Francesco Cicillo Gramsci (1860 - 1937)

Born 6 Mar 1860 in Naples, Kingdom of Italy

Descendants

Died 1937 at about age 76 in Gaeta, Latina, Lazio, Sardinia, Kingdom of Italy

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Biography

Francesco Gramsci (1860–1937) was the father of the famous Marxist Italian politician and political prisoner, Antonio Gramsci. Francesco was a low-level official from Gaeta, who married Giuseppina Marcias (1861–1932).

Parents: Gennaro Gramsci, Teresa Gramsci (nata Gonzales)

Francesco's father Gennaro was a colonel in the Carabinieri, and died when Francesco was a young student.

Siblings:

• Nicola Gramsci
• Nicolina Gramsci

Francesco was of distant Arbëreshë descent, though Antonio mistakenly believed his father's family had left Albania as recently as 1821. Francesco came originally from Naples, and had been intended to be a lawyer. But his father's early death forced Francesco to abandon his studies.

Francesco worked as registrar in the small Sardinian town of Ghilarza. There, he met his bride, Peppina Giuseppina Marcias Corrias, who was a literate daughter of a local inspector of taxes.

Francesco's wife belonged to a local landowning family. Wife: Peppina Giuseppina Gramsci (nata Marcias Corrias). Children:

1. Gennaro (Nannaro) Gramsci Marcias
2. Grazietta Gramsci Marcias
3. Emma (Emea) Gramsci Marcias
4. Antonio (Nino) Gramsci Marcias
5. Mario Gramsci Marcias
6. Teresa (Teresina) Paulesu (nata Gramsci Marcias)
7. Carlo Gramsci Marcias

Antonio Francesco Gramsci was born in 1891 in Ales, on the island of Sardinia, the fourth of seven sons of Francesco.

Francesco's financial difficulties and troubles with the police forced the family to move about through several villages in Sardinia until they finally settled in Ghilarza. Francesco was suspended from his job without pay in 1897 for peculation, reducing his family to destitution.

In 1898 Francesco was convicted of embezzlement and in 1900 sentenced to imprisonment for six years.

The young Antonio had to abandon schooling and work at various casual jobs until his father's release in 1904.

Antonio Gramsci completed secondary school in Cagliari, where he lodged with his elder brother Gennaro, a former soldier whose time on the mainland had made him a militant socialist.

Sources

• Wikipedia article on his son, Antonio Gramsci

• Geni profile: Francesco Gramsci

• Qunitin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, ed., Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, "Introcduction", International Publishers, New York, 1971 ISBN 0-7178-0397-X