Huis op het platteland , 1700 m²

Castelnovetto, Pavia (provincie)

CASTELNOVETTO AND THE VILLAGE OF SANTA MARIA DELLE GRAZIE

The property is a 50 minutes by car from Milan, and it has a surface are of about 1,700 sq.m. in addition a internal courtyard of about 2,000 sq.m.
The structure is composed of five main buildings and in the centre of them there is a large courtyard. The property has been externally restored by local artisans that have spent more than five years to bring back the hamlet to its ancient splendour. The interior of the structure is “unrefined” ready to be used as dwelling, commercial and artisan buildings.

The origins of Castelnovetto date back to the roman period as we can see written on the tombstone brought to light in the gardens last century, even if archeological founds show occasional settings down during the prehistoric age.

By the X century the good weather conditions gave a positive turning point to the agricultural activity and the followings demographical increase caused greater defensive tasks to start the phenomenon of fortifications, promoted by the local masters who wanted to protect their own farms.

During this period it comes to the light a centre in Castelnovetto Monsignor Ferraris, a historical archivist, considers trustworthy the identification of Castelnuovo in the 1039 with the city of Castelnovetto.

The Barbarossa document which attests the assignment of Castelnovetto to the Pavesi is dated 1764.

The present urban plan of the village with its orthogonal lines goes back to the tipology of the inhabitants, created ex novo as for example the well known “ Borghi franchi comunali”, with a predefined scheme.
It is a very complex construction which lets think of a “village” more than of an “ Agricultural castrum”.

The new foundation included surely a provided fortress on the superelevant area where Saint Antonio church lays.

The history of new foundation is complicated by the many quarrels between Guelfi and Ghibellini and, as a conseguence by the coming of the Lordship of Visconti and later Sforza.

Castelnovetto has had a destiny of fortified town which had a relevant position in the different offensive and defensive strategies of the cities which were fighting for the area, thanks to its privileged position in the communications between Agogna and Sesia.

From this situation Castelnovetto has had a lot of gratifications but also many sad moments.

Castelnovetto has been always visited by a great numbers of pilgrims because it was organized to the assistance and considered a welcome place and a good refuge because of its defenses.

Its fortification gave hospitality to more than one religious convents, of which we have sure evidences.

THE VILLAGE OF SANTA MARIA DELLE GRAZIE

The building dated in 400 of the church of S. Maria delle Grazie can be seen as a proof of prestige that it has acquired throughout the years.

The architecture of Santa Maria delle Grazie reminds a great number of monasters built in the same centuries.

One of the documents written by the church in 1574 says “The community provides the church of a baptistery following the architecture preordinated”.

That lets everybody think the church had not baptistery yet, because of it was a convent that didn’t need it till that moment.

The necessity of having a baptistery grew up when in the XVI the church became the center of parish activity.

The parish-priest Antonio Mascarino wrote in this diary “Till that time there was another Church that was thought to belong to the Benedictines. Who had a wonderful convent in this place”. It is the parish-church we have today, the subsidiary of Santa Maria delle Grazie.

It was built in a gothic style, with colored glass windows of beautiful effect, following the main style of the period and in according to the Benedectine style too.

In 1676 the writer Cusano in his history of Vercelli in 1676 speaks of “a monumental church and a convent of Benedectines from Cassino”.

After the fights in 1528, the conseguent distruction of the convent and the deterioration of the Church the Benedectines leave the village.

In this historic period the village of Santa Maria delle Grazie grows up.

FIRST BUILDING

The first original building is the one just in front of the court which represents the splendid Benedectine convent after the devastation.

If we look carefully at the brickwork and the measure of them, we can see they are completely the same as the ones we have in Santa Maria delle Grazie church.

During the following years this building has been altered in according to the different exigences, one of these was its latest function as the manor-house of the village.

SECOND BUILDING

The building has a seventeenth century architecture, used as a deposit for arms, characterized from the wideness of the old walls, the sweep of the three big defensive windows and of the round arch which opens to the inner surface.

Moreover the converture of this building is made of the sum of six inclined planes with a different hights.

THIRD BUILDING

The next building has been created from the assembling and fusion of different buildings.
Look at the external front along Gambarana Road we can notice small evidences of the defensive tower, with its gothic arch which during the 500 opens its beaut to a court and later closed and replaced with the one of 600, whose sides were characterized from small defensive windows.

This complex building was later transformed in a stable with a new open side to enter the court, built walling the previous access.

n 1744 a new building composed of the rests of the tower, the stable was built.

FOURTH BUILDING

The building near the stable as always been a house.

There lived the milkers who could directly enter the stable and take care of the animals during the night too. The workers who worked in the dairy contiguous to the other side of the building, lived there too.

FIFTH BUILDING

The dairy was probably built in 1744 when the village was renovated.

The floor made of stone allowed a quick cleaning of the rooms where workers made cheese.

A double access by the court and the road made everything easier and the small room where for the seasoning of the products. The factory had different floors, carried from small archs made of bricks.

SIXTH BUILDING

The independent house has always been used a flat, each room was heated by a fire, it lays near an arcade which enter probably a road.

This building is probably dated 1744.

Only after the bought by the Panizzari Family we have well grounded news.

The Panizzari Family arrived in Castelnovetto by 1700 and in fact in this period we can remember a Panizzari priest.

Last century in the Panizzari Family’s orchard has been found out a Roman tombstone, kept the Museum Leone di Vercelli: in according to some students, among whom the well known Mommsen, it is from II century A.C.

It is a part of a funeral tombstone., laid by the freedman Appio-Maro, freedman of Kaninae Zigridis, in memory of his mother.

In the parish church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, near the door which enters the sacristy, there is an old tombstone which remind a member of the Panizzari Family and his wife, a certain Della Porta from Novara.

The Panizzari Family comes from Tromello, in fact on the knight Amedeo Panizzari’s tombstone, buried in Castelnovetto it’s written:

…. The last heir of the Counts from Gromello….

The same one was knight Gerolamo Panizzari’s son (more or less 1820-2880), who had married a Sabajno woman, whose family was very rich in Castelnovetto (about 30.000 perches) but not noble.

They had four daughters and a son: a daughter had married one from the Boschi Family, the owner of the Robbio Castle, another one Lavi Amedea a certain Zaccheo di Angera, another a owner of the farmstead Narsa di Zeme and the last one, Doctor Ferri from Milan.

They were owners of the farmstead Panizzari (about 2.500 p.) and the one named Gallaratese (in times past of the Gallarati – Scotti), with about 2.500 p. on the territory of Castelnovetto and Rosasco.

Sabajno, the only heir, married with knight Gerolamo Panizzari, had given in the Panizzari’s properties her farmstead Gallaratese and the village of Santa Maria delle Grazie.



(The master Carlo Sabajno 1870/1935 was a conductor at the Scala, when Toscanino, against the Fascism, had left for America. He is buried in Castelnovetto, but in the Museum by the Scala there is a picture which represents this man).

At the beginning of our century the Panizzari and Sabajno’s buildings which were in the centre of the village, were divided up between the sisters and the brother: Sofia Panizzari had the village of Santa Maria delle Grazie, together with a part of the palace (that property “she thought” which faces on the central place), another part of Barciocco and another one had the property Torrione, the brother Amedeo had the part of Rognone Giovanni. He was mayor for several years then he ceded his part of lands, which was the largest, to his sisters.

The farmstead Gallaratese was one of the Conti Gallarati’s properties, bought later by Sabajno and given by one Sabajno on the patrimony of the Conti -Panizzari.

It was widely rebuilt in 1884, as it is written on the slab. Gallarate is already on the cadastral map about 1760, whose a cetified copy is at the Municipium in Castelnovetto. But the buildings were smaller.

The channel, which goes by the Gallaratese farmstead, is colled Rizza by the Rizza brothers, who in 1491, as it is written on a notarial act, bought the mill, which was municipal out that time and worked on the channel. It was often dry till the rainy seasons, when it received the pouring out of the nearest fields and it filled so much that it overflowed.

When it was dry the poor ones and the persons whitout property planted beans on the bottom of the channel.

The Rizza was crossed from two pedestrian roads, one by the mill and the other in front of the Gallaratese and by them there were two fords for the transit of the cattle and the heavy wagons.

It is told that exactly from this road by the farmstead Gallaratese, during the funeral march of a young lady, the coffin slipped out of the bearer’s hands and fell in the below channel.

After this fact the Panizzari Family gave the order to build a bridge instead of the pedestrian road, affixing the tombstone with the construction year on it: 1916.