The residents of San Felice Circeo, a coast town between Rome and Naples, are revolting against the family of a Swiss aristocrat after they received bills totalling thousands of euros.
The rights to the medieval levy, known as a fief – which is effectively a fee on the land, were bought by Swiss baron James Aguet in 1898.
The rights first belonged to the Papal States and were then passed on to the Kingdom of Italy after its unification in the 1860, and then to the baron.
Six descendants of Aguet now intend to levy an annual charge on the properties in the seaside town, claiming arrears for the past five years. In some cases, San Felice Circeo inhabitants received bills of between €16,000 and €35,000 (£30,184, $42,710).
The charges relate to properties ranging from 40 to 55 squared metres.
People started receiving letters from the Swiss family in August 2020, which sparked action from the locals who decided to gather up and create an activist group in October 2020 to reject the feudal claims.
Dispute
The payments relate to the 2016-2020 period, and some inhabitants have already been warned that the levy for 2021 will be of around €4,800, according to the activist group’s website.
They added that there is nothing the local council or councillors can do as this is a matter between “private individuals”, and the council can only intervene in issues relating to public goods, places and buildings.
But the group is urging those affected to not comply with the payment requests as such a course of action could create a legal precedent and bind them to future payments, and to take legal advice before anything else.
On their website, translated from Italian by International Adviser, the group said: “First of all, it is necessary to specify that San Felice Circeo is a town located in the Italian territory. Therefore, Italian law applies and not that in force in Switzerland or in other countries.
“Therefore, in Italy, anything that is inscribed or noted in the provincial land registry holds no evidence value in a court of law as it does not constitute proof that the right declared therein exists.
“Secondly, we wish to clarify the supposed nobility of the Swiss James Eduard Aguet because whoever holds the title of ‘baron’, if he legitimately holds it, can only add it, at his discretion, to accompany his signature, but only on a purely honorary or noble basis.”
They added that the title can only be passed on to just one heir and cannot be used by other family members.
Details
The group also discussed family trees and historical documents and they said that “there doesn’t seem to be a noble family identified at the head of the Aguet descent”.
They also looked at a book written by James’ son, Luigi Aguet, where they claim he said in 1951 that “he had sold the houses of the town centre at very low prices, thus depriving the property of the feudalistic feature, now completely anachronistic”.
The group only acts to promote the issue and make sure locals are aware of what this entails.
IA contacted them for more information but did not receive a response in time for publication, and it is not clear whether a legal challenge against Aguet’s descendants is in place or will be in the future.
