L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 2017 www.italoamericano.org 18 L'Italo-Americano KEN SCAMBRAY Romance and History: Castello del Catajo e I Suoi Giardini (part II) T he interior salons are cov- ered with well-preserved fres coes by the late Renaissance artist Gian Battista Zelotti, a s tudent of P aolo Veronese. Zelotti's family por- traits, floral designs, and mytho- logical figures also include Latin ins criptions trans lated into Italian. In the firs t s alon, to impress the visitor with the fami- ly's heritage, over the fireplace is a fresco of the Obizzi's extensive family tree. In the soffit Roman ruins are depicted in the soffit next to images of the Republic of V enice, including the w ords "M onarchy and O bedience." Rome is represented as a woman with the features of of Eleonora Martinengo, wife of Pio Enea. The surrounding frescoes are of land and sea battles, as well as scenes from the crusades, to which ancestors of the Obizzi family took part.The viewer is supposed to be impressed with the family's prowess and com- mitment to Christianity. If these battle scenes are not enough, captions link the family with the noblest of European val- ues and tradition: Democracy (Rome) Aristocracy (Venice), and Monarchy (Catholicism). This family's heritage represen- tation is further enhanced by ins criptions referring to Happiness, good Fortune, and Courage, as well as to negative values , s uch as G reed and Discord, to which the family never bent In each of the successive six richly decorated rooms, frescoes depict the further exploits of the royal family, all surrounded, like the first room, with the appropri- ate validating images of Roman gods and Christian values, all inscribed with those Latin phras- es translated into Italian. Latin was the language of both ancient Rome and the Catholic Church, and Italian was their cultural and linguistic link to these centers of power, temporal and spiritual. The family is ennobled by its link to the glories of Roman his- tory and its claim to holiness in its ties to the spiritual dominion of the church and the Popes. In the second room, the Camera del Papa, for example, the visitor enters through the door under the pontifical key into a chamber of Zelotti fres coes depicting Religion, F aith and V irtue, mythologized in the form of a nude youth with a dried flowered poppy in his hand and with his head crowned with laurels. One image depicts the marriage of Luigi Obizzi to Caterina Fieschi presided over by her relative, Pope Innocenzo IV. . We walked through the Room of Prudence and Peace, represented by "belle donne," crow ned by olive branches and bedecked with armaments, swords and shields. Christian values and power are inextricably linked. Opportunity is an idealized "donna nuda," content to be surrounded by the material things of this world. Material wealth was power, and the Obizzi family had plenty of both. One of the rooms is dedi- cated to Saint Mark, the family's patron saint, decorated with pagan Roman godsNeptune and Minerva, armed with shield and lance. The post-Reformation church began to complain about both nudity and pagan represen- tations in official paintings, but it gave aristocratic families a pass for such images in their pri- vate palaces. At times, they even got away with lascivious depictions of pagan Eros in their private chambers , s uch as Carracci's exquisite frescoes in Palazzo Farnese in Rome. But the hoi polloi had to be content with only pious representations of the official Catholic narrative in their frescoed churches. Finally, we entered the room dedicated to Florence, where the learned Obizzi family wrapped itself in the mantel of the power- ful and famous Medici lineage. At the end of the indoor tour, we stood on another veranda, enjoying a view of the gardens below, the surrounding lush countrys ide, and the dis tant mountains. Below us was a large green expanse once used for mock war games, which was sometimes filled with water for s ea battles . O ur guide als o explained that w hen the Archduke of Austria visited the castle in 1805, the eccentric marquis Tommaso set off fire- works against the dark sky over the distant countryside and cre- ated a volcano from the highest Euganean peak in the distance, all to impress the Archduke and entertain the guests of the Este familyTommaso was also an avid art collector: he, added a room to the castle to store his growing collection of art, which w as to become the cas tle's museum. Alas, the powerful Obizzi family's lineage came to an end in 1805, when the child- les s marquis Tommas o bequeathed the castle to the heirs of the house of d'Este. U nder F rances co IV , more buildings w ere added, now called the Castel Nuovo. At his death, the castle passed to the archduke of A us tria, F ranz Ferdinand. At the outbreak of World War I, when Austria sud- denly found itself at war with Italy the Habsburg, fearing the property would be expropriate, absconded with all the art in the mus eum and took it back to Austria, where it remains today. Such pillaging of Italy's artistic treasures has a long history, one that recent laws and aggressive legal action by the government has now curtailed. When the Italian government took possession of the castle in 1929, as payment for war repa- rations, it auctioned Catajo to the D alla F rances ca family. They held the castle until 2015 w hen the family s old it to Cervellin. I s uppos e, given Cervellin's love affair with the castle, that neither its romantic allure, nor its storied history will stop with his purchase. The interior salons are covered with well-preserved frescoes by the late Renaissance artist Gian Battista Zelotti, a student of Paolo Veronese. © be- Strega Simone Allegro Castello del Catajo and its gardens are little known treasures of Veneto ALL AROUND ITALY TRAVEL TIPS DESTINATIONS ACTIVITIES

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