Marche Real Estate

Real estate with external or internal staircase

The  Real estate in Marche have come all the way to today and therefore we can list its main types as follow:

we can list 2 types of old rural real estate among the more popular ones, which are the real estate with external staircase and the ones with the internal staircase.

1. the real estate with internal staircase, also called ‘solaro’ room, are mainly on flat land towards the sea. Internally they have an asymmetric aspect compared with the main front and flat roof.
   The kitchen and bedrooms are on the first floor as is the storage room. The kitchen is the central place of the house with the fireplace called ‘arola’ or ‘rola’. The stable is on the east side of the ground floor just underneath the bedrooms so the farmer or ‘vergaro’ (the term ‘verga’ is applied to the person who holds the control) can hear even the faintest noise at night time when animals can be stolen. The cellar and the sheep pen are at the west side, the pigsty and the chicken coup are under the staircase. Then there is the courtyard, which is in part paved and in part just soiled, and here is where the wine harvest takes place with its wine making but it is also the place where people organise their meetings and parties in relation to what they harvested from the fields.

2. The second type of Marche real estate is the one with the external staircase which is mainly found on the hills. The outside staircase connects directly to the first floor and the kitchen. The staircase can be uncovered or covered only on the upper landing. The inside of the house is similar to the one with the internal staircase: same position of the rooms and same functions.

Slope house

Another type of estate, which is mainly found on high hills, is the slope house. This one has neither internal nor external staircase. The first floor is habitable while the lower ground floor holds both the stables and the cellar.
The lower floor is built on the slope of the valley and therefore holds the stables while the habitable rooms are above it with the kitchen and bedrooms. Its entrance is on the upper road level looking like a ground floor in relation to the road.
This real estate is mainly built with local grey or light rose stones depending on the area where it is positioned, but can be found always on more mountainous areas.

Square house

We also have to mention the square house (Jesi area)  with very large rooms placed on two floors.
They are very pretty and their origin goes back to ancient farmhouses and master houses (case padronali). They have a more detailed architectural feature and they don’t hold the stables on the ground floor.  On the other hand, sometimes we can see the kitchen on the ground floor whilst the bedrooms are on the first floor.
The main characteristic is represented by an arched entrance door with a written date when the house was built and framed with bricks or terracotta tiles.
Every time I visited them I always had a feeling of magnificence and realism. They are placed on the top of small hills or on flat land and they have a perspective view with the same number of windows on each side. They are undoubtedly charming and I would recommend to leave the courtyard as it used to be a long time ago as, in most cases, the front courtyard was built with terracotta tiles.   

Tower house or palombara

The tower house or palombara, as it was called in later years, has also ancient origins which go back to the 1500’s and 1600’s, initially built in its primitive form in the 1200’s and 1300’s with a military type structure.  At first these real estates where built mainly in inner areas or woodland because of fear of constant attacks and raids. The tower house rose over the high vegetation around and this allowed a view of the surroundings hills. The internal rooms had the same characteristics of the other houses: stables and cellar on the ground floor, bedrooms and storage room on the upper floors. It is after the 1600’s that this type of house becomes ‘colombaia’ or ‘palombara’ (pigeon-house), the tower is completely closed and used to breed pigeons.
This type of house represents the most ambitious model among the country houses and therefore the most expensive to  build but its persistence through the years is due to the fact that pigeon breeding is appreciated not only for its meat but also for the production of compost which is considered to be a very good fertilizer.

Bigattiera

Another chapter is the house ‘bigattiera’ which multiplied at the beginning of 1800’s. Also because a lot of silk factories were built around the town of Jesi and therefore there were a lot of these houses in this area.
There are many sizes and shapes to these real estates.  I have attached one photo here  - otherwise there is not enough room.
The breeding of the bigatto (silkworm) during the crop-sharing system years allowed the reinvestment of funds during the low agricultural activity of the year.
Here they started to build estates with silkworm rooms built in the middle or on the side of the floor, even though the most usual one is the one in the middle of the floor usually above the kitchen. These silkworm houses have tympanum vaulted roofs and a characteristic French door in a central position with an arched lintel and railing. The windows are very large to allow more air and they have shutters, closed during the hot hours of the day otherwise the silkworm could have been damaged. 

Earth real estate

I also have to mention the so called ‘case di terra’ (earth real estate). This kind of house is build with very poor material such as earth and straw. This technique was very famous in the old days but then these real estate suffered constant destruction, either due to people abandoning the country-side or because they were considered to be a symbol of poverty.  
Also here I have to point out two differences: the earth house of the small proprietor and the one of the country labourer. In the first instance, the marche real estate is independent.
There is much to say on the earth real estate. There was a unique way of building these houses and, because of it, they would really deserve an entire chapter of their own. There are a lot of books related to this type of houses.
A mixture of earth and straw was used and the construction of these houses was done mainly in Springtime or Autumn otherwise the dry Summer heat or the excessive Winter coldness would have ruined them.   Usually, this mixture of earth and straw was placed in provisional wooden boxes to get the shape of a brick.  Then, the builders manually made square blocks with this mixture and placed them on top of each other just like stones put together without any cement. The roof was made with a layer of canes placed on wooden beams, a layer of earth and straw on top of it and finally the terracotta tiles to cover the roof.
The only earth and straw real estates left here are in Serra dè Conti and Cupramontana and this is due to the National Building Heritage. They have all been restored and can be admired in all their structural simplicity.

Conclusion on the real estate in Marche

In conclusion, I have tried to summarise the different types of marche real estate to enlighten the visitor who comes here looking for a farmhouse to inhabit or in which to spend part of the year.  I deliberately did not want to carry out a deep research on this subject because I think this is not the right place, but I hope that I have aroused in you some kind of interest and I am sure that, in future, when you stand in front of a rural house, you will try to give it a more accurate definition, you will also ask yourself a few questions, as I did, looking for some kind of hint or proof of a past that will never come back.  A past that, thanks to all of us, will continue to live into the future regaining a different, but certainly calmer, habitable purpose.