Digging in . . .

We've got permission to replace the windows in our little palace; thus, the project has begun.

outside window opening

travi (lintels) center-cut local chestnut trees

I've been doing some research in what I'd like to call the "lost years" of the palace history. On the deed is listed a construction year of 1600 yet the first Count Roverizio di Roccasterone, after whom the palace is named, was installed in 1722. So was it in his family's possession from the start?  Recently I've found another mention of the palace, which dates it to around the 15th century but no mention of who the first occupants might have been. The fact is, as least so far, no-one knows the palace's true age or who had it built.  Unlike England, Italy has no Doomsday Book so I must look for clues provided by the building itself.

Windows removed

We are going to replace the old windows with exact copies, down to the materials and techniques used during the last renovation; whenever that was. During the last renovation the window openings were made smaller than previous times; as is evidenced by much higher arches and additional higher lintels, which were exposed during the removal of the frames. The windows have eight lights and the panes are larger than anything possible during the 17th century so the last "go-around" probably took place in the 18th or 19th century.

old windows to be replicated

Sometime in its more recent history one of our rooms was sacrificed to create a huge oven, which was used to bake bread for all of Ceriana. Several people in town remember it being in use as late as the 1960s. The oven's opening faces the large room we're hoping to make the dining hall. Behind the small opening is a huge 3x3 meter domed oven that was built in the room behind the wall. The oven's room flanks what was a proper chapel with what was an opening to that room; filled-in long ago, again, to create the oven.

oven door and flue

The floor of the chapel was obviously ripped up exposing the earth beneath. Some of the chapel's pavement stones are still piled in a corner; identical stones make-up the "floor" of the oven so I'm supposing that the missing chapel stones were called into action when nourishment of the body was surpassing the need for nourishment of the soul.

former chapel/legnaia

Due to the oven's size we know that a huge amount of wood had to be at hand and the chapel became the logical legnaia (wood-shed) as the wood-chips and bark-bits on the floor bear witness.
Can we assume, since the chapel and flanking room were sacrificed in this way, that the nobility who once occupied these rooms were long gone? I think so. Surely the Roverizio di Roccasterone family used their chapel for devotion and had a proper kitchen and scullery in other rooms of the palace; in fact, in another room currently owned by another family, there is convincing evidence of an ancient kitchen.

In our "room of mystery," i.e. "oven room," there is a small and crudely constructed curved stairway providing access to the outside-top of the oven dome. These steps probably served the builders of the oven and were later used to carry up chestnuts to be dried on top of its hot surface; a blanket of hulls offers us this supposition. Rich and I spent a couple of days scooping out dirt and construction rubble (zetro) from this room to uncover these steps; the dirt was not so mysterious a find, as a very resourceful muratore found a convenient dumping place that served no other function. I'm assuming this "dump" was made when the oven went cold . . . within the past 50 years or so.

Oven room:  note the details above the oven mound.

Another find in this room was an ancient iron oven door. The door's shape reflects a gothic-arch; it's incredibly heavy and is very well used. Was this a much older oven door taken from the palace's original kitchen to, perhaps, be recycled for use on the "new" oven? Was the idea of using this oven door abandoned due to its cumbersomeness and semi-corroded state? My plan is to give it a light brushing, oil it and display it as a piece of the building's history and one of the building's mysteries.

So what we've surmised is that the chapel's destruction and oven's construction was done only after the "original" occupants lost their claim to the nobility and the palace was divided into several parcels and sold off. . . probably during the 19th century. The town needed an oven and the palace was a logical choice. As far as what the building was before 1722, who knows? If indeed it does date back to the 1400s, as my most recent source claims, I've got to look for many, many more clues.