- Roccheti, AssuntaThird class · SurvivedAssunta Rocchetti, twenty-one, Alberto’s great-grandmother
- Rochetti, Marina (17)Third class · Did not surviveprobably Marino, Assunta’s brother, eighteen according to the family, his name written down by ear
Assunta Rocchetti was twenty-one and came from Porto San Giorgio, on the coast of the Marche, near Fermo, which at the time belonged to the province of Ascoli Piceno. She was travelling in third class on the Principessa Mafalda with her brother, Marino, who was eighteen. In Argentina, Angelo Luciani, aged twenty-two, was waiting for her; she married him. They were coming, as the family puts it, to “make Argentina”: to work, help the family left behind and one day go back to Italy.
The family keeps what she told of that night. In the confusion, some people threw apples and other food into the water to keep the sharks away. She managed to climb into a lifeboat, but her brother was left clinging to its side, and his weight put everyone inside at risk. A man, to keep the boat from sinking, cut off his fingers. Marino fell into the sea, and Assunta saw him attacked by sharks. She survived and reached Argentina with nothing: everything she had brought stayed in the sea.
Assunta never went back to her homeland. In Rosario she could not even bear to look at the Paraná river. No photograph of Marino survives. In 1929 her son with Angelo was born, and she named him Atilio Marino Luciani; he was Alberto’s grandfather. Angelo died in 1985, and Assunta in 1986. The family still tells her story today.
The list of those on board has them both. “Roccheti, Assunta” is among the third-class survivors. Among the dead there is “Rochetti, Marina”, aged seventeen. It must be Marino: the list was written down by ear, and in it names change letters and even gender. The family remembers him as eighteen; the list says seventeen.
Assunta’s great-grandson asks how much of this story can be rebuilt from documents. The scene itself, no paper confirms or denies. What the 1927 testimonies say is that the lifeboats left overloaded, that people clung to their sides and to capsized hulls, and that people pushed others aside to win a place. About the sharks, the survivors disagree: some said they saw sharks attack people in the water; others spent hours in the sea and saw none, and some thought they were only large fish that had been following the ship for days. Assunta’s memory is one of the voices of that night, and it stays here as the family has kept it.
Assunta Rocchetti, around 1968 to 1970.
Photograph from the family’s collection, sent by Alberto Iván Luciani.
En mi familia se conserva una historia que, generación tras generación, todavía se cuenta con una mezcla de dolor, incredulidad y respeto.
Mi bisabuela, Assunta Rocchetti, había viajado desde Italia a la Argentina a bordo del Principessa Mafalda, un transatlántico italiano que en 1927 emprendió su viaje hacia Sudamérica.
Pero aquel viaje terminó convirtiéndose en una tragedia.
Cuando el barco comenzó a hundirse, el caos se apoderó de todo. Según el relato que Assunta transmitió a nuestra familia, mientras las personas intentaban escapar y llegar a las embarcaciones de auxilio, algunos arrojaban manzanas y otros alimentos al agua para mantener alejados a los tiburones.
En medio de aquella desesperación, Assunta logró subir a una barcaza.
Pero su hermano quedó enganchado.
Su peso hacía peligrar también a quienes estaban intentando salvarse. Entonces, según el relato familiar, un hombre tomó una decisión terrible: para evitar que la embarcación se hundiera, le cortó los dedos que habían quedado atrapados.
El hermano de Assunta cayó al mar.
Y ella lo vio.
Según la historia que quedó grabada en la memoria familiar, Assunta vio cómo su hermano era atacado y devorado por los tiburones.
Ella sobrevivió.
Pero aquella escena la acompañó durante toda su vida y quedó como una de esas historias familiares que pasan de una generación a otra, incluso cuando ya no quedan testigos directos para contarla.
Hoy, tantos años después, nosotros seguimos preguntándonos cuánto de aquella historia puede reconstruirse documentalmente y cuánto pertenece a la memoria de una mujer que vivió una de las mayores tragedias marítimas de la inmigración italiana hacia la Argentina.
Lo que sí sabemos es que Assunta sobrevivió al Principessa Mafalda y llegó a la Argentina.
Y su historia, todavía hoy, sigue viva en nuestra familia.
Alberto Iván Luciani, su bisnieto
Assunta tenía 21 años, y Marino tenía 18 años.
Ella se casó con Angelo Luciani, de 22 años. Eran de Porto San Giorgio, Fermo, Ascoli Piceno. Angelo ya estaba en la Argentina. La estaba esperando. Ellos venían a hacer la Argentina, que era trabajar y volver a Italia, para ayudar a su familia. Pero Assunta no pudo volver más a su tierra. Es más: no podía ver ni el río Paraná, de la provincia de Santa Fe, Rosario, Argentina.
De ella, nada. Perdió todo en el agua. No hay fotos de Marino; sí de ella.
Tuvo un hijo en 1929, al que llamó Atilio Marino Luciani, y era mi abuelo. Assunta falleció en 1986. Angelo, en 1985.
The account is by Alberto Iván Luciani, Assunta’s great-grandson, sent through the portal’s form in October 2026 and completed by him in a message the same month. The names on board are those of the 1927 list of survivors and victims. What survivors said about the lifeboats and the sharks comes from testimonies published in the press in 1927, gathered in the research for the book Terceira Classe.
Told by Alberto Iván Luciani. Received on 5 October 2026.