All night long I dreamed about Cassandra the Trojan Seer of Doom. By sea and land the armies of Russia and China – that Herbert Armstrong saw as our enemies in his prophecies – are threatening The Troops of Freedom. The false evangelicals who attacked all Democrats, failed to see the real enemy of Democracy, and employed Israel against the Bohemians of America.
When I was thirteen Rosemary showed me her one fan letter from a woman she went to Ventura High School with, who raved about her role in the movie ‘Helen of Troy’- that she was not in. Janette Scott played Cassandra. This letter was The Presco Claim To Fame for years. I was determined to become famous so we could replace this case of mistaken identity.
I am heading back to therapy after reading Julie Lynch’s declaration from Dead Rosamond about the incest of millions of American Girls that did much – to further destroy the Rosamond BRAND. The women I know do not want to be associated with this Cesspool of Incest Pierrot and Morris created in our creative legacy. We are ankle deep in incest sludge. I am, the only survivor, unless Mark Presco – the neo-Nazi – is still alive.
Again I found the hotel BELMOND in Venice that is associated with the name Cipriani. I blogged on this twenty years ago, but that blog was hacked. I wonder if BELMONT is the source name. The owners are very protective of this BRAND. and promote it the way the ROSAMOND name should have been promoted – without tortured and sexually abused children running all over the place. I am thinking of writing books under a female pseudonym lest I be mistakenly identified as a Dirty Father Who Lusts After My Daughter. How does this sound..
The Innocent Rose of Belmunde
Rosemary Belmunde ‘The Lost Cherubs of Belmont’.
Above is a pic of Tom Snyder at his home in Oxnard next to aunt Lillian. This mean looking man allowed my aunt to attack my DEAD MOTHER ROSEMARY in his vile book – full of CHILD INCEST. Both Rosamond Sisters dated Errol Flynn. Do you think Rosemary wants to get revenge against Snyder – who wrote a book on Highway 66? Look at those sensitive eyes. How big of a dude does he look to you. Would you allow your young daughter near him?
“Stay away from this devious liar!” cries Rosemary Belmunde from her grave! “And avoid Carmel – at all costs!”
There is no evident any of the Rosamond authors – other than myself – wrote about child abuse in order to help other adults who suffered such abuse, or, even seek to warn children and their mothers. I will consult an attorney to see if SELLING accusations of incest to the highest bidder – is legal! Resembles Child Trafficking to me. Lynch introduced the name of my latest Dead Sister, as if to have her sign off on more tales of sex abuse, which is a huge turn-off to Rosamond Fans who collect her work, and want to be seen as being suave, in full control, wise to the ways of a sophisticated world, and, not bedraggled victims – hitting the sauce!
Within months, Vic molested a teenage girl. The moment that Christine heard of the attack, she knew that this was not the first time Vic had transgressed. Childhood memories of being violated came flooding back to her.This epiphany was too much for Christine. Aware that she had a problem with alcohol, she’d been abstaining throughout her marriage to Garth. But now, she needed an anesthetic and started drinking with a vengeance. She also decided that all men were capable of abusing their daughters and, fearing that Garth might hurt their seven-year-old daughter, Drew, she asked him for a divorce.
Ankle-deep in thick black sludge, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky moves stealthily with his troops in single file through the warren of trenches and tunnels that form the tense front lines in the east of his country. They know snipers, likely trained by Russians, say Ukrainian officials are looking for a chance to fire. More than 20 of their comrades have been gunned down already this year.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken strongly criticized China on Sunday, taking aim at the East Asian nation’s early response to the COVID-19 pandemic, its treatment of Uighurs, and the threat that the rival superpower poses to Taiwan.
I am a Defender of America. I am a Seer and Prophet who launched propaganda attacks against the enemies of Britain and the United States. I put my reputation on the line that has been under attack by the enemies of art blessed by Robert Buck and Sydney Morris.
More United States Navy vessels will be deployed to the disputed South China Sea, according to the Philippines Ambassador to tJose Manuel Romualdez said on Sunday that there will be an increase of vessels in the contested region and that this would be part of a freedom of navigation operation.
It comes after the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group arrived in the South China Sea on April 4. It is the second time this year that it has entered the waters as part of operations.
Speaking with GMA’s Dobol B TV, Romualdez said: “They’ve (the U.S. Navy) been increasing it in the past several months…they’ll keep increasing it continuously, precisely to protect the seaway there,” according to a Philippine Daily Inquirer translation.
The junta believed that Britain, facing its own domestic problems, wouldn’t put up a fight from so far away.
They were sorely mistaken. Over the next 74 days, Britain sent 15,000 troops – aboard warships, logistics vessels, and even cruise liners – to retake the islands.
The Falklands War would see many military firsts, and 39 years later, it remains the most recent war between two states involving large air, land, and naval battles.
Because of this, Chinese military planners have studied it extensively, seeing a number of parallels between the Falklands War and a potential war over Taiwan
The Biden administration is reportedly poised to send Navy ships into the Black Sea in a show of force supporting Ukraine amid a buildup of Russian troops along that country’s border and Moscow’s further militarization of the Crimean Peninsula.
WASHINGTON — China is trying to wear down its neighbors with relentless pressure tactics designed to push its territorial claims, employing military aircraft, militia boats and sand dredgers to dominate access to disputed areas, U.S. government officials and regional experts say.
Russia is steadily massing its largest military presence in years near the Ukrainian border — on land and sea — as the Kremlin tests Western support for Kyiv and its battles against pro-M
TAIPEI (Reuters) – China sent more fighter jets into Taiwan’s air defence zone on Wednesday in a stepped up show of force around the island Beijing claims as its own, and Taiwan’s foreign minister said it would fight to the end if China attacks.
The democratic self-governed island has complained of repeated military activities by Beijing in recent months, with China’s air force making almost daily forays in Taiwan’s air defence identification zone. On Monday, China said an aircraft carrier group was exercising close to the island.
The Taiwan Strait is a “powder keg” that has the potential to trigger a world war, a military analyst said on Tuesday as a panel of experts gathered to discuss U.S. foreign policy from a Taiwanese perspective.
The daughter of Lenonetto, Lisi Cecilla Cipriani, appears to have been employed as a spy. Her great uncle had many conversations with the Napoleon family who made plans to invade California from Mexico. My kin, John Fremont, with the help of the Jessie Scouts, thwarted this plan. This is as close to much of European History as any territory that comprises the United States, as you can get. It has sat over there in the city of Belmont, in a captured state, that is resisted being shared with the rest of the Bay Area, and California!
Yesterday I purchased my THIRTY-FOUR year sober AA coin on Amazon. I bought an Angel Coin for Cristine, and put it in William Stuttmeister niche on our family tomb, where rest his bones. The 91 earthquake opened a crack. With Lisi’s treatise on The Romance of the Rose and the poetry of Dante, alas we have the touchstone and branding my grandfather, Royal Rosamond, worked hard at. Lisi mentions the play Troylus which was one of Shakespeare’s problem plays. I mentioned Belmont having a Shakespeare theatre. Rena as Helen may now be Rena as Cressida.
In 1851 he brought to Belmont a prefabricated house in 1,200 parts, to be fastened together with 700 hooks and 26,000 screws. He invested in local realestate but lacked the Midas touch. The Count sold his prefab house and sailed back east to organize a wagon train to move overland to the Pacific. In 1853 the Count left Missouri with 11 wagons, 24 hired hands, 500 cattle, 600 cattle, 60 horses, and 40 mules. He wrote an account of this six-month journey that became the book ‘The California and Overland Diaries of Count Leonetto Cipriani’ by Ernest Falbo.
Count Cipriani was born in Centuri Corsica, on October 10, 1812. On his father’s side he is descended from an old Florentine family of Ghibellines, which after a long struggle with the vitorious Guelfs, found refuge in Corsica in the fifteenth century. On his mother’s side he is descended from Saint Francis Caracciolo of Naples, and thus Saint Aquinas. This struggle inspired Shakespear to write ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and thus the question “What is in a name?” came to be.
“Returning to Paris in October, 1855, he was warmly received by his friend Prince Napoleon who overwhelmed him with questions about his travels in America. “I answered them the best I could.” Cipriani wrote, “But , it is a veritable deluge….We keep talking about my journeys, of the Sanora, of conquering it.” Perhaps he thought of seizing it for France and hoped the prince might persuade his cousin the Emperor to finance the undertaking. “It is an idea in the air,” he added, “that I would willingly undertake, if necessary capital and men were available.”
To another member of the imperial household, Jerome Bonaparte, ex-king of Westphalia, Cipriani revealed tha the had considerable investments in California and hinted at receiving interest of twelve to fifteen percent a month on his money. He also boasted of his house in Belmont which “out there is considered magnificent.”
On behalf of the Emperor Napoleon 3, he visited King Victor Emanuel of Sardinia to explore the possibilities of a matrimonial arrangement between the ruling houses as a prelude to a political- military alliance between France and Sardinia. The conversation eventually turned to Cipriani’s overland journey of 1853, which apparently had not escaped the king’s notice. “I have heard tell,” he said, “of a great journey of yours, with you on horseback and camping out.”
“For eight solid months, Your Majesty,” Cipriani replied, making certain to include the time he left San Francisco in February to October, 1853. “But it is true.” the king continued, “that you led covered wagons and crossed the Rocky Mountains where there was roads, and great rivers without any bridges.”
The above is from the ‘California and Overland Diaries of Count Leonetto Cipriani’. a journey that may constitute the first cattle drive. What this diary reveals is France’s plan to conquer Mexico, and perhaps the Western United States.
Not only have I found Sleeping Beauty Rosa, I have found her Kingdom in San Francisco!
“After Victor Emmanuel became King of Sardinia he appointed Cipriani to be his first consul in San Francisco.”
Cipriani’s home was brought around the Cape by my kindred, Carl Janke, whose daughter married William Stuttmeister. I believe my kindred were chosen to help found the Sardinian Colony that would support Victor Emmanuel’s kingdom. This is astonishing! With the history of John Fremont and his wife, Jessie Benton, my kindred are the Acme of California History.
Many historians have wondered why the Italian Mafia was not present in California (with the exception of Big Bone Remmer) It appears the Sardinians own the franchise. Now I understand why, and how, my father, Victor William Presco, was a “made man”. The Stuttmeisters may be Italian-Germans. Here is William Stuttmeister and Cipriani.
I declare myself the Cultural Embasador of the Kingdom of Sardinia. I will establish a cultural exchange between Sardinia and its California Colonly. I will make Sardinia the the Tourist Mecca for San Francisco natives. We will form a Art Exchange program based upon the works of Frederico Biesta, a owner of a SF newspaper. There will be a Festival Sardinia Day held in Belmont.
Christine came to live with me at the Idle Hands Commune in San Francisco paid for by Betty Williams, who was married to Col. Zorthian, a Armenian who was titled ‘The Last Bohemian’. We knew the manufacturers of LSD that fueled the Kesey Revolution. Nancy Van Brasch lived with us. Jessie Benton was a good friend of Lewis Kossuth who lived with Giuseppe Mazzini in London. She and John had a bodyguard made up of Hungarian Forty-Eighters who also fought the Papal Army in Europe. Wenzel Anton Prescowitz was a Forty-Eighter from Bohemia. We are looking at the most radical people in the world that would form the Abolitionist Republican Party.
This is the Invisible Revolution that made California a Colony of the Kingdom of Sardinia that was surrounded by the Habsburgs who had backed the Papacy for a thousand years. This is why Count Cipriani drove a herd of cattle to California known for its fruit and vegetables. The Rose of the World Revolution would not be starved out. If Opus Dai had a mortal enemy, it was Victor Emanuel, and Belle Marie Rosa.
Click on top photo to enlarge. There is a gun hanging in the tree between my father;s grandfather, William Broderick, and his wife, Alice Stuttmeister, who looks like Christine and Vicki. We lived with Beema and Beepa in Oakland where these folks fled after the San Francisco after the earthquake. The gentleman holding the wine may be the father of William Broderick. There is no lineage for this branch who I suspect were the Illuminati, and sold barrels to bootleggers during Prohibition. Who do you think owns that rifle? How many Catholics fell in the sights of this weapon?
There is a black wreath hung in the tree next to the rifle. What message does that give?
Then there are the Rougemont Knight Templars that owned the Shroud of Turin. They were the Dukes of Athens, and very possible my kindred on my mother Rosemary’s side. The Stuttmeisters were Teutonic Knights. President Obama sent more troops to fight ISIS from Germany.
To my loyal friends, Marilyn Reed, and Amy Sargent, history will honor you as Good Souls, who cared about my mental and physical health. Like I told my sixteen year old daughter after we met for the first time……
After Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, the Italian states were restored to their former rulers. Under the domination of Austria, these states took on a conservative character. Secret societies such as the Carbonari opposed this development in the 1820s and ’30s. The first avowedly republican and national group was Young Italy, founded by Giuseppe Mazzini in 1831. This society, which represented the democratic aspect of the Risorgimento, hoped to educate the Italian people to a sense of their nationhood and to encourage the masses to rise against the existing reactionary regimes. Other groups, such as the Neo-Guelfs, envisioned an Italian confederation headed by the pope; still others favored unification under the house of Savoy, monarchs of the liberal northern Italian state of Piedmont-Sardinia.
Victor Amadeus initially resisted the exchange, and until 1723 continued to style himself King of Sicily rather than King of Sardinia. The state took the official title of Kingdom of Sardinia, Cyprus and Jerusalem, as the house of Savoy still claimed the thrones of Cyprus and Jerusalem, although both had long been under Ottoman rule.
On 17 March 1861, law no. 4671 of the Sardinian Parliament proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy, so ratifying the annexations of all other Apennine states, plus Sicily, to the Kingdom of Sardinia.[17] The institutions and laws of the Kingdom were quickly extended to all of Italy, abolishing the administrations of the other regions. Piedmont became the most dominant and wealthiest region in Italy and the capital of Piedmont, Turin, remained the Italian capital until 1865, when the capital was moved toFlorence. But many revolts exploded throughout the peninsula, especially in southern Italy, and on the island of Sicily, because of the perceived unfair treatment of the south by the Piedmontese ruling class. The House of Savoy ruled Italy until 1946 when Italy was declared a republic by referendum. In this referendum the southern regions, including Sardinia, voted overwhelmingly in favor of the House of Savoy, with the results being 63.8% in favor of maintaining the monarchy.
It appears that Cipriani was successful in uniting the House of Savoy with the Bonapartes, and thus the House of Stuart. Prince Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul of France, Pr Napoléon, married in Turin in 1859, Princess Clothilde of Savoy daughter of Victor Emanuel. From this union would come other Bonapartes with the name Victor. Prince Napoléon Victor Jérôme Frédéric, Prince LOUIS Jérôme Victor Emmanuel Léopold Marie, and, Prince Charles Marie Jérôme Victor Was the Jacobite ‘Order of the White Rose’ somewhat successful in their plan to put the Stuarts on a throne and rule the world? There appears to contention with the Prussians who can claim the same ancestry through the Winter Queen of Bohemia, Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of King James, and thus the Hanovers who are in all regards, the Windsors.
Before introducing the issue of the relationship between theColony and the central government, let us look into this type of political immigration which was characterised by different social implications and cultural backgrounds. In fact, one of these political immigrants was the young Leonetto Cipriani (1812-1888), destined to become the first Sardinian Consul of San Francisco. Assigned the tasks of improving trade between the Sardinian Kingdom and California,
’ in 1852, in quarters which he had physically brought from home. Curiously, the newborn Sardinian Consulate was constructed from 1200 pieces of wood, transported by sea and personally assembled by Cipriani and his entourage. Undoubtedly the official representative of the Sardinian Kingdom was welcomed with “interestand distinction” within a young Italian community which needed political support. Cipriani ’s activity in San Francisco essentially concerned the financial enhancementof the Colony, by improving maritime trade with the homeland. To this end the Consul enlisted the help of Nicola Larco and widely favoured him, funding the most lucrative initiatives of the Ligurian entrepreneur Cipriani was also a romantic: both his venturesome choice of emigrating to California and his early resignation can be traced to this inclination. In any case, more relevant than Cipriani’s impetuous nature is his list of citizens of the Kingdom, which he sent to Turin in 1853: this document is the first original report giving the names and activities of early Italian pioneers in California. Thanks to the list, we are introduced to a number of Italian residents in the West, including Larco and another personage who would later become historically significant: a certain Federico Biesta, vaguely and informally defined as a property owner Possibly even more interesting than the names included on the list is the exclusion of certain others. For instance, though his presence in San Francisco during the same period is well-established, the Sardinian Consul did not mention Felice Argenti, founder of the 1941 North American Chapter of the Giovine Italia. We now know that many others were also excluded from the list as well as Argenti: the new Consul, in fact, deliberately
During the nineteenth century many prominent Italian travelers visited the Far West. One of the earliest visitors was Leonetto Cipriani (1812-1888). Cipriani was born in Corsica but his family roots (like those of Napoleon Bonaparte) were in Tuscany. After the Battle of Waterloo the family returned to Tuscany where it established a successful mercantile business. Cipriani was eventually appointed by Grand Duke Leopold II to be governor of Livorno and in that capacity established relations with King Carlo Alberto (King of Sardinia) and Louis Napoleon (President of France). – See more at: http://sanfranciscoitaly.com/post/123993261859/meet-the-first-italian-consul-in-san-francisco#sthash.e7UAQ3f2.dpuf
After Victor Emmanuel became King of Sardinia he appointed Cipriani to be his first consul in San Francisco. Cipriani’s memoirs, which contain narratives of three separate journeys to California in 1851, 1853 and 1871, were published in1934. He recorded some very interesting encounters. In fact, the accounts of his two earliest journeys are the only central overland narrative written by an Italian. Throughout his travels he encountered local leaders and diplomats as well as other Italians. In Salt Lake City he met Brigham Young and other members of the Mormon hierarchy, with whom he established good relations, as well as an Italian musician named Gennaro Capone. In San Francisco, he was introduced to the French and Austrian Consuls as well as Nicola Lauro who he described as “the richest Italian merchant in the city” and his cousin Ottavio Cipriani. He also describes how he assembled his elegant prefabricated home in Belmont, the first of consequence on the San Francisco peninsula, later to become the Ralston mansion.
His memoirs Avventure della mia vita (pictured above) were published more than forty-five years after his death and were based on a manuscript that is still located in Bastia, Corsica in the original sea chest that he used during his travels. These memoirs were first translated into English by Ernest Falbo and published as California and Overland Diaries of Count Leonetto Cipriani from 1853 through 1871 (Portland, OR: The Champoeg Press, 1962). More recently I had the honor to examine the Cipriani archives in Bastia, Corsica. I included excerpts from Cipriani’s account in my documentary history of European travelers (including other prominent Italians) who visited Utah entitled “On the Way to Somewhere Else” (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2010) which is still in prin
The Papal States were territories in the Italian Peninsula under the sovereign direct rule of the pope, from the 8th century until 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from roughly the 8th century until the Italian Peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. At their zenith, they covered most of the modern Italian regions of Lazio (which includes Rome), Marche, Umbria and Romagna, and portions of Emilia. These holdings were considered to be a manifestation of the temporal power of the pope, as opposed to his ecclesiastical primacy. After 1861, the Papal States, reduced to Lazio, continued to exist until 1870. Between 1870 and 1929, the pope had no physical territory at all. Eventually Italian leader Benito Mussolini solved the crisis between modern Italy and the Vatican, and, in 1929, the Vatican City State was granted sovereignty.
Count Cipriani was born in Centuri Corsica, on October 10,
1812. On his father’s side he is descended from an old Florentine family of Ghibellines, which after a long struggle with the vitorious Guelfs, found refgue in Corsica in the fifteenth century. On his mother’s side he is descended from Saint Francis Caracciolo of Naples, and thus Saint Aquinas. This struggle inspired Shakespear to write ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and thus the question “What is in a name?” came to be.
Royal Rosamond Press dedicates this closure to my chapter ‘Bohemians and Bankers’ to Cipriani, a man who shaped the West, and knew the ancestor of Rosamond, the ‘Rose of the World.
John Presco
Copyright 2003
“Returning to Paris in October, 1855, he was warmly received by his friend Prince Napoleon who overwhelmed him with questions about his travels in America. “I answered them the best I could.” Cipriani wrote, “But , it is a veritable deluge….We keep talking about my journeys, of the Sanora, of conquering it.” Perhaps he thought of seizing it for France and hoped the prince might persuade his cousin the Emperor to finance the undertaking. “It is an idea in the air,” he added, “that I would willingly undertake, if necessary capital and men were available.” To another member of the imperial household, Jerome Bonaparte, ex-king of Westphalia, Cipriani revealed tha the had considerable investments in California and hinted at receiving interest of twelve to fifteen percent a month on his money. He also boasted of his house in Belmont which “out there is considered magnificent.” On behalf of the Emperor Napoleon 3, he visited King Victor Emanuel of Sardinia to explore the possibilities of a matrimonial arrangement between the ruling houses as a prelude to a political- military alliance between France and Sardinia. The conversation eventually turned to Cipriani’s overland journey of 1853, which apparently had not escaped the king’s notice. “I have heard tell,” he said, “of a great journey of yours, with you on horseback and camping out.” “For eight solid months, Your Majesty,” Cipriani replied, making certain to include the time he left San Francisco in February to October, 1853. “But it is true.” the king continued, “that you led covered wagons and crossed the Rocky Mountains where there was roads, and great rivers without any bridges.”
The above is from the ‘California and Overland Diaries of Count Leonetto Cipriani’. a journey that may constitute the first cattle drive. What this diary reveals is France’s plan to conquer Mexico, and perhaps the Western United States.
“Cipriani must have followed with close interest the activities of Count Raousset-Boulbon and other French filibusters in the Sonora province of Mexico. The French consul in San Francisco, in difficulty with the American government for his alleged support of such filibustering activity, wrote to the Sardinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1854 that he was grateful (moral) support he was receiving from Colonel Cipriani. That Cirpiani had entertained some such expedition in the Sonora is clear from his memoirs though there is no evidence of any actual participation.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=ESusAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA213&lpg=PA213&dq=frederico+biesta+cerruti&source=bl&ots=yMSEfYTxVz&sig=e2EUDGXoyaBRpHftjQRoFAGpUzk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiqvbWyxq_MAhWHKGMKHdfKBIYQ6AEILDAE#v=onepage&q=frederico%20biesta%20cerruti&f=false With the ‘Gold Rush’ came foreigners who sought to fulfill the manifest destiny of their nations who now feared the growing richness and power of America and the role she might play on the world stage. One could say pre-emptive strikes were made against the “boastful barbarians” as Count Cipriani titled most of the Americans he encountered. Without a doubt he followed with interest the moves of Count Gaston Raousset-Boulbon, who arrived in San Francisco on August 22, 1850, just at moment US laws segregated the foreign people who came to search for California riches. His arrival coincided with the move of thousands of French-people who looked for a way out of the wars in their country, who came to find substance and well-being in California. Not finding any gold, Raousett wondered if California’s gold extended into the Mexican State of Sonora. I am sure Ciprinai wondered this as well, and he may have organized his cattle drive for such an expedition, he selling some California property to the Rothschilds to bank-roll his adventure that the Bonapartes were well aware of.
Raousset-Boulbon made his first trip to Mexico in February 1852. Once in Mexico City, he met Consul André Levasseur who introduced him to investors of a company called La Restauradora whose majority partner was Jecker, Torre and Co. On April 7, 1852, Raousset- Boulbon singed a contract with La Restauradora on which he is appointed jointly with an “agent”, who he met in San Francisco, to explore all places in northern Sonora, and discover gold mines.. The Count returned to San Francisco, and recruited a company of about 270 men, in addition to weapons and food. On May 19, 1852, he left San Francisco, on the Archival Gracie to arrive Guaymas, Sonora, the first day of July, under a spectacular welcome provided by the Guaymas people and Sonora authorities. But in no time it was clear he was a rebel. Raousset-Boulbon granted the company with a flag with the French colors and the words “Indepéndance de Sonora”. On October 1852, General Navarro and Blanco faced Roausset near Hermosillo. The treaty with the French company was dissolved, but Blanco guaranteed the security of the French. Raousset-Boulbon, who had hidden in Guaymas, and did not sign the treaty. The project in ruin, the French nobleman returned to San Francisco where he consolidated his mission in Sonora: Becoming rich with the supposed Sonora gold Putting a stop to the US expansionism. Reestablish the pure Latin-blood on the Americas. Taking revenge on Mariano Arista.
Back in Mexico, Arista was deposed and replaced by Juan Bautista Ceballos as the presidency, then by Manuel María Lombardini, who in turn was succeeded by Santa Anna, and Gandsen, US minister to Mexico. Raousset-Boulbon departed from San Francisco on June 16, 1853, arriving in Mexico City on July 7. He met Santa Anna and discused with him his colonization project in Sonora by bringing 6,000 emigrants from Upper California from Europe in six years. Santa Anna refused the proposals and Raousset-Boulbon’s forces were finally defeated by General José María Yáñez on July 13, 1854. He is shot dead on August 12, 1854. Around 1860 a group of rich Mexican emigrants met in Europe, they had fled the Juarez revolution. Catholic and conservative, they looked for support in Europe for their plan to establish a monarchy in Mexico. They needed money, troops and a genuine European noble. The Bonapartes had tried to bestow nobility upon Cipriani, but he refused fearing to become more of a puppet then he was. Victor Emanuel had made him Governor of Balogna, and he would become the first President of the United Kingdom of Italy. Cipriani would marry an American, Mary Tolly Worhtington of Baltimore County who a descendant of George Washington. Cipriani descends from the famous Caracciolo family of Naples, and appears to be the son of Napoeleon’s major dommo, Franchesci Cipriani. The whole truth is not being told here, and Cipriani may have been playing down the royal hand he was dealt.
Jerome Bonaparte married Elizabeth Patterson, and wealthy heiress. Emperor Napoleon had marred Marie-Louis von Habsburg, and it was a Habsburg that be amply qualified to become the first Emperor of Mexico. Napoleon III. gave the emigrants troops, French financial circles assured their assistance. The French supported the conservatives in the civil war with the radicals and occupied the capital. They planned an expansion of France on the American continent close to the United States of America, torn up by the civil war. Maximilian supported aspect of the Confederacy, it said he financing Quantril. After the Civil War many Confederate officers and politicians found sanctuary in Mexico. The brother of the emperor Franz Josef, archduke Ferdinand Max, seemed to be a suitable candidate. He was married to the Belgian princess Charlotte. As commander of the Austrian navy and governor general of Milan, he could not live all his ideas. Poet, lover of large gestures, an emperor throne was enticing for him. In addition he was honestly convinced to be able to bring law and peace to Mexico. In 1863, pushed by Napoleon III., the ambitious Maximilian and its wife Charlotte, fulfilled by romantic ideas, are proclaimed emperor of Mexico. Charlotte saw herself as co-emperor, perhaps even as the actual emperor, requesting her husband to finally show his qualities – in Mexico. Perhaps she wanted also to flee the bores the Miramar castle and the shades of the more beautiful empress Elisabeth. The Austrian court was suspicious about this adventure, Maximilian had to resign any rights of succession to the Austrian throne. An Austrian volunteer corps followed him. Their uniforms aroused the mockery of the Mexican children. On the trip the couple prepared for their new job: How to behave at the audience, how to place guests at diner, which medals to be given, what uniforms the guards should wear. But the emperor found only few followers and an indebted government. The Mexican empire remained limited to a considerable number of generals, ministers, chamberlains, stable masters, cooks, gardeners and palace guards, plus some land owners and businessmen, who profited from the emperor. Maximilian, a Sombrero on his head, traveled around the country, gave dinners and distributed medals. He adopted a small Mexican boy as his son, his mother reclaimed him back later. This was a gesture my father would imitate as he loved history and admired the Habsburgs. The republicans became stronger and advanced. Vienna stood briefly before the 1866 war against Prussia and Italy, and permitted only a limited recruitment of volunteers. But they sent from the imperial collections the shield of Montezuma and the report by Cortez to Karl V., how he had won victory against the Aztecs. The USA supported the opponents of the emperor, conforming to the Monroe doctrine “America the Americans”. They demanded and obtained that the recruitment of volunteers in Austria was stopped, 2000 men already embarked had to leave their ships. With the victory of the north in the American civil war 1865 the decision fell also in Mexico. In vain, empress Charlotte searched assistance. She arrived in Europe after the battle of Königgrätz. In Paris, which had an assistance contract with Mexico, she got the answer from Napoleon III., “it would be good, if her majesty would not hang on to illusions”. Napoleon did not want to invest money into an affair without future. She did not even bother to go to Vienna. Franz Josef did not want to hear anything of its brother, specially not since the Viennese rallied after the lost war against Prussia “Vivat emperor Maximilian”, who seemed to them as more liberal and the better emperor for Austria. Her last hope was the Pope, who could have talked to Napoleon and Franz Josef, concluded a concordat with Mexico and convinced the Mexican catholic church. But Pius IX. only wanted to pray. Charlotte fell into depression, one night fled from the hotel and required lodging in the Vatican. Her brother brought the mentally ill Empress back to Miramar. The French troops withdrew. Maximilian was on the way back to Austria, however his Belgian and Austrian advisor’s, specifically father Fischer convinced him not to give up the throne. Even his mother now requested from him to endure as long this “can happen with honor “. His wife had written in a memorandum before her departure that “abdication is condemning himself, an certification of inability, acceptable for the old and stupid, but not for a prince of 34 years full of live and future.” But his armed forces were small and little motivated. On May 15th, 1867 Maximilian handed his sword to the partisan leader Escobedo. He was taken prisoner. He could have fled, but he had refused to leave his most devoted officers. He was condemned to death. In the prison he complained briefly before his execution, that he was here because he had followed his wife. Now the diplomacy got into motion to prevent that a member of the ruling European dynasty would be shot like a simple murderer. Franz Joseph restored Maximilian’s rights to the succession of the Austrian throne and asked the American secretary of state to intervene. On June 19th, 1867 Maximilian was executed on the Cerro de las Campanas, a hill near the city Queretaro together with the generals Miguel de Miramon and Thomas Mejia – latter an Indian – scarcely 350 years after the murder of Montezuma by Spanish mercenaries. Maximilian gave a golden piece of twenty pesos to each soldier of the firing squad. He was idealist, a human full of liberal thoughts and had honestly hoped to bring the Mexican people liberty and internal peace, “a figure of beautiful, pure knighthood, which will teach up- striving souls that it there is something higher than the bare life and benefit” wrote Adalbert Stifter. He was idealist, a human full of liberal thoughts and had honestly hoped to bring the Mexican people liberty and internal peace, “a figure of beautiful, pure knighthood, which will teach up- striving souls that it there is something higher than the bare life and benefit” wrote Adalbert Stifter.
It appears that Cipriani was successful in uniting the House of Savoy with the Bonapartes, and thus the House of Stuart. Prince Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul of France, Pr Napoléon, married in Turin in 1859, Princess Clothilde of Savoy daughter of Victor Emanuel. From this union would come other Bonapartes with the name Victor. Prince Napoléon Victor Jérôme Frédéric, Prince LOUIS Jérôme Victor Emmanuel Léopold Marie, and, Prince Charles Marie Jérôme Victor Was the Jacobite ‘Order of the White Rose’ somewhat successful in their plan to put the Stuarts on a throne and rule the world? There appears to contention with the Prussians who can claim the same ancestry through the Winter Queen of Bohemia, Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of King James, and thus the Hanovers who are in all regards, the Windsors.
Did the Jacobite movement come to America? I am authoring a biography of my family, and came upon Count Leonetto Cipriani who became the President of Italy.
Jon
“On behalf of the Emperor Napoleon 3, he visited King Victor Emanuel of Sardinia to explore the possibilities of a matrimonial arrangement between the ruling houses as a prelude to a political- military alliance between France and Sardinia.”
“It appears that Cipriani was successful in uniting the House of Savoy with the Bonapartes, and thus the House of Stuart.”
Anarchists, Jacobites, Masons & Manifest Destiny
The City of Belmont California was founded by Count Cipriani who appears to be related to the Anarchists of Italy, who may have had something to do with Sissi’s assasination. Anarchists Clubs sprang up in Italy in response to the Hapsburg’s and Austria coming to rule Italy. Opposed by the Piedmontese and the Milanese, Count Leonetto Cipriani would champion the cause of a free and democratic Italy.
“A writer hostile to Cipriani accused him of forbidding his son Italian citizenship because he did not want the boy to be a subject of an Italy that, after 1882, was allied with the traditional enemy, Hapsburg Austria. Cipriani seldom forgave and never forgot an enemy.”
Whether Leonetto Cipriani is related to the infamous Italian Anarchist, Amilcare Cipriani, I do not know. But, they surely had the same cause, that would come to shape the culture of San Francisco, if not the whole Pacific Coast, and not just the Italian community. It appears that Cipriani was successful in uniting the House of Savoy with the Bonapartes, and thus the House of Stuart. Prince Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul of France, Pr Napoléon, married in Turin in 1859, Princess Clothilde of Savoy daughter of Victor Emanuel. From this union would come other Bonapartes with the name Victor. Prince Napoléon Victor Jérôme Frédéric, Prince LOUIS Jérôme Victor Emmanuel Léopold Marie, and, Prince Charles Marie Jérôme Victor Was the Jacobite ‘Order of the White Rose’ somewhat successful in their plan to put the Stuarts on a throne and rule the world? There appears to contention with the Prussians who can claim the same ancestry through the Winter Queen of Bohemia, Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of King James, and thus the Hanovers who are in all regards, the Windsors.
Count Cipriani was born in Centuri Corsica, on October 10, 1812. On his father’s side he is descended from an old Florentine family of Ghibellines, which after a long struggle with the vitorious Guelfs, found refuge in Corsica in the fifteenth century. On his mother’s side he is descended from Saint Francis Caracciolo of Naples, and thus Saint Aquinas. This struggle inspired Shakespear to write ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and thus the question “What is in a name?” came to be.
“Returning to Paris in October, 1855, he was warmly received by his friend Prince Napoleon who overwhelmed him with questions about his travels in America. “I answered them the best I could.” Cipriani wrote, “But , it is a veritable deluge….We keep talking about my journeys, of the Sanora, of conquering it.” Perhaps he thought of seizing it for France and hoped the prince might persuade his cousin the Emperor to finance the undertaking. “It is an idea in the air,” he added, “that I would willingly undertake, if necessary capital and men were available.”
To another member of the imperial household, Jerome Bonaparte, ex-king of Westphalia, Cipriani revealed tha the had considerable investments in California and hinted at receiving interest of twelve to fifteen percent a month on his money. He also boasted of his house in Belmont which “out there is considered magnificent.”
On behalf of the Emperor Napoleon 3, he visited King Victor Emanuel of Sardinia to explore the possibilities of a matrimonial arrangement between the ruling houses as a prelude to a political- military alliance between France and Sardinia. The conversation eventually turned to Cipriani’s overland journey of 1853, which apparently had not escaped the king’s notice. “I have heard tell,” he said, “of a great journey of yours, with you on horseback and camping out.”
“For eight solid months, Your Majesty,” Cipriani replied, making certain to include the time he left San Francisco in February to October, 1853. “But it is true.” the king continued, “that you led covered wagons and crossed the Rocky Mountains where there was roads, and great rivers without any bridges.”
The above is from the ‘California and Overland Diaries of Count Leonetto Cipriani’. a journey that may constitute the first cattle drive. What this diary reveals is France’s plan to conquer Mexico, and perhaps the Western United States.
“Cipriani must have followed with close interest the activities of Count Raousset-Boulbon and other French filibusters in the Sonora province of Mexico. The French consul in San Francisco, in difficulty with the American government for his alleged support of such filibustering activity, wrote to the Sardinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1854 that he was grateful (moral) support he was receiving from Colonel Cipriani. That Cirpiani had entertained some such expedition in the Sonora is clear from his memoirs though there is no evidence of any actual participation.”
In 1851 he brought to Belmont a prefabricated house in 1,200 parts, to be fastened together with 700 hooks and 26,000 screws. He invested in local realestate but lacked the Midas touch. The Count sold his prefab house and sailed back east to organize a wagon train to move overland to the Pacific. In 1853 the Count left Missouri with 11 wagons, 24 hired hands, 500 cattle, 600 cattle, 60 horses, and 40 mules. He wrote an account of this six-month journey that became the book ‘The California and Overland Diaries of Count Leonetto Cipriani’ by Ernest Falbo.
But, I have just touched the surface, for it appears Count Cipriani was a relative of Napoleon’s’s major donmo, Franchisci Cipriani who was a fellow Tuscan, whose family knew the Bonapartes well, and were with him in the end, in the emperor’s exile on St. Helena. What is truly extraordinary, is, there have recently appeared several books, and a couple of television documentary in Europe suggesting it is the body of Franchesci Cipriani who was found in the coffin of Napoleon when it was exhumed and moved from England to France. You will hear more about this as this genealogical tale, and mystery, unfolds.
Count Cipriani would make seven more voyages to the United States, dabbling in mining, ranching, and the stock market. When Cipriani was called home to serve in the Italian Senate in 1853, he turned over his consular duties to a most unlikely Italian, Patrice Guillaume Dillon, the French consul with the Irish last name. Dillon was responsible for all matters concerning all the Italians in the Far West. Since he could not read or write Italian, Dillon employed a friend of Cipriani’s, Frederico Biesta. Biesta would eventually serve as acting consul for Sardinia within the French Consulate. What is going on here?
Biesta was born in Turin, the home of the Holy Shroud, and served in the Army of King Charles Albert of Sardinia with considerable distinction. He was made a cavalier. After six months he had to turn to his friend Cipriani for financial help, and because of his many talents, Cipriani became his backer. When the French government reassigned Dillon to Port au Prince in 1857, Biesta became acting consul of Sardinia. Everyone expected him to be named permanently, but to everyone’s dismay he was passed over, and a native of London, Benjamin Davidson got the post.
Davidson owed his selection to the fact he was the local agent of the Rothschild banking house of London. Count Cavour’s of Sardinia policies were commonly said to be financed by loans from the Rothschilds. European Bankers were eager to have their agents in consulates where thy could be on the lookout for financial opportunities. Napoleon had his agents all over thw world and was forever at war with Jacob Rothschild
Members of the emporers family were said to be Freemasons. I suspect Dillon was a Mason, as was Bret Harte, the Californian writer and poet who was the discovery of Jesse Benton Fremont, the wife of the founder of the Republican Party, and its first Presidential candidate, John Fremont who was titled ‘The Trail Blazer’, he a Pioneer of the West. Jesse Benton is an ancestor of my niece Drew Benton, whose father, Garth Benton, married my late siser, the world renowned artist who signed he art by her middle name, Rosamond, which is my mother Rosemary’s maiden This name hails from Rougemont Switzerland.
Ralston’s’ death by drowning in San Francisco Bay while taking his usual swim, has been titled a murder by some, it said his demise coming at the hands of the agents for Rothschild Banking. William Sharon would come to own the chateau of Cipriani, and beget a powerful family of politicians and bankers, including the founder of Welles Fargo. These bankers are related to the famous Preston family who are kin to the Benton family, and thus my niece.
When Ralston needed silver and gold bullion to back up his bank notes and stop a run on his, and other Sand Francisco banks, he had a un- named person let him into the San Fransisco Mint, and in the middle of the night they carried a couple of tons of bullion through the streets. In the morning, Ralston showed the people the large pile of gold and silver stacked-up in his bank. I believe this person who worked in the Mint was Bret Harte, as it was Jesse Benton who got him the job at the mint, where was minted the first U.S. coin where on is printed these words “In God We Trust”. Some believe this motto is of Masonic origin.
A Veteran Italian Editor Passes Away. He Died With His Pen in His Hand While at Work Translating Telegrams. The veteran Italian editor, soldier and diplomat. Fedeilco Kle>ta, died in his apartments on Mdtitgouieiy street at 7 o’clock yesterday morning. He passeci away quiellyiwith lits pen in his hand, and seemed as If he was going to sleep, so peaceful was the end.
i-‘ederico Uiesta was one of the best- known Kalians in California, tie was looked upon by bis own people as a man of high Intellectual attainments, and was respected by them. Somewhat irritable in disposition, but most reserved Iv manner, he counted his intimate friends only by hundreds, but ihose that he had loved him and appieciaied his intellectual aitainnients. At the tune of his death he was trausl.tlne telegrams lor the Ittliau paper L’Elvezia, and woiKed up to the lait moment, and ouiv stopped wiiting to die. lie had been sick for some time w itn a torm of anaemia, hut his deaib was unexpected by any
atiacue of the Italian consulate, m which he tilled me position of secretary naUl 1857, when lie went to British Columbia ana engaged iv tne business of assayer. He only remained at It for a few yeais and returnrd to California, agaiu taking a position In i he Italian consulate. From that time on lie rilled various offices of bis Government until 1881, when he went Into journalism eniliely. Ha started the tii>t Italian paper in California, called LEctio della l’atn.i, and was also editoi of the illustrated l ■au i r, La Patria, ISefote coming to this country Federico Biesia was in the Italian army under Klnc diaries Albert, aud In the revolution of 1849 gained
considerable distinction in the service. At the battle of Novarra he was ihe l’«;irer of the mi I’oitani dispatches from the King to bis son. Yicioi Emanuel. For his .ictiou ou that occasion he was made a chevalier. The life of lederico Diesta was filled with work, and he passed away knowing, he had done every duty sei him.
Victor William Presco made several expiditions across the border and was good friends and partners with Americans who have been titled the “Mexican Mafia”. He smuggled Connie, his Mexican bride to be, over the border in a marijuana shipment, and it was his desire to make Connie’s eleven children his heirs, which he did, much to the consternation of Vicki who saw this a more grandstanding from a man who commanded attention everytime he walked into a room, and got it; for Victor was a Leo, a Lion-King in his own mind, and was forever conducting loyalty checks. I know he heard things from his mother. His cousin Bill was hoisted atop a great wall in Belmont at ten, and told to go get his stolen legacy. But, when one has lost a fortune, or a title, one quickly learns to not talk about it, as one can be titled “delusional” – especially when one has nothing to show for their royal adventures and contacts with the high and mighty. Vic was present when his daughter presented her portrait of Jimmy Stuart to the actor my father was mistaken for when he and Rosemary came out of a theater in Westwood, Vic just out of the Merchant Marines. This was the only male she rendered because of the striking resemblance. I do not know if Jimmy is a Stuart royal. But, Vic wore the same white suit Jimmy wore in the painting, and upon it was a large blazon. I asked Rosemary about it, and she said my father had paid a genealogist to research his background, and apparently he had found he was of a noble birth. He was very secretive about this. Christine may have known, for in our last conversation she spat this question at me; “You don’t know who I am!” I wondered at this, and answered; “Yes I do. You are my sister.
Like myself, Rosemary and Vic loved world history, and they were at peace when they conducted their long discussions about world events. This no doubt had a influence on their children, and the art of Rosamond, who revived realism in the 70s in regards to her portraits. And what is history without its portraits and busts of famous people? Rosamond was the model for many of the ‘Rosamond Women’. I consider my sister to be a new Pre-Raphaelite artist – and model – who had conversations with Joaquin Miller’s daughter on the phone, she known as the ‘White Witch’ of Oakland, and is not unlike the White Dame de Rougemont. Here is an account of Miller’s dinner with the Pre-Raphaelites.
Count Cipriani came from a ancient Roman family to Belmont California, and had to know my kin, the Janke and Stuttmeister family. Belmont is a gathering place for European Royalty. My condolences to the loss of Queen Elizabeth’s dear husband, Prince Philip.
With the discovery of the books written by Lisi Cecilla Cipriani, this morning, I have found a fellow author and scholar to ground all my writing – and the art of two Presco siblings, who got sober, and thus were like to the Nazarites, who are sometimes mistaken as the Nazarenes, and thus the Pre-Raphaelite artists let their hair grow long, after the Nazarene artists. The co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelites, Dante Gabrielle Rossetti, was named after Dante who Lisi says mentioned her family that came to live in Belmont in a portable home that my great grandfather, William Stuttmeister married Augustus Janke. From this couple would spring a world famous woman artist who signed her work, Rosamond, and myself, the owner of Royal Rosamond Press, a newspaper for the arts, modeled after The Germ published by Michael Rossetti, whose sister, Christina, contributed her poetry. Lisi and her siblings were knowledgeable of the gods, and acted out in Olympic dramas as children. I am about to do a portrait of Lara Roozemond who has the perfect Pre-Raphaelite Cherub Mouth. I want her to play Victoria Rosamond Bond.
That I was accosted by a hostile Belmont Historical Society, who are not kin to anyone associated with Belmont, is an outrage, because they can now pilfer my arduous study, and take it home to their Harpie Nest. I have raised up the City Belmont, and for doing this I am mentally and emotionally tortured as an artist, poet, and historian. This is proof I have the goods – and they do not!
I have been planning for weeks to do a Biblical painting of King David’s walk to the Mount of Olives – with narrative as I paint. I want to paint more spiritual and religious themes like the one Schadow did of the angel above. I might put wings on Roozemond.
“Malaspini mentions our family sometimes as Cipriani, and sometimes as Delia Pressa, a name which, by the way, is also given us in the modern Annuary. The Cipriani were staunch Ghibellines and good fighters. Dante, under the name of Delia Pressa, in the Sixteenth Canto of the Paradiso, mentions us where he says: “The Delia Pressa already knew how it behooves to rule and in Galigaio’s house the hilt and the pommel were already gilt.” This passage, because it was in Dante, we, of course, knew.
I have forgotten to mention, in telling the family history, that Malaspini states that one of my ancestors married a grand-daughter of Octavian, the Emperor. Now follows my childish reasoning. If we descended from Octavian, the Emperor, through him we went back to Julius Caesar; from Julius Caesar we went back to Æneas; from Æneas evidently we went back to Venus; from Venus we went back to Saturn! When the Greek gods loom large again we, who actually had descended from them, would come into our own; and they that ruled us had kept us ignorant of this, just as they had kept us ignorant of other things concerning our family that we might justly be proud of. “
In Rome, Schadow was given one of his first major commissions when the Prussian Consul-General, General Jakob Salomon Bartholdy, befriended the young painter, and asked him and three young compatriots (Peter von Cornelius, Johann Friedrich Overbeck and Philipp Veit) to decorate in fresco a room in his house on the Pincian Hill. The overall theme selected was the story of Joseph and his brethren, and two scenes, the Bloody Coat and Joseph in Prison, were conferred on Schadow. In 1819, Schadow was appointed professor in the prestigious Berlin Academy of the Arts, and his ability and thorough training gained many devoted disciples.
The epithet Nazarene was adopted by a group of early 19th-century German Romantic painters who aimed to revive spirituality in art. The name Nazarene came from a term of derision used against them for their affectation of a biblical manner of clothing and hair style.
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“Leaves in the Storm” from A Tuscan Childhood by Lisi Cecilia Cipriani, 1907.
Victor Hugo, in writing of himself as a child, says:
When the north-wind strikes the throbbing waves The convulsive ocean tosses at one time The three-decked ship thundering with the storm And the leaf escaped from the tree on the shore.
We, too, were leaves in the great storm, the storm of the religious and political up-heaval in Italy, for our life began but a short while after Italy had been made one, while the country was still suffering in the efforts to adjust the old with the new.
The religious phase of our life was most affected by this unsettled condition of our environment. It is here that the direct influence of historical events shows most clearly. A brief account of our family history is necessary for a full understanding of the situation and certain incidents that I am going to relate. This history is not without poetical interest. I may add. however, that whatever is known to me on the subject I have found out for myself. The reserve about anything that would have led us to be proud of our race and our position was almost ostentatious.
The famous chronicles of Malaspini mentions the Cipriani among the sixteen families who founded Florence. Five of these families, including our own. were all agnates, and descended from Galigaio, a Roman patrician, who the chronicles tell us, was a companion-in-arms of Julius Cesar, and assisted him in the Siege of Fiesole.
The names of these five branches lend some probability to this Roman origin, though we, of course, know that during the Middle Ages the nobility of central Italy took pride in descending from the Romans, whereas the nobles of northern Italy preferred to trace their descent back to the twelve peers of Charlemagne. We found out this presumed Roman origin by ourselves, and the fact that it was almost forbidden knowledge made us particularly delight in our discovery.
Malaspini mentions our family sometimes as Cipriani, and sometimes as Delia Pressa, a name which, by the way, is also given us in the modern Annuary. The Cipriani were staunch Ghibellines and good fighters. Dante, under the name of Delia Pressa, in the Sixteenth Canto of the Paradiso, mentions us where he says: “The Delia Pressa already knew how it behooves to rule and in Galigaio’s house the hilt and the pommel were already gilt.” This passage, because it was in Dante, we, of course, knew.
When the Ghibellines were defeated by the Guelphs, the Cipriani were among those who preferred exile to humiliation. They would neither renounce their prerogatives and enroll in a Guild, nor change their name.
Thirteen Cipriani, history tells us, were captured by the Guelphs and condemned to death. Twelve of these escaped, and only one, Capaccio, remained in their hands. Perhaps the name (Capaccio means bad head) was fatal. He was beheaded on the Canto di Capaccio, that to this day bears his name, and is opposite the beautiful balcony of Palazzo dell Arte della Seta, designed by Vasari.
Then my grim Ghibelline fathers went into exile. One branch settled in France, but died out. The other settled on the Northern promontory of Corsica, Capo Corso, where our branch of the family remained till the beginning of the nineteenth century, when my grandfather, Matteo Cipriani, came back to Italy. It was he who bought the villa at Leghorn, where we spent the happiest days of our childhood.
To this Corsican influence I trace certain pronounced family characteristics, principally tenacity and endurance. The environment under which our race developed during these centuries was, I think, a distinctly desirable one. We never be-came court nobility, and we were thus saved from the excesses to which the European nobles gave themselves up from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. Moreover, it endowed us with exceptionally good physical constitutions, for the development of the body was in every way favored by the rough out-of-door Corsican life.
The life we led during all these years in Corsica was no doubt primitive compared to the luxury that reigned at the French and Italian courts, and we remained very-near the Middle Ages. I can almost say that in our family we skipped the Renaissance.
When my grandfather returned to Italy the family, in spite of its long absence from Florence, resumed its place at once among the Florentine patricians. Moreover, the marriages contracted by my aunts, and the daughters of another Cipriani, who had returned to Italy at the same time my grandfather did, connected us by close family ties with Italians of our own rank. I do not think that my father ever realized that his family had just returned to Italy after an absence not of years, but of centuries. We children, of course, never felt this at all, though we were very proud of our Corsican connections.Communal fight in Bologna (Sercambi).
My Ghibelline fathers went into voluntary exile. When they came back the struggle of the country against the church and the rulers the Roman Church supported, had not ended. It is true that the Guelph and Ghibelline parties had long disappeared. It is true that no German emperor was upheld against the head of the church. But the ideal of Dante, of an Italian strong and free, untrammeled by the selfish bonds of the church and petty rulers, had lived on.
It seems only poetic justice that when, after their long exile, these Ghibellines returned to the cradle of their race, they should successfully finish the task their fathers had begun. My uncles and my father all fought bravely and unselfishly for the freedom of Italy, and their party finally conquered. Italy became one. And the man who, as governor, first ruled the provinces wrenched from the Pope, the very provinces that a thousand years ago Pepin had granted, thus establishing the temporal power of the church—the man was my uncle.
Am I not justified in seeing a grim poetry in this? The Guelphs conquered us; they pulled down our palaces, and leveled them to the ground, strewing salt over them; they drove us into exile, so that even women and children faced every hardship; and at last, after hundreds of years had passed, we came back and in turn conquered our conquerors.
In 1859 my uncle was Governor of the Romagne. It was then, I think, that he and my father seceded from the Roman Catholic Church. In my father’s case this was much more marked, because he married a Protestant, and decided to have his children brought up in their mother’s faith, though curiously enough we were all christened in the Catholic Church. Personally I have always regretted this secession, for I think that we would have been much happier if we had grown up in the same religion as our friends and relatives.
The religious question was, therefore, a burning one in my childhood. Relatives, friends, servants, all were Catholics. My mother was a Protestant, it is true, but with her exception we met few Protestants, except the governesses and the tutors, and I confess that I antagonistically associated Protestantism with them.
Our religious training was a curious one. They did not try to teach us what to believe, but rather instructed us carefully as to what we ought not to believe. We were told not to believe in saints, miracles, and relics. We were told that Catholicism stands for ignorance. This last statement, however, soon aroused grave doubts in my mind, since many of the persons I esteemed and admired most were Catholics. We were told that it was absurd for a priest to give absolution; that confession was an evil thing. And we listened in silence.
I was the skeptic of the family. After having been told how many things I was not to believe, I learned to be ready to disbelieve any one and anything, even what my mother told me; not that I thought she lied, but I simply took it for granted that she considered it best to tell us just that, and I did not dispute her right to do so.
I remember distinctly that one morning, when I was barely five years old, my mother sent for Ritchie and me. After having had our faces well scrubbed and clean pinafores put on, we were taken to her morning-room. Then she formally began our religious instruction. Up to this time I had only been made to learn the Lord’s Prayer in English; and I rattled it off with very little concern as to what it meant. This morning my mother told us that there was a God. She also told us that this God was perfect, all-powerful, and everywhere at once. This last seemed incredible to me, and so she explained that he was everywhere, and could see everything. No matter where a thing happened he knew about it. This information she considered enough for the first lesson, and we were sent back to the nursery.
It happened that this very day I saw Ritchie throw a little embroidered waist on the top of the mosquito-netting that hung around our little beds, and when the nurses were looking for the jacket and Ritchie vouchsafed no information, having perhaps forgotten what he had done, I thought the time had come for a conclusive experiment. I thought I had my chance to prove whether this Protestant God they told me about was any better than the scorned saints painted on the walls.
I spoke no word while the nurses were hunting. I did not cry out, as I should have at any other time, “Ritchie hid it.” No, indeed; I waited for the good Lord to tell. At night on drawing out the mosquito-netting the little jacket was found. Then I informed the nurses I knew it was there. This led to the belief that I had hidden it there myself. I occasionally did hide things, and their suspicion was not altogether unjustified. But this time I declared that I had not put it there; Ritchie had done so, and it was unfair to punish me. They took me to my mother to be punished, for she inflicted all punishments herself, and there I burst into tears, and tried in vain to explain that I thought God, who saw everything, and could do anything he wanted, should have told the nurses himself.
My mother and the nurses did not understand the situation at all. I was severely punished, and left to my thoughts. As I have mentioned already, it was my habit to boil inside, so after having wiped my eyes, I took my punishment bravely, but I remained a skeptic in the bottom of my heart.
This skepticism was all the more profound as I never expressed it, and it remained unsuspected and uncorrected. In a thoroughly skeptical spirit did I begin the regular study of Bible history when I was not yet eight years old. But there were complications.
I had a governess then, the only one among many of whom I have an absolutely pleasant recollection, Fraeulein Anna, a charming girl of about twenty, who must have been an exceptionally good teacher. But—fate willed it—she was the daughter of a well-known German socialist, who was an atheist. Though I heard the details about her life and her family only much later, when I was almost grown up, yet even at the time I knew that her father was something terrible, a socialist who did not believe in God, and that she had been baptized with champagne. This did not shock me. Indeed, I connected it in my mind with the launching of a ship, a frequent festive event in the ship-yards at Leghorn, and I liked her all the better for not having been baptized with plain water like other common mortals.
Again you might say, “How could your mother, if she wished you to have any religion at all, trust you to the daughter of an atheist?” And I can answer, to begin with my mother’s religion was a passive one. She did not want us to be Catholics, but her real interest in religious questions seemed to end there. Besides, Fraeulein Anna did not profess atheism herself, and she had been put in our house by the German Protestant clergyman at Leghorn. He was a fine old man and my mother had great confidence in him.
Fraeulein Anna was perhaps the only governess who did not attack Catholicism, but she did not go beyond this. She carefully made me learn the Bible history. She made sure that I knew the names of the patriarchs and their sons, and that I did not confuse the deluge with the Tower of Babel. She was, in fact, the first one who taught me how to study, something for which I am grateful to this day. If I asked any questions, she answered the practical ones, and dismissed any that would have led to a theological discussion. With prompt kindness she would get a map, and, at my desire, show me the exact position of the Red Sea, but she had nothing to say when I wanted to know why Eve should be punished for eating the apple before she had been taught to distinguish between right and wrong—a simple question, one which has puzzled many besides myself.
Some points troubled me much. How could God make the world out of nothing? If he had even had a little grain of dust, he might have made it grow, but to make something out of nothing, and be everywhere at the same time; these were things I could not understand. With Eve I deeply sympathized. I reasoned that it was not fair play. If she knew what was right and what was wrong, she might be punished, but before she really knew that a thing was wrong, she did not deserve to be punished. This, of course, was in accordance with our own nursery rules, for if we did anything we had been forbidden to do, the punishment was severe, but a first offense, when we could honestly say we did not know it was wrong, was always at least half- forgiven.
If I dwell upon these details, it is not because I consider myself particularly interesting as an individual, but because I am convinced that my experience is that of many children who grow up in a religion different from that of the people around them, especially if, for any reason, their religious interest is keen. Mine was great, and continued intense for many years. I do not think that my brothers and sisters troubled about religious questions the way I did. They all, I think, found it easier to obey in the spirit and in the word. They were told that it was best for them not to be Catholics, and to be Protestants, and that sufficed.
Three years passed after Fraeulein Anna first taught me Bible history. The governess whom I have already mentioned with particular dislike was with us then. As I have explained, she was always arbitrary and often unreasonable. Moreover, she lacked even elementary tact. I did not respect her. Her attitude toward religious questions was such that in telling about them now I must expect to be accused of exaggeration.
She encouraged my brother Alick to make fun of the priests. This was and is only too common in Italy among a certain set of people, and particularly among the men of the lower classes. To Fraeulein it may have seemed funny and new, but I thought then, and I think now, that it was absolutely inexcusable.Pisa. Il duomo.
She used to like to go to the Duomo at Pisa to listen to the beautiful music at vesper services. We children were not particularly musical, and in order to keep us from being bored, she had taught us to nickname the canons as they sat in their seats in the altar circle. This, it seems to me, was all the worse, because we as Protestants should have been taught to respect the ministers of another religion. And, besides, merely the respect due old age made it wrong for us to nickname them according to their resemblance to a horse, or a dog, or a rabbit, or a fox, etc.
So well trained were we not to complain of our governesses, that my mother did not know of this till years later.
It was with this governess, Fraeulein Helene, that the climax for me came, and that I cast off both Catholicism and Protestantism, turning to the older faith that the Christians had crushed. One day I found an old piece of newspaper that contained the following item:—”Last night, under the influence of Bacchus, some soldiers changed a temple of Venus into a temple of Mars. The police promptly interfered.”
When a young reporter expressed in this flowery way the drunken brawl of some soldiers, he surely had no conception of how it would for years affect the inner life of a little Florentine patrician.
Greek mythology was perfectly familiar to us. In fact, playing the gods was one of our common games. We all had been given a name of some Greek god or goddess. An older boy, who occasionally used to play with us, was Jove; my sister Totty was Minerva; Ritchie was Mercury, because he was constantly sent on errands; and I, to my bitter sorrow, was Proserpina. I protested with tears against this, because they had called a boy whom I detested Pluto, and even in a game I did not want to be considered his wife. But, as I have already remarked, childhood is cruel. “The children,” being the oldest, had taken upon themselves the right of distributing the parts, and did not care whether they spoiled my pleasure or not. When I appealed to my mother, her decision was: “Why, your not liking your husband makes your part all the more natural.” And so I had to keep my name.
Of course, we had been told that the Greek gods were no longer worshiped; yet the statement in print was absolute. I knew the words by heart—”Under the influence of Bacchus, some soldiers changed a temple of Venus into a temple of Mars.” The police had interfered because—because, no doubt, the police did not wish the soldiers to worship the Greek gods any more than our governesses wished us to pray to the saints. The thing was perfectly clear to me. I realized that once again knowledge had been withheld from us. The Greek gods still had their worshipers.
As I thought the matter over my eagerness to have the worship of the Greek gods openly established and not interfered with by the police grew greater and greater.
I have forgotten to mention, in telling the family history, that Malaspini states that one of my ancestors married a grand-daughter of Octavian, the Emperor. Now follows my childish reasoning. If we descended from Octavian, the Emperor, through him we went back to Julius Caesar; from Julius Caesar we went back to Æneas; from Æneas evidently we went back to Venus; from Venus we went back to Saturn! When the Greek gods loom large again we, who actually had descended from them, would come into our own; and they that ruled us had kept us ignorant of this, just as they had kept us ignorant of other things concerning our family that we might justly be proud of.
I longed for the time when I should be grown up, and could bring about the open worship of the Olympians.
For a long time my interest in this was keen, but as I never spoke about it to any one, finally I almost forgot the whole story. It only came back to me when many, many years after I came across the same trite expression in referring to some drunken soldiers’ brawl.
But I have not waited for the gods in vain. They have come to me in all their classical splendor, though not as I had looked forward to them as a child. In art and literature I have finally come to my own. They have opened a glorious new world to me, where I can find refuge whenever the modern, Protestant world seems too cold, too barren, too hard.
Cipriani, Lisi Cecilia. A Tuscan Childhood, The Century Co., 1907.
This book was published in 1997 three years after Christine drowned – mysteriously! There’s going to be a party. It is 10:00 A.M. There is talk about driving to Carmel and renting fishing poles. A hairdresser left his card in the door when he showed up. Everyone was at the hospital. Who was catering this party that probably would take place during the day so guests can see the dramatic ocean. When does the sun set in March? Do the math. Who invited Christine to this house? There are no tidepools down there in that dangerous cove. There is talk about going to lunch. Who was invited?
I went and had a complete check-up yesterday which included a long interview. I was asked about my state of mind. It was suggested I see my therapist again. I am upset after reading about Christine’s struggle to stay alive which always kept me from concluding it was a suicide as my mother said. The other struggle is her telling me this. Was she creating a backup idea incase I did not buy the tide-pool lie. Then I read this;
“If Christine had been suicidal in the past, she was clearly not on this day.”
Christine was on Prozac a fact Vicki knew. She must have known our sister was suicidal. Some have suggested it was suicide to go down in that cove. Why then would she bring her eight year old daughter down there? Vicki was right there – within feet of them both. Surely Vicki owned death-thoughts. My friend, Michael Harkins suggested murder when he read the autopsy. I will say what he saw in A BOOK, that will just be about Christine’s death and the months after. Who would tell a mother her daughter – killed herself?
“Forced to leave San Francisco after the devastating earthquake of 1906, Fremont (née Caroline) Jones follows her heart to the bohemian beach community of Carmel-by-the-Sea. She is eager to be reunited with her elusive suitor, retired spymaster Michael Archer, but finds him mysteriously metamorphosed into Misha–otherwise occupied and decidedly unavailable for sleuthing. But the irrepressible Fremont Jones has her pride, and determined to restart her typewriting business part-time, she signs on as temporary keeper of the Point Pinos Lighthouse.
She has barely settled in to her watch when a velvet-clad corpse washes in on the tide–and Fremont is off on a new and ultimately life-threatening quest. Starting with the free-spirited artists of Carmel, she searches for clues to the identity of the dead woman and uncovers a community filled with intrigue, violence, and plenty of motives for murder. When Fremont is attacked and robbed, her lighthouse torched, and the artist helping her turns up missing, she realizes she is perilously close to the truth. And that the next body to drift in on the tide might well be her own.”
BPL – Central BPL- West RoxburyBPL – Central Collection:MysteryCall #: MYSTERY DAY DAvailability by Location Place a Hold For LaterToggle DropdownTwo years after the Great Earthquake that destroyed San Francisco, and a year after the bitter misunderstanding that almost destroyed their budding romance, Fremont Jones and Michael Archer are back in the City by the Bay, this time committed to being “partners in life and work.” Their life is shared as equals, and their work is the private investigations agency they have opened together, but–not surprisingly, where Fremont is concerned–it’s sometimes difficult to separate the two. In fact, it’s her friendship with a slightly flighty, pretty, and troubled young woman that gets Fremont involved in her first murder investigation. Frances McFadden is besotted with spiritualism, and the curious but skeptical Fremont agrees to accompany her to a séance. When Frances’s husband finds out about their adventure, her punishment is both degrading and galvanizing at once. Then two mediums are murdered, Frances begins to discover her own talent for telepathy and takes a lover, and Fremont becomes dangerously embroiled in her friend’s illicit liaison. While Fremont hones her investigative skills, she also comes to a new appreciation of Michael’s professional talents and his other special qualities as well. As in her three earlier mysteries, Dianne Day provides “foggy period atmosphere, a dash of dangerous romance”(Minneapolis Star Tribune),and a twisty new adventure for her intrepid sleuth. Dianne Day spent her early years in the Mississippi Delta before moving to the San Francisco Bay area. Fremont Jones has appeared in three previous mysteries:The Strange Files of Fremont Jones,which won the Macavity Award for Best First Novel, and two bestselling sequels–Fire and FogandThe Bohemian Murders.Day, who now lives in San Francisco, is at work on her fifth Fremont Jones mystery,Death Train to Boston.
I have given up on secular-liberals. They are as dumb as a box of hammers. I am not reaching enough readers, and, academia is blocking me also. Why? Because I am shaming them. I dropped out of high school. Universities are jealous creatures. They insist everything go trough their Claims Department. They will not pay me to come lecture on the amazingly creative and religious family I gathered together – because they are Jealous! No one wants me to have any money. They are delighted to learn I live on $750 dollars a month. They subscribe to Moneyless Voo-Doo!
Two days ago, Christine came to me in a dream. I was trying to fix a broken lamp.
“I’m sick of this bullshit! I’m leaving!”
“I want to go too. Take me with you!”
This is now how our autobiography begins. The title ‘Capturing Beauty’ was in part inspired by Philip’s…
On April 7 I celebrated 34 years of sobriety. No family member called. If any are still alive, they are interested in Rosamond’s sobriety that ended in 1994. That evil book is still trying to fix my sister’s flawed sobriety – and her flawed art. You would think she would wish me well – from beyond the grave! Trying To Save The Rosamond Legacy | Rosamond Press
While having dinner with Meredith, I got frustrated, and made this pronouncement.
“I forbid you to think of me as an artist, anymore. From now on – I am an Art Critic! This means you do not get to run my struggle as a real artist thru you voo-doo artist bullshit!”
Even though he wrote a dissertation on ‘The Creative Person’ Mark knows nothing about art and artists. He must have looked over some dudes shoulder at Harvard, He has me hang picture for him because he has no talent. Having a degree in psychology, I see his little wheels turning when I say things like;
“Christine was not a real artist. She was a fabrication. Smoke and mirrors were employed. She took up art because she was on welfare. Her style was dictated to her by her handler. I have spent years trying to legitimize her for the sake…
When I went to visit my sister, Victoria, four months ago, I found negatives in an envelope put in victor’s photo box. After getting them developed, I beheld the mysterious Eutrophia, the sister of my grandmother, Mary Magdalene Rosamond, who allegedly was murdered by her husband because he had a metal plate in his head after being wounded in World War One. We met Eutrophia’s sons Harold and Robert, on several occasions in Ojai. We were told not to ask questions. However, who is that little girl in the photos? Did Brown kill this child when he killed his wife? What became of this child?
For months I puzzled over this, phantom child. I then applied the truth I discovere,d that my mother, Rosemary Rosamond duplicated much of their mother’s life. Mary was a Leo and a very powerful woman. Her four beautiful daughters held her in awe, and dare…
Around 2:30 P.M. on Christmas Day, I opened my computer and showed Marilyn my post ‘Christmas with Eutrophia’. No sooner did she see the top photo, Mariliyn says;
When my sister Christine was nine, and my sister Vicki, was five, they saw a blue angel standing at the foot of Christine’s bed. I just found this photo of an angel over the head of Mother Dominica, the cousin of my grandmother, Mary Magdalene Rosamond.
And angel appeared above me just before I died. The fight I have with Patrice Hanson, is, she claims the light that surrounded OUR daughter, came from her mother that was like a guardian angel. Wrong! This angel and light comes from the Wieneke family who entered the Order of Saint Francis. That angel guarded MY daughter from the fake father, Randal Delpiano. Why…
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