Girolamo Barrese

Girolamo Pietraperzia Barresi, 2nd Marquess of Pietraperzia ( – 15 March 1549) was a Sicilian nobleman who was executed after a prolonged process for the crime of murder and parricide.

Early life He was a son of Matteo Barresi, 1st Marquess of Pietraperzia (1471–1531), and Antonella Valguarnera.

His sentence for the murder of his father, Matteo Barresi, and two servants in 1533, was based on a confession obtained under torture. His sentence was initially commuted by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, after extracting some hefty fines, but the new viceroy Juan de Vega ultimately enforced the death sentence in Palermo, by decapitation, on 15 March 1549.

Personal life Barresi was married to Antonia Santapau (–1549), a daughter of Ponzio Santapau, 4th Marquess of Licodia, and Eleonora Branciforte (a daughter of Niccolò Branciforte, 1st Count of Mazarin). Antonia was the sister of Ambrogio Santapau and Francesco Santapau, both Princes of Butera. Together, they two children: After Barresi's death in 1567, she married the new Viceroy of Naples Juan de Zúñiga y Requesens, with whom she moved to Spain where she participated in the upbringing of King Philip V of Spain. Pietro Barresi, 1st Prince of Pietraperzia (1536–1571), who married Giulia Moncada, a daughter of Francesco I Moncada, Prince of Paterno, and Caterina Pignatelli Carafa.

Following Barresi's execution on 15 March 1549, he was buried in the Church of San Domenico, Palermo. Reportedly heartbroken by her husband's death, Antonia took her own life by poisoning herself on Christmas night 1549. As his son Pietro died without progeny, the estates passed to his sister, Dorotea, and her descendants.