Our beginnings at Podere valle Pulcini

by Lynne and Brian Chatterton

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It is not easy to gather together a history of Castel di Fiori. It has today only 14 permanent residents, the remnants of an abbey, a tower, a modest walled castle that has been converted to apartments and storerooms, a church, an enclosed piazza, an arched entrance, an abandoned schoolhouse turned into a furniture factory (now abandoned again), a villa and several small detached houses, and a couple of farmhouses on the land that sits within the cadastral boundaries of Castel di Fiori. Some of this land is farmed, some of it has been abandoned, olives grow on part, a few vines on another, and much of it is forest. Little of this forest remains untouched, most of it is cut on a cyclical basis for firewood. There is a cemetery marked by tall gnarled cypress-us and and the slightly dangerous ruins of a church. The cemetery had also fallen into decay but today has been restored.

Undoubtedly Castel di Fiori has a long history - from the beginnings of time. Tombs found on the hilltop, now called Il Pericchio, bear witness that these small valleys were inhabited in the first half of the first millennium by tiny groups of settlers. The castle and the abbey had their day when Italy’s medieval history was being enacted. Neither were rich or grand, but they generated economies and employment sufficient to support communities of some hundreds of inhabitants.

In our own time the second World War disturbed Castel di Fiori and in its aftermath came modern technology that dramatically changed the daily life of those who lived in Castel Di Fiori. In the last fifty years, the permanent population of Castel di Fiori has declined but in summer and at holidays the numbers swell as those with family ties and those with holiday apartments and houses here come back to take their place as members of this small community.

We are all part of the history of Castel di Fiori. I can only record what I know from my own time here. I must then rely on books I have read and the words of others who have spoken to me.

When we came to Castel di Fiori in 1990 it was the result of two chains of events that intersected - one had its beginnings in the last World War and the other from a valley of gum trees and wheat fields in Australia.

When we two Australians realised that our future home was to be in Italy we looked at many houses in Umbria and Tuscany but never found one that felt right for us. Then a friend suggested that she may have the solution for us. She had lived in Castel di Fiori during the war, she would call friends there and see if they had a house available for sale.

When we looked at the map of Umbria, we thought from the very fact that Castel di Fiori was marked on it, that it must be a small village - perhaps hundreds of citizens, a few shops, a piazza. It was not. The day came to go and look. We drove off the autostrada at Fabro Scalo, a very unattractive town in those days - a ribbon road, plain modern buildings, a flat site, a railway station - and wound around the hills that cushion Montegabbione. Montegabbione sat somewhat isolated on a pointed hill. Its face was not welcoming - the bar where we stopped for coffee was deserted and a sausage factory stood on the corner as we turned onto the road to Montegiove - where halfway along we hoped to find a turnoff to Castel di Fiori. It was a rainy day in early spring and quite cold. The road beyond Montegabbione ambled through a forest of cypress-us, stone pines, oaks through whose branches we saw deep gorges and glimpses of isolated stone farmhouses, stark and unadorned, set in fields of pale green grain and silver grey and black olive trees.

We left the asphalt road and turned onto a white road that was even more curvaceous. We passed more forest, glimpsed a few early spring flowers, but the rain made it hard to see what they were. We seemed to be turning back into the direction from which we had come. Then suddenly there was a house on the corner (in fact, it was an abandoned schoolhouse, we later learned) and as we took the obligatory right turn, we saw a stone arch at the end of the road, a ruined tower on its right and a house built into the wall rising to two stories on the left. Nothing could be seen beyond although there was the intimation of a piazza. Not a soul was to be seen.

On our right was a big house - plain as the farmhouses we had passed, but with a park of trees and shrubs around it. There were no gates to shut out passers by and once we passed through the entry in the high stone walls, the plain wooden doors were opened by Memmo and Fausta Corneli.

We talked of the possibility of buying from them the small Podere valle Pulcini - a few hectares of largely abandoned land and a derelict farmhouse on the hill that faced the village proper. As we passed the arched entrance on the way down to look at the podere, we saw that, although the buildings and the remains of the surrounding walls had been those of a castle, there was no sign of grandeur and the little apartments and houses that were tucked into the walls were not adorned with the modern decorative touches that we had learnt to dislike so much during our search for a house. There was no bar, that we could see, and only a small sign showing that one could buy tobacco and post a letter and make a telephone call from somewhere inside the castle walls. We had an impression of a small borgo and wondered how such a tiny settlement could be so clearly marked on the TCI map. The rain was falling softly and a mist was beginning to form as we drove down the spiralling track to the bottom of the hill from the village. The ruins of an old abbey peeped out of a bush of ivy and brambles, and we had a glimpse of a fountain encased in a cement trough, that we were told had supplied water and washing facilities to the village for many years.

At the bottom of the hill was a rough track - more a mule track than a road - and we bumped up along it, fearing for the suspension of our car and quite unable to see what might lie ahead. The land on the left was part of the Podere and at first sight it was far from attractive. If any olive trees survived they were lost in a tangle of old vines, self sown cherry trees, wild roses and brambles, creepers and weeds. On the other hand, the overarching trees along the track were beautiful with violets making an azure carpet here and there, the wild roses were just beginning to flower and honeysuckle showed golden and deep red on long fronds of pale green. We had glimpses of finely wrought stone walls that lined the edges of the small fields.

Halfway up the hill we suddenly saw the house. A modern stone tower block faced the village with random windows and a tall door at ground level. An old but vigourous cypress and a dying almond tree were the only trees close to the house. Then the rest of the building slowly revealed itself - that is, as much as could be seen through head high brambles and weeds of aggressive proportions. A funny old house - crooked, tumble down walls, a wavy roof, stumpy chimneys. Narrow and of variable depth it crawled slowly up the hill and petered out into an open loggia at the end, with, next door, a somewhat unstable looking cassetta. The “new part” of the house was brisk and plain and sturdy, the rest was “inspired” rubble bulging here and there, with many signs of changes of doors and windows as past occupants built on or changed their minds about the airways and entrances they wanted to live with.

First view of Podere valle Pulcini from the track in 1990. This solid set of rooms were added in 1950.

The house posed a challenge. It had been abandoned for nearly thirty years as a permanent dwelling. It was used by hunters as a camp during the hunting season and the smoke from their fires stained the walls. Hippies had rented it for hot summers and their cabalistic drawings and bizarre attempts to introduce colour to the bare rustic simplicity of the house screamed for attention. There were no more houses above this one. Only the hilltop which we learned to call il Pericchio, a ridge of ancient cypress-us marched across the skyline. Oaks and ginestre and juniper, brambles, and ivy seemed to present an impenetrable barrier to straying from the track that became even rougher and steeper further up above the house and then merged into the forest at the end of the ridge. On the top of the hill we were told were tombs - probably Longobardi, but no one knew for sure - and the remains of an outpost - a village or fort of sorts - and nothing but hills of oak and bush and stone outcrops in every direction.

We were left alone to feel the air and the silence and explore where we could.

We told ourselves the house needed too much work for us to undertake, that it was not the “typical” Umbrian farmhouse we had envisaged, that the land was poor and full of stones and would need hard work to clear it, let alone make it productive, that the track ran close to the house and we had refused other houses where public access would invade the privacy of a garden. I had never lived in a house older than 200 years old - and that had been a of a Georgian style - high ceilings, beautifully proportioned rooms, marble fireplaces - this house was dark and cramped, with low ceilings, uncovered brick and beams inside, a rough rustic shelter built by farmworkers, not by architects or professional builders - the ancient provenance of the old part was, for me, not enough to compensate for the lack of architectural grace and proportion. My husband disagreed. He had had experience of a truly old house in England and he warmed to its charm immediately.

So we stayed there that day and wandered around and talked. The large stable downstairs was full of abandoned rubbish and flies, attracted by the warmth, filled the room with their buzzing and that annoying persistence that they display. The cabalistic drawings, the coloured tat hanging from the ceilings, the cave like dinginess of the animal rooms built into the dirt and the stone of the hillside, the broken pieces of iron railing and the white paint splashed on the golden stone of the little portico all said to me, don’t take it.

"What do we do with this heap of inspired rubble?" Lynne and Brian ponder on the restoration of Podere valle Pulcini in 1990. Il Nido is its raw state is behind.

It was time to go, the mist was turning to fog, the rain persisted and we were cold. We drove back to the Corneli house and found ourselves saying, yes, we will take it - we love it. I couldn’t believe what we were saying, yet I knew we meant it.

Our friend said to us, you will be happy there, Castel di Fiori has cast its spell. We began to meet people who would respond when we said Castel di Fiori with - ah, that little paradise. Others would say, you are so lucky, it is a place and a community of such peace and sweetness that rarely is to be found in Italy today. And others, who would say, but it is so isolated.

After eighteen years here we can now say that they are all right. But that isolation is not only the source of the tranquillity of Castel di Fiori today, but it also kept it out of the way of many of the great events that affected and changed the lives and surroundings of most other Italians as kingdoms and races and fiefdoms and regions and provinces were battered and invaded and fought over each time they were the focus of the vicissitudes of history.

The farm house at Podere valle Pulcini as we bought it in 1990. The house is long and narrow with a depth of only one room. The first room was built on the right by monks or lay brothers from the abbey at the bottom of the hill. After the abbey was abandoned the farm was worked by contadini (sharefarmers). Gradually over the centuries more rooms were added.

The roof tiles are half round and tapered - a pattern developed by the Etruscans and used extensively on Roman buildings.

The rooms on the left are the most recent - built in 1950 with cement and lime mortar. The stairs were added then. The part on the right is older construction with wafer thin layers of lime mortar between the stones.

This is the join between the original monk's room and stable and the next room.

The monk's room on the left with a loggia added at a later date. The oven below is in the loggia.

The staple items of the diet of the contadini were bread and pasta. Bread was baked every few days in this oven. They tend to be called pizza ovens now but they were originally used for normal bread as much as for pizze.

Inside the oven.

We have used the oven a few time to roast lambs or pork. It is heated over many hours using light wood (fasce) and then the food is cooked with the residual heat in the bricks and a few coals.

The big oven was fired up to cook bread and pizze a few times a week. Normal cooking was carried out on an open fire in this first floor kitchen. Here it is in 1990 much as the contadini left it in 1965. The sink at the back had no piped water supply. The fireplace smoked.

The former kitchen is now restored as a small sitting room. On the left is an internal staircase. Access was from the outside only as the ground floor was stables for cows, sheep, etc.

The cow shed on the ground floor in 1990. The stone benches along the walls were mangers. The heavy oak beams lying on the floor were bolted, on edge, along the bench to retain the hay. The cows were tied to the beams at night.