On a recent overcast morning, we toured the 16^thcentury Castello Ruspoli in the nearby town of Vignanello. In the 9^th century a fortified Benedictine monastery was located on the site that the castle currently occupies. A series of Italian noble families lived here starting with the ancient Roman family of Marius Scotus (later the Italian Marescotti) to the Farnese, Orsini and Ruspoli families. My family tree goes back to the mid 1860s; the Ruspoli family tree starts in 798 A.D.

The first floor contains a chapel, large hall and quarters for the guards and horses. The large wooden gears used to raise and lower the entry draw bridges are still visible and the walls are decorated with ancient weapons. The castle’s second floor houses a museum containing the family’s furnishings and ancestral portraits; a couple of apartments are still maintained by Prince Claudio and Princess Giada Ruspoli. I was struck by an ominous sense of what it must have been like to live within this dark, prison-like place where all the surfaces were cold, hard stone with few windows to the outside.

The 17th century gardens are a graceful relief from the spartan ambiance of the castle's interior. The box hedges, fountain and old trees offer stunning contrasts to the patchwork textures and colors of the weathered, moss covered grey stone walls. Having the entire garden to ourselves, we walked around for an hour getting a sense of how those old noble families grew so attached to this place of contradictions - violence versus peace, force versus grace, past versus present...tutti e tutto Italianissimo.