Molendini (surname of my father’s maternal grandmother).

(updated 23 July 2007)

Research.

My research has led me thus far to Orazio Molendini, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, who was born about 1578. Orazio and his wife lived in Ostuni, Province of Brindisi, Region of Puglia, Italy, when their 8 children were born. His great-grandson Oronzo Pasquale moved to Cisternino probably in the 1680s. He was a notary and might have been related to the Molendini family already living in Cisternino and headed by patriarch Giorgio Molendini, a judge – just like Oronzo Pasquale’s father. They may have descended from or otherwise been related to Macedonio de Molendinis, who practiced law in Monopoli in 1567 and is the earliest reference to this surname yet discovered.

Oronzo Pasquale’s son Leonardo Antonio Quirico Andrea Molendini were notaries. Leonardo Antonio Quirico Andrea Molendini’s son Oronzo Paolo Lorenzo Molendini, his grandson Leonardo Antonio Molendini and his great-grandson Oronzio Paolo Molendini were all pharmacists.

It is with Oronzio Paolo Molendini’s generation that this line of the Molendini family began its decline in the 1800s. Oronzio Paolo’s brother Domenico was a barber, while his sister Pasquanna married a shoemaker. He himself did not marry into a leading family as had his ancestors. Their son, my great-great grandfather Martino Raffaele Molendini, married the daughter of a goldsmith -- a trade he also adopted, although by the time of his death he was described as a peasant farmer. Martino's daughter Anna Isabella ended up marrying Nunzio Semeraro, a stonemason whose father had also impregnated and married a young orphan servant. All in all, this must have been a difficult period for the family and represented quite a departure from the learned professions and economic and social status of their forebears.