My Name is Andrea Milano, I was born in Italy, in Naples lived in Italy for the first part of my life and I’ve been living in the Netherlands for the last 25 years. I grew up in a Catholic family which always spoke, albeit in private, of its Spanish and Jewish roots.About the more recent family history, we were told that my great-grandfather Nicola came from Amalfi and that he had come to Naples as a follower of Garibaldi and settled there.
According to the family legend, which of course like all legends might be a little sugar coated, we came from Aragon, and were part of the court of the Aragonese king of Naples , Ferdinando I ( or Ferrante) of Aragon, and had Jewish roots ( of which very little had remained like, for example, the custom of covering mirrors if someone died in the house). My father Nicola told me that my grandfather Andrea wanting to immerse himself in the “ holy Jordan” ( as my father told me that he apparently called it). Perhaps this was his way to understand that this could have been part of a return path to Judaism by an Anusim to the faith of his ancestors? Did he know that he was a Sephardi B’nei Anusim and belonged to Zera Yisrael? I don’t know. Not for sure anyway.
My grandmother from my father’s side (who, of course, strictly speaking had married into the family) used to tell me that we were descendants of a D’Andrea (a strange first name really which I’ve never found anywhere and is probably wrong) Milano d’Aragona and that we were somewhat related to the noble Milano d’Aragona family whose tombs were to be found in two very large Neapolitan Churches ( San Domenico Maggiore and the Dome of Naples, Santa Maria dell’Assunta).
There is a book which describes the Milano family in Amalfi as being descendant from 8 men of arms who followed Ferrante from Spain to the kingdom of Naples and fought with him in the many wars which followed his claim to the throne, the kingdom left to him by his natural father Alfonso of Aragon. The book says that these 8 men of the Milano family married and had many children and spread throughout the realm settling down in several areas.
Ferrante, unlike other Spanish rulers of Southern Italy after him, favored the Jewish presence in the kingdom of Naples ( and in fact many Jews flew to Naples when they were expelled from Spain) and it is completely possible that he did indeed have 8 Jewish men of arms ( seeking a better stance than they could have had in the Catalan or Aragonese territories) amongst the army and the gentlemen which he brought with him coming to Naples to claim his crown ( he was the illegitimate son of Alfonso d’Aragona) and fight with him.
However, when at least one of them, was created noble this would have required at least that part of the family to convert to Christianity and perhaps be crypto-jewes or anusim but there is no evidence of this.
There is a lot of speculation whether the family name was already Milano before they arrived to Italy and that the name would have been originally El Milà ( a small tow near Zaragoza) and then was changed into Milano after the marriage with the Alagno family of Amalfi.
The fact is that the surname El Milano, Milan or Milano was already established in Spain ( or the southern part of France which at the time was Catalan or Aragonese) at the very least since the 13th century when people of the Jewish nation ( Jacob Milan or Jucef el Milano) are registered on official records. One needs not to think that Milano had necessarily anything to do with the city of Milano as most people think, because Milano is in Spanish and ancient French, a word which means a Kite, a bird of prey. In this not very different from another Sephardi surname Falco, falcon.
However there were certainly Jewish people with the surname de Milan or da Milano. But that preposition makes, I think, the difference!
There is an Italian Jewish family called Milano. They are all from Rome although at some point some left Italy in 1939 ( following the racial laws imposed by the Fascist regime) and went to Israel, the USA and Brazil.
One of the members of this family the historian Attilio Milano emigrated to Israel. His brother Enrico emigrated to Brazil.
Attilio Milano was an historian and was a great scholar on the history of Jews in Italy and elsewhere. When it came to his own family he assumed that oral history told in his family was also the origin of his surname. According to this story they were Roman Jews of Sicilian origin ( on account of them being part of the "scola siciliana" one of the 5 “ scole” ( shuls, synagogues) of Rome:
The Scola Tempio and Scola Nova, where the autoctone community of Rome worshipped and the Scole Catalana, Castigliana and Siciliana,where the refugees from other countries came to worship.
Of course Sicily was, at that time, a term which also applied to Naples and its kingdom because it was called the kingdom of two Sicilies.
They also say that their family had gone from Egypt to Sicily and then from Sicily they had moved to Fondi, a small town belonging to the realm of Naples on the Border with the papal state.
They told that their ancestor there was called Elia Capone and that Elia Capone sold insurances for a Milanese company and that’s why he was nicknamed “ the Milano” and when he moved to Rome for no apparent good reason he abjured surname and changed it into Milano which was his nickname.
This family story has been also told in a book published in Israel a few years ago called Mishpacha Milano.
Enrico Milano, brother of Attilio, wasn’t an historian but he was a learned man all the same, and he wasn’t convinced that this story was true.
He suspected that the Milano family of Rome might have had more to do with the Neapolitan Milanos.
At some point he met with some of the representatives of the noble Neapolitan Milano d’Aragona family and apparently, they showed him a document where one would read that they descended from a B aron el Milano ( you will understand in a moment why I wrote it this way).
Enrico argued that what they read as Baronel Milano was in fact B. Aron el Milano. Ben Aron el Milano.
Which would tie up with the many El Milano who existed in Spain and France even before the family Name appeared in Italy.
Anyway, nothing conclusive could be found there.
The family name Milano is still present, to this day, in Spain, south of France and Corsica, South America (in some cases not from Italian emigrants but from original Spanish settlers), and we know for sure that there were Sephardi Jews with this family name in Hamburg , Amsterdam, London, Recife, New York.
Could it be possible that the Jewish Milano who lived in Aragon and Catalunia, when they were expelled from Spain went to several places of the world?
A branch had left before the expulsion and went to Naples, most of these converted to Christianity, some left Naples and went to Rome where they reverted to Judaism ( which was not forbidden but tolerated in Rome until Italy emancipation in 1870) but tried to erase their “ conversos” tracks. Some left to go to the north of Europe, first to Hamburg and the from there to Amsterdam.
Some went from Amsterdam to London ( Bevis Marks has many record of Milanos there) and some others went to Recife and the Dutch Caribbean colonies.
Those from Recife had to move at some point and went to the closest Dutch harbor, New York or rather New Amsterdam as the city was called at the time.
However this is only a wild deduction but there is no conclusive proof. I have been trying to tie all the Milano stories together for years now.
Who knows, one day, or another, maybe, and maybe with your help, I might put the puzzle together!
Sincerely
Andrea Milano
