Public Area Maria Gentile

(boules pitch, parking lot, children’s playground)

After judgment of the Oletta Conspiracy on July 17, 1769 that sentenced the Oletta patriots to death and their execution on September 25, 1769, Maria Gentile was considered to be the Corsican Antigone.  Indeed, her fiancé, Don Petru Leccia, was among the tortured exposed in the convent square.  The authorities had forbidden anybody to give them a burial.

Maria Gentile defied the ban and at the same time stirred up the anger of the authorities who suspected Don Petru’s family and threatened to sentence them to death.  Maria Gentile went to the Count of Vaux and accused herself of having given a burial to her fiancé.  Impressed by her heroism and courage, the Count of Vaux immediately pardoned her and asked her to go and deliver her fiancé’s parents who were incarcerated.

A few years later Maria Gentile married Jean Toussaint Guidoni from the hamlet of Monticellu in Poghju f’Oletta.