With a deed dated November 1897, our great uncle Carlo Bondonio became the owner of Poggio Verde 'Green Hill', an 8-hectare property consisting of a farmhouse, a house with a barn, and a country house. The date of construction of the country house is uncertain but parts of the old farmhouse likely date from the 1500s.
Photos from the early 1900s show that Poggio Verde was similar to its current appearance, but surrounded by oak forests and with a few cultivated fields.
At the beginning of 1900, uncle Carlo built two farmsteads for dairy cows and pigs. Milk and butter were produced under the Bondonio brand as well as silk cocoons and wine.
Uncle Carlo also installed two cannons. They fired when there was risk of hail and neighboring counties replied with the sound of bells. Any narrow escape was celebrated with copious libations.
When uncle Carlo died in 1936 his daughter Fanny inherited Poggio Verde. She used to spend summers here where her husband, Gabriele Santini, director of the Opera of Rome, prepared his concerts playing the 1905 Schiedmeier piano still in our living room. Many artists visited Poggio Verde, including Arturo Toscanini.
But with the outbreak of the war, Fanny took the decision to sell. Poggio Verde was then purchased in 1941 by her cousin and our grandfather Luigi, who had spent wonderful periods of his childhood in Poggio Verde.
When the World War II bombing began, the family moved to Poggio Verde. Here domestic life was quiet; farmers cultivated the land, kept cows, chickens, turkeys, geese, silkworms and made wine in the Tinera.
With the end of the war began the great transformation of Poggio Verde. A garden, a stone porch and an Italian garden were built. In the porch, grandfather Luigi, a passionate Latin scholar, had two stone plaques placed with quotes from Horace’s Satires. Like Horace, grandfather Luigi saw in Poggio Verde the fulfillment of his dreams and the hope of a peaceful old age among his affectionate family, friends and books.