Update to the update

This could run and run, but in the interests of documenting some further finds, here goes today's update.

If you haven't yet read yesterday's post, please read it now in order for any of this to make any sense (and so that I don't have to repeat myself too much!).

I remembered in the depths of my mind that at some point I had seen an old map showing the name "Michel'angiolo Pagni Bordoni", who we know was the father of Anna Pagni Bordoni, registered owner of our house in 1830.

So I trawled around trying to remember where I'd seen the map and whether I'd saved it. I had. And I'd even named it "map-podere-gragnano-pietrabuona-showing michelangelo pagni bordoni" - present-day me thanks past-me for having had the forethought to include so much detail in the filename.

So, this map, which is dated 1792 and appears to be a map of the estate of Podere Gragnano, mysteriously shows the name Michel'angiolo Pagni Bordoni against the edge of one of the areas of land illustrated.

In detail:

Not really having been able to decipher the key to the map, nor understanding what all the (many different) names on the map related to, I decided to give AI another go.

AI was very happy with the quality of the image I fed it this time (the image having come from Tuscany's historical map archives) and said it could read it much more easily than the last image it had (that of the crumpled 18th century note), thank you very much (actually it didn't thank me). 

It was more or less able to read and interpret the key to the map, but what I was interested in was why the name Michel'angiolo Pagni Bordoni appears along the top edge of land segment XII. 

AI tells me that the map essentially shows the land of the estate of Michele Franchi, with each numbered plot drawn with sharp borders to clearly define property lines for tax or ownership record, and the land usage both illustrated and noted in the key. 

The interesting part here is that the names noted around the edges of the individual plots record the names of the owners of the land adjacent to the plot (known historically in Italian land registry terms as coerenze). Some other similar maps record the names of the people who worked the land, but on this map the names appear to be landowners (alongside Pagni Bordoni you can also see names like Monsignor Lorenzo Cecchi and Sig. Falconcino - likely landowners rather than land-workers).

So this tells me that, in 1792, the father of Anna Pagni Bordoni owned land very much in the vicinity of our house. Frustratingly, I can't work out where exactly the mapped pieces of land might lie. 

The map is supposedly of a "Podere Gragnano", but I can't find any accurate description of where that actually is/was - some evidence points towards it being the hillside directly opposite our house (now belonging to the Galeotti estate). Some land features are marked alongside some of the other plots of land, such as "Rio di Gelato" (or "Geleto"), but the location of plot XII is a bit more vague.

Anyway, revealing to AI that there's a potential connection here between this map and the 1774 note and the mystery of Giovanni Mei led it to immediately conclude that it was Michel'angiolo Pagni Bordoni that owned this house at the time when Giovanni Mei lived here. I told AI that the map was of unknown territory in the vicinity of where we live, but it seemed to run away with the idea that the adjacent land to the plot on the map must actually BE the land on which our house stands.

Sigh.

However, it's an idea that I can somewhat get behind (the owning of the house, not necessarily it being the land marked on the map), as it does otherwise seem somewhat of a coincidence that the house ends up belonging to a Pagni Bordoni in 1830.

AI changed its tune on the whole analysis of the taxes thing, after last time saying that analysis of the taxes paid made it certain that Mei was the owner of the house, this time it said that it was perfectly possible that the house was owned by the Pagni Bordonis with Giovanni Mei living here as a tenant and paying the taxes:

The 1792 map you discovered is the definitive key: it solves the mystery

and overturns the previous conclusion, confirming that the house already

belonged to the noble Pagni Bordoni family in 1774, while Giovanni Mei

was the actual tenant (sub-tenant or tenant). 

The coexistence in the same historical sphere of Michel'angiolo Pagni Bordoni (owner) and Giovanni Mei (taxpayer) can be perfectly explained by the legal structures of the Tuscan Ancien Régime:

Absolute Ownership: This belonged to Michel'angiolo Pagni Bordoni. The urban nobles of Pescia rarely lived permanently or personally managed the farmhouses in the mountains of Pietrabuona; they owned entire blocks of mountains and farms. 

Useful Possession (Level or Sub-lease): This belonged to Giovanni Mei. In the 1774 document, Giovanni Mei pays the mill tax and the talion. In the Tuscan system, local and consumption taxes were physically paid by those who lived and worked the estate (the tenant), even if the land belonged to the nobility.

Giovanni Mei was therefore not the owner of the house, but the solid and respected local farmer/head of the family who managed the property on behalf of the Pagni Bordoni, paying them an annual rent. 

The conjecture is pretty astonishing ("solid and respected local farmer"?? Plus it later told me that the 1792 map show part of the "massive agricultural estate that Michel'angiolo Pagni Bordoni managed in that specific section of Pietrabuona" - details like this are total fabrication on AI's part). Nevertheless, it makes a persuasive argument.