Baldassarre Squitti

Baron Baldassarre Squitti[1] born in Maida, Calabria, Catanzaro, Italy in 1855, the son of Baron Tommaso Squitti and Rosina Astanti.

Baldassarre was the brother of Senator Nicola Squitti, and Eleanora Maria Squitti, children of Baron Tommaso Squitti, Baron of Palermiti and Guarna, Calabria, Italy. Eleanora Squitti was reported to be a lady companion of Queen Margherita of Savoy.[2]

Baldassarre Squitti [3] was a writer and professor of law in the Faculty of Law at the University of Naples and at "La Sapienza" The University of Rome, and a member of the Italian Parliament, with Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti.[4]

Baldassarre was elected Member of Parliament for the Region of Monteleone Calabro(now Vibo Valentia) from 1904 to 1913.

Books written include the translation of "Institute of Roman Civil Law by the German writer, Eduardo BÖCKING" - (Naples, 1885).[5]

It is widely believed that the Squitti family have originated in England. There are in fact hundreds of records reporting people named 'Squitt' since the 16th century, including a certain 'underground' horror writer from London, well known in the 19th century. Here's some extracts from the press.

Saturday, November 19, 1853, London, Middlesex. THE PRESS (extracts)

He (Sproggs) and Squitt, author of "Murder Hall", the "Gypsy's Warning", skunk of the "London Luminary", constitute a peculiar set of men who enjoy each, as far as numbers go, more readers than Chataubriand ever had, and live in a kind of under-world of literature of their own. They have their sets and circles, and entertain each other, I dare say, and have their jelousies and interests, like other men: they keep up a kind of Beggar's Opera under the world of letters, and literary Life Below Stairs. (...) Squitt is now writing a fiction in which there is a "titled ruffian" figuring away every week, who, I fear, will be the death of me. The absurd unnatural struct of that being (for he is not human at all, whether "titled" or not) through these columns there is a weariness to the flesh. He has married a tradesman's daughter for her money, and is going to murder her in a tower in the country. He is also a high political man. (I am willing to hope that the existing Cabinet are now way delineated here.) He talks and she talks in a way that no human being ever did on our planet. The Lord has a gamekeeper who keeps people locked up, and bribes several men to hold their tongues - from which I begin to dread that he has been at these wicked games from early youth. Unfortunate Squitt! How does Squitt get hundreds of thousands of readers to listen to this mass of malignant balderdash? Let us hope that at least our titled friend will die penitent (if as far off as a hundred numbers hence - for Squitt is prolix), and part with melancholy from these reflections on the personal infamy so curiously seems to mix itself up with revolutionary politics.
Map of Vibo Valentia

References

  1. ↑ "Dalle Carte Di Giovanni Giolitti," - 1962
  2. ↑ Nobility of Italy, The Mormon Library(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)- UTAH
  3. ↑ Italian Archives
  4. ↑ Vibo Valentia 1900-1929
  5. ↑ Istituzioni di Diritto Vivile Romano di Eduardo Bocking, NAPOLI, 1885