 main index © Jeff Matthews 2002-2012 entry Mar 2010
Palazzo Penne (photo, right) is one of these. It is at a small square called Piazza Teodoro Monticelli, not far from the church of Santa Maria la Nova, and was built around the year 1400 by Antonio da Penne, the secretary to Ladislao of Durazzo, ruler of Naples (see "Dynasties" for a time-line of dynastic rule). The building is easily distinguished by the Tuscan-type ashlar facade, one of the few buildings in Naples to have such. It was inhabited as recently as the 1970s and apparently is still lived in by some squatters. The building is in the throes of an on-again/off-again restoration project potentially financed by UNESCO as an historical monument worth saving. For the past five years or so, the property has been the subject of a tug-of-war between private parties and the Orientale University, which would like to have it restored as a site for classrooms. At this point, all you can say is that the place is a totally degraded mess.
Local
mythologists claim to see the image of the devil—or at
least a gargoyley-looking critter—in one of the
patterns of the facade. Each individual protruding
ashlar brick has a pattern, usually a fleur-de-lis,
the symbol of the Angevin dynasty, which ruled Naples
when the building was put up. Additionally, along the
top of the facade is a row of 13 trefoil arches. The
sixth one from the right (detail, above photo) has
such an image. As far as I can tell, it is unique
among the patterns on the facade and was presumably
put there by the original owner. Technically, the
figure is called a grotesque
and not a gargoyle
(which in the precise terminolgy of architecture
applies only to waterspouts, grotesque or not); in any
case, such grotesque figures were common as good-luck
charms on medieval buildings all over Europe. They are
not uncommon in Naples. |
Many of the
buildings that you see in the historic center of
Naples along via dei Tribunali or Spaccanapoli are
from the 1500s and 1600s, built at a time when the 
The
most interesting thing about Palazzo Penne is the
legend connected with it. Local lore calls the palazzo
“the devil’s building.” It seems that Antonio Penne
decided to impress the woman he was wooing with a new
home that would be built in a single night. He did
this with the help of the devil—in exchange for his
own immortal soul, however. The contract stipulated
that the devil, before taking Antonio’s soul, was
required to count all of the grains of wheat strewn
from a sack onto the courtyard within the building.
Clever Antonio, however, threw a goodly amount of
pitch into the sack, fusing the individual grains of
wheat into an amorphous mess, impossible to count. The
devil went and hid himself in the well in the center
of the courtyard, promising revenge. There have always
been other wells in the courtyard, but none in the
center, which fact was presumably enough to put your
average medieval home-owner at ease. Just an old
legend—no well, no devil! Recent work on the building,
however, appears to have discovered another well right
where the devil said he would be waiting.