WEBVTT - Villa de Vecchi 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.200 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:14.040 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:18.080 Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So I wanted to 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:21.400 do an episode on a haunted place, and so I 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.480 just started kind of trawling the internet for lists of 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:28.120 supposedly haunted places, and one of them came up over 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:30.600 and over and photos of it are so beautiful and 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:35.560 super intriguing. Spoiler alert. I think I don't believe in 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:42.440 haunted places very much these days. We'll talk about. Today's 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:47.040 topic is an abandoned mansion which has some very colorful nicknames. 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:49.880 It's called the Red House, the Witch's House, or even 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.559 the ghost House. But it was once a gorgeous and 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:58.200 very luxurious mansion designed for a prominent citizen of northern Italy, 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:02.200 and it's often described as haunted and having this dark history. 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.880 Sometimes it's you know, like the brutal murder House. I 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.280 have good news if that makes you feel squeamish. There 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:14.800 are some interesting contradictions regarding that story. So this episode 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.360 is definitely going to make our skeptics happy. But wait, 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:22.120 you get a little bit of a twofur and we'll 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:24.839 explain why at the end. The last segment is about 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:33.880 a related topic, So the municipality of courtin Nova in 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.000 northern Italy. So it's about thirty seven miles or sixty 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:41.120 kilometers north of Milan. It's about seven point two miles 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:45.200 or eleven point six kilometers southeast of Milano, on the 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:49.680 eastern shore of Lake Como. This is an absolutely beautiful 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.240 area of the country. It's lush with forests, but it 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.160 is also home to a structure that is sometimes called 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:01.760 the most haunted home in all of Italy, that is Villadeveki. 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:05.560 So to talk about Villadeveki, we'll set the scene with 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:09.840 the original owner, Felichia Deveki, who is also called Felix, 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:13.080 which is what we'll call him by. But this particular 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.079 piece of the episode gets a big fat caveat because 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.440 there is not a ton of information about Felix de 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.919 Veki available. The only resource that I could find initially 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.680 that gave any of his biographical information was the Italian 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:32.200 Wikipedia page for him. Normally we would never use Wikipedia, 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.160 and there is a little more flexibility with a Halloween episode, 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:39.000 but even so, not usually a place we would go to. However, 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.119 I did pull his birth date from there. It did 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.360 later get verified by something else, but he was born 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:48.320 on February twelfth, eighteen sixteen. And there's some more information 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:50.919 we're going to talk about later from that Wikipedia page 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.359 that I think is important telling his story. But de 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.639 Veki was an artist. He was born into a wealthy family, 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.960 but he also became a created hero in the Italian 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:06.360 National Guard. In his late twenties, de Veki was living 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.520 in an Italy that was not yet unified, and he 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.240 went on a long trip starting in eighteen forty one 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:18.200 that took him through Turkya, Persia, India and Egypt. This 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:22.119 journey was one that left a significant impression on Deveki, 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.280 who was deeply interested in learning about the cultures of 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:29.200 the places he visited. Several years after this trip, in 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:32.720 eighteen forty four, Count de Veki married a woman named 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:36.560 Carolina Franketti du Ponti. The two of them went on 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:39.640 a long trip for their honeymoon. They traveled around to 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:44.200 various locations throughout Italy, some of which Felix later captured 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:49.160 in landscape paintings. We don't have a ton of painting 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.880 examples of his, but there are some that have been 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:53.760 attributed to him, and he tends to faint in the 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.720 very dark sort of moody way. But de Veki's most 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:01.280 famous achievement militarily was part of what's known as the 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:06.400 Chinkue Giornate di Milano or Five Days of Milan. So 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.200 the city of Milan, of course, has its own rich history, 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:13.280 dating back to four hundred BCE. Over the centuries, it 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:16.640 became a center of power as its financial and political 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:21.560 influence grew and became really cemented. There had often been 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:26.840 conflicts over Milan as various European powers sought to control it, 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:31.200 but that only intensified from the Middle Ages on. From 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.840 the end of the fifteenth century to the military action 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.560 in eighteen forty eight that made de Veki's reputation, Milan 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:44.680 was ruled by in order, France, Switzerland, Spain, France, Spain, Austria, France, Austria, 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:49.120 France and Austria again starting in eighteen fifteen. From eighteen 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.800 fifteen to eighteen forty eight, Austria controlled the city and 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.919 made it the capital of the Lombardy region. But on 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.799 March eighteenth, eighteen forty eight, the people of Milan rebelled 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:04.360 against the Austrian forces stationed there, and after five days 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:08.960 of fighting, the Austrians left. Milan was still legally part 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.560 of Austria for another eleven years, but the men who 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:16.200 had led the fighting were lauded as Italian heroes, and 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:20.400 Felix de Vechi had been among them. He was well educated, 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.480 well traveled, and seemed to be a man whose life 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:27.200 was on track for success. In the eighteen fifties, Felix 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.719 de Veki acquired a thirteen hectar that's roughly twenty acre 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.440 tract of land in Cortanova, and he envisioned a vacation 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.680 home for his family there. I read one account that 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:39.760 said that he had visited the area and was so 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.520 struck it's right there, like we said, forested and by 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:44.960 the mountains that he just knew he wanted to spend 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.360 time there because of his travels in his earlier years, 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.440 he had seen a lot of architecture from different cultures, 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:56.000 and he wanted something unique that would incorporate classical Eastern architecture, 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.359 borrowing motifs from the various styles he had seen, but 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.479 particularly the ones he had seen in India, and to 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.440 design this home, he hired a prominent architect by the 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:11.920 name of Alessandro Sidoli. Alessandro Sidoli was born in Cremona, Italy, 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:16.400 on July thirtieth, eighteen twelve. His family was not wealthy, 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.360 but Alessandro was an artistic child and his father encouraged 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.880 him to pursue art. He eventually attended architecture school in 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.880 Cremona and he learned technical drawing and then went to 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:32.479 design school. Next, he moved on to advanced architecture education 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:36.680 in Milan, where he attended the Brera Art Academy, and 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.760 he had distinguished himself. He earned a number of prizes 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.400 during this phase of his education. He was admitted as 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:46.120 a member to the Milan Academy of Fine Arts in 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:51.280 eighteen forty seven. In between design commissions, Alessandro started teaching 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:55.400 drawing lessons. By the eighteen fifties, when Deveki reached out 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.760 about this villa project, Sidoli had become well known and 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:04.160 highly respected for a lot of luxurious building projects in Italy. 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:09.039 The home that Alessandro Sidoli designed for de Veki is 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:13.440 a marvel of Neo Gothic opulence that borrows as requested 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.840 from multiple design styles, including Eastern Classical, but it does 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.720 so in a way that harmonizes all of them into 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:26.000 one cohesive style. It is designed specifically for its mountain setting, 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:30.280 and it almost blends into that setting despite being obviously 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:33.120 a fancy home, and part of that is because local 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:37.080 stone was used in its construction. The mansion features an 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:41.960 exterior that's defined by its pointed towers, arches, buttresses, and 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:45.680 rose windows. The towers, which rise up all around the 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:49.080 mansion's roof, were each designed with a specific view in 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:53.480 mind to take advantage of the home's elevated site, and 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.520 the surrounding area is beautiful, but it would have been 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:00.360 spectacular in the eighteen fifties when the home was built. 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:05.240 There was detailed landscaping and surrounding gardens, complete with a 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:09.200 pressurized fountain. They were designed to sort of extend the 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.280 design of the home. The exterior of the house was 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:15.640 painted red, and it still retains the nickname the Red House, 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.480 although today that paint has faded and more than half 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:22.200 of it has shipped away. Yeah, there are series as 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.480 to why it was painted red, whether that was just 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.280 something that de Vicki really loved, or if it had 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:31.320 some meaning or borrow from something he saw on his travels. 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.840 But we don't know. The interior of the house was 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:37.960 designed to be just as thoughtful and intricate as the exterior. 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.520 It is a three story structure. It consists of a basement, 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.319 a ground floor, and an upstairs floor. The basement was 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:47.960 a work area. The kitchen was down there, as well 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.760 as food storage and laundry areas, so basically the places 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.360 where the help would be on the ground level, where 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.640 all the areas where people would gather, including the dining 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.680 room and the guest bedrooms, were also on the ground floor, 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.280 and the upper floor was where Deveki's bedrooms and family 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:08.240 private spaces were. Initially, this home was also planned to 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:11.000 have an observatory on the top floor, but that was 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:14.040 never completed for a reason we are about to mention. 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:19.360 There are full wall frescoes and detailed would work. The 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.880 home was thoroughly modern for its time, with plumbing and heating. 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:26.480 Even the furniture was part of the grand design and 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.680 drew from the design education that Sidolei got as a 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:34.520 youngster and incorporated into his comprehensive rendering for the villa. 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:39.720 Construction began on the massive luxury project in eighteen fifty four, 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:45.760 but very deep into the construction process, Alessandro Sidolei died suddenly. 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.559 That left the team to continue building without his leadership. 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:54.240 This was when the observatory and some additional details were 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.560 omitted from the construction plan. Yeah, it had like another 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:00.440 year to go when he died. And once the villa 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:03.320 was completed, Felix de Veki and his family spent their 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:07.800 summers at the Cortanova property, and then, after less than 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:12.959 a decade in the house, unimaginable tragedy struck. Maybe we're 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.280 going to talk about what happened, what little we know, 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.240 and whether that is even true, after we pause for 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:31.560 a sponsor break. Okay. First, is the usual version of 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.280 the story regarding Villa Deeveki as it unfolds in most 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:39.160 places you will find online. In eighteen sixty two, Felix 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:41.680 de Veki was away from the villa at Cortanova on 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:45.080 a military action, but his wife and daughter were still there. 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.080 When the count returned to their vacation home after being away, 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:53.480 the scene before him was anyone's worst nightmare. His wife 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.160 was dead, she had been murdered. His daughter was nowhere 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.000 to be found. In the way this story is told 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.840 in English language sources, Devecki launched a year long investigation 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.800 before he reached a point of such despair that he 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.839 died by suicide. But this is another moment where I'm 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.360 invoking the Italian language Wikipedia page, because that story is 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:16.480 very different, And to be clear, I am not fluent 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.080 in Italian, and I ran it through a translator and 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.080 had a friend look at it. While his story there 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.600 is sad, it is not at all the trauma that 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:28.120 has been attached to the story in the murder kidnapping version. 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.800 So in the version in his Wikipedia page, Felix's wife 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:37.040 actually died in eighteen fifty one of presumably natural causes, 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:41.080 before this house was ever built, leaving him with two 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:43.800 young children to raise alone, a son and a daughter 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.920 who were born in eighteen forty six. In eighteen fifty 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.600 Felix did not die by suicide. He died from liver 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.480 disease in Milan in eighteen sixty two. So it seems 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.320 that the main story that's used as the groundwork for 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:02.360 haunting claims that Viladeveci is not really true at all. So, 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:06.800 knowing that this murder story is apparently unsubstantiated, it turns 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:09.960 into a fun exercise to kind of hunt down the 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:15.559 iterations of the murder of Devecki's wife, and we're specifically 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:19.360 not saying Carolina because she was already deceased at the 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.240 time this murder supposedly happened, and she was not a 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.000 murder victim. So with that out of the way, here 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:27.959 are some of the wilder variations on the murder story. 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:31.840 One is that the murder was particularly grizzly and that 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:36.680 the wife's face was possibly disfigured during it. One of 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:42.480 Holly's favorites is that the disappeared daughter was the murderer. Also, 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:46.120 some of the murder lore ties back to Deveki's status 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:49.040 as a patriot and a liberation hero, So there's this 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:54.120 suggestion that the murder and the kidnapping were politically motivated 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:57.079 and that they were part of a larger plot against 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:01.720 Deveki by his enemies and retribution for his various activities 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:05.400 on the part of the Italian National Guard. It does 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:10.080 seem that after Felix's death, which again seems to have 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:14.880 been strictly from liver disease, his brother Biagio which is 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.840 sometimes spelled with Justino on the end and sometimes in Io, 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.600 assumed ownership of the villa and custody of the children, 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.480 but Biajo, who did not share his brother's artistic vision, 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.640 made a number of alterations to the home, which shifted 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:32.920 its style to have fewer design touches borrowed from Eastern design. 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.480 The mansion is largely just as it was built in 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:39.800 terms of its basic structure, although it has had a 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:43.640 significant amount of degradation and collapse, but it stayed in 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.680 the de Vechi family, passing from Biago to his children 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.680 and so on for the next eighty years. By the 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:55.160 twentieth century, the house already had a reputation associated with 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:59.840 darkness and the occult, so much so that former po 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:05.400 podcast subject and well known occultist Alister Crowley visited and 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:09.160 stayed several nights at the villa. This would have been 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:11.600 during the time he was working on his book The 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:14.600 Diary of a Drug Fiend, which came out in nineteen 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:17.920 twenty two, because he was kicked out of Italy in 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.240 nineteen twenty three after one of his followers died in 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:27.640 Sicily under strange circumstances. Our Alister Crowley episode, which discusses 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.600 all of this, was published on October fourth of twenty 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.440 twenty one. And we just ran it as a Saturday classic. 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:38.680 Once Crowley became associated with the villa, the rumors about 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.840 this property exploded, all of which were very much in 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.240 line with the kind of talk that often accompanies stories 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.000 of Crowley. It seemed as though an endless string of 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:54.000 unsubstantiated accusations and rumors began. The house was said to 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.760 be used by Devians for massive orgies. Some versions of 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.160 this story say that even after Crowley had been and 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.720 booted from Italy, his followers would still go to the 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:06.240 villa and do this. Keep in mind, if you're thinking 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:10.560 of the timeline, Biago's descendants were still living there then, 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:14.320 so that doesn't seem very likely. Stories of murders on 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:17.840 the property started to circulate, as did claims that people 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:22.160 went to this property specifically to die by suicide throw 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:27.120 in some sacrifice stories. There are rumors that both humans 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:31.200 and animals were sacrificed there, and Villa Deveki became the 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:35.680 most haunted house in Italy by reputation, if not by evidence. 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.160 In the years just before World War Two, the family 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:44.360 moved out. The villa was reportedly empty in nineteen thirty eight. 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.280 The details of why they moved are not clear. After 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:51.520 the war, the Deveki family did not return to the home. 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:55.600 It changed owners several times over the next fifteen years, 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.960 although none of the subsequent owners ever lived. There's been 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:05.240 considered abandoned since nineteen sixty. Some sources indicated that the 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.360 property went up for auction a number of times and 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:12.800 received no bids, but Holly could not substantiate that. It 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:15.680 reportedly even reached a point where it was made available 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:19.800 to any potential owner if the person receiving the property 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:24.520 would legally agree to restore it, but the estimated cost 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.880 of that restoration is so high that nobody ever took 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:32.480 the offer. Additionally, the Italian Environment Fund has worked to 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:36.160 bring public awareness to the villa. Yeah, it's not clear, 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:37.920 and it's my fault because it's how I root it. 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.640 But that offer of like if you'll restore it was 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.800 literally like then you can have it for free, it's yours. Yeah, 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:49.480 similar to there are instances of places in Italy. There's 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:51.920 always those things you'll see circulated of like you could 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.440 buy a house for five hundred dollars and it's like, yes, 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.680 some of those exist, but you have to sign a 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.600 lot of paperwork that promises that you will restore it 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.760 and care of it. It requires five million euros of work. 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.840 Literally was I think the lowest estimate that I saw 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.399 for just getting this property to a point where it 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.600 was not going to be dangerous to people anymore with 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:19.000 six million dollars. And that's like bare bones, just fixing 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:21.920 the things that are about to fall, So nobody wanted 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:25.520 to do it. The home's twentieth century reputation as a 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:29.760 haunted place and Crowley's name specifically being connected to it, 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.040 has actually been the source of a lot of the 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:36.880 property's modern day problems. After Crowley's visit and even more 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.720 so after World War Two when it was empty, the 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:43.320 site became a destination for people interested in the occults 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:46.720 or in Crowley specifically, and a lot of them broke 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:49.720 into the mansion, and while they probably didn't have orgies 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:54.240 or sacrifice anything, they sure did vandalize it. And that 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:58.200 vandalism got worse and worse as the early issues went unrepaired, 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:00.680 and then things kind of spi world to a point 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.640 where literally, if you look at pictures, every interior wall 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.480 and many of the exterior surfaces have been spray painted 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:13.960 or just wilfully damaged the stories of ghost activity have persisted. 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:18.399 Locals claim that you can hear a piano playing in 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:22.200 the house every full moon. There is still a piano 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.800 in the house, although it has no legs and has collapsed. 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:29.440 It seems likely that the story of the piano playing 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:33.480 emerged after somebody trespassed in the abandoned house and saw it. 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:38.080 There stories circulate in the area and among tourists drawn 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:40.960 to the property that Count de Veki is still there 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:45.000 on the property, and there are claims that you can 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:49.040 hear a woman screaming tied to this murder story that 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.600 doesn't have any hard evidence. In two thousand and two, 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:56.360 an avalanche destroyed most of the neighboring homes, although Villa 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:01.480 Deveki sustained only minor damage, and this event only added 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.199 to its mystique as people started to say that the 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.840 house must have been spared due to some sort of 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:12.000 paranormal intervention. In twenty fifteen, there was a significant development 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:16.080 in Felix de Veki's story. He owned a manor house 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.520 in Row at the edge of Milan, and there his 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.840 travel diary from the early eighteen forties was found. This 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.160 was full of information about his travels. It was considered 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:31.320 a culturally significant find because it brought Deveki's inner thoughts 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.400 into focus after a lot of this information about him 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:38.840 had faded from the historical record. Additionally, it reveals a 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:43.040 lot about life in pre unification Italy and why Deveki 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:47.880 became so invested in his political stance of resistance against 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:53.000 countries that occupied Italian cities. He recognized the importance of 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:57.159 cultural identity in other countries and wanted to foster a 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:02.280 scenario where Italy could develop its own identity. The travel 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.800 journal became the inspiration and main feature of an exhibit 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:10.320 titled Caravan Journal the Rediscovered manuscript The Orient through the 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:14.719 Eyes of a Forgotten Milanese Patriot Felis de Veki, which 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:17.960 ran in the Villa of Berba in Row in October 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:21.919 of twenty fifteen. This exhibit was jointly sponsored by the 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:26.240 Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism, the Lombardy Region, the 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:30.280 Province of Milan and Expo twenty fifteen. In a twenty 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.280 eighteen interview with Atlas Obscura, a man named Joseppin Negri 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.600 joked that he was the ghost of Villadeveki. He said, quote, 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.760 the reality is there are no ghosts. The ghost was me. 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.320 Villadeveki was our life, our family. My great grandfather was 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:50.080 the villa's gardener, same as my grandfather. At our little home, 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.399 we used to organize cheerful dinners and lunches where we sang, 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.760 played music and laughed. In response to the idea that 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:00.359 the house is haunted and that a cold rich duols 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:03.879 were performed there, Negree dismissed it by frankly saying, quote, 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.000 it's all crap made up by crazy people. These people 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:09.280 would sneak into the villa at night and smash up 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.480 the doors. We decided to dress up like ghosts with 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:16.200 bed sheets in order to scare them off. We were organized. 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:18.360 I stayed at the door while my brother in law 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:21.920 hid upstairs. He got them running towards me and bam. 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:24.600 Boots were pretty common back then, so you could hear 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.159 the sound of me beating them tac tech. It was 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:31.480 a blast. Negree also mentioned punching one of his employees 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:34.600 in the face in a case of mistaken identity. He 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:37.159 thought the man was one of these intruders who had 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.639 snuck into the mansion, and he went to investigate, and 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:44.080 that is when the accidental punching happened. Negrey also kind 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.280 of sadly mentioned that he could no longer bear to 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:49.040 go inside the structure because it stayed after years of 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:52.639 vandalism and neglect really discussed him. He said, of the 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:55.879 once beautiful home, quote, to me, it was heaven on earth. 0:21:56.520 --> 0:22:00.520 Because of the many scary stories told about it has 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.639 drawn the interest of a lot of people curious about 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:08.600 its tragic history and spooky reputation. But there's another group 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:12.120 of people who have an interest in visiting, and that's architects. 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:15.399 It's said to be a pilgrimage for some architects to 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:20.159 visit the property and see just how impactful Sidoli's design 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:24.920 still is, even in this state of decay. Today, Villadeveki 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:28.120 is often touted strictly as a ghost house, but there 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:30.600 have been a number of efforts to preserve the villa. 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.040 In some cases, these have not been focused on attempting 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:37.000 to restore the site, as there's been so much vandalism 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:39.439 and degradation over the decades that it would be just 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:42.840 a monumental task that would involve the need for massive funding. 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:46.520 But as recently as twenty twenty three, there have been 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:51.359 interesting ideas about how Villadeveki could be managed and rehabilitated 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:56.359 going forward. In a dissertation titled Atheneum Adaptive Reuse of 0:22:56.440 --> 0:23:01.560 Villadeveki into a Public Library, author Moham and Am laid 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:05.080 out a potential plan for the site to be sustainably 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.240 adapted for modern use in a way that would control 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:12.320 the influx of visitors and prevent further damage. To be clear, 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:15.760 this is a dissertation, it's not like a governmental initiative, 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:19.760 but it outlines the way young architects might think about 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:23.400 spaces like Viladeveki and how there could be a way 0:23:23.520 --> 0:23:26.640 forward for them to have a functional life in the future. 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:29.800 For now, though this site is still in a very 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:35.000 precarious state, there is wire around it to prevent unwanted visitors, 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:38.720 although whether that's effective in keeping anyone out is pretty debatable. 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:42.359 There are lots of very recent photographs from inside the house, 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:46.200 so obviously people are getting in. The government also has 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.320 prevented anyone from working on the house, in part because 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:53.600 of its hazardous position and the likelihood that another avalanche 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:56.679 or rock slide might happen in the area. So it 0:23:56.720 --> 0:24:01.080 seems unlikely that this particular mansion will be developed anytime 0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:04.520 in the near future as a public space. It turns 0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:09.720 out there is actually another abandoned Philadeveki with its own 0:24:09.760 --> 0:24:12.760 interesting history, and we will get to that one after 0:24:12.880 --> 0:24:15.280 we hear from the sponsors that keep Stuffy miss in 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:27.720 history class going. We mentioned before the break that there 0:24:27.840 --> 0:24:32.040 is another Villadeveki, and this one is located not in Italy, 0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:35.320 though it has ties to Italy. It's located in Greece, 0:24:35.359 --> 0:24:38.640 on the island of Rhodes, and it is historically significant, 0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:42.560 and that historical tie is to fascism. It was built 0:24:42.600 --> 0:24:44.840 by a man who shared a last name with Felix 0:24:44.880 --> 0:24:47.680 de Veki, although it is unclear if they were related. 0:24:48.160 --> 0:24:50.679 I have seen some write ups that suggest they are 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:54.320 distantly related, others that say they are not. I think 0:24:54.320 --> 0:24:56.480 it's a fair bet that's somewhere along the line. They 0:24:56.480 --> 0:24:58.639 may have an ancestor in common, but we don't know. 0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:01.879 Chase the a Marie de Vechi was born into a 0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:06.000 middle class family on November fourteenth, eighteen eighty four, in 0:25:06.160 --> 0:25:11.120 Cassallee Manferrato that is also in northern Italy, although it's 0:25:11.160 --> 0:25:14.880 on the opposite side of Milan, about one hundred kilometers 0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:18.520 or sixty two miles southwest of it. As a teenager, 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:21.760 he enrolled in the Naval Academy, but did not stay there. 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:25.640 He enrolled in law school instead at the University of Turin, 0:25:25.760 --> 0:25:29.439