ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1109
http://www.s-gabriel.org/1109
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27 Jul 1998
From:  (Josh Mittleman)


Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel!

You asked for help choosing a name close to <Capriol>, possibly the Italian
<Marcello Caprioli>.  Here is what we have found.

We found an example of <Capriolo> as a given name in a census of 13th
century Perugia (central Italy).  It wasn't a common name -- we found only
one example and we haven't found it in other lists of period Italian names
-- so you may want to set your persona in 13th century Perugia, since we
know the name was used there.

<Marcello> is an Italian form of the Latin <Marcellus>, the name of several
early saints [4, 5].  We don't find an example in the 13th century census,
but we do find <Marco> and its diminutive <Marcolo>, along with numerous
examples of masculine diminutives formed by adding <-ello> to a name:
<Papanello>, <Perusinello>, <Ugolinello>, <Paganello>, and others [1].
<Marcello> is a natural extension of this pattern.

In medieval and renaissance Italy, it was very common for a man to be known
as his father's son.  <Marcello> son of <Capriolo> would be called
<Marcello di Capriolo> or simply <Marcello Capriolo>.  A generation to two
later, the family might have adopted Capriolo's name as a family name, and
his grandson might be called <Marcello Caprioli> or <Marcello dei Caprioli>
[1, 2, 3].  Any of these names would be quite appropriate for northern or
central Italy from the 13th century onward, though the simple patronymics
like <Marcello di Capriolo> were probably predominant in the 13th and 14th
centuries.

Since we found <Capriolo> as a given name, you could also reverse the
elements: <Capriolo di Marcello> or <Capriolo Marcelli>.  


I hope this letter has been useful.  Please write us again if any part of
it has been unclear or if you have other questions.  I was assisted in
researching and writing this letter by Aryanhwy Prytydes, Talan Wynek,
Zenobia Naphtali, Tangwystyl verch Morgant, Alan Fairfax, Juliana de Luna,
and Walraven van Nijmegen.

For the Academy,


  Arval Benicoeur
  27 Jul 1998


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References

[1] Grohmann, Alberto, _L'Imposizione Diretta nei Comuni della'Italia
Centrale nel XII Secolo: La Libra di Perugia del 1285_ (Paris, Torino:
Ecole Francaise de Rome, 1986).

[2] De Felice, Emidio, _Dizionario dei Cognomi Italiani_ (Arnoldo Mondadori
Editore, 1978).

[3] Fucilla, Joseph G., _Our Italian Surnames_ (Evanston, IL: Chandlers'
Inc., 1949). 

[4] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_,
3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). 

[5] De Felice, Emidio, _Dizionario dei Nomi Italiani_ (Arnoldo Mondadori
Editore, Milan, 1992). 

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