With all the attention he is receiving, I felt compelled to investigate Sumo’s past and research his geneology. So, one night I snuck into his pen, swabbed the inside of his snout and sent his DNA (along with €2,000 in cash) off to the Office of Italian Pig Ancestry in Rome. Here are the results.
Around the year 78 A.D. Sumo’s ancestor, Porcus Sumius, was the imperial stud in the pig harem for Roman Emperor Vespasian. Upon Vespasian’s death in 79 A.D., Porcus was exiled to Pompeii where he died during the eruption of Vesuvius. A plaster casting of his remains is part of a permanent exhibit at the National Museum in Naples.
There is some evidence that Porcus Sumius’ descendants lived under the protection of Emperor Constantine. Built around 315 A.D. in Rome, Constantine’s Arch includes a carved image of a large male pig with the inscription “Porcus Sumius Maximus”. Scholars believe Sumius’ descendants moved with Emperor Constantine and helped establish Constantinople in what is today Istanbul, Turkey. With the Islamic conversion of Constantinople in later years, that branch of the family was lost to the ages.
Surviving the invasion of Italy by the Ostrogoths and later the Lombards, Sumo’s ancestors enjoyed the protection of Pope Gregory beginning in the year 598 A.D. The family name changed to Porco di Papa and for the next 600 years, the family’s power and influence expanded throughout Italy. In 1059 under the Norman knight, Robert Guiscard, Sumo’s ancestors established themselves throughout Apulia, Calabria and Sicily. In 1082, family members allied themselves with both sides of the war between Florence and Siena. Between 1147 and 1149, they accompanied the knights to the Holy Lands for the Second Crusade.
In 1257, Sumo’s direct ancestors arrived in Viterbo with Pope Alexander IV. The family split during the disputes over the election of the popes and in 1283, some members fled to the nearby Cimini Mountains never to be heard from again. Local folklore includes a story about Sumo’s bandit ancestors - wild pigs (chinghiale) who roam the Faggeta to this day.
There are few available facts about Sumo’s family between the mid 13th and mid 19th centuries. One family legend claims members posed for portraits by Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Giotto; others say that the families retreated to monasteries and convents throughout Lazio where they lived long, saintly lives.
Over the years the family name changed to Porcopapa with many descendents having variations of Sumo’s first name – Sumona, Sumino, Sumottino, Sumonucci, Sumatto, Sumonachi, and Sumonissimo. In 1860, a young Sumoculo Porcopapa sailed with Garibaldi and his thousand red shirted volunteers to capture Sicliy and fight their way up the peninsula to establish the first unified Italian nation since the Roman Empire.
The family name also appears in the original librettos for Verdi’s Otello (1887) and Puccini’s Tosca (1900). In both instances the characters were dropped from the operas due to the lack of classically trained pigs with strong tenor vocal ranges.
From 1940 through 1945, Sumo’s great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and granduncles were communist resistance fighters against the Fascists throughout Italy. Several were captured, tortured by Axis forces, and turned into winerschnizel and schwinehachen (fried pork cutlets and roasted pork shanks). In 1954 they were posthumously awarded Italy’s highest pig honor, the Stella D’Oro di Porchetta.
To this day their descendants continue to contribute to the social, political, and gastronomical fabric of life in Soriano, the Viterbo Province and Italy. In January 2011 Sumo will join his ancestors, making the supreme sacrifice for the production of next year’s prosciutto. On that day, we will raise our glasses in thankful remembrance of a beloved pig.
Until then…live well, dear friend.
