Marano Principato

This village was born of an earthquake and took its name from a lawsuit. The shock came on the night of Palm Sunday, 27 March 1638, and struck the middle valley of the Crati: Castelfranco and Rende were destroyed, and part of their people moved into the scattered farmhouses a little further off, the turre, in a stretch of country that was called simply Marano, probably after the feudal family that had held it. Out of those farmsteads new settlements grew.

Then came the lawsuit. In the second half of the seventeenth century prince Sersale of Castelfranco and marquis Alarcón y Mendoza of Rende disputed the fiscal and administrative rights over the lands of Marano; in 1684 the matter came to a head and the king had to send a delegate of his own to settle it. The solution was to cut Marano in two: the part assigned to the prince became Marano Principato, the part assigned to the marquis Marano Marchesato. Two comuni still carry in their names the titles of the two lords who could not agree. Administratively, though, Castelfranco and the two Marano remained a single università until 1732, when Marano Marchesato obtained its autonomy; Marano Principato broke away from Castelfranco only in 1800.