During thre second half of the nineteenth century the property on which our little farmhouse rises belonged to the marquis Guglielmini, also owner of the castle of the Isola Maggiore on the Trasimeno lake, which is not far away. The farm measured about seven hectares, with three farmhouses and the master's country house surrounded by a wide park. At the beginning of the twentieth century two farmhouses remained empty, and only my family, for almost one century, has tilled that farm with the “share-cropping” system, living in the biggest farmhouse. This house, with its majestic ghibellines on the roof prevails, still today, over the Chiana valley. The little farmhouse started giving in untill the roof caved in. Later on our father died, the only one able to manage the property.

After a long and hard period, during which we thought that selling everything would have been the best choice, my old but still active mother and her daughters have rolled up their's sleeves and have had troubles to keep on preserving that land placed on a hill area. I must confess that we often got discouraged, but went on thanks to our good will. As said before, selling would have been the easiest choice, but too many remembrances...too many the years we have been living in that places... I love remembering that in this land four descendants of my family have hardly lived: it was 1892 when my great- grandfather Santi, that I ever never known, reached this farm. I remember very well my always busy grandparents, together with their five sons working hard “from darkness to darkness”. I remember the work was exclusively manual labour, only with the utilization of the oxen till the end of the sixties: we tilled the wheat and cut the hay, prepared the strae stacks in the treshing-floor. During the summer, after the hardly wheat reaping with the sickle, we celebrated the thresher arrival. My sister and I attended this event, helping the women, as far as possible, preparing the lunch and bringing the threshers somenthing to drink. My remembrances are clear and I'm still keeping wonderful images of that period. The kitchen, which was the biggest room in our farm, allowed us to set the table for thirty persons: there was a big fireplace that during the long winter evenings, when it darkened soon, offered us an important moment all together.

The only thing we could do was to roll up our's sleeves and trying to make sense of everything. After our father's death we really wanted that place to come to life again, with the unconsciousness of who does not know anything about the costs and the efforts requested. We succeeded in giving that little house a new life, keeping all the wood structure, trying to make it comfortable. Together with my sister and my mother I am really proud to have been quite successful in this project, even if we still need other time to complete everything as we wish.