It’s not uncommon for an Italian house to have things left behind when you buy it. Most of the time it’s junk, but there can be some gems mixed in with the trash if you look carefully.
It seems as if the last person to live in our palazzo was a WWI doctor who either worked with, or for, the military. The cantina, as well as many shelves in the living areas are filled with old medical journals of the early 1900s. Many are in great condition, but they’re not exactly what we’re looking to keep.
However finds like this beautifully handwritten 1916 WWI list of men who enlisted and how they did on their physicals is an amazing historical document we’ll hold onto and display. If you look in the last two columns, it shows many didn’t pass their physicals (“non idoneo” = “unsuitable”) because they were too fat (“obesita”) or had heart conditions (“cardiopaloma”). In a similarly untouched state, we also came across pages of immunization records for soldiers plus other personal correspondence in original envelopes.
The basement contains a bunch of demijohns – those large, hand-blown green glass casks in the woven baskets – which we’ll surely dust off and keep as well as some great old bottles with intact labels that will display nicely with a little clean up.
As we’ve mentioned before, we love the history behind our palazzo – not just in the structure itself, but in the lives of the people who lived here before us. Our goal is to keep that history alive by saving some of this treasure left behind.
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