Long Ago in Spoleto: Houses of Historical Spoletan Families

October 1, 2021 News, Offerte, Visore Home No comments

Inhabited by personalities such as Pope Pius VII, Napoleon III, Pope Leo XII or Giacomo Leopardi, elegant setting for important historical events, the homes of ancient Spoleto families preserve treasures and admirable works of art, sometimes rising above subterranean spaces from the Roman era, and are themselves monuments of established repute.

In the 1920s, gathering various invitations and trying to preserve an oral tradition that was quickly fading, Colonel Benedetto Leonetti-Luparini, scion of one of these families, collected and organised a huge amount of data, stories and anecdotes, drawing on old studies and texts, as well as interviews and first-hand accounts, managing to map over 150 historic buildings in the city centre and recounting – with no claim to exhaustiveness – their significant facts and salient features

Casa Gentiletti – foto Turchi

The collection at the Public Library includes a 2-volume work by Leonetti Luparini, called “Case di Antiche Famiglie Spoletine – descritte secondo l’attuale distribuzione e denominazione delle vie e delle piazze della città” (Houses of Ancient Spoletan Families – described according to the current distribution and denomination of the streets and squares of the city). The first volume was printed by Panetto and Petrelli in 1922 and is an extract from the Acts of the Accademia Spoletina of 1920-22. The second volume, printed in 1927 by Premiata Tipografia dell’Umbria, is an extract from the Acts of the Academy of 1923-1926. It is a very useful and effective tool because it gathers together a huge amount of historical, genealogical, architectural and chronological information, usually dispersed amongst countless sources.

Casa Luciani – foto Turchi

An inexhaustible reservoir of small and great stories, of events linked to ancient families spanning a period of time from Roman times to the twentieth century, a concentration of unknown episodes from Spoleto’s memory and identity, capable of generating great curiosity.

Casa Verdiani – foto Turchi

Whether vast palaces, luxurious residences or simple dwellings, these noble houses form a heritage of extraordinary richness, through which one can read the great history of the city. Still splendid legacies of descendants of patrician families, or elegant structures divided into several private flats, prestigious spaces turned into hotels, museums or cultural institutions (just think of the library at Palazzo Mauri or the modern art gallery and the Carandente library at Palazzo Collicola) they are all precious pieces of an urban and architectural fabric of uncommon magnificence.

Palazzo Accoramboni Benedetti – Foto Turchi

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