More of castle No. 2
I just worked for over an hour on the blog for what we did yesterday, just getting into the second castle we saw yesterday, and I hit a key on this Italian keyboard that caused the blog to disappear. I can't find what I was doing, and don't want to repeat the last hour or so, so I am moving on, hoping that when I post I can find the draft of the first part of this post, which includes castle No. 1.
We waited about a half hour for the tour to start.
Looking up, while waiting, I saw that the line where they apparently put in the electricity for the lamps, is still visible.
Also saw, beyond the door where you start the tour (notice how the door is hung), there was the WC (water closet or toilette), which I thought it would be good to visit before the hour long tour began.
Obviously old school WC.
Our tour guide, in red top, said this castle was actually lived in by the family until about 1945, during the Second World War. This the first room we saw, all with many frescoes, although I assume they were more elaborately decorated and furnished when the family was living there.
Every room, except dungeon, in the castle had at least two fireplaces, where they cooked and used for heat.
The ceilings were wood beams, even though some were plastered over. We heard on the news that the devistation in Amitrice, etc., which was hit last week by earthquakes, was worse because they had been using steel or concrete beams, cheaper than wood (some Mafia involvement there). In an earthquake, the wood gives, but steel moves and breaks up old walls. These wooden beams are at least 800 years old, if not older.
Ceilings in the next few rooms were highly painted, fresco. In the center is a little baby and girl.
Our guide talked a lot about them, children of the lord in the 1600s. The baby boy, to the right, is dead, and is being supported by either his dead sister or an angel, from the afterlife. You can tell he is dead by the type of necklace he is wearing and because he holds a cherry branch (with cherries), another medieval symbol of death.
Their grieving mother.
Another room, another ceiling, again, they were into coats of arms and visible genealogy.
In this room they had a puppet theater for the children, from Vienna, Austria, where the mother came from.
Our guide said many of the pictures on the walls were the backgrounds for the puppet theater.
Closeup, although out of focus, unfortunately because of light, of what was left in the theater.
More rooms acting as hallways to bigger rooms.
With family pictures. Our guide had to tell us about each one.
This lady, who lived several hundred years after the babies who died, must have loved her pooch, as Italians still do.
And their religious paintings.
Every so often we passed by one of these kneelers, where one could kneel to pray. Most were placed beneath a religious painting, although this one looked out the window.
The family's assortment of rifles, with bayonettes, which must have come later.
They still had swords, shields and lances.
And small firearms, which Mark would like to see when he comes.
This is a large wooden (with metal overlay) lock box. The inside of the cover is the locking mechanism, which the skeleton key must make move to open the box. It was quite the mechanical device, from about the 1600s, I believe she said.
Then we passed to the kitchen work area, where the food was put on the plates. They still had many of the original plates and serving bowls. The most "official" plates were very large ceramic, and contained the family emblem.
The size of the dinnerplate can be seen by my hand. Now, at the trattoria where we had lunch, they used unusually large plates and the food was just put in the middle part, as you could see here. Not much has changed over the past 800 or so years, in at least this part of Italy.
There were large oil on canvas paintings on the walls, showing what kinds of foods they enjoyed eating at their meals, which were done to impress their guests with their wealth and sophistication.
This is in a room, which was probably used for family dining, but during the 1800s a large billiard table was imported from England. Again, this castle was lived in by the family until up until the middle of the Second World War, when they probably had to escape.
The next room was the music room, I suppose because it has a harpsichord or whatever this instrument was called, perhaps a clavichord (predecessor of a piano). It would have been fun to have been able to play it, but I assume it would be horribly out of tune, if even playable.
There was a little bit of natural light in this room.
After the guide left the room, I turned on the flash, so I could remember what this instrument looked like.
Next was the lord's bedroom, which was slept in until the late 1940s. Our guide, in red, said the bedspread is silk. There was another kneeler near the bed, for nightly prayers or rosary. (We did not see his toilette, perhaps they originally used bedpans, but not in the 1940s, and we did not see all the rooms of the castle.)
The ceiling in this bedroom was heavy wood.
This was painted in the 1800's of the outside of the castle, and it still looks pretty much like this today, although the garden area in the left is gone.
In this large long room there were many portraits of family members through the centuries. There were these large paintings on both sides of the room, although some windows on the other side.
Death masks were in vogue in Italy, as they were when they made them of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.
As were hand casts. These ladies had long, thin fingers.
We probably only saw about a third of this castle, the rest has apparently not been restored enough for public visitation yet. The entire building is now owned by the city. The tour fee was €8 euros each, which may pay for some restoration, but I suppose restoration is expensive.
On the way home we crossed over the Po River, as we did last Saturday, and I took this pix out the window, as Myrna did last Saturday, at the same spot on the toll freeway.
Hope you are visiting this blog, although no one leaves messages. I enjoy doing it each Sunday evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment