Down for the Count

On Sunday morning, Jim and Sharon and I had the opportunity to meet the Conte Pongelli, a "real live" count! His family has lived in or around Todi for, oh, 450 years or so. At least, they've been in the same house continuously since then.

Did you see the word "house" lurking in that last sentence? The count's house was, in fact, why we met him. The Palazzo Pongelli is a beautiful home in which the count was raised and lived until not long ago -- at which point he moved to the nearby countryside. And in 2008, he embarked on a major renovation to make the palazzo what it should be.

In and of itself, the palazzo would be worth a look. You walk into a gracious courtyard, complete with obligatory fountain and marble statues, and go up the stairs to the first floor to be greeted by our host. At that point, you go into the main salon, beautifully frescoed by the same artist who painted the bishop's palace around 1580, I think.  The shield above the fireplace is that of the Barberini family, because Pope Urbano VIII stayed in the house briefly (think of all the houses in England that attempt to gain fame by saying "Queen Elizabeth slept here" -- that's the idea). However, there's a bit more excuse than simple name dropping...Urbano VIII was in fact related to the Pongellis.

The floor is the original terra cotta tiling, complete with border and central insert. The upper frescoes have a few sly mythological references that unfortunately I've forgotten already (sigh)...essentially one fresco has a goddess with her husband, and the facing fresco depicts the same goddess with her lover. Whoops!

Moving along, you enter the Shield Room. It is thus named because of the heraldic shields that are frescoed in every corner. This begins the circumstantial evidence for considering this to be Jacopone da Todi's house that was incorporated into the Palazzo Pongelli: for no family reasons, the shields in the room are all from Jacopone's family. Furthermore, the frieze of frescoes depicts stories from the life of Jacopone. Bear in mind that the palazzo is located in the parish in which Jacopone is known to have lived (documentary evidence) and there were known to have been many Medieval houses in this area, several of which were combined to form this particular palazzo.

One of the stories shown is that of Jacopone the donkey. Because Jacopone had been so well respected and had enjoyed the esteem of his fellow citizens, he absolutely thrived on mortifying himself. He felt that in that way he could understand Christ's mortification and suffering. If you ask me, at times he carried it a "bit too far" as Jeremy would say: in this case, by showing up at his brother's wedding stark naked, on all fours, and with a manky rope in his mouth as a bit. "Yup, that's my bro Jacopone the Ass." I'm sure his family was very amused...the adjacent fresco depicts exactly how amused the artist thought they were.

The Shield Room also contains a portrait of Urbano VIII, which has the delightful characteristic of eyes that follow you. Our newfound friend confided in us that when he was a boy, he was told to behave himself in that room, because the (at the time of the depiction) Cardinal was watching; when he reported that it had helped his deportment, I immediately asked if I could borrow it for my house!

Moving on into the so-called "green room" or "tea room", Count Pongelli told us that it had been a huge effort to restore this room, because it had been covered with wallpaper, then paint in several layers. While it had always been called the Green Room and the Tea Room, the most recent incarnation hadn't justified the name. So he was extremely interested to discover underneath the layers not only further beautiful frescoes of Jacopone's life, but also frescoes of teapots above the doorways! And, yes, the walls were originally green. Imagine putting wallpaper on top of that! I guess one of the Pongelli wives at some point wanted to update her house.

And then came the room whose name I can't remember. Great tour guide, I'm not...my apologies. This room also had some frescoes with scenes from the life of Jacopone, including the Coratella incident. Coratella is a dish made with the innards of smaller animals (sheep, goats, etc.) and was Jacopone's favorite ever meal. (Blech, but I'm sure he didn't enjoy things like turkey curry, right?) Think Italian haggis.

Enough of the background info. So, here we are with a fasting Jacopone being tempted by the devil into accepting a gift of a coratella. Yum. Well, Jacopone's going to outsmart that old devil, which he does by simply accepting it and taking it back to the monastery with him...and here comes the outsmarting part: he hangs the coratella up in his room to confront himself with the temptation. In the next scene, we get to enjoy the subsequent events, and they're so easy to imagine! The dialogue goes something like this:

"Ew, what's that nasty smell???"
"Eh, it's coming from Jacopone's room again. You know how much he loves making his life unpleasant."
"Hey, dude, Jacopone, if you like stanky stuff so much, you can go live in the latrines!"

We next see him locked in the monastery's toilets...where, incidentally, he wrote some of his most beautiful Laude.

Oh, something more for me to research: when Jacopone died, he was carried off for burial at Collazzone, a nearby town where we had stopped for coffee only a few days before! I'm not sure what happened or why he ended up back in Todi at San Fortunato (where his body lingered for 300 years before finally being buried), so I have to find out.

The oh-so-gracious Count Pongelli took us out via his lovely garden, and cheerfully waved us back up the road.

Love,

Alexandra