Plazzo Dei Rufoli And The Legend

( Originally Published 1909 )

WHEN at the height of their prosperity the Rufoli were allied to most of the nobles of their time, and through the female line their possessions passed to the Confalone and Muscetola families, even the Palazzo Rufolo being divided between them.

In A.D. 1588 Ascanio Muscetola appealed to the tribunals to compel the Confalone heirs to repair their portion of the building, the ruined condition of which endangered the safety of the remainder. The order was issued, but the, Confaloni failing to comply, the whole building as given up to Ascanio, who bequeathed it A.D. 1597 to his wife, Altabella Sanfelice, and she, rather than restore so vast a ruin, formally yielded it to her husband's heirs.

Nothing further is known of the house until it passed into the hands of the d' Afflitto family of Scala in the last century. They expended considerable sums of money on the building to make it habitable, but unfortunately much that was valuable was recklessly destroyed. The original ceilings were replaced by others of rococo design, the coloured stones round the Windows plastered over, and part of the unique court was destroyed to make kitchens.

The d' Afflitti removed to Naples, and when, in 1851, they sold the Palazzo to the late Mr. Reid, no living member of the family had ever visited Ravello.

The house had neither doors nor windows, the lower part of the court was filled with rubbish, and one tower was buried beneath the soil. It was restored under the direction of Commendatore Michele Ruggiero, afterwards director of the Pompeian excavations.

The principal entrance is formed by a square tower, on either side of which project two crocodiles' heads. A course of red tiles forms the base of a row of small terra-cotta columns, and over these are intersecting arches of grey tufa. This design is repeated higher up, and the whole is surmounted by a projecting cornice, now much dilapidated.

The interior is better preserved, and grey tufa arches supported by spiral columns still adorn the walls. In each of the four corners stands a statue of yellow stone, perhaps of a date anterior to the tower itself, representing the virtues of Charity and Hospitality.

1. A woman, carrying a child, bears a vase on her head, and is apparently leaving the gate.

2. A pilgrim, staff in hand, well dressed and with smooth locks, is a contrast to

3. A pilgrim with dishevelled hair, wearing ragged garments with a scallop shell attached.

4. A man pouring out the contents of an amphora.

A tufa cornice ornamented with animals' heads runs round the interior where the dome begins ; this is surmounted by intersecting arches and small columns, crowned by a fluted ceiling which was originally painted in colours. The same tufa mouldings are to be seen on a long building at the corner of the street, into the wall of which a fine column of African marble is built. This, popularly spoken of as Me theatre, was more probably a chapel attached to the house.

From the entrance tower a broad walk leads to the court, passing under a square window of the twelfth century and between some heraldic designs.

The court was originally two stories high, oblong in form and resting upon columns that seem almost crushed by the projecting arches. From a broad course of grey stone and brick rise slender double columns of white marble, between which were formerly slabs of coloured marbles, and above them trefoils and leaves made of tufa on the outer walls and of terra cotta on the interior. Only one circular window remains, and very few of the delicate terra-cotta columns of the upper frieze.

The great tower, about too ft. high, contains three floors, which have been restored. In the upper story two pointed windows are divided by a marble pillar ; above these are three round windows beneath a course of red tiles, tufa arches and columns.

In the entrance of the house may be seen some of the pieces of mosaic belonging to the pulpit, which were found built into the walls of the Bishop's house, and also a large stone, which proved to have on its reversed side a very interesting bas-relief, stated to have originally belonged to the Church of the Trinità Convent. Commendatore di Rossi, writing in the Bollettino di Archeologia Cristiana, considers it to be part of a Christian sarcophagus of the fourth century, and describes it as follows : " In the centre of the whole design, but at the extreme left of this stone, is a figure of the Donna Orante ;to the extreme right the Virgin, seated, holds in her arms the Infant Jesus, whom she presents to the Magi. The latter are dressed as Persians, and wear Phrygian caps. The first offers a crown (the gold), the second something on a plate (myrrh), and the third a plate with three objects (frank-incense). Behind the Magi stands St. Joseph, and between this figure and the Orante we see Moses striking the rock, while before him kneel two Israelites."

The terrace of the garden commands a superb view of the coast as far as Capo d' Orso, with the towns of Minori and Maiori embosomed in vines, lemon and orange groves, while beyond the Bay of Salerno may be seen the distant plain of Paestum and the mountains of the Cilento. Below the gardens are the two domed towers of the Annunziata, a church given by the Emperor Ladislaus to the Fusco family, and by them dismantled A.D. 1691, when two columns of verde antico were given to Cardinal Cantelmo of Naples. In the courtyard of a neighbouring building a window retains its decoration of coloured stone, and gives some indication of the ornamentation of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This ruin and similar remains at a lower level were probably included in the Palazzo Rufolo, as well as the numerous rooms and vaults under the garden terraces, of which it is impossible to construct any definite plan.

So extensive a ruin, bearing traces of former wealth, was certain to be connected with some tradition of buried treasure in a country so frequently exposed to the changes of war, where money or valuables were buried to conceal them from Saracenic or other invaders, whilst the owners, dying in slavery or at the galleys, were unable to reveal the place of concealment or to reclaim their property. As late as A.D. 1821, a Sicilian, generally called Don Paolo il Campanellista (the bell-maker), lived in part of the d' Afflitto palace, and was believed to have a familiar spirit imprisoned in a brass rod.

He asserted his ability to discover by its means the position of buried treasure, and to obtain its surrender from the evil spirits who claim all such deposits after they have been concealed a hundred years. He was reported to have unearthed two jars of ancient coins at Torella in this way ; and, as the owner of the house in which he lived was the cousin of Pantaleone d' Afflitto, to whom the Palazzo Rufolo belonged, the latter was persuaded to allow Don Paolo to search the ruined court of the palace for treasure concealed there.

At that time it was approached by vaulted rooms, bearing traces of ancient frescoes, while on the opposite side were unexplored chambers. Several friends and villagers joined the explorers, among others a youth named Tommaso Mansi. A woman who was actually present at the strange scene used to relate that, after certain forms of incantation had been performed by Paolo, a noble staircase suddenly appeared descending to an arched vault, in which stood four statues of pure gold, surrounded by heaps of the precious metals ; but before they could seize the treasure, a tall man with a long beard, wearing a velvet robe with silver buttons, issued forth and drove them away, saying in Hebrew, that until they brought him the innocent soul of a child three years old, they could not touch what had been disclosed to their view. He then disappeared, and a terrible serpent darted forth and chased away the intruders, while both stairs and treasure vanished. The idea of the sacrifice required to obtain the treasure seems to have been indelibly impressed on the minds of many people, and most of all on the imagination of Tommaso Mansi, who had an unconquerable craving for wealth. He was in 1841 a married man of mature age, and he joined Pantaleone Imperato and Giovanni Penta in a diabolical plan to decoy away a child named Onotrio di Somma, whose mutilated body was afterwards discovered in a wood outside the walls.

The murderers were tried and condemned, and the trial is fully detailed in a book of judicial cases.1 It appeared that, after concealing the child for several days, they led him before midnight to the court of the Palazzo Rufolo, and performed certain incantations as prescribed in a book read by one of those present, but no result followed.

They then went to the Palazzo Confalone, where, after renewed spells, the unhappy child was sacrificed. Until lately several relations of those concerned were living, and one of the witnesses at the trial, the woman already mentioned, related a further reminiscence of Don Paolo. She said that when a child of twelve years old, in 1829, her father had taken her into the Rufolo court, where Paolo poured oil into her hands, into which she was told to gaze ; that she there saw clouds, then butterflies, and at last gold and an aged man, who said the treasure could be obtained if the head of a person three days dead were procured.