Offagna Branch (Marche region)
Lorenzo Monarca was born in Offagna in 1651, son of Giovan Battista and Caterina and nephew of Lorenzo.
This family nucleus, landowners (i.e. owners of a house and land), is the only one with the surname Monarca found in Offagna throughout that century and the following ones. This suggests it may have been a single individual, not native to the place, who — through the course of life — found work and a wife in Offagna and settled there for the rest of his existence.
It is therefore possible, among the various reasonable hypotheses, that he was a cadet who moved here, for example as part of the military garrison stationed in the fortress, perhaps even from Sessa. I would point out that the Monarca-owned house is very close to the country villa of the Malacari Counts of Grigiano, one of whose members was consul of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and who could have had contact, even casual, with the Monarca of Sessa. At present, however, no evidence has been found to validate this hypothesis.
The presence in the Marche region
It is nevertheless a fact that numerous Monarca lived in past centuries in the Marche region, in the provinces of Ancona and Macerata, and that some of their descendants still reside there. The areas most affected by the presence of family members in the 17th and 18th centuries are:
- Offagna, a small medieval village about 20 km from Ancona, member of “I Borghi più belli d'Italia”;
- Jesi, a city about 30 km from Ancona;
- Porto Recanati, a town also about 30 km from Ancona, but currently within the province of Macerata.
Particularly significant, as we have seen, is the presence in Offagna, which winds through the centuries but always remains linked to the original village. Over the decades some Monarca then left the Marche to live in Rome and in other cities of Lazio and Umbria (an example is Bevagna, also a member of the “I Borghi più belli d'Italia” association), and from there gave rise to further new branches.
