THE ORIGINAL LIE FROM THE GRIMALDI OF SICILY

 There are several Grimaldi noble families in Sicily. All are very proud to be "cousins" of the Sovereign Prince of Monaco, Albert II.

All remember their prestigious Genoese origin. The Grimaldi family, one of the four houses that dominated the Genoese Republic in the Middle Ages, in fact gave six doges and extended its power throughout the Mediterranean thanks to the commercial activity of its representatives.

All authors agree that the Grimaldis arrived in Sicily at two different times. The first one in 1396 through an Enrico, son of Carlo, lord of Menton. This Enrico had three sons who each created their branch, but all three were extinct in the male line in 1802.

The other Grimaldi to come to settle in Sicily was in 1554 a certain Agostino Grimaldi, son of Francesco, who was said to come from "the branch of the Grimaldi detti Cavalleroni di Genova".

This Agostino, an ambitious man who settled in Modica, had six children with his wife Leandra Crispo, for whom he began to collect an impressive collection of titles and fiefdoms. His desire to root his family in the networks of the Sicilian nobility was also based on a well-thought-out matrimonial strategy for his children. He married his eldest Giuseppe to a wealthy heiress, Antonia Laurefice, an only daughter who brought back in the marriage basket a certain number of baronies. Giuseppe then carefully organized from his early years the entry of his young son Agostino in the Order of Malta.

The family prospered and extended to Mineo or Catania. It is in this last city that the Grimaldis, barons of Serravalle, still reside today.

 This Genoese origin of the Sicilian Grimaldi, despite some chronological inconsistencies, was therefore making consensus, so much so that Prince Albert II of Monaco visited Modica and Ragusa in October 2017, specifying in perfect Italian that they had "common origins"! There was only one problem but a major problem, Agostino the founder of this Grimaldi "dynasty" of Sicily was not a Grimaldi...

It was a local historian, Francesco Pellegrino, who discovered the deception in the Spanish archives through the testimony of his son Giuseppe, who applied as cavaliere dell'ordine di Nostra Signora di Montesa and detailed his ancestors. F. Pellegrino published the results of his research in his book "Giuseppe Grimaldi. cavaliere dell'ordine di Nostra Signora di Montesa" published in 2018.

Agostino Grimaldi was in fact Agostino Caser, son of a Genoese financial intermediary established in Medina del Campo in Spain, Francesco Caser, and his local wife Francesca Peña. It would seem that Agostino was already posing as a Grimaldi in Medina in order to impress his compatriots established in the same city. He managed to get noticed by the Admiral of Castile who sent him to take care of his "Sicilian affairs". He began by settling in Siracusa where his brother Gregorio, an officer of the Inquisition, was already. One thing leading to another, he was appointed judge of the tribunal of the Inquisition of Palermo, in residence in Modica. This function was very useful to him to save his son Giuseppe from the greatest punishments, convinced of having murdered the son of Eleonora Mirabella. It was in Modica that, as a good dowry hunter, he asked for the hand of Leonor Crispo, daughter of the chatelaine of Ragusa. Appointed Contador General of the County of Modica, he introduced an accounting innovation, the basis of modern accounting.

He died in 1593 satisfied to have achieved his goal and to have rooted his family in the networks of local nobility. It took more than 400 years for the enterprise of hiding his real identity to be unmasked by a tenacious Sicilian historian who stuck to the basics of historical research: comparing sources and preferring official archives to family archives…