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From: Francisco Antonio Doria< >
Subject: Italian families in 15th century Portugal (was: Lomellini II)
Date: 5 Jul 1998 17:03:05 -0700

Around 1450 alum was discovered in Northern Italy and two Genoese partnerships were formed o explore it: one of them had Lodisio Centurione and Eliano Spinola as partners. (Source: A. Gallo, `De rebus...,' in the Muratori collection, p. 7 lines 44 and ss.)

Now notice the following:

1) In 1472 Antonio Spinola is attested in the Madeira. A later (1511) *carta de braso* (grant of arms) says that one Antonio Spinola who lived in the Madeira was the son of *micer Eliani de Espinola* and *Madame Preta de Spinola*. Eliani = Eliano. Preta = Pietra or Peretta. (Source: transcription of the document in Noronha's *Nobilirio...*).

2) In 1479 Cristofaro Colombo goes to court in Genoa to answer for money that had been lent to him by Lodisio Centurione to buy sugar in the Madeira.

3) In 1492 (see C. Varela, *Colon y los Florentinos*, 1990), Lodisio Doria, settled in Cadiz, and two other bankers lend Columbus some money for his first voyage beyond the Western Ocean.

3) In 1480 Lodisio Doria, Battista and Urbano Lomellini, and Giovanni Usodimare buy *engenhos de acar* (sugarcane mills) in the Madeira.

Family relations among those people are:

- Lodisio Centurione was married to Isabella Lomellini, d. of Oberto Lomellini (Battilana, Centurione, table 3 and Lomellini, table 34.

- This Oberto Lomellini (see Lomellini, table 31) was a son of Battista Lomellini and Luigia Doria, d. of one Lodisio Doria. I identify that Luigia to a paternal aunt of the Lodisio Doria who went to the Madeira (not listed in Battilana).

- Battista Lomellini, Oberto's father, had another same named son (from a first marriage to cousin Caterina Lomellini) and a son (by Luigia Doria) named Urbano and attested in 1412 and 1421. I conjecture that this Urbano is father of the Urbano and Battista that went to the Madeira. (I presume that both were related to their commercial partner Lodisio Doria, and so I exclude Oliverio Lomellini, an elder half-brother, and Girolamo, s.p. according to Battilana; see the chart.)

Lodisio Doria, as I said, left a daughter in the Madeira, Leonor Doria. Her name seems to echo >Leonardo<, Lodisio's father. She married Rui Gonalves de Velosa, a minor nobleman, and stands at the top of the family tree of both the Teixeira Doria and Frana Doria families from the Madeira. I have tentatively identified some of Leonor's descendants in Colonial Brazil: one Manuel Gonalves Doria who fought the Dutch in Bahia c. 1625 and one Antonio Doria de Mariz, who lived at Paranagu (then Captaincy of Paran) c. 1720. I don't know whether they left issue. A third branch from Leonor Doria originates in Jeronimo de Ornelas de Meneses e Vasconcelos, who settled at Viamo (in the Brazilian South) around 1730 and sired a huge family.

Leonor Doria's first son was named Luis (=Luigi, Lodisio) Doria Velosa.

However most Brazilian Dorias descend from Clemenza Doria (Clemena de Oria, Clemena a Doria) who was born at Lisbon c. 1535 and d. in Salvador (Bahia, Brazil) after 1591. She was one of the `orphans of gentle birth' that were sent to Brazil between 1551 and 1560 to marry the early colonists. She married Sebastio Ferreira in 1553; he died in a shipwreck in 1556. She then married Ferno Vaz da Costa, of the `Costas do Cardeal' according to Portuguese genealogist Eugnio de Andria da Cunha e Freitas. Left issue from both marriages.

Brazilian lineage books call her father Florentino or Florentim, an unlikely name. The `Silva' genealogy in Gayo's *Nobilirio* calls him `Loureno,' Lorenzo (and Lorenzino, the nickname, gives Florentino...) Since at the same time there is one Lazzaro *Volpe* Doria attested in Portugal, who died in a shipwreck (again...) in the gulf of Mina in Africa in 1535, one may identify both Lazzaro and Lorenzo to the children of Pietro Doria and Brigida Spinola. They are rather closely related (2nd degree cousins through female lines) to the Lodisio who went to the Madeira.

Might be just a coincidence, but Clemenza's first child, a daughter, was called Luisa Doria (=Luigia, Lodisia).

So, it definitively looks like a family enterprise.

In another post I'll talk about two Florentine families, the Cavalcanti and Acciaiuoli. The first marquis of Pombal was descended from the Cavalcanti, and the present count of Avilez is head of the Portuguese Acciaiuoli.

(F.A.D.)

This thread:

• Italian families in 15th century Portugal (was: Lomellini II) by Francisco Antonio Doria< >