La Villa and its History

La Villa and its History

The Rufolo family were the symbol of economic and political power of medieval Ravello for over two centuries. Their influence declined during the thirty-year period from the mid-thirteenth century to 1285, when they were utterly ruined for siding with the forces fighting the Angevins during the period of the Sicilian Vespers.

At the beginning of the family’s golden age, they built their “villa” which reflected their social status and was supposed to be majestic, princely and sumptuous. By combining Arab and Byzantine architecture and decoration with elements taken from the local cultural context, they found a suitable style for expressing their power.

During the most lively phase, it is likely that Boccaccio met the Rufolo family and stayed at their residence; it is plausible that “the palace [….] with a fine and spacious courtyard in the centre and with loggias and halls and rooms […] and marvellous gardens”  may have been the garden of  Villa Rufolo, while there is a direct reference to the family in the famous novella dedicated to Landolfo Rufolo.

The life of medieval Ravello followed the decline of the coast linked to the waning influence of the Republic of Amalfi, and the Rufolo family, who had fallen into disgrace, were forced to divide up the property. Under the laws of succession, the villa passed to the Confalone and the Muscettola families and later to the D’Afflitto di Scala family in the eighteenth century. The latter family made an immense effort to make the palace inhabitable but the destruction of many important and valuable elements meant that a large part of the residence fell into ruin.

By the mid-nineteenth century, the building was a ruin and only partly preserved its original appearance, having undergone many alterations following the decline of the famous descendants. A Scottish aristocrat Sir Francis Nevile Reid decided to purchase the building even though it was unfit for habitation. This highly sophisticated man had the villa restored and rearranged the terraces into gardens, creating a masterpiece that led Wagner to exclaim “The magic garden of Klingsor has been found here”.

The villa flourished under the ownership of Reid who contributed to a positive period of the villa’s history. On his death, the villa was split up by his heirs and the furnishings and ornaments were sold off. In 1974 the part of the villa still in private hands that was not state property was bought by the Board of Tourism (EPT) of Salerno.

The EPT ran the villa until 2007, the year when the responsibility for its management was entrusted to the Fondazione Ravello which launched a series of initiatives designed to restore, enhance and safeguard the monument.

The first phase of Intervention

During the period when it was run by the EPT, the European University Centre for Cultural Heritage (CUEBC, whose head office is in the villa), together with the Office for Cultural Heritage (Soprintendenza), carried out a series of excavation campaigns and restoration projects (1988 – 1999): the villa was thoroughly investigated during this period from the area of the Baths, the Theatre area, to the Moorish cloister. The investigations and research brought to light, in the area to the west of the cloister, a series of ruins of rooms that had collapsed in the early sixteenth century, and the Baths to the east of the gardens. None of the work carried out during this period seems to have had a  pre-determined common thread but, above all, there did not seem to be a project that sought to enhance the whole complex.

The excavations in the Villa, carried out by Paolo Peduto together with Matilde Romito and François Widemann, led to the discovery of about 100,000 fragments of pottery, including about 5,000 painted glazed wares and about 1,000 fragments of proto-majolica, chronologically datable to between the 13th and 14th centuries. The pottery was probably made locally or at least in Campania, or consisted of imports from Italy (ranging from Apulia to Sicily) or from the Mediterranean. The discovery of a large number of fragments of Roman pottery, dating to between the 1st century BC and the 5th century AD, as well as confirming the wealth of the Rufolo family which enabled them to import exotic pieces of “vintage archaeology”, may imply that the site was settled during a phase preceding the medieval layout. The finds from the excavations give an overall impression that is consistent with the history of the area and the history of its contacts and trade links with the east.

The archaeological material  clearly shows the wealth of the coastal merchants and the influences linked to trade with the east. The end result was the refined and luxurious arabesque architecture that we can admire today, markedly different from the “new elements” of Gothic architecture in northern Europe. In terms of the furnishings, this tendency seems even more accentuated due to the presence of a large amount of pottery from north Africa and Islamicised regions.

The excavations have had a fundamental influence on the archaeological, historical and artistic interpretation of the monument, although several questions related to the interpretation of the monument itself remain unanswered: how were the rooms used? What was their function? Were there other cloisters? How large was the villa complex? What existed on the site prior to “Villa Rufolo”?

Enhancement

In 2012, as part of the initiatives designed to safeguard and enhance the monumental complex of Villa Rufolo, the Fondazione Ravello began work on a project named  “Fertigation, lighting systems, enhancement and restoration of the monumental complex of VILLA RUFOLO”. The project involved the refurbishment of the lighting systems and fertigation of the garden and the restoration of the room in Villa Rufolo known as the “Theatre”.
The first area investigated by the archaeological excavations covers an expanse of about 168 sq.m. and is situated on the lower level of the complex of Villa Rufolo in the municipality of Ravello. The zone was named “Theatre” probably due to the function it was given after the recent restoration work. The structure dates to the 11th-12th century and thus to the original phase of the construction of the complex; the entrance tower, the donjon or keep, the baths, the chapel and the Moorish cloister can also be dated to this phase. The “Theatre” area has proved to be of significant archaeological interest for several decades; it came to light following systematic excavations (archeological excavations 1988-89, 1995 -1998) linked to the restoration of the area in 1995 directed by Prof. Peduto.
The southern side of the rooms adjoins a large cistern which still functions as a central point for the collection and distribution of rainwater, within the fairly complex water system of the villa which definitely merits a more detailed study; the eastern side is one of the four perimeter walls of the Moorish cloister, the western side adjoins a cultivated lemon garden which is not open to the public, while the northern side consists of a solid earth-retaining wall.
Everything is more clearly identified and marked in the land register of Ravello on Sheet 6 parcel no. 865, of state property and in the classification of the Italian Military Institute (IGM), in Sheet 6 III S.E. The whole of the explored area is currently on one level and lies about 351 m a.s.l. (above sea level).
After being abandoned and falling into a state of disrepair (from the 15th-17th century), the roofs of the vaults collapsed so that the entire complex was buried by earth with only the perimeter walls being used as containers for an embankment which was cultivated as a garden; recent excavations carried out in the late 1990s have brought to light the whole complex and have made it possible to reconstruct the collapsed vaults; the newly created rooms, known as the “theatre”, suffered from damp, both from  the sides and above and from rising damp from the floor which lay directly on the embankment.
Despite the limited extent of the excavations, the finds and their structural and stratigraphic interpretation have made it possible to reconstruct the chronology of human activity and the subsequent natural phenomena that occurred in the area. Stratigraphic excavation has provided valuable evidence about the history of the building: as has already emerged from archive research carried out simultaneously with the excavations, the evidence confirms that the structure of the “theatre” had not undergone any modifications to the load-bearing walls during the most recent excavations and restoration work carried out in 1995 by the Cultural Heritage Office (Soprintendenza BAP).
During the removal of the floor of the ‘theatre’ to create air-space to provide insulation from the earth below, a masonry structure was discovered. The excavation was therefore intensified and extended to reveal the whole structure, uncovering a parallelepiped with a rectangular base and an east-west orientation; the walls are built of rubble masonry with natural stones of different size held together by high quality cement-based mortar. This building technique produced a solid, monolithic masonry structure with a high degree of tensile strength which can even cope with seismic activity. All the interior faces of the walls have traces of high quality white hydraulic lime mortar containing a mixture of pumice, quartz elements and mica. The plaster has a thickness of about 3.5/4 cm. Taken together, all the evidence from the structure confirms that it is a “cistern for collecting rainwater”.
The main features of the discovery can be summarised as follows:

  • The discovered structure is undoubtedly a rainwater cistern;
  • The structure is not aligned with the structure of the cloister (the long sides of the cistern intersect the eastern perimeter wall of the room not orthogonally but at an angle of +/- 10° with respect to the right angle;
  • The main wall of the “theatre” intersects the structure, criss-crossing it until the end surface and incorporating it;
  • The long northern side of the cistern is wider (90 cm) than the parallel southern side (70 cm);
  • The bottom of the cistern inclines from east to west and converges towards the centre of the short western side;
  • The estrados of the long northern side is an “earth-retaining wall” while the parallel southern wall is not;
  • The short western wall has a central cavity which can be interpreted as a “mouth for drawing off water” (the niche displays traces of attrition, probably caused by the system for drawing off water, from which emerge superimposed bricks used to create the curved part);
  • The cistern has no hole at the bottom.

Latest discoveries

The importance of the discovery is not due so much to the structural and architectural features of the building but to its position with respect to the monumental complex: the alignment of the cistern which is not on an axis with that of the cloister, and the local “theatre” and the masonry of the foundations of the cloister which criss-cross the long walls of the cistern. As an important initial interpretation, these circumstances suggest that the “cistern” pre-dates the construction of the villa in its current form and therefore was built before the 12th century.

Another aspect of the recently discovered structure that should not be overlooked is the different thickness of the two long walls of the cistern. A plausible likely explanation is that the thicker northern wall may have been over-sized to support the embankment which stood on top of it and extended northwards. This interpretation would explain why the outer part of the wall in question was built “against the earth”.

Other important elements of the structure include the following: the incline of the bottom towards the western wall; the presence on the western wall of a curved central part (the cistern mouth would have definitely been situated on the upper part of the wall); the absence of a hole at the bottom, generally required to empty the water to carry out the cleaning of the cistern.

All these pieces of evidence suggest that the cistern would have been used to collect rainwater for domestic use since the other contemporary cisterns in the area, used for irrigation, did not have “cistern mouths”; the lack of a hole at the bottom indicates that there were very few extraneous solids in the cistern and that the water supply must have been well-controlled and managed to prevent it filling up with earth (probably deriving from the vaulted roofs of a residential structure); if these deductions are confirmed by further evidence from excavations and specific research, it can be concluded that: prior to the current monumental structure of the villa and, therefore, before the 11th-12th century, a pre-existing residence was situated in the same area as the current cloister.

The archaeological evidence from the first phase of excavations has led to modifications being made to the initial project and have prompted the adoption of a revised version: this new project includes covering the cistern with sheets of glass to enable visitors to appreciate the stratigraphy of the complex, and the creation of an air-space that was independent of the main one to avoid problems of condensation and mould.

The final results of the work and several interpretative hypotheses, based on the archaeological evidence, can be summarised as follows: when the complex was originally built, the Moorish cloister was only closed on three sides and was open westwards where there may well have been terracing sloping south- or southwestwards. The newly discovered cistern was situated at the bottom of the terracing and created a buttress; it also provided water for the domestic needs of the residence which was obviously demolished to make way for the much more splendid complex of “Palazzo Rufolo”. The surrounding area probably had a different function. With the beginning of the main building work carried out by the Rufolo family, the whole area underwent significant alteration and new structures were built, mainly on unbuilt land but partly on pre-existing structures, as in the case of the cistern, incorporating them and adapting the new complex to them, probably with the aim of optimising the building phases.

The bibliographic sources refer to a structure and building phases that do not coincide completely with the ones highlighted by the most recent excavations.

Far from being complete and complementing the previous work, the research raises a series of questions that definitely need to be explored in greater depth: did the Rufolo family design and construct their residence completely from scratch? Did they extend and renovate an existing house? Was the network of canals and cisterns, which can still be identified today, laid out completely from scratch? How long did the building phase which led to the construction of “the same number of rooms as there are days of the year” actually last? What happened during the period of abandonment (14th-17th centuries)?

Bibliografia di riferimento

Villa Rufolo: una storia da rileggere di Elettra Civale

ALLEN, LACAITA 1992 E. Allen, C. C. Lacaita Il Palazzo Rufolo, Archivio Storico della Provincia di Salerno Salerno 1922 vol. II pagg. 75-83.

BARATTA 1801 M. Baratta I terremoti d’Italia, Salerno 1901

CAMERA 1881 M. Camera, Memorie storico-diplomatiche: città e ducato di Amalfi, voll. I –II Salerno 1881.

CAMERA 1836 M. Camera, Istoria delle città e costiera di Amalfi, Napoli 1836.

CARILLO 2005 S. Carillo, Nevile Reid e il restauro di Villa Rufolo. Sistemi costruttivi, industria edilizia amalfitana e cronologia delle strutture, in La Costa d’Amalfi nel secolo XIX. Metamorfosi ambientale. Tutela e restauro del Patrimonio architettonico, Centro di Cultura e Storia Amalfitana, Amalfi 2005, pag.205 e segg.

CASKEY 1993 J. Caskey, Un’antica descrizione della Villa Rufolo di Ravello, pag. 149 in Rassegna del Centro di Cultura e Storia Amalfitana, anno XV (n. s.), Amalfi Dicembre 1993.

CASKEY 1994 J. Caskey, The Rufolo Palace in Ravello and Merchant Patronage in Medieval Campania, Yale University 1994 Ph. D. dissertation.

CASKEY 1995 J. Caskey, An early description of the Villa Rufolo in Ravello in Apollo, Bollettino dei Musei Provinciali di Salerno, n° XI, a. 1995.

IMPERATO 1979 G. Imperato, Villa Rufolo nella letteratura, nella storia, nell’arte, Amalfi 1979.

PEDUTO (ed.) 1990 P. Peduto, M. Romito, S. Vitolo, Villa Rufolo di Ravello: le campagne di scavo del 1988-89, in Rassegna Storica Salernitana, n.s. 7, n°2, dicembre 1990.

PEDUTO 1990 P. Peduto, Lo scavo dell’orto, in Villa Rufolo di Ravello: le campagne di scavo del 1988-1989. Risultati preliminari, in Rassegna del Centro di Cultura e Storia Amalfitana n.14 VII 1990, pagg. 265-266.

PEDUTO 1996 P. Peduto, Un giardino-palazzo islamico del sec. XIII: l’artificio di Villa Rufolo a Ravello,  in Apollo, Bollettino dei Musei Provinciali di Salerno, n° XII, a. 1996.

ROMITO 1990 M. Romito, I rivestimenti ceramici pavimentali a Villa Rufolo, in Rassegna Storica Salernitana, 14,VII, 1990, pag.515-536.

ROMITO 1999 M. Romito (a cura di), D. Richter, I profumi di Reid. Uno scavo archeologico a Villa Rufolo e la vita di un inglese nella Ravello dell’Ottocento, Napoli 1999.

WIDEMANN 1989 F. Widemann, Primi risultati degli scavi archeologici condotti nel settembre 1988 nella Villa Rufolo di Ravello, Amalfi 1989  Rassegna del Centro di Cultura e Storia Amalfitana, anno IX, Dicembre 1989, n°18 pag. 143.

WIDEMANN 1990 F. Widemann (a cura di), Villa Rufolo di Ravello: le campagne di scavo del 1988-1989. Risultati preliminari, in Rassegna del Centro di Cultura e Storia Amalfitana n.14 VII 1990.

WIDEMANN (ed.) 2000 P. Peduto, F. Widemann (a cura di), L’ambiente culturale a Ravello nel Medioevo: il caso della famiglia Rufolo, Bari 2000.


FOCUS

The Rufolo Family

During the second half of the 13th century, the Rufolo family became one of the most important families in southern Italy. According to tradition, they descended from Rutilius Rufus, a politician of the 2nd century BC who was the first to call for military tribunes to be created within the praetorian cohorts.
The earliest information concerning the Rufolo family comes from the 11th century. The family owned property in the northern part of Ravello and were of a certain social status, considering that Giovanni Rufolo was bishop of the city in 1150 until his death in 1209. Over the first half of this century, the family’s standing would have been enhanced and this rise in status culminated in the marriage between Nicola Rufolo and one of the most powerful women in southern Italy, Sigilgaida della Marra. She was the sister of Angelo I, treasurer and auditor general of the Kingdom of Frederick II.
During the first half of the 13th century, Nicola Rufolo undertook major building projects, both in Ravello, rebuilding Palazzo Rufolo in the Islamic-Norman style, and in Giovinazzo (BA), where he constructed a large fortified manor house in the 1260s. Olive oil from the large olive groves of Molfetta, Bitonto and Giovinazzo itself was produced on the farmland belonging to the manor. It was a period of great political instability as Manfredi, the last Swabian king of southern Italy, saw his authority increasingly curtailed. Nicola Rufolo partly switched from his commercial interests to devote himself to the economic administration of the Kingdom and, in particular, to further the position of his children who became even more specialised in financial affairs. He was able to achieve this by taking advantage of the pre-eminent role of Giozzolino della Marra, nephew of Sigilgaida and auditor general.
With the arrival of the Angevins, following their victory at the Battle of Benevento in 1266, the Rufolo family swore allegiance to the new rulers to safeguard their role in the economic administration of the kingdom. They changed their coat of arms, both in terms of the colours, replacing red with blue, and in terms of its structure, with the adoption of the three fleurs-de-lis (lilies), the symbol of the House of Anjou, in the chief (upper part of the coat of arms)., Nicola’s son Matteo and his eldest son Lorenzo both held important offices in the Kingdom, alongside their cousins from the Della Marra family. During this period, Nicola Rufolo and his son Matteo established their position as royal bankers, financing the royal family’s enterprises.
After the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282), the Angevin regime faced serious economic difficulties. This appears to have motivated the trial organised against the Rufolo and Della Marra families with the aim of seizing their extensive property. The Angevin plan proved successful. On June 17 1283 the first steps were taken: several members of the Rufolo and Della Marra families, with their children, were secretly captured and their lands confiscated. Five days later, on 22 June, Prince Charles II proclaimed the reasons behind the decision: the two families were accused of extortion, treason, abominable perversions, the illegal export of wheat to the detriment of the Crown, and speaking in favour of the War of the Sicilian Vespers. Matteo Rufolo was accused of being in league with Queen Constance, the daughter of Manfredi and wife of Peter III of Aragon. The document proclaimed the death sentence for three individuals Angelo and Galgano, the sons of Giozzolino, and Lorenzo Rufolo, Matteo’s eldest son. In addition, the women and children were to be tortured and all the property of the two families, including ships, horses and weapons, were to be confiscated. According to Sthamer, the most likely reason for the persecution was the exorbitant increase in taxation which had reduced the population to a state of penury. The financial policy pursued by Gizzolino, who had died five years previously, was held to blame. However, the impact of the enormous debt run up by the Angevin rulers, as well as the crippling costs of war, should not be ruled out. To secure his release from prison, Matteo Rufolo was ordered to pay 16,000 ounces of gold (about 500 grams, the equivalent of fitting out eighty warships); Flamand de Comises, abbot of St Victor in Marseilles, was put in charge of confiscating all the forfeit property in Campania, in particular in Ravello. Of the various people sentenced to death, the most prominent figure seems to have been Lorenzo Rufolo. In October 1282 he is mentioned as the secretary and master portolan of Apulia, and subsequently as secretary of Sicily. He was beheaded in 1283. He probably provided Boccaccio with the inspiration for his story about Landolfo Rufolo, the rich merchant who, in the hope of re-doubling his wealth, lost everything he had invested in and turned to piracy. This story had a happy ending as it was intended to illustrate the workings of fortune, whereas Lorenzo met with singular misfortune.
The Rufolo family never recovered from the royal retribution and nor did Ravello. Their downfall had been instigated primarily by Charles of Salerno (the future  Charles II), by the Pope, who supported the Angevins, and other families in Ravello, including the Frezza family who resented the power gained by the Rufolo family. Several members of the Rufolo family therefore decided to move to Naples but by the 15th century the family had lost all its power. Peregrino Rufolo, the fourteenth bishop of Ravello, referred to himself as the last representative of the family dynasty.

From research carried out by Alessio Amato

Sir Francis Nevile Reid

Sir Francis Nevile Reid visited Ravello for the first time in 1851 when he was twenty five years old. Captivated by the picturesque charm of the small town and its surroundings, he purchased the long-abandoned Villa Rufolo from the d’Aflitto family.
This was the first step that led to the modern resurgence of the villa which, due to Reid’s passion and generosity, soon established itself as the cultural centre of the Amalfi coast and a destination of the Grand Tour during the Romantic era.
Together with his wife Sophie Caroline Gibson Carmichael, who shared his vision, the Scottish nobleman hired the architect and archaeologist Michele Ruggero to complete the restoration of the villa and the main tower.
As a scholar and enthusiast of botany, Sir Francis introduced a large number of exotic plants, in particular roses, transforming Villa Rufolo into a popular and renowned destination that attracted illustrious figures from the international community: princes and monarchs, restless geniuses with widely disparate talents and from many different backgrounds, were regular guests at the villa.
Its botanical stature grew due to the passion and expertise of the villa’s skillful practical gardener Luigi Cicalese, a faithful friend and generous custodian of this veritable natural paradise.
The reinvention of the historic building of Villa Rufolo was not the only achievement of the Reid family’s far-sightedness. The construction of the road to Gradillo and, above all, the town’s first aqueduct, including the expenses for training and daily maintenance, as well as language teaching for the young inhabitants of Ravello, were further priceless gifts of the passion and generosity of these philanthropists and patrons of the arts.

Villa Rufolo


Piazza Duomo
84010 Ravello (Sa) - Italia

tel./fax +39 089 857621
e-mail: segreteria@villarufolo.it villarufolo@pec.villarufolo.net

www.villarufolo.com



Fondazione Ravello


Villa Rufolo
Piazza Duomo
84010 Ravello (Sa) - Italia

tel. +39 089 858360
fax +39 089 8586278
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pec: fondazioneravello@pec.fondazioneravello.eu

www.fondazioneravello.it


RAVELLO FESTIVAL

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