Provincia di L'Aquila
Cittaducale records cross today's provincial boundary
The L'Aquila fond covers the present province and the suppressed circondario di Cittaducale, which is now in Rieti — a different province in a different region. A family from Antrodoco, Borbona or Leonessa searching in Lazio is searching the wrong archive for the nineteenth century. There is also a recent and substantial addition: the tribunal has deposited the Italian-period registers 1866 to 2000, which most southern archives cannot offer at all.
Explore the comuni
Comuni in Provincia di L'Aquila
Civil registers were kept by the comune, not the province. If one of these is your family's, start there.
Where the records are
What Archivio di Stato dell'Aquila holds
The core is the second copies of birth, marriage and death registers with their indexes and allegati, 1809 to 1865, from the comuni of the present province of L'Aquila and of the suppressed circondario di Cittaducale, now in the province of Rieti.
Separately, and more recently, the tribunal of L'Aquila has deposited the Italian-period registers from 1866 to 2000 for the comuni of its own circondario. This fond is consultable in the study room. A continuous civil record to 2000 is rare in any Italian state archive and exceptional in the south.
Levy holdings are deep and begin remarkably early. The Consiglio provinciale di Leva holds levy lists for classes born between 1768 and 1841 for the mandamenti of L'Aquila, Avezzano, Cittaducale and Sulmona — that is, men born before civil registration existed at all — and, for the class of 1819 only, matricular rolls of conscripts of the Abruzzese and Molisan provinces.
The Ufficio di leva dell'Aquila then covers classes 1842-1944, with registers of the rejected for classes 1874-1899. Gaps are recorded: for the comuni of the former circondario di Cittaducale, classes 1842-1908, and for Popoli and Bussi from class 1908.
Ruoli matricolari sit in the Distretto militare di Aquila e di Sulmona, classes 1843-1913.
Only part of the archive is digitised — the portal marks it Parziale. The pre-1841 levy lists are the outstanding series here: for a family whose civil trail stops at 1809, they can reach two generations further back.
Continue your research
Comuni of the old Cittaducale circondario are now in Rieti, but their nineteenth-century records are here.
Archivio di Stato dell'Aquila on Antenati
The archive's own statement of its holdings, including the recorded levy gaps.
antenati.cultura.gov.itPortale Antenati archive directory
Every participating State Archive and what each says it holds.
antenati.cultura.gov.itAn archive record and an online family tree will often disagree. Why family trees disagree, and what settles it →
Your roots
The boundary moved; the records did not
Two pieces of geography govern this archive.
The first is Cittaducale. Its circondario was suppressed and its territory passed to the province of Rieti when that province was created in 1927, moving from Abruzzo into Lazio. But the 1809-1865 second copies for those comuni remain in the L'Aquila fond. The modern map is no guide to them.
The second is the 1866-2000 deposit. The tribunal of L'Aquila has recently deposited the Italian-period registers for the comuni of its own circondario — not the whole province — and they are consultable in the study room. A run to 2000 is exceptional; it means a twentieth-century search can often be completed here.
For the levy there is a third division. Gaps are explicitly recorded for the former circondario di Cittaducale (classes 1842-1908) and for Popoli and Bussi from the class of 1908. Those are stated absences, not failures of searching.
The province
Abruzzo Ulteriore Secondo, and a city shaken repeatedly
The provincial lineage derives from Abruzzo Ulteriore Secondo, created in the reorganisation of 1806 with L'Aquila as its capital — the name under which the first half of the nineteenth century is filed.
L'Aquila was founded in the thirteenth century as a deliberate act: some ninety-nine castles and villages of the surrounding country combined to build one city, each contributing a quarter, a church and a fountain. The Fontana delle 99 Cannelle commemorates it. That origin explains a persistent feature of the records — families in the city retain an identification with the outlying castello their line came from, sometimes for centuries.
The province is the highest in the Apennines. The Gran Sasso, the Velino-Sirente and the Majella edge enclose the basins of L'Aquila, Sulmona and the Fucino. The Fucino was a lake until the Torlonia drainage of 1875 emptied it — one of the largest engineering works of nineteenth-century Italy — which created new farmland, moved populations and changed the economy of every comune around its rim within a generation.
Earthquakes recur. 1703 destroyed L'Aquila and much of the province. 1915 levelled Avezzano and the Marsica, killing some thirty thousand people. 2009 struck L'Aquila again. Each is a documented cause of record loss, and dates should be checked against them before an absence is treated as an error.
Emigration from the Marsica and the upper Sangro was heavy from the 1880s, and heavier still after 1915.
Culture & traditions
The Marsica, the Fucino and the high basins
The province is a set of enclosed basins, each with its own history.
The Marsica around Avezzano is defined by the Fucino. Before 1875 the lake dominated it; after the drainage the basin became farmland and the towns on its rim reoriented from fishing and marsh economy to agriculture. The earthquake of 13 January 1915 then destroyed almost everything, and the Marsican towns were rebuilt. A family record from before 1915 describes a place that largely no longer stands.
Sulmona, in the Peligna basin, was Ovid's birthplace and is a confetti town — sugared almonds, made there since the fifteenth century — with a goldsmithing tradition beside it.
The Alto Sangro around Pescasseroli, Scanno and Villetta Barrea is high pastoral country and now largely national park; Scanno's costume and its photographic fame date from the mid twentieth century, but its transhumance is medieval.
The Gran Sasso villages — Santo Stefano di Sessanio, Castel del Monte, Calascio — lived by sheep and by Carfagna wool traded through Florentine merchants; several were nearly abandoned in the twentieth century and repopulated only recently.
Transhumance is the thread through all of it: the tratturo from L'Aquila to Foggia is the longest of them, and Abruzzese surnames appear along its whole length.
Province established
1806
Comuni covered
108
Historic names
Abruzzo Ulteriore Secondo · Circondario di Cittaducale (to Rieti, 1927) · Mandamento di Avezzano · Mandamento di Sulmona · Marsica
Languages & dialects
Italian · Aquilano · Marsicano · Peligno around Sulmona · Alto Sangro upland varieties
Traditions
the Perdonanza Celestiniana at L'Aquila · confetti of Sulmona · transhumance on the tratturo Magno · Scanno costume · the Fucino drainage
The provincial lineage derives from Abruzzo Ulteriore Secondo created in the 1806 reorganization of the Kingdom of Naples, with L'Aquila as its capital; 1806 is used rather than later naming changes.
Visit the province
Going to the archive in L'Aquila
If the comune is now in Rieti but was in the Cittaducale circondario, come here for the nineteenth century. That is the single most useful thing to know about this archive.
For a twentieth-century search, ask whether the comune falls in the L'Aquila circondario — the 1866-2000 tribunal deposit covers that circondario only, and it is consultable in the study room.
The 1768-1841 levy lists are worth a specific request. They predate civil registration and they name fathers, which makes them the deepest routinely available source in the province.
Check absences against 1703, 1915 and 2009 before concluding an error. Write ahead with the comune, the year and the mandamento.
What to see
The Fucino — the lake drained by Torlonia in 1875, and the basin it became.
Avezzano and the Marsica — rebuilt after the earthquake of January 1915.
Sulmona — Ovid's birthplace, confetti and goldsmithing in the Peligna basin.
The Gran Sasso villages — Santo Stefano di Sessanio, Calascio and Castel del Monte, wool country.
The Alto Sangro — Pescasseroli, Scanno and Villetta Barrea, now national park.
L'Aquila — the city built by ninety-nine castles, and its fountain of ninety-nine spouts.
Not yet in the collection
Want to see Provincia di L'Aquila represented?
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