The families’ stories
Every family keeps a piece of that night. Here are the stories that descendants of the Principessa Mafalda’s passengers have told this project, with the names as they appear on the list of those on board.
- Family
Moriondo
Salvador, Bahia, Brasil
- Mariondo, OresteSurvived
Oreste Moriondo was travelling in second class, on his way to work for a bank in Brazil. As the family remembers it, he could not swim. When the ship capsized he walked along the hull, was thrown into the sea by the boiler explosions and clung to a floating piece of wood until the rescue ships arrived; Felipe’s grandmother said it was the Formosa that picked him up. In Salvador he met Maria Romana Calmon de Bittencourt, whom he married, and years later the two of them often travelled to Italy to visit his parents. On the list he appears as “Mariondo, Oreste”, among the second-class survivors.
Read the story → - Family
Rocchetti and Luciani
Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina
- Roccheti, AssuntaSurvived
- Rochetti, MarinaDid not survive
Assunta Rocchetti, twenty-one, left Porto San Giorgio with her brother, Marino, to join Angelo Luciani, who was waiting for her in Argentina. As the family remembers it, she managed to climb into a lifeboat, and her brother, who was clinging to its side, fell into the sea before her eyes. Assunta reached Argentina with nothing and never went back to Italy. On the list she is among the survivors, and among the dead there is a “Rochetti, Marina”, aged seventeen, who must be him.
Read the story → - Family
Verdura and Pica
San José de la Esquina, Santa Fe, Argentina
- Verdura, MariaDid not survive
- Pica, JuanDid not survive
- Pica, GiuseppinaSurvived
- Pica, NicolaSurvived
- Pica, NicolásSurvived
- Pica, LorenzoSurvived
- Pica, Juan (hijo)Did not survive
- Pica, PascualDid not survive
- PaulinaDid not survive
Juan Pica and María Verdura sailed from Genoa with four of their children, their daughter-in-law and two nephews, to join the Verdura family in southern Santa Fe. The parents, the two youngest sons and the daughter-in-law died. Josefina, sixteen, survived, grew up in her uncle’s house near Los Nogales and became the dressmaker of San José de la Esquina. Her sister María Rosa had stayed in Rome to become a nun, and came to Argentina as Sister Tomasina.
Read the story →
Was your family on board too?
Look up the name on the passenger list and tell us the story. It can appear here, if you give your permission.
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