Mondragone

The last reconstruction of the walls of Mondragone dates back to the end of the XVIII century. During this time, the Cappella del Carmine and the noble palace of the influential Tarcagnota family were built. After the French Revolution which had a strong influence on Italy too, many republics were born and in 1799 the Neapolitan Republic was born too. However, the feudal power remained unchanged.

In 1805 Giacchino Murat became King of Naples and the following year the laws on feudal evasion were drafted. Meanwhile, on the coast, the last Duke of Mondragone, Domenico Grillo lost all his privileges and authority on the city that, from now on, will be self-administered.

After the Congress of Vienna in 1815 Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies was reinstated to guide the Reign of Naples he provided for the paving of the cobbled streets of the town of Mondragone that counted 2300 inhabitants at the beginning of the XIX century.

According to many documentary sources, it seems that the Bourbons were really admired in Mondragone, to the point that people started to believe that the conspiracy against Murat was planned right there, since Murat himself often liked to hunt in the territories nearby.

The Municipality of Mondragone was part of the District of Carinola, the District of Gaeta, the Province of Terra di Lavoro. Many of its inhabitants have brought prestige to this land as rich as it is enigmatic, and from its roots many valuable profiles of culture and civilization have sprouted.

Professor Antonio Sementini (1743 - 1814), scholar of literature and philosophy, physician and full professor of anatomy, physiology and practical medicine, author of important scientific texts.

Luigi Sementini, son of Antonio, born in Mondragone in 1850, well known chemist, remembered for having given a strong impulse to chemistry itself, founder of a prize of 150 ducats for the expansion of more studies in the chemical-scientific field, as emerges from the acts of the Royal Bourbon Society.

Father Domenico Bannes was born in Mondragone (around 1600), but he had Spanish origins and was a professor of theology. He taught in Salamanca, Alcalà and Valladolid, and he was the confessor of Saint Teresa.Today he’s considered the father of the famous Physical Predetermination, a philosophical theory that reconciles the freedom of man with the grace of God.

Pietro Taglialatela, finally, is the glorious name of a modest son of farmers born in Mondragone in 1829, who quickly became a very well known philosopher. He studied at the Episcopal seminary of the nearby city of Sessa Aurunca, and once he became a priest, he taught theology at the seminary of Cava De Tirreni.Once he quitted his religious career, he tried to enlist in the troops of Garibaldi fully espousing the Unitarian cause. In 1864 he published the text called Institutions of Philosophy from where his Giobertian philosophy can be perceived, with his concept of the Idea as a way to reach God, who was conceived as the supreme generating Entity and reality.

Benedetto Croce himself studied the institutions of the Mondragonese philosopher, defining him as “a worthy man and a cultured philosopher” Taglialatela died in Rome in 1913, with his tomb placed in the monumental cemetery of Verano.