Meduna is a toponymic surname of Celtic origin derived from the hydronym Meduna via the related toponym Meduna (di Livenza). It is first attested as the name of the homonymus river in a charter issued by Charlemagne in the year 794, and appears as a surname in the early 11th century in Italy and since the late 16th century in the Czech lands, from where it spread mainly to Austria, the United States and Brazil.
Geographic distribution As of 2014, 47% of all known bearers of the surname Meduna lived in Europe and 29% in the United States. The surname is most common in the Czech Republic, where it is held by 620 people (frequency 1:17,151). It is still predominant at the location of its 16th century origin in Chrudim (111 or 1:1,344) and Pardubice (57 or 1:3,369) districts. 13% live in the South Moravian Region, a key settlement area during the Habsburg Empire en route to today's territory of Austria. The surname reached Brazil from Europe mainly in the 19th and 20th centuries, where it has 167 occurrences.There is no evident connection between the European (incl. US, Brazilian) occurrences of Meduna and the Nigerian ones, suggesting a separate local African origin.
Notable people Notable people with the surname include:
Bartolomeo Meduna, Conventual Franciscan scholar and author Giovanni Battista and Tommaso Meduna, Italian architect and engineer brothers Johann Meduna von Riedburg, ennobled officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army Bertha von Meduna, Baroness and Chamber Woman of Archduchess Sophie of Austria József Meduna di Montecucco, award-winning Italian-Hungarian salami maker Ladislas J. Meduna, Hungarian psychiatrist and neuropathologist Johann Meduna, Austrian resistance fighter against the Nazi regime Veronika Meduna, New Zealand biologist, science journalist and writer Alexander Meduna, theoretical computer scientist and expert on compiler design Michal Meduna, Czech footballer Mathew Paul Meduna, ISEF awardee in 2003
Name and origin
Etymology Various similar and related etymological proposals exist for the origin of the name, yet all agree on its Celtic foundations.
The second element -dun has been recognized as a continuation of the Celtic *dhūno- ('oppidum, fortified hill, castle'), in use among the Carni Gauls that penetrated and populated the region of current Veneto and Friuli between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC, possibly as part of the great Celtic migration towards Pannonia and the Balkan regions. The variety of Celtic toponyms and hydronyms in the Pre-Alps suggests that the culture may have resisted in the region from the 4th century BC until complete Latinisation during the imperial era. Some of these assumed Celtic or Celticised oppida in the region have been proposed as locations of subsequent castles in the Middle Ages, including the Castello di Meduno.
For the first element of the name, it has been proposed that it may be derived from either a Gaulish *mago ('great'), combnined into *Magodunum ('great/big fort'), or an Indo-European *medhu ('middle'), resulting in a Celto-Latin *Mediodunum ('in the middle of fortified heights'). Other scholars have suggested a compound *Mago-dunum ('fort on the plain') based on mago ('field'), as well as a Celto-Latin Medio-dunum ('that which stands or flows in the midst' of the hills/mountains) – the latter with clear reference to the river.
Such an etymological origin is also found, for example, in the historical Meduana flumen, the current Mayenne river in France, with a derivative morpheme. The hydronym of the French Mayenne river also produced the de Mayenne family name – in some sources also attested as de Meduana and de Meduno – which is, however, unrelated to the Meduna/Meduno surnames of Italian origin, beyond the shared Celtic etymological root. Another analogous toponym of Celtic origin is the name of the Istrian village of Motovun across the nearby Gulf of Trieste, derived from Montona, a 'town in the hills'.
The hypothesis and interpretation of the river Meduna being "in between mountains" is based on the fact that the torrent has its source in the Carnic Pre-Alps and generates two related town names along its course: Meduno, at its downstream outlet in the high plain, and Meduna as it flows into the Livenza river. On the upper course of the stream, there are also three villages called Tramonti (Tramonti di Sopra, Tramonti di Mezzo, Tramonti di Sotto), which would constitute a direct and proper translation of the Celtic counterpart, transmitted through Latin and Friulian (attested as Tramonz in 1182) into Italian, thus making it a linguistic synonym of the word Meduna/Meduno. However, this proposal has been contested since the second part of the hydronym/toponym Meduna/Meduno (-dun) does not have a generic meaning of "mountains" and the Latin appelative mons/montes has not inherited a second semantic value of "castle/castles" in Romance dialects.
A different etymological approach is based on the frequent hydronymic and oronymic transposition of theonyms in the Celtic cultural environment, thus assigning rivers and geographical features names of deities. An inscription from the Rhineland contains a dedication to the goddess Meduna, venerated by the local Celtic tribe of the Treveri. The small consecration altar (from Roman times) found in Bad Bertrich near a hot spring associates the goddess with the source of water. Another town in the vicinity of nearby Trier, Mettendorf (according to other sources nearby Möhn), traces its name back to the locality of Villa Medona recorded in the year 768. In Insular Celtic mythology, there is mention of a goddess Medb or Maeve (in Ireland) and Mèadh (in Wales) – based on which a Celtic theonym *Medwa (as warrior goddess) has been proposed as a basis for *Medw-una, therefore dedicating the Friulan river to a Celtic deity.
While linguistic traits were shared across the ancient Celtic tribes, a cult of any of these particular deities among the Gallic tribes of the eastern Alps has not been attested. Finally, other sources propose that the name can be derived from an ancient proper name Metonius or another Celtic divinity attested in insular Britain, Matun(i)us.
Localities of similar names of distinct origins include the settlement of Medun in Montenegro, the village of Medana in Slovenia, or the town of Modugno in Apulia, first mentioned as “de loco Medunio” in 1021 and deriving its toponym from the Latin Medunium ('in the middle' of Bitonto and Bari).
Earliest attestations In the year 794, twenty years after Charlemagne defeated Desiderius, the last king of the Lombards, and established the March of Friuli under Frankish dominance, we find the rivers Meduna and Livenza documented for the first time in a charter issued by Charlemagne (“et post hunc fluvium Medunae et aqua Medunae defluit in Liquentiam”) – six years before his coronation as Emperor of the Romans.
Ten years later, in 804, a charter settling property ownership between two clerics attests the locality of Matunianus, which is believed to be today's town of Meduna di Livenza. The charter is stored in the Archivio di Stato in Verona (Ospedale Civico, roll 5[A]).
The hydronym Meduna proper is further attested in the year 996 in a charter issued by Holy Roman Emperor Otto III – again, as the confluence of the Meduna and Livenza rivers (“et aqua Meduna fluit in Liquencia”).
Meduna and Meduno The hydronym Meduna (La Midùna in Friulian) is grammatically feminine, which is a common trait of large rivers in both Friulian popular tradition as well as rustic dialects of Treviso and Belluno.In sources of later provenance, the river is sometimes called "il [fiume] Meduna". In contrast, the town name of Meduno (Midun in Friulian) is grammatically masculine. It remains impossible to ascertain the temporal precedence of the two names. Some authors, however, suggest that the masculine name was originally applied to the entire area wedged between the mountains ( and Val Meduna), subsequently passed to the torrent and made feminine (as in numerous Friulian and Venetian cases) and only in more recent (post-Roman) times applied as a carryover toponym to the castle and town of Meduna – thus giving rise to Meduna as a surname from the 11th century onwards. The separate noble family of Meduno, similarly, is attested since the early 12th century until their extinction in 1514.
Italian and Latin historical records of the 10th to 17th centuries show a range of variations in notation of both names. Meduno appears as Medun, Medunium, Methun, Metuno, Metunium, Mituno, Midun, Midunum, Miduno and Midhuna [sic!]. Similarly, the name Meduna can often be found in records as Metuna (mostly in Latin), Methuna, or Mettuna, Miduna.
Patriarchate of Aquileia The recorded history of the Meduna family begins with the advent of the High Middle Ages in the territory of the March of Treviso.
Castello di Meduna
The castle of Meduna was built around the year 1000 on the initiative of the Patriarchs of Aquileia, probably on the foundations of a fortress that was several centuries older. The castle is considered as part of fortifications erected in response to the Hungarian raids of the preceding decades. When the castle was built, a branch of the Meduna river, after having collected the waters of the Fiume and the Sile, ran into the bed of the Sambellino. In this way the castle of Meduna was located between two large rivers: the Meduna and the Livenza.The current palazzo del governo of “La Meduna” (or simply "Meduna", as the town was called until 1 September 1884, when the denomination “di Livenza” was formally adopted by royal decree n. 2578) is a fusion of what remains of the ancient castle with the palace of the Venetian Patricians Michiel dalla Meduna, built towards the end of the 16th century. Bartolomeo Meduna is also mentioned as "reconstructor" of the castle. The remains of the medieval castle are located on the south-east side, distinguished by the sawtooth cornice under the roof and by a series of windows with a Romanesque arch from the era.
Meduna was a fief of the Patriarchs of Aquileia who gave it as investiture to the Lords of Meduna and then to feudal lords. In 1204, the Municipality of Meduna entered the Parliament of Udine. The first document that explicitly mentions the castle of Meduna dates back to 1223. Other documents of the same year mention the Patriarch's house in Meduna and the church. The jurisdiction of Meduna (Methuna) in the thirteenth century included, among other, a locality listed as “Methuna la villa”.
Being a residential fiefdom and a gastaldia, the castle at Meduna was the seat of the feudal government, the residence of the feudal lord, it depended directly on the Patriarch and was administered by a patriarchal official called a gastaldo.
Meduna ancestral lineage Shortly after the year 1000, the first noble family that was invested by the Patriarch of Aquileia with the fief settled in the castle. In accordance with the custom of the time, the family took its name from the land / the castle itself and was henceforth called “di Meduna”. The family, which belonged to the class of noble feudal lords of the church of Aquileia, was represented in the Friulian Parliament. Medieval chronicles sporadically mention members of the family since their adoption of the name.
The investiture of the fief continued to be renewed over the next centuries. Patriarch Bertoldo, as his predecessors, had granted the castle as a fief of residence to the homonymous family. Only when Gena di Meduna died without direct heirs, on 29 May 1289 the Patriarch Raimondo della Torre invested his relatives, the two brothers Emberaldo and Gabrio della Torre, with the fief.