Cincotta Ships

Here is a 17th century map (from my collection) of the lower Tyrrhennian basin and southern Italy.

As my Italian improves I am getting more tid-bits of information from the book: Mercanti di Mare.

It seems that the Cincottas(our branch) were one of the very few families that "Fished" for Coral. They went out in small boats with trays and weights.  The trays were lowered and weights were used to knock coral into the trays. It was then taken to Torre del Greco near Naples to be turned into and mounted in gold jewelry by local craftsmen. They then returned the finished pieces to the islands as gifts and for sale.  Some was sold in the Naples area.

The ship Immacolata was owned by a great(a couple of times)Uncle, though his siblings were also involved.

Grammie Cafarella's Father: Anerio Cincotta and his brother Giacomo owned two ships(ships that were not huge.) called the San Biagio and San Biagio 2(1877-1902). San Biagio is Saint Blaize, who is the patron saint of wild animals.

Their father and uncle, Giovanni and Giuseppe, were owners of The Annunziata(1868-1874)...There was a daughter /sister named Nancy(Annunziata).

The Immacolata, owned by our grandfather's cousin Giuseppe Cincotta di Antonio was known as a "Mill" ("Moulino") as it moved alot of flour and I think flour was a common trade good for the family in addition to the wine,capers, raisins, pumice, olives etc. that were staples of the trade. The Immacolata(1860-1890) was sold after fifty years(though these dates do not look right) within the family to someone on the island of Ustica off the western end of Sicily.

There are several more ships associated with each of these people, but these are the ones mentioned in the text.

These were one and two masted ships...rather boxy and had mostly latin rather than square sails...they also had jibs. There were Feluccas, Bovis, Matricanas, Paranzellas and other small styles.

Anerio was here in the States before 1898, but he returned to the island near the end of the ships' activity.  His actual captaincy does show a break.

His father Giovanni owned and ran the Annunziata from 1868 to 1874.  It was run from Malfa to Naples, Saint Agata in Calabria, Cefalu, and Messina in Sicily among other places unrecorded.

He and his brother Giuseppe ran two Bovi along with Anerio and Antonio.  They were the Bova San Biagio from 1877 to 1890 and the San Biagio 2 from 1890 to 1902. 
These two were very busy and plied the entire lower Tyrrhennian basin and the Ionian sea.  They went to Naples, Taranto, Messina, Pisciotta, Riposto, Spadafora, Catania, Gallipoli, Palermo, Rome, Oliveri, Granatello, in dozens of trips plus those that were not recorded.

I have approximated drawings of these and other ships that were used in the islands in posts closer to the beginning of the blog.