The Institute at Palazzo Rucellai - Study Abroad in Florence, Italy

Today was our last mandatory trip with the Institute, marking the end of orientation. Anyone who decided to skip out on it though should really be hanging their head in shame, because those who showed up got to go on to an excursion to the Chianti region of Italy, about a forty-five minute bus ride north of Florence. We left the Santa Maria Novella train station at 9.15 AM, and arrived at Castello del Trebbio (Trebbio Castle) around 10 AM. A man named Alberto greeted us at the door and then led us on a personal tour of the private estate.

The castle was originally built around 1100, and belonged to the Pazzi family of Florence. The Pazzi are famous in Florence for always being second-best. They were extremely successful bankers, but not as successful as the Medici. The Medici were unquestionably the most wealthy, most powerful family of Florence. Not coincidentally, they are the family everyone knows about, and the Pazzi are not. As private citizens, the Medici effectively controlled the Republic through their political contacts and financial influence. The Pazzi family had no such political control, and was always envious of the Medici. The oldest of the Pazzi brothers, Salviati and Francesco di Pazzi, determined that the only way to rise out of the Medici family’s large shadow was to murder the head of their household, orenzo de’ Medici (also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent) and his brother, Giuliano de’ Medici. In order to carry out such a plan, they turned to their ally, the Pope, Sixtus IV. The Pazzi conspired to replace the Medici, the then de facto rulers of Florence, with the pope’s nephew. On April 26, 1478, Sixtus IV ordered the papal army to the gates of Florence, where they were to wait for a signal from the Pazzi brothers. The army, however, was never needed―during Mass on that Sunday morning at the Duomo, a gang (including a priest!) stabbed Giuliano de’ Medici twenty times in front of a crowd of nearly 10,000 church-goers. Lorenzo de’ Medici was stabbed at least twice, but then managed to hide away within the church.

The following day, Florence grieved the death of Giuliano, and the day after that, the retribution began. The Pazzi family was stripped of its nobility, its land, its investments, and its seal was removed from every public and/or visible space in Florence. Almost all the Pazzi family were beaten and hung to death in the city streets, including the Bishop of Florence; Salviati hung from the walls of the Palazzo Vecchio, where Leonardo di Vinci famously sketched his lifeless body. Lorenzo de’ Medici did his best to keep innocent people from facing undeserved onviction, including the almost-certainly innocent nephew of Pope Sixtus IV. Although the pope himself faced no immediate response from the Medici, after Sixtus IV’s death, the following two popes were from the Medici family: one was Lorenzo’s son, and the other was the son of Giuliano.

We got to walk through the room in which the Pazzi Conspiracy took place ―pretty creepy! It was strange to think about men plotting murder in the same place where we were standing. The castle remains pretty much in the same condition today as it was in 1478 when Lorenzo de’ Medici took it from the Pazzi as retribution for his brother’s death. The latest renovation was the changing out of the courtyard floor, but that happened during the mid 1400s. The Medici eventually sold the castle, and its surrounding 800 acres, and it changed hands of different families, eventually sitting vacant for fifteen years during the 1950s. The castle also comes with a love story, of course! A young woman came from Austria to Italy when she was 20 years old because she wanted to study Italian. On the train-ride across the border, she met an Italian man with whom she fell deeply in love. Two or three weeks later they were married. The catch? The man was 60 years old. But, as Alberto explains, “These things happen when you fall in love.” The man’s first wife had died, and he had no children; he felt that meeting this young Austrian woman was a second chance at life, and he asked his wife if they could have a big family. Six years later, they had five children. The man was an extremely successful businessman in Milan, where they lived, and he bought the Trebbio Castle as a summer home for his family so they could get away from the city. When his wife saw the castle, she decided that she wanted to move into it permanently. The family consequently moved to the castle, where they began to produce wine for a living. When the man was 82, he passed away. The following month, at 43, his widow died in a tragic car accident while on vacation in Switzerland. Four of the five children, now orphans, elected to sell the castle and its land because the roperty was so enormous and cost so much to maintain. However, one daughter, Anna, decided to keep the castle and continue to run her family’s olive oil and wine business. Anna, her husband and their three children continue to live there to this day, and allow selected tour groups to come through and view the castle’s vineyards and lower levels (Alberto, the only tour guide, is her husband’s cousin). Anna paid off the debt she owed to her other siblings (who also inherited a portion of the estate) from 1990 – 2007, and now is the sole owner of the property.

We also had an opportunity to view the cellars, where the majority of the wine is kept in enormous oak barrels, easily ten feet in height. These barrels cost over one thousand euro each, but can be used for up to 75 years if properly maintained. Alberto led us through the dungeon (which still had the rings in the ceiling to which prisoners were tethered) and into another cellar room where there were smaller oak barrels. The smaller oak barrels cost 600 euro each, and can only be used for three years!

Alberto spoke to us about the fallacy of the olive oil industry, in which the family is trying to once again become involved. A terrible winter in 1985 destroyed 85% of the family’s olive groves, and while new trees have been planted, it will take awhile for them to yield olives large enough to produce profitable quantities of olive oil. Anna and her mother replanted the trees together in 1987, but it wasn’t until three years later that they finally produced their first olives, and Anna’s mother died one month later. Anna has chosen to continue the olive oil business in honor of her mother, and hopes that one day it will become profitable again. The importance of recognizing the fallacy of the olive oil industry, though, is that anything that is not up to certain quality is incredibly bad for you. Olive oil should have less than 0.3% acidity in order for it to have the correct taste and be good for your organs and blood. Such oil is called “extra virgin olive oil.” Regrettably, the food regulators allow any olive oil that has less than .8% acidity to be called “extra virgin.” If it has .9 – 1.2% acidity, it can still be called “virgin olive oil;” the real trouble is the stuff that is simply called “olive oil,” because it contains very little oil actually derived from olives and is sometimes filled with animal byproducts and other plant oils, giving it 3+% acidity. The moral of the story? Spend the time and extra money on extra virgin olive oil – it’s worth it.

Lastly, though, I have to convey the story of Mario, the gamekeeper. Mario has been the effective caretaker of the Trebbio Castle since 1952. He lived here by himself, maintaining all the grounds and helping the farmers with the vineyard while the castle sat vacant from 1953 – 1968 under its previous ownership. Mario, in effect, comes with the castle. According to his previous contract, as is tradition, the gamekeeper is not permitted to get married because his sole focus must be on the property. When Anna’s family bought the castle, Mario petitioned for a new contract, and the family broke tradition and permitted him to get married. Two weeks later he and his girlfriend were married, and nine months after that he became a father. Mario is now 82 years old, and still wears his uniform to the castle, where he works (although technically retired) seven days a week, as he always has; you can find him easily – he’s dressed in a green felt hat with a pheasant feather, matching green overalls and handmade leather boots with handmade half-chaps overtop. He gets around without any help, although he speaks in a very soft whisper. He really seemed to delight in the tourists, and enjoyed taking pictures of us all. We were told that his only other highlight during the year after tourist season is the annual plucking of a new feather for his hat. I’ve stolen one of Allie’s photos of him, so you can love him as much as I do!

We enjoyed a beautiful wine tasting with our homemade, light lunch provided by the family’s cooks. The family produces two different red wines, one that is young (bottled after only 6 months in oak barrels, and therefore sharper) and one that is older (bottled after three years in oak barrels, with a much more powerful taste). I’m still learning to appreciate wine, but I can at least tell you that what they produce is pretty darn good by me.