GIUSEPPE CAPOCASALE

Giuseppe Capocasale was born in Montemurro on March 1, 1754. He is the only child of Lorenzo and Maria Lucca. His is not a wealthy family, his father works as a blacksmith and the young man assists him in an attempt to support the economic income. The work, although hard, does not prevent him to carry on the innate desire of education and every evening from ward Gannano he heads to St. Mary's Square (now Piazza IV November) so named in honor of the homonymous Mother Church that stands here. Before entering the square there is the votive aedicule dedicated to Our Lady illuminated by a lamp that the faithful care to keep always on. The faint gleam allows the young man to study, to delve into the readings regardless of the cold of winter evenings even if he is often barefoot and badly-dressed. The light in the house is used very sparingly. However, he is still a young man and like so many he indulges in leisures. One day, however, one of these play marks him for life. With his peers he is struggling with a game of balance. The boys hold hands and form a circle having the other teammates on their shoulders arranged with one foot on the shoulder of one and with the other on the shoulder of another. They rotate and the movement is accompanied by a song useful to encourage each other. They invoke St. Nicholas to whom Montemurro has dedicated a church. Giuseppe, who is at the top, loses his balance, falls with his face to the ground, breaking his nose and remaining scarred. In 1769 his father dies and now it is up to him, 15 years old, to carry the burden of the family close by a perennial poverty. Only books can soothe fatigues, it's trusted friends who can change his life as it actually does. The culture accumulated with so many sacrifices makes him a learned man and therefore known. He is required as a private teacher at noble families in Corleto, Stigliano and San Mauro Forte but does not neglect his studies in Law and Philosophy. At the age of twenty he is Governor of the municipality of Sarconi, gaining the admiration of the overlord Baron Pignatelli for his wise way of administering justice. The care to help others leads him to commit his own resources to the point of getting into debt. He then leaves the office and goes to Naples where he obtains a law degree. Here he founds a school where he teaches Philosophy that many attend. On May 25, 1800, at the age of forty-seven, he wears the cassock, fulfilling the other innate vocation for the religion. On October 17, 1804, King Ferdinand IV, acknowledging his cultural stature and rewarding his reputation of righteousness and wisdom, appoints him reader of Logic and Metaphysics, while on 7 April 1818 he is a professor of the Law of Nature and the Peoples at the University of Naples. In 1822 he is hired as tutor of Prince Ferdinand II of Bourbon in the philosophical and legal disciplines. Its notoriety grows and reaches the most renowned cultural centers of the peninsula. He becomes a member of academies such as Parmense, Fiorentina, Augusta of Perugia, Cosentina, Aletina and Renia of Bologna, the Intrepid of Ferrara, the Nascenti and the Assorbiti of Urbino, the Filoponi of Faenza. The royal house chooses him as spiritual director, an assignment that he accepts without reward, considering the ministry free for all the people. He does not accept favors and honors and does not accept even the bishoprics of Cassano and Sora, Aquino and Pontecorvo who are proposed to him preferring to continue with the teaching. In his mind is always firm the memory of his parents and their precepts from which he is convinced he drew honor and fame. On 23 October 1828 he dies from disease in the Royal villa of Portici. The condolences are unanimous and Ferdinand II gives public honors to the remains of his teacher, faithful to the Bourbon Crown so much as to condemn the carbonari riots that burst in 1820. Thus dies a learned and pious man known by the nickname "Christian Socrates" to which the priest Francesco Silvestre from San Giorgio Lucano dedicates this thought: “Quod maximam potestatis severitatem summa temperasset aequitate, omnibus carissimus fuit”.
We have seen he had many  students, some of whom have distinguished themselves in the cultural landscape of the 1800s. Among them there are Francesco Iavarone (bishop, theologian and archaeologist), Giustino Quadrari (priest, archaeologist and philologist), Giuseppe Scorza, Gaetano Arcieri (writer, poet and lecturer in Italian law), Giuseppe Mezzarella (priest and professor of philosophy in the seminary of Pozzuoli and professor of History Science at the University of Naples, Inspector General of the P.I., auditor of foreign books). They represent the remarkable cultural legacy of the illustrious Montemurrese which incomprehensibly has not had many mentions from future Italian and foreign writers. Among those who have dealt with him we find the philosophers Giovanni Gentile who speaks about it in the essay "History of Italian Philosophy from Genovesi to Galluppi" (Milan, Treves 1930 – second edition), Francesco Fiorentino who was influenced by the thought and writings of Capocasale, and Eugenio Garin.
THE WRITINGS OF GIUSEPPE CAPOCASALE
Vast and varied is his work that includes texts of scientific, legal, philosophical, religious character.Cursus Philosophicus, sive universae philosophiae istitutiones Naples 1814; "Eternal code reduced to the system according to the true principles of reason and common sense" – Naples 1793); "Catechism of Man and the Citizen" – Naples 1793; the "Essay of private politics for the use of young people" – Naples 1791; the "Physics Essay for young people" – Naples 1796; the "Elementary Institutions of Mathematics" – Naples 1824; the "Divota novena of the Glorious Taumaturgo S. Mauro" – Rome 1781; "The exercise of divozione towards the glorious confessor S. Rocco" – Naples 1781; "Father Nemnary. Science of the Saints" translated into Italian and paraphrased.

 

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