Bronte Insieme/History - Bronte's families, Family tree of Liuzzo (Marrani)

The founder, as shown by the records, appeared towards the end of 1700, when a certain Placido Liuzzo “Marranu” marries a Rosa Papotto.

The record also shows that the couple has one only child, Sebastiano (Sequence Number 1.1 Family Tree), born at Bronte in 1786 who, at twenty-five years of age, in 1811, married Sebastiana Filippa Antonina Plastani called “Liodara.

From this marriage 5 children are born: Grazia Antonina (1812), Giuseppe Nunziata (1818), Maria Domenica (1821), Placido Nunzio (1823) and Francesco (October 11, 1826).

Only the latter, Francesco (Seq.# 1.1.5) appeared to have been married: in 1858 he marries the twenty years old Antonina Rosalia Costa creating the large, current genealogy.

The couple has four sons and two daughters: Nunzio (1862, who did not get married), Placido (1865-1953) who in 1892 married Teresa Meli, (1874-1955), from the family of “Guardarutari”, Mariano (1867, Seq.# 1.1.5.3) who, in May 1892, married the seventeen years old Maria Marino, Antonino (1871-1961, Seq.# 1.1.5.4) who married in 1896 Ignazia Fallico and gave rise to the Marrani Liuzzo of Australia, Agata Angela (1875) and Giuseppa (1877, Seq. # 1.1.5.6.), born in 1877 and married to Giuseppe Russo.

Descendants of Placido Liuzzo and Teresa Meli

The greater part of the family of Marrani-Liuzzo, descends from the spouses Placido (1865-1953) and Teresa Meli (Seq.# 1.1.5.2).

They generate, in fact, 10 children (7 males and 3 females), almost all married, all quite prolific and long-lived, (one, Salvatore, lived for more than a century): Giuseppe (1893-1979), Salvatore (1896-1997), Francesco (1898 -1966), Nunzia (1901-1986), Vincenzo (1903-1943), Gaetano (1906-1995), Caterina (1908-1974), Alfio (1910-2004), Nunzio (1914-1997) and Felice (born 1917 and missing, probably in 1943-44, during the war of Russia).

Of the ten children, the only ones not to have descendants was Caterina (she did not want to get married) and the youngest, Felice, who did not have the time.

Respecting a strict tradition of the old days the eight married children of Placido Liuzzo and Teresa Meli wanted to pass on the names of the parents and give to each male son the name of Placido (which was that of the head parent) and of Teresa to the daughters, so that we counted eight cousins Placido (or Dino) Liuzzo in as many families.

1) Giuseppe (1893-1979, Seq.#. 1.1.5.2.1), the first son, married, in 1922-23, Scolastica Nociforo, (Nucifora on the records), and was the first Liuzzo to start a solid relationship with the Nociforo family. (The same thing was done by his sister Nunzia and his brother Alfio who married the siblings Nociforo: Giovanni and Giuseppina and the brother Nunzio who married Agatha, a Nociforo other sister).

From the marriage of Giuseppe and Scolastica 5 children were born: Carmelina (1924-1984, a nun), Teresa, who married Giuseppe Catania (Cullarittu) starting the relationship with the Liuzzo Catania, among which are to be quoted Franco Catania, (young entrepreneur and member of Regional Assembly 2 per term), who marries Aurora Spanò (Pasquarini), Caterina (Rina) (Seq.# 1.1.5.2.1.3) who married Angelo Lupo (said Angelino) relating the Liuzzo with the Lupo family, (among the descendants are to be quoted Gina (1.1.5.2.1.3.1) estimated anesthetist in Catania's hospitals, and Valeria (1.1.5.2.1.3.5) who marries Vincenzo Chiofalo current Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Messina), Placido (Placidìnu u marrànu) and Gino.

2) Salvatore (the second son, seq.# 1.1.5.2.2), marries Illuminata Romano, (1904-1980), and has 3 children: Chinuccia (who married Biagio D'Amico), Placido (Married with Nunziatina Gangi) and Ignazio (who married Giuseppa Pellegrini).

3) Two years after Salvatore, in 1908, Francesco (1.1.5.2.3) was born, and in 1940 he married Vita Messineo (1904-1994); from them are born Placido (married to Concetta Paparo) and Nunzio (married to Angela Rinaldo).

4) The fourth daughter of Placido Liuzzo and Teresa Meli is Nunzia (Seq,# 1.1.5.2.4) that follows in the footsteps of his brother Giuseppe and marries a Nociforo, (Giovanni 1900-1981).

From the couple are born Mauro, Placido (Seq,# 1.1.5.2.4.2), one of the first family doctors in Bronte who in 1960 married Agatha Maugeri, and Carmelina who was born in 1933 and married in 1956 Salvatore Petralia, (merchant in dried fruit), whose eldest son, Nicholas (Seq,# 1.1.5.2.4.3.1), was my pupil at the ITC “C. Gemmellaro” in the late '60s.

5) Two years after Nunzia, the spouses Liuzzo Meli generated in 1903 Vincenza (Seq,# 1.5.2.5), who, married to Alfio Caudullo has four children, but, in her early forty, ends her life dramatically.

The 8 August 1943, during an Allied bombing, Vincenza, her husband Alfio, the young Salvatore (1936) and Nunzio (1939) and another baby she was expecting, while they were hiding in a lava ingrottato located at the top of Corso Umberto, close to the hospital, are hit by a hand grenade thrown by a German and die tragically.
They rest in Bronte's cemetery in a tomb placed in front of the Liuzzo’s chapel. The eldest son, Sebastiano, left Bronte and lives in the United States.

6) The sixth son of Placido and Teresa Meli, Gaetano (Seq,#. 1.1.5.2.6) was born in 1906, and married on 28/12/1927 Maria Venera Longhitano (Saranelli).

From this union were born Teresa, (married in 1964 to Vincenzo Meli), Antonino (Seq,#1.1.5.2.6.2, married in 1972 to Giuliana Russo), current president of the Bronte Insieme Association and distinguished contributor to the drafting of the “Genealogy of Bronte's Families“ (his nephew, Anthonio, son of Alessandro is the newest arrival and represents the eighth generation from the head parents Placido Liuzzo and Rosa Papotto); Placido (Dino) who married Concetta Camiolo and Maria Franca (married to Franco Ramistella, head of pediatrics at the hospital of Gela, where he now lives).

7 - 8) From Placido and Teresa, two years after Gaetano, are born Caterina and, two years later, Alfio (Seq,#. 1.1.5.2.8) who, as did his brother Giuseppe and sister Nunzia, in 1910 marries a Nociforo, Giuseppina.
She gives him three children: Mauro (Dino), married to Maria Milazzo, Antonino (in 1971 married to Rosa Longo) and Felice who married Antonina Longhitano (Saranelli).

9) Nunzio (Seq,#. 1.1.5.2.9), the ninth son of Placido and Teresa, born in 1914, married Carmela Pannucci (daughter of Stefano and another Nociforo, Agatha, sister of Giovanni, Scolastica and Giuseppina).

Its four descendants carry the name of Placido (married to Adriana Malaponti), Agata (marrying Quinto she relates the Marrani Liuzzo with the family Tozzi of Romagna), Stefano (married with Daniela Costanzo) and Teresa married, first with Schilirò Antonino (1956-1986) and later with Roberto Cartillone (1961-2007).

10) The last son, Felice (Seq.# 1.1.5.2.10), the tenth, born three years after Nunzio nel 1917, has a tragica end: called to arms, he was sent to war in Russia from where he never came back as he was declared missing.

The Liuzzo-Marrani of Australia

Many are the descendants of Antonino (1871-1961, Seq.# 1.1.5.4), the fourth son of Francesco Liuzzo and Rosalia Costa Antonina (Seq.# 1.1.5), with the particularity that this time will give rise to a new and articulated branching of Liuzzo-Marrani in Australia.

Antonino (“’u Zzu' Ntoni” as he was called by his nephews, sons of his brother Placido) who had married in 1896, the sixteen years old Ignazia Fallico (1881-1962), and they generated seven children: Annunziata (1898-1990), Illuminata (1900-1980), Giosuè (1906-1993), Nunziato (1911-1997), Antonina (1914-1998), Ignazio (1917) and Francesco (1922-2005).

Many of them, and also their descendants, emigrated in later periods to Australia where they settled permanently and where they live today, with their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The first to do so was Antonina (Seq.# 1.1.5.4.5), the fifth daughter, born in 1914, who had married her childhood friend Carmelo D'Aquino (1909-2002, who lived up to the great age of 100 years and 9 months).

Carmelo returned in Bronte from Australia, where he had emigrated in 1926, married Antonina and both returned to Sydney. Antonina and Carmelo, who, in the meantime, had become a successful vinegrower, known throughout Australia and also in several Asian countries, have two children: Vincenzina and Illuminato (Leo), a famous and well-liked attorney in Griffith, who died in 2005.

He was - Bruno Spedalieri writes - “the first Italian lawyer in Sydney, the only one who could deal with the Italian immigrants without the use of interpreters.”

After the Second World War emigrates from Bronte to Australia also Ignazio Liuzzo (Seq.# 1.1.5.4.6), brother of Antonina.

In 1953, with the ship “Sorrento”, landed in Sydney the other brother Francesco (Seq.# 1.1.5.4.7.) with the wife Maria Imbrosciano and daughter of 3 years Ignazina, current wife of Bruno Spedalieri, collaborator of Bronte Insieme, with whom I shared the bench and afternoons studying in the fifth grade at the “Capizzi College”.

It was then thst my father left for Australia, (it was 1954). and settled in Sydney where he remained for nine years, returning to Italy in 1963.

Ignazio and Francesco, after difficult years, managed to open a store of fruit and vegetables (the “Liuzzo Bros”') in Kirribilli, one of the most successful in Sydney “and they were proud - writes Bruno Spedalieri - of being chosen as suppliers of the residence of the Prime Minister of Australia in Sydney”.

Even the second child, born in Bronte in 1900, Illuminata (Seq.# 1.1.5.4.2), wife of Antonio Liuzzo (I think outside the “clan Marrani”), lives in Australia with their children Giuseppe, Carmela, Mary, Tony, Mario, Nancy and their descendants.

Nunziatina Liuzzo, daughter of Giosuè (Seq.# 1.1.5.4.3, third son of Antonino and Ignazia Fallico), leaves Bronte for Australia in October 1962 together with her husband Antonino Imbrosciano and their son, Nunzio (now a professor at Sydney).

This is the Family Liuzzo (Marrani) as I managed to get from the parish records and from informations supplied by relatves and personal memories.

Nunzio Longhitano

July 2008

The Marrani

In the Spain of the seventeenth century oppressed and terrorized with the specter of Inquisition, The Jews or Muslims, converts forcibly to Christianity to escape persecution, were called Marrani.
Undisputed ruler over the rest of the world for its culture and its artistic contribution, Spain, at the time was indeed in the middle of a violent outburst of xenophobia directed even against his own people and designed to pollute the national consciousness for more than four centuries.

The Marrani? Were true Catholics!


Placido Liuzzo (Placido grandson of the founders Rosa Papotto, sequence 1.1.5.2 Family Tree) and his wife Teresa Meli.

Vincenza Liuzzo ed il figlio Sebastiano Caudullo

On the left (the 30s) Vincenza Liuzzo and his son Sebastiano Caudullo (now residing in the United States).

In the photo on the right, Alfio Liuzzo with his older brother Gaetano posing in Piazza Spedalieri in front of the War Memorial.

Giuseppe, Salvatore, Francesco, Gaetano, Alfio e Nunzio Liuzzo

Six of the ten children of Placido Liuzzo and Teresa Meli in a photo of May 1953: from left Giuseppe, Salvatore, Francesco, Gaetano, Alfio and Nunzio. Missing (Nunziata, Vincenzo and Caterina) and the tenth son Felix (lost in ’43 in Russia).




The ten children of Teresa Meli and Placido: Giuseppe (1893 -1979), Salvatore (1896-1997), Francesco (1898 -1966), Nunzia (1901-1986), Vincenza (1903 -1943), Gaetano (1906 -1995), Caterina (1908 -1974), Alfio (1910 - 2004), Nunzio (1914 -1997) and Felice (1917 - 1943, missing in Russia)
To the right: a young Felice Liuzzo who poses, with his mules, in the land of the Contrada Placa that Placido's father and his older brothers had cleared and turned into arable land.

Una gita in campagna nell'aprile 1947 (lunedì di Pasqua)

April 1947: a picnic in the country (Easter momday)

May 1953: group of "Marrani" to the marriage of the nephew Sebastiano.


Nunzia Liuzzo, her husband Givanni and his sister Scholastica Nociforo (wife of Giuseppe Liuzzo). In the right picture with Giovanni Nociforo, left, her daughter and his wife Nunzia Liuzzo. In the photo below their three sons, Mauro, Placido (Dino) and Carmelina.

Giuseppa Nociforo, wife of Alfio Liuzzo, Nunzia Liuzzo and his brother Salvatore.

(1871-1961) and his wife, Ignacia Fallico (1881-1962, seq.# 1.1.5.4).

«’U «’ Ntoni» (as they called him) his nephews, sons of his brother Placido) was the fourth son of Francesco and Antonina Rosalia Costa.

Antonio Liuzzo e la moglie Ignazia Fallico

Many of his descendants have gone from Bronte and now live in Australia

So Fritz Heymann, a German scholar victim of the Holocaust, writes in his book: Death or baptism. A history of the Marrani (Giuntina, pagg. 153, euro 13).

According to the researcher, the baptized Jews, persecuted by the Inquisition, emigrated from Spain and Portugal, not for religious but for economic and social reasons.

Adriano Prosperi writes, in his review of the book that appeared in the Republic of 12 January 2008, “there's just one detail to be corrected: The editorial choice of the title.

Should not be “Death or baptism,” but “Baptism and death”. As in the history of the Marrani there was no alternative between being baptized or die, but, just as baptized, the religious courts of the Inquisition could accuse them of apostasy and sentence them to death.”

Marrano was also an insult, it was used then to describe Jews and Muslims in the Christian world, that had been baptized. The suspicion and hatred towards them was based on the fact that the baptism was originally imposed on minorities in Christian country. The memory of that violence fueled suspicion and hatred.

“It was believed- continued Prosperi - that all the baptized Jews would secretly continue to be loyal to the old religion, even after several generations. And this justified the harassment, the pogroms, the roots of antisemitism.

Today, after the era of pogroms, the Marrano continues to be the villain in the history books, continues still to represent the same restless figure, the bearer of an indefinite identity, driven to move along the crest of different faiths, constantly moving between countries, “The Wandering Jew”, somebody who, even baptized, tries to return to the old faith so abandoning and betraying every faith. (...)

“Around 1937, the publicist Fritz Heymann, devoted himself to research the history of the Marrani. He had left Germany to which had devoted himself and for which, very young, had gone voluntarily in the first world war.

He took refuge in Amsterdam and regarded the German anti-Semitic persecution, began in 1933, as one of the great cycles of Jewish history, marked by the exodus from Egypt, from Jerusalem, from Spain in 1492 and now, since 1933, from Germany. Where would they go now it was clear, perhaps in America, perhaps in Eretz Israel.

With these thoughts on the history of the Marrani: he explored many stores, primarily Spanish, picked up a large amount of documents on a comprehensive history of the issue of which he did not write.

He chose the form of a historical narrative in the form of conferences held in Amsterdam, perhaps in front of other immigrants like himself. After the German occupation of Holland he lived hidden there until his capture by the SS in 1942. He ended his days in Auschwitz. (...)

“For Frizt Heymann it was evident that: the Marrani were generally Catholics living in a Christian world and asking only to do their job. Why did they migrate? Not for religious but for economic and social reasons.

They were forced by the hostility of the Portuguese and Spanish context where the nobility, jealous of their level of wealth and culture, used the Inquisition to eliminate them. And where did they go?

Even here Heymann overthrows the traditional stereotype that, seeing the Jew as different, associates him with the golden calf of the Bible and thought that the villain was creating wealth wherever he went: Spain declined economically because the Marrani had left?

No: the Marrani left Spain sniffing the decline of the country, Livorno and Amsterdam flourished because the Jews came to live there?

No, the Marrani were following the currents of trade and finance experts, and, if they left one place for another, was timely because they perceived the taking place of changes . (...) “(nL)

The Order of expulsion

The order of expulsion of the Catholic Kings of Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, signed at the Alhambra Palace in Granada March 31, 1492

”Having been informed that certain bad Christians of our kingdoms, because of their collusion with many Jews continued to do jewish practises and alter our Holy Catholic Faith, decreeing in the Cortes met in Toledo in 1480, that Jews had a separate dwelling in all cities, large and small, and in all villages of our countries.
So confine them in Juderias, hoping that such isolation would put an end to our troubles. Moreover, setting up courts of Inquisition in our kingdoms and our provinces. These courts are now working for twelve years and have already condemned many people found guilty.
Nevertheless, there continues to be the serious damage done to the Christians, because of the participation of many Jewish religious practices, which in any way have been shown to pursue a program of subversion in order to expel Christians from our Holy Faith, convert and corrupt, and take them towards hateful beliefs, rituals, teaching and observance of their laws, making them circumcised together with their children, offering unleavened bread and meat of animals killed according to Jewish customs and persuading them to see how unique and authentic to the Laws of Moses.
All this is proven by the confession and the statements made not only by Jews but also from those that they have corrupted and driven to evil, bringing to our Holy Faith Catholic grave dishonor, insult and expenses ...
“For these reasons, and with the agreement and the opinion of many prelates, nobles and knights of our kingdoms and other persons knowledgeable and conscientious, and after due consideration of the matter, we decided to order that all these Jews, indiscriminately, men and women, leave our kingdoms and never return. With the exception of those who consented to be baptized, all others should leave our territories on the first day of July 1492 and never return, on pain of death and confiscation of all their belongings ...”