It seems that many families who count themselves as members of the Italian nobility, and who own castles and towers, don’t have the money to maintain their historic properties. So they are giving them away, either to the state or to private investors eager to turn these lovely places into tourist venues.
A friend of mine called Alice descends from a Tuscan aristocratic family dating back to the 1200s. One of her ancestors can even be found in medieval textbooks, where he is mentioned as being, among other things, a “knight of great courage and deeds”.
She used to own a beautiful crumbling medieval castle in a village near Florence. But because she didn’t have the money to renovate it, she ended up giving it to the local municipality.
I remember the first time Alice took me to the tower. It was night and the ancient circular stone walls had no roof. We climbed some thick steps to gaze at the stars. The tower was perched on a hilltop overlooking a green rolling landscape and sleepy hamlets.
“My parents never had the money to restyle it. For decades, the town hall told us to renovate it for safety reasons to stop it falling and causing damage or hurting passersby. But we simply couldn’t spend the €1m needed to give it a decent, basic makeover,” said Alice.
For centuries battles raged across Italy at the foot of towers such as these, as people fought for control of city states. But that heroic feudalism has gone the same way as the fortunes of Italy’s aristocracy – into the history books.
Alice’s family hung on to the lookout tower for as long as possible, but historic properties in Italy come with massive red tape and very strict preservation orders.
“Our beloved tower has now been placed on the market for private investors. According to rumours, there are plans to turn it into some kind of holiday retreat or luxury spa hotel. What a pity.”
At lunchtime we stopped at her uncle’s tavern in the village. As I gulped down a dish of savoury handmade pici pasta with wild boar meat, Alice introduced me to an old man sitting at the nearby table. His name was Dante and he was another penniless, fallen noble who might soon have to relinquish a family gem.
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Dante owns a huge estate north of Rome with an 18th-century villa, where he hunts in the woods at weekends. In the gardens he has an ancient Roman bridge consisting of a series of stones placed like a jigsaw. It is in need of repair. In the past it was connected to a major Roman trade road that crossed Italy from north to south, but over time it was abandoned and forgotten. Now it just lies under the sun, hidden from sight. Dante doesn’t have the money to restore it.
After gulping down his amaretto, he shook his head with teary eyes and told me: “I tried selling it for a symbolic one euro to a history buff and an architect in love with ruins. They would have ‘adopted’ it and I would have granted them free access to my estate to restyle it and enjoy the bridge. But nobody wanted it.”
While I indulged in a huge Tuscan-style Chianina T-bone steak, I considered the fate of Italy’s blue bloods, saddled with enormous ancient properties they can no longer afford. And then I thought about that ancient bridge that will remain where it is, covered in moss and ivy, once at the heart of an empire, now rotting quietly away on the estate of a penniless aristocrat.
Silvia Marchetti is a freelance reporter living in Rome
