Continuing Jan’s account of our meeting with – The Count:
He lead us into a large paved in stones courtyard framed by the vineyard building we had just left, a large square barn-like building, a long, two-storied stone building, and the house.
The house. A lovely, stone, Italian house that looked both fresh and inviting and also as if it had been there forever, carved out of the countryside. It had large double doors in the center of the first floor that led us into a two-storied entry-way. The stone floor was polished to an almost mirror-like sheen, the center of the floor containing an inlaid heraldic crest. David and I skirted the crest, trying to study it and the rest of the room surreptitiously while following the Count. He noticed our appraisal of the floor and said “That was updated in the 1470s when the Serego Counts married the Alighieri. It was originally just the Alighieri symbol – now it is much more.”
David told him that the main character of his book was Pietro Alighieri and that we were very interested in the home that he had built – and that we were fascinated to find that his descendant still lived there.
The Count smiled briefly and said—“Then you will appreciate this.” He opened a large cabinet against a wall in the entryway and pulled out a poster-sized piece of parchment. He held it up for us to see, and as we tried to decipher the Italian of the document he said, “The original deed to the property.” Seriously. He just happened to have a document from the 14th century in a cabinet in his entryway. “Let me show you around.”
Piere-Alvins Serego-Alighieri is an elegant man. I can’t think of any other word to describe him. He is soft spoken, his low voice easy to hear and relaxed with a lovely Italian accent to his fluent English. He uses his hands occasionally as he speaks – not in the stereotypical Mediterranean style, but simply, casually, with fluid motions from the wrists. He is the kind of man who seems to use no excess energy as he moves or speaks – he is perfectly balanced and perfectly calm and perfectly natural in the incredible grace of his home. He smoked quite a bit while we were there, but the smoking had a quiet, cavalier quality instead of the rat-like energy most Americans have when they smoke.
We followed him through his home, through rooms that had been decorated in the 14th century and redecorated throughout the centuries since. Antiques from seven centuries lived together in this house. As we walked from room to room, I was reminded of the different villas and homes and museums we had toured in our travels through Italy that summer and felt that these rooms were no less opulent or stylish, their contents no less rare or extraordinary than the rooms that were blocked off by red-velvet ropes to preserve their treasures. And, interesting to me, mixed in among the 15th and 19th century antique chairs, tables, paintings, and chests were a new stereo system on a consol table, family photos in bright plastic frames, and recently published paperbacks and magazines on a sofa here or on a desk there. In the midst of this museum of a house was a home, with a teenaged girl living there. Amazing.
We ended up in a small study – small being a comparative word choice. It was smaller than some of the rooms we’d been in – one in particular that held the wedding coaches the bride and the groom rode in when the Alighieris married the Seregos – but larger than our Chicago apartment. Like the entry foyer, this room had a crest in the stone floor and also a large fireplace and floor to ceiling French doors. We sat on an upholstered settee and the Count sat across a large coffee table from us in a leather club chair.
He and David discussed some of the history of the Alighieri family while I tried not to gape at the room we were in. Apparently, the Alighieri sons had the tendency, in the generations following Pietro, to join the priesthood, and by the late 15th century there were no marriageable males left. At that point in the family’s history, there was only one daughter, the sons both having taken holy orders. The daughter was courted by the Count of Serego and, when he asked her brothers to marry her, they agreed on one condition – that they not allow the name of Dante Alighieri to die out. They would give the Count Serego their sister if, in return, he took their name and passed it along to their children. It was at this time that the family became Serego-Alighieri.
