is borne out by the second marriage contracted for Eugenia de Piro in 1729, this time successfully, to Ferdinando Ribera, eldest son of Baron Guglielmo de Ribera, who held the fief of San Paolino near the small southern town of Scicli. ⁵⁷ Eugenia's dowry consisted of 8,500 onze in cash, a form most probably dictated by the restrictions on absentee landlords in Malta. This sum went towards extinguishing the Ribera family's debts, augmenting the Ribera's sources of revenue through the purchase of tracts of land, providing small pensions for Ferdinando's parents and siblings, and making repairs to the Ribera's main residence in Scicli where the new couple would eventually reside. ⁵⁸ Connections with the Maltese islands were also an important factor in the match as the Ribera's lands produced hemp for rope making which was then exported to Malta. ⁵⁹ Guglielmo Ribera was even granted a bolla di familiarità by the Magistracy in 1708, but the Ribera connection with Malta may have dated back several centuries as the grant refers to loyal service by one of Guglielmo's ancestors during the siege of 1565. ⁶⁰

Giovanni Pio de Piro had two other daughters. One of these, Maria Antonia de Piro, was widowed in 1725 after twelve years of marriage and was immediately embroiled in a lengthy legal dispute over the property she inherited on the death of her husband. ⁶¹ There is no record of an attempt to arrange a marriage for her youngest sister Rosa who nevertheless had an instrumental role in her father's plans. When he purchased the office of the Segrezia of Syracuse in 1726 Giovanni Pio obtained with it the right to nominate, within two years of the purchase, someone to succeed him as the proprietor of that office. ⁶² With one son married and two at various stages of a clerical career, the Baron de Piro nominated Rosa as proprietor while retaining the right to supervise the management of the office as her guardian. The nomination was accomplished through a petition to Vienna in 1728 accompanied by a payment of 3,000 Sicilian scudi. ⁶³

By restricting the marriages of his children and by manipulating available legal instruments on the ownership of property, then, the Baron de Piro attempted to secure the fortunes of his household in Malta while furthering his ambitions in Sicily. This created a fairly flexible situation as far as the family patrimony was concerned, as de Piro was able to draw on his income from property to fund his various enterprises and dowries for his daughters in Sicily, while avoiding prohibitions on absenteeism in Malta. Whatever obstacles and reversals de Piro encountered he had secured a foothold for himself and his family in the Regno, or he would have if the vagaries of fortune had not caught up with him.

Shortly after giving birth to a daughter in 1731, Eugenia contracted a fatal illness and her death was followed by that of her husband Ferdinando Ribera in 1734. Ferdinando Ribera's will left all his assets and goods to his daughter Anna Maria Ribera, while appointing the Baron de Piro as her sole guardian. The will was contested by the Ribera family leading to years of litigation, during which de Piro was able to secure for his granddaughter two parcels of land in Scicli that gave annual revenues in rent of around 47 onze. ⁶⁴ It was not unknown for Italian noble clans to manufacture legal disputes over inheritance in order to prevent the fragmentation of their patrimonies. ⁶⁵ This does not appear to have been the case here, however, as when it was suggested to de Piro that he seek a resolution to the conflict by contracting another marriage with the Ribera he dismissed it as a fraudulent solution. ⁶⁶ On a separate occasion de Piro complained bitterly over the behaviour of one member of the Ribera family, Giovanni Ribera, who despite being a Carmelite monk had taken up residence in the Ribera family home in Scicli, in violation of orders issued by the courts of Palermo, used violent methods against any who sought to effect his removal, and refused to return Eugenia's wedding ring to her family as was the custom. ⁶⁷

This latter information was imparted many years later to Alberto Montalto, a citizen of Syracuse with whose eldest son Giovanni Pio, by then Marquis de Piro, was seeking to secure a marriage for his granddaughter Anna Maria Ribera. At that time Anna resided with the de Piro in Malta, but the Marquis' decision to contract a marriage for her in Sicily is an indication that the Marquis had not given up on his ambitions for his household. Furthermore, the lawsuits surrounding her claims to the Ribera inheritance were already proving too costly to pursue from Malta. The question of Anna's marriage was therefore one of great importance to him and an account of his efforts in this regard gives some interesting perspectives on the competing interests he had to negotiate in pursuing his aims.

Anna Ribera's claims to the fief of San Paolino meant that she didn't lack suitors. In 1745 Vincenzo Natoli, a minor official of the state in Messina and one of the Marquis' patrons, wrote to Giovanni Pio de Piro with the suggestion that Anna Ribera de Piro marry his stepson. ⁶⁸ In describing the young man's lineage and prospects for inheritance, Natoli laid special emphasis on his kinship ties with the Neapolitan aristocracy. He continued that any proposed match would have to be approved by the rest of the family and that this is where a problem could arise since, in his words: ‘The current opinion in this Kingdom is that Malta cannot claim a nobility, and that Maltese households are not usually conjoined with those which are registered with the Sacred Gerosolimitan Religion [Order of St. John]’. ⁶⁹ Natoli prefaced these statements with a reference to the possibility of increasing Anna's dowry, which suggests that he was attempting to use the perceived inferiority of the Maltese nobility as leverage in future negotiations. The tactic appears to have backfired as in a subsequent letter Natoli asked forgiveness for his ill-judged words, stating that the common opinion in Sicily was clearly false and that, either way, it could not possibly apply to de Piro whose most recent title, that of Marquis of Castile, came from outside of Malta. ⁷⁰ He later informed the Marquis that his stepson had decided on a military career, thereby delaying his plans for marriage. ⁷¹

The Marquis' reluctance or inability to increase the size of Anna's dowry probably explains why further offers from Sicilian noble families also failed to progress beyond the initial expression of interest. In 1747 de Piro received a letter from a knight of St John in Palermo for whom the Marquis frequently acted as an agent in Malta, Fra Antonio Vivas, offering to initiate negotiations for a marriage between Anna and the son of an aristocrat with whom Vivas claimed a close acquaintance. ⁷² In August of 1749, a Guglielmo Cuffaro of Scicli wrote to the Marquis de Piro offering to act as an intermediary in negotiations with an unnamed family of considerable wealth and status. ⁷³ In both these cases no further correspondence survives beyond the first offer to initiate discussions between the two families.

The offer from Scicli is interesting as that was where Anna's estranged relatives on her father's side continued to reside. The Ribera certainly took a special interest in the process of selecting a groom for Anna, as a prospective marriage would have directly affected their prospects for recovering Anna's portion of their patrimony. As early on as Natoli's first approach, de Piro kept the Ribera appraised of his granddaughter's prospects, albeit indirectly, through a correspondence with one of their extended kin, the Baron Gerolamo Bonanno Chiaramonte, from whom he also sought advice on the composition of the dowry. ⁷⁴ This information clearly filtered through to Anna's closest relatives. In a letter of 1749 one of her uncles, Giovanni Ribera, implored the Marquis not to contract a marriage with a Signor Mugnos de Wizzini, whom Giovanni then went on to disparage by saying that Wizzini lived on the most miserable estate in the Regno and stated emphatically that such a marriage would have deleterious effects on the Ribera's economic position. ⁷⁵ Giovanni Ribera's letter provides an interesting perspective on the Ribera's interests in Anna's marriage prospects and reveals that the Marquis' plans for his granddaughter were the subject of some gossip in Scicli. At the beginning of the letter Giovanni Ribera wrote: ‘If I were to give absolute credence to rumours that are being spread, I might feel mildly aggrieved that your Illustriousness might want to conceal from me that which may belong to me by right of blood.’ ⁷⁶ Giovanni Ribera was right concerning the Marquis' interest in the Wizzini family, as de Piro requested one of his agents to provide information on the Wizzini, their lineage, and the extent of their wealth, and this was delivered in the form of an anonymous report. ⁷⁷ As with the other prospects, however, these efforts did not lead beyond the initial inquiry.

In 1749 the Marquis de Piro entered into negotiations with Alberto Montalto, a citizen of Syracuse, for a marriage between his granddaughter and Alberto's son Francesco Maria Montalto. While himself untitled, Alberto Montalto claimed descent from the Neapolitan ducal household of Frugnito, in support of which claim he furnished the de Piro with a genealogical work that traced their ancestry back to the Norman period. ⁷⁸ Negotiations for the marriage contract were successfully concluded in the summer of 1749. ⁷⁹ As was the case with his daughter Eugenia, de Piro's contribution to Anna's dowry took the form 2,400 onze, or around 6,000 scudi Maltesi, ⁸⁰ in cash to be delivered over three years from the date of the wedding ceremony, and to be employed by her husband in acquiring more property. This sum was derived from the portion set aside for Eugenia's dowry that devolved to her daughter and which de Piro had administered as Anna's tutor. ⁸¹ De Piro also contributed further to the dowry by including in it all the emoluments, rights, revenues, and stipends derived from the Segrezia of Syracuse. As already noted above, Giovanni Pio had registered his daughter Rosa as the proprietor of the Segrezia, while retaining the right to administer the revenues himself. Through the marriage contract, de Piro transferred the rights to the Segrezia over to the Montalto for the duration of Rosa's life, in return for which Rosa received compensation of 400 scudi Maltesi, which was the agreed value for the office. ⁸² From her father's side, Anna's dowry included the two parcels of land in Scicli, valued at around 2,000 onze, along with assets devolving to her from the Baron Guglielmo Ribera following his death that were valued at 300 onze. Also listed in the dowry were Anna's pretensions to further inheritance from the Ribera family, although it appears that the Montalto did not pursue these immediately. ⁸³

In attempting to establish kinship ties with families of high status in Sicily, Giovanni Pio de Piro made use of cash dowries at first directed towards propping up existing noble households and latterly towards providing for the social ascent of another well conntected family. The first strategy did not lead to the outcome he desired, while the success of the second relied on the extent of cooperation between the Marquis' heirs and their cousins.

Transregional Kinship and Cooperation

Marriages between nobles' families in particular created a framework for mutual cooperation whereby family members would perform various acts of reciprocity towards each other in order to maintain ties and secure their individual and collective interests. For the Marquis de Piro and Alberto Montalto, these acts of reciprocity even preceded the successful conclusion to negotiations over the marriage contract. At the personal level, the two performed various services for each other related to their economic interests, a process complemented through an exchange of gifts. These acts of service may be considered an aspect of the marriage negotiations themselves as they provided a means for the two to test each other's credit and influence. An instance of this that proved important for the marriage to proceed was Montalto's request that de Piro use his influence with the Magistracy to have the Grand Master in Malta write to the Viceroy in Palermo in support of Montalto's petition for Francesco Maria to be exempted from taking up the office of Capitano di Giustizzia in Syracuse, to which he had been appointed, it would seem unexpectedly, by the Protonotaro del Regno. ⁸⁴ De Piro successfully lobbied the Grand Master who in turn wrote to the Viceroy, and Montalto's petition was favourably received.

Once the marriage was concluded these initial exchanges of service broadened to include their immediate families. De Piro carried out financial transactions and acquired some furniture on behalf of Alberto's sister, Suor Carmela Montalto, and the order of nuns to which she belonged. ⁸⁵ Francesco Maria participated alongside his father in performing services for the de Piro, purchasing items for the Marquis' two daughters Maria and Rosa. He also sought to establish good relations with Giovanni Pio's future heir, Vincenzo de Piro, by hosting him in Syracuse when the latter was on his way to Rome to further his education, and through an exchange of courteous letters thereafter. ⁸⁶ These efforts at creating good relations between the two families, and especially between Francesco Maria and Vincenzo, would prove important for their future cooperation.

In the shorter term, this cooperation extended even further into mutual access to the two families' extended networks of kinship and patronage across the Italian states in support of their interests and goals. In pursuing their ambitions for their household in Malta the de Piro had assiduously cultivated connections with various hospitallers, acting as their agents in Malta and sometimes lending them money. ⁸⁷ Primarily, though, these associations were a means for the de Piro to acquire the patronage of high-ranking knights of St. John and their extended aristocratic kin, which favour the de Piro then drew on to defend the interests of their household, especially when disputes over inheritance were referred by Maltese courts to tribunals of the Inquisition in Rome. ⁸⁸ By the mid-eighteenth century the Marquis de Piro was especially reliant on the support of the influential Albani family, three of whom were cardinals, and whose patronage he had acquired through Carlo Albani, a hospitaller knight to whom the Marquis had lent money while he was serving his novitiate in Malta. ⁸⁹ On the birth of Anna's first child within a year of the marriage, de Piro arranged for Carlo Albani to be named as the girl's godparent. ⁹⁰ The Montalto were able to draw on the Marquis' connection with the Albani in an attempt to further the ecclesiastical career of Alberto's brother, Piercelestino Montalto. ⁹¹ For his part, Alberto Montalto enlisted the support of his relatives in Naples to further some of the Marquis' interests there. ⁹²

Acts of reciprocity between the two families in the forms described above continued following Giovanni Pio de Piro's death in 1752, although these are less well documented. ⁹³ However, this cooperation entered another phase when it came to securing property through inheritance. In 1765 Anna and Vincenzo, who had by then succeeded to both his grandfather's entails and titles, were named as heirs to their great-uncle on their grandmother's side, the Canon Adriano Gourgion. Their inheritance included the extensive patrimony of the Gourgion family including an entail that passed to Vincenzo who as a consequence added the Gourgion surname to his own. ⁹⁴ To keep the Gourgion patrimony intact Vincenzo de Piro took on the administration of Anna's portion. ⁹⁵ Some twenty-five years later Anna's son, Alberto Maria Montalto, was admitted into the Order of St. John as a knight of justice and, while serving the years of his novitiate in Malta, took one of the properties as his residence. When his time in Malta came to an end he transferred the property to Vincenzo through an act of donation and renounced any future claim to it from himself and his family. ⁹⁶

Anna's portion of the Gourgion inheritance was not completely lost to her and her husband, rather it constituted a reserve of capital with which the Montalto were further able to fund their social aspirations. In his negotiations with Alberto Montalto, Giovanni Pio de Piro had asked that the Montalto commit to acquiring a fief for Francesco Maria, an acquisition that would be funded through Anna's dowry. ⁹⁷ He was particularly insistent on the need for the Montalto to pursue Anna's claim to the fief of San Paolino in Scicli. ⁹⁸ This required some form of compensation for the Ribera, probably provided through Anna's dowry, as well as their acquiescence, and to that end Alberto Montalto met with members of the Ribera family, who had reacted favourably to the marriage, in an attempt to mollify them and gain their consent. ⁹⁹ It is unclear whether or not the Montalto were successful in their pursuit of Anna's claim, although some documents later refer to Francesco Maria Montalto as the Baron of San Paolino. However, in 1770 the Montalto did manage to acquire another fief, that of Lungarini in the vicinity of Syracuse, purchased for 12,200 onze, a sum funded partly from Anna's dowry and from the sale of some property devolving to her from the Gourgion inheritance in Malta that contributed 1, 282 onze to the purchase. ¹⁰⁰

These aspects of cooperation between the de Piro and the Montalto provide examples of practices that were common among the nobilities of Europe, namely of patrilines circulating property through inter-marriage and legal instruments to secure their patrimonies and the interests of their households. In the Montalto's case their interests were clearly dominated by the goal of augmenting their status through the acquisition of a fief. While the de Piro also benefited materially to some extent, the benefits they acquired through their support for the Montalto become more evident when placed in the context of the micro-politics of the hospitaller state. The inability of Maltese nobles to acquire the hospitaller habit as Knights of Justice greatly affected their status relative to other nobilities, as demonstrated by the Marquis de Piro's exchange with Vincenzo Natoli above. In this light the career of Alberto Maria Montalto as a knight of St. John becomes more significant for the de Piro, their status, and the extent of their influence within the Order, by which they could further advance their interests.

Conclusion

This case study on transregional mobility and kinship from the perspective of a minor noble family on the periphery of Europe in the eighteenth century provides some sharp contrasts and interesting parallels with the case studies presented in the volume edited by Simon Teuscher et al. In the first instance, it highlights the role of patriarchal authority in determining the destinies of individual members of a household through control of the patrimony, the exclusion of women and cadet sons from inheritance, and a restricted marriage policy. On the other hand, rather than compelling the migration of cadets, these familial arrangements were directed towards the migration of an entire noble household by establishing the head of that household, Giovanni Pio de Piro, in a different state, the Kingdom of Sicily. In this instance, and as Simon Teuscher argues in his study of patrician families in the German-speaking cities of sixteenth-century Europe, migration was very much a role ‘inside the family’. ¹⁰¹ This example can also serve as a caution to historians in describing how the psycho-social development of individuals corresponded to systems of property devolution. ¹⁰² Despite being the heir to a family patrimony, Giovanni Pio de Piro's ventures in Sicily are sufficient to describe him as ‘entrepreneurial’ rather than ‘sedentary’.

The Marquis de Piro's wish to transplant his household was an aspirational response to a perceived inability to uphold and further the honour and status of his family due to restrictions on office-holding, absentee landownership and marriage in Malta. As Gerard Delille notes for similarly aspirational families in the Kingdom of Naples, formal arrangements alone were not enough to ensure success. ¹⁰³ The example of the de Piro suggests that the problem of the relative status of Maltese noble households was most successfully addressed through the formation of kinship ties with households in other territories through the marriage of daughters. The importance of women in the formation and organisation of transregional kinship ties among aristocratic households has been stressed by Christina Antenhofer and Michaela Hohkamp. ¹⁰⁴ However, the details of the de Piro's marriage strategies in Sicily demonstrate that this too was not a straightforward process for minor noble households and highlights the role of credit in the composition of dowries aimed at securing these familial bonds.