“On Mars 27, 1756, Ancona Milesi reported to the Magistrate, confirming arrival of the vessel with 220 Catholic Albanians, Ottoman subjects, who fled their homeland. Consul Milesi was able to find out that they are being harassed “by the Turkish vances (bands), so they are seeking asylum elsewhere.”

Albanian captain and merchant Nduë Antonio Remani

“Three years earlier Nduë (Antonio) Remani, although Albanian, went to Rome, equipped with credentials from the Albanian bishops and parish priests. He asked the Pope for hospitalization for a thousand Albanians.¹

“The consul to the Magistrate. I respond to your letter of the 17th. I look at the Albanian refugees. They will end their absence in these Lazzaretti
next Tuesday and then by land they will move on to Castro and Ronciglione, where uncultivated public land will be distributed to them. Many other families in Catholic Albania are thinking of doing the same. The news has arrived that other families have embarked on a sweet tartana headed for Italy. Their leader Remani stated…”

Ndue Antonio Remani in other Italian sources:

“Antonio Remani was unable to refuse so much insistence, he took the invocations of those miserable people to heart, he mentioned it to Cavalier Corrado Ferretti, consul of the Levantine Nation living in Ancona, and he sent that ardent desire to Pope Benedict XIV.”²

“His nephew was then in Ancona in the company of Albanian merchants
Antonio Remani with some small things about him, to which the Prelate wrote, which also for his part of him, since he had to be brought to Rome with his commandments to the Supreme Reigning Pontiff Benedict XIV at the time and manifested the resolution taken by many Families, who wanted to escape from Albania to his State.³

Reception assured of them from the Supreme Pontiff, and from Monsignor Treasurer, then Perelli, and also received some tip, very jubilant he returned to Ancona and manifested the promises made to him by the Holy See to the Archbishop, his uncle, as communicant to the Appellants.”

Albanian sources mentioning Nduë Antonio Remani in 1753

“In 1753, an Albanian merchant, Anton Remani, landed in Senigallia. Here, in the Marche, since then a city of the Papal States, the famous Maddalena Fair (Fiera di Maddalena) took place and continues to take place every year since the first half of the Sixteenth Century. Remani, every year arrived with letters of recommendation for the papal authorities of the Archbishop of Bari and the Bishop of Shkodra.

That time he brought with him, in addition to recommendations, a large number of letters from Albanians who wanted to leave their homes due to Ottoman persecution: they asked Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758) for help and protection, and he agreed to give them. Upon returning to Albania, Remani gathered the most endangered Albanians and, finding a boat – today we would say “boatmen” – thirty-nine families from Shkodra, a total of 218 people, set off for the Italian coast.

The journey undertaken in January 1756 lasted 33 days until they finally arrived in Ancona. The Pope’s envoy in the Marquis capital, Corrado Ferretti, ordered Golfalonieri, Marquis Trionfi, to provide shelter and food to the newcomers. Reman – who came from a tribe of Bajraktars in the area of Velipoja near the Buna river, and who for the committed act had lost all his possessions, such as land, houses (including a villa in Shkodër) and marketable goods – Pope assigned 8 scuds per month.

While his priest brother, Stephen, who was in Rome in Propaganda Fide (congregation tasked with organizing all the missionary activity of the church), was elected spiritual leader of the community, rewarded with 8 scudi per month.

After a while these checks were no longer given, and Anton Remani, mired in misery, died leaving behind many children. For mercy, Ferretti turned to Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Banchieri, Treasurer General of the Venerable Apostolic Chamber (the highest administrative body of the Papal State), in a letter dated October 14, 1757, begging him to help the Remani family in some way and to others (at that time in Ancona).

Thus, Cardinal Banchieri received from the Venerable Apostolic House for permanent use barren land in the uninhabited district of Pianiano of the ancient state of Castro. Completely abandoned neighborhood since 1734 and which brought great losses to the state coffers; a situation that would only be fixed with the arrival of the Albanians.”⁴

Albanians returning to Pianiano

“Upon returning to Pianiano, the Albanians sought to reclaim the lands. They started a trial that lasted a long time. Finally with the intervention of the gracious Ferdinando Spinelli – Vatican envoy and then, from 1785, Cardinal appointed by Pope Pius VI (1775-99) – the matter was closed in 1770, by means of a treaty re-enforcing the pacts of the year 1757. And the Albanians lived there.

Priest Remani was spiritually entrusted with the community that over the years grew, increased and expanded in territory. After Reman’s death, one of his sisters, married to one of the Mida family, also Albanian, and other families remained in Pianiano. Until the middle of the 19th century, they kept their rites and prayers and the same customs they had in their homeland; although in 1844 no one was appointed for the role of spiritual leader.

In the parish of Pianiano dedicated to San Sigismondo, where there was a Saint Mary carved in an oak trunk by an Albanian: a rare image, but not without value. Albanians used to take him in procession through the fields, every first Sunday of May, singing their prayers in their native language. Until the beginning of the 20th century, she was revered as a miracle worker, and in the era of the celebration, celebrated until the second half of the 19th century, she gathered many, many people.

Little by little the sons forgot their birthplace, even more so the grandsons. In the 1900s, the last descendants of the colony were scattered in different villages of the province of Viterbo. Their traditions no longer differed from those of the natives: and some of them even forgot their Balkan origins. But until a few years before the first world war, on the main street of the neighborhood – Via degli Albanesi – you could hear, especially during the evening hours, the shrill voice of an old lady of the Mida family singing a song that more or less said :

“Why, son, are you afraid of the night? The stars are seen in the sky, but their sight and trembling do not cause fear or pain. Skanderbeg the warrior hero. We shall never see again him whose arms were of gold and whose heart was of steel, oh he did not tremble! And at night, on the fiery horse, he won over all the enemies and the lake that became wild at the sight of him and crossed it in flight. The stars trembled, son; but their sight and trembling caused no fear or pain. Skanderbeg, the hero, enlivened the stars with light; and when they were touched by that light, as by the first kiss of the dawn, they faded from happiness“.

The little old woman of the Mida family who still sang in the language and cadence of her ancestors, one of the ancient songs of the homeland, is located in the cemetery, far from the lake of Shkodra and the places where the unforgettable hero to whom she sang had performed his deeds . In the hands of the Mida family – who, as descendants of Remani, had the largest properties – also the documents and notarial acts remained. But none of them returned to Albania.”⁵

Reference

1. https://www.google.se/books/edition/Regesti_marittimi_croati/r6lIAAAAYAAJhl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Ulcinj+reis&dq=Ulcinj+reis&printsec=frontcover ↩︎
2. http://web.tiscali.it/imperiale_di_genova/page8.htm ↩︎
3. https://www.artestoriatarquinia.it/wp-content/uploads/bollettini/1988_Bollettino/Blasi%20B%20_%20GLI%20ALBANESI%20A%20CORNETO%20E%20NEL%20PATRIMONIO%20DI%20SAN%20PIETRO%20IN%20TUSCIA.pdf ↩︎
4. http://www.giovanniarmillotta.it/albania/statopontificio01.html ↩︎
5. imbid. Roma, Viti XII, N. 237, 1-15 qershor 2010 Giovanni Armillotta SHQIPTARËT NË SHTETIN PAPNOR ↩︎