Buried Treasure. . .

Living in an 800 year old house in Northern Italy sometimes stirs my imagination. How many people were born in our rooms? How many died? Did the plague ever creep over our threshold? We're bodies piled up outside our door? Okay. . . I'll stop with the gore!!! But, think about it. . .  although he was far too busy, Columbus could have knocked at our door. If the family occupying our home during the 15th/16th centuries were rich enough they could have commissioned Michelangelo to fresco our ceilings. Sometimes I spend a sleepless night pondering what might have occurred in Casa Zappiana.

The Zappia family lived here for 54 years before vacating 3 or 4 years before we purchased it. They sold it "as-is" yet everything was functional. The kitchen and bath were a bit dated but worked. The furniture was part of the deal and although it's old, we're happy to have it. The only room of furniture we had to change out was the living room which, for 54 years, was the only room in which Pietro Zappia was allowed to smoke. I thought we had an amber chandelier in there until I cleaned off the nicotine to discover it's really a crystal chandelier! We kept the chandelier, dumped the hide-a-bed and particle board wall unit and gave the dining table back to Mafalda Zappia. We furnished the smoke free room with items from Ikea in Genoa. The only other area we renovated was the terrace which we use as an extension of the living room.


Until yesterday, the bedrooms of our home would be the most recognizable to the Zappia family. Until yesterday each was intact, complete with the floral wallpaper which, I'm sure, Mafalda herself painstakingly selected to adorn the rooms. For 6 years now Rich and I have had an ongoing conversation about why I think the wallpaper should stay. Our Master bedroom with, what Rich calls, "Barbie Furniture" and "period" wall-paper looks like something out of a 50s Sophia Loren movie. It has the old world charm of a classic 4 or 5 star Italian hotel room and I think Rich finally accepts the logic in leaving it alone!

The guest room. . . well that's another story.

Yesterday, while I was blogging Rich said, "I think I'm going to pick around the crumbling window in the guest room." I stopped blogging and offered, "are you sure you want to do that, you might be beginning a project that neither of us have the know-how to finish?"  With that, he began to pick away. I started blogging again and a few minutes into it I heard, "I found something." I stopped blogging. Rich and I spent the rest of the day in the guest room.


Just above the window Rich uncovered what he and I both convinced ourselves was a fresco! We've heard that many Ceriana homeowners have discovered these long hidden gems. Usually nothing of great artistic value, but interesting nevertheless. Frescos are magical; they spark the imagination. We romanticize the lives of the people who lived and loved under frescoed vaults. We think of Charlton Heston as Michelangelo in "The Agony and the Ecstacy;" paint dripping in his eyes and Rex Harrison shouting, "when will you finish?" Could our fresco be a masterpiece?


To be a proper fresco the pigment must be applied to fresh plaster and then it dries with the plaster becoming a single entity. First off, we discovered that only a small ceiling border of burnt-orange and black might be durable enough to be a fresco. The line above this border appears to have been painted over dry plaster and was effaced as we chipped away at layers and layers of paint. Undaunted, we continued chipping away; thinking we might unravel some of the mysteries of the house. Perhaps we'd find a family crest or someone's initials. Perhaps there would be religious paintings which might tie our home to the ancient monastery next door. We found nothing else on the ceiling! A bit disappointed and covered in dust and paint chips I decided to "peak" under a raised corner of Mafalda's wallpaper. And then it appeared. The original walls were covered with color. Greenish top band, painted cornices decorated with small green leaves and blue bells in each corner, lower bands of contrasting colors. We chipped and hammered as the layers of paint fell away. We were excited until we both realized that none of the "art" was frescoed. The paint was applied directly to the cement wall which covers the stone walls of our home. With just a bit of spit the paint dissolved onto our fingers! Alas, we don't have priceless frescos in the guest room and now there's no wallpaper either.

We're deciding what to do with our uncovered walls. If we can, somehow, seal the paint to the wall without destroying the designs we might display a corner, revealing what the room once was, and plaster and paint the rest. We might keep the only bit of true fresco, the ceiling border, and paint out the rest of the ceiling to compliment burnt-orange and black. We've worked like dogs both yesterday and today but we've learned a lot about own home. At one time there was a doorway between the two bedrooms which explains why our room has an antique built-in wardrobe set in a two-foot thick wall. The ceiling and walls have rather large patched-over cracks, probably the result of the famous and rather devastating earthquake of 1887. Deducting from the colors and layers of paint the artwork predates the wardrobe and the earthquake.

I wonder if the Zappia family ever saw the bluebells? Which layers of paint did they add to our walls. . . the green, the blue, the ochre, the white? I'll have some questions for Mafalda the next time I see her on the Corso.