There is a small chapel, almost forgotten, here in Barga which is passed every single day by literally hundreds of people and quite probably none of them actually give it a second look but there are moves in the city this month to restore and return the chapel to its former glory.
As you can hear in the short interview below (in Italian) with local historian Antonio Nardini, the chapel is right next to the main school in Barga but it actually dates from the 1600’s and was originally an integral part of Villa Gherardi.
Antonio describes how the chapel was built in a straight line directly facing the main front door of the villa and was the final resting place of some of the early owners of the villa.
Villa Gherardi was originally owned by the Angeli family, before passing at the start of the 1800s to the Pepi family and then later on to the Gherardi family. It was then owned by the Togneri Family before finally in the early 50’s changing hands and becoming property of the Comune.
With the construction of the school and the large cedar trees nearby the chapel has almost become invisible.
In fact it is, according to Antonio, the same cedar trees that are causing most of the problems as leaves and debris from the surrounding trees has damaged the roof and damp is now compounding the gradual destruction of the building.
Somebody original fittings and two wooden statues from the 1600’s inside the chapel have already been removed to a safer place and are in the process of being cleaned and made ready to be returned if and when possible.
Once again it seem the the volunteers from the Alpini are at the forefront in making sure that these historic buildings are not allowed to just slowly disappear.
Back at the end of the summer 2012, we published an article (here) in which we wrote, “amongst all the brass bands and speeches at the opening of the recently restored Villa Gheradi there was another less evident opening taking place which without a doubt deserved some attention.
There was a huge amount of public money spent on restoring the Villa and turning it into what will hopefully be a youth hostel and a cultural centre for the whole area but there was also the final stone put in place on another smaller restoration project and this time one which was completed without one single Euro of public money being spent.
The entire project was brought to fruition by volunteers of the Gruppo Alpini di Barga
They had painstakingly restored the monumental fountain built in 1600 which had over the years fallen into disrepair and was one step away from being demolished.
The Alpini were not content to just sit on their laurels after restoring the fountain for the Comune but instead a year later picked up their tools and equipment and worked all winter (weather permitting) on another fountain in need of some work, this time for the church, in the grounds of the Vignola just below the Duomo (article here)