Priests

I haven’t written all these descriptions yet. If you’re curious about a specific person, prod me with an e-mail, and I will get on it.

Julius D. D’Arpino

Pastor, Church of the Most Precious Blood, New York, 1895.

Marcellino Sergenti

Pastor, St. Clare’s Church, New York, 1921.

Pacifico Sevastano

Pastor, Church of the Most Precious Blood, New York, 1895.

Carmine Troisi

Carmine Troisi was the Canon of the Collegiate Church of Saint Michael (Canonico della Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo) in Solofra, Avellino, from the late 1890s, promoted to archpriest (primicerio) from 1941 to his death in 1948. Christened Carmine Antonio Nicola Troisi, he was born in Solofra in 1866 to Domenico Troisi (1820–1893) and his second wife, Donna Michela Gisolfi.

My great-grandfather, Beniamino M. Troisi (1850–1921), was Carmine’s half-brother, born to their father’s first wife, Vincenza Guarino. Hence, Carmine Troisi was my grandfather Domenic M. Troisi’s uncle. Domenic and his siblings called him “Zio Canonico” (Canon Uncle.)

In his 1972 memoir, my grandfather Domenic M. Troisi reported that his parents met each other because of Carmine Troisi. Before her marriage, Domenic’s mother, Maria Michele Buongiorno (1854–1906, Donatus Buongiorno’s sister), worked as a housekeeper for the priest. One day the priest’s brother, Beniamino M. Troisi, came to visit, causing them to meet.

Carmine Troisi would have known his former housekeeper’s brother, Donatus Buongiorno, since childhood, as they were only a year apart in age and both grew up in Solofra in families with substantial ties to San Michele church. A Troisi ancestor of Carmine named Domenic Troisi, perhaps his great-grandfather, endowed the church with finances to send a Troisi of each generation to seminary to become a priest. A chapel in the church has a painting from the 1700s inscribed with Domenic Troisi’s name.

In the early 1900s, Carmine Troisi engaged Donatus Buongiorno to restore paintings in the church and mounted a show of Buongiorno’s own work.

Carmine Troisi also has a reputation as a poet. In 1926, he wrote a book of poems, Sonetti Volanti, which was published under the pen name Italo Irpino.

The priest in this genre painting of a small-town scene by Buongiorno (scroll down to “The Public’s Reader”) may be Carmine Troisi. The priest in the painting is reading a letter to the other two adults. Before schooling was mandatory and free in Italy (which did not happen substantially until the 1920s), it was not uncommon for there to be only a few people in a small town who were literate: the sindaco (notary), a few landowners and the parish priest. The priests often read and wrote letters for their parishioners as a public service. This painting, called “The Public’s Reader” was bought directly from Donatus Buongiorno in Italy in the late 1800s by an American woman who was on holiday. I suspect it is a portrait of Buongiorno’s sister’s brother-in-law, Carmine Troisi, reading a letter to two Solofra residents.

See other paintings of clergy members here.