Rudolph Valentino’s Italian Roots: Born Rodolfo Guglielmi of Castellaneta

Before he was Rudolph Valentino, the great screen idol of the silent era, he was Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi — born in Castellaneta, in the province of Taranto, Puglia, on 6 May 1895.

A Puglian father, a French mother

He was one of three sons of Giovanni Guglielmi and Marie Berthe Gabrielle Barbin. His father, Giovanni Antonio Giuseppe Fedele Guglielmi, was born in Martina Franca, also in the province of Taranto, on 8 February 1853, son of Pasquale Guglielmi and Grazia Ancona; he served as a cavalry officer in the Royal Italian Army and worked as a veterinarian. His mother, Marie Berthe Gabrielle Barbin, was French, born on 7 May 1856 at Lure, in the Franche-Comté, and died in Besançon in 1918.

Guglielmi in the American record

Valentino emigrated to the United States in 1913. His name survives in the American record too — including his World War I draft registration card, filed under his birth name, Rodolfo Guglielmi, and preserved in the U.S. National Archives.

A silent-era idol from a town in Puglia. Where does your family begin?

Behind Rudolph Valentino lie Castellaneta and Martina Franca, in the province of Taranto — each documented in the Puglian registers. Your family’s trail is waiting in an Italian archive too. Tell me a little about your family, and I will give you an honest assessment of what is possible.