There is a drop of the Ligurian Sea in the blood of Pope Leo XIV. In a recent research conducted by the website avoyellestoday.com and shared also by the international media and Italian newspapers and press agencies, it emerged that an ancestor of Robert Francis Prevost was indeed of Sanremo origins.
“Jacques Martino (1806-1852), 2nd great-grandfather of the Pope, was a native of Sanremo, Italy who migrated to New Orleans where he died. His wife Martuerite Cadeneth who was a native of East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana”, writes the American site.
According to the newspaper Il Secolo XIX, the Famija Sanremasca association, chaired by former mayor Leone Pippione, a profound expert in local history, emphasizes that “in 1806 the city was part of the Napoleonic French empire, verifications are only possible in the parish registers. At the time, only the parish of San Siro existed, the municipal ones start from 1866”.
On Avvenire, the bishop of Ventimiglia and Sanremo, Monsignor Suetta, explains that “some believe, with good foundation, by carrying out research on the ancestry of Pope Leo XIV, that this Giacomo or Jacques Martino born in Sanremo is the great-great-grandfather of the Pope. The site that reports his genealogy seems to me to be a reliable site. We as a Diocese have verified and released an authenticated copy of this document that reports that Jacques Martino was born in Sanremo in 1806. As for the connection in the Pope’s ascendant line, we have no elements: it will be up to scholars to verify further”.
The Sky TG24 website also reports news about the origins of the Pope, titling it “Pope Leo XIV, in a document the Sanremo origins of the new Pope”.
We won’t tell you that on September 20-21 you can swim, cycle and run in the city of the Pope, but undoubtedly this curiosity makes the location that hosts the Challenge Sanremo even more fascinating.
