A family, a land, a story
The Murogrosso estate belongs to the Calabresi family, active in agriculture in Lazio and Umbria for over three centuries. Cerveteri (Rome) is where these activities began and where they have continued the longest.As early as the 17th century, records in Cerveteri show the presence and civic involvement of Matteo Calabresi, tenant of the Princes Ruspoli. His successors became “country merchants,” as those who used land for livestock farming were called in Lazio at that time, when cattle raising was carried out extensively in the Roman countryside. North of Rome, between the Tyrrhenian coast and the hilly hinterland, stretched several thousand hectares of the semi-swampy plains of the Lazio Maremma, bordered by the mouth of the Tiber to the south and the Santa Marinella promontory to the north, suitable for grazing and wild cattle breeding. Matteo’s roles as breeder and civic administrator were continued by his son Paolo and then his grandson Filippo (1739–1807). In 1797, during the brief Roman Republic, Filippo was “Edile,” that is, mayor of Cerveteri, as seen in the orders from the French troops stationed at Palo to deliver the livestock necessary for their sustenance.
Of Matteo’s children, Rosa (1743–1805) is especially remembered in Cerveteri for her charitable work assisting agricultural laborers, then called “monelli,” and for her ascetic life guided by the letters of St. Paul of the Cross.
Among Filippo’s descendants, Filippo, mayor of Cerveteri for several periods in the 19th century, is particularly notable. He was responsible for an important renovation of the historic center within the city walls, the creation of the main square, a new town hall, and the public fountain. On the same square, instead of several buildings he owned, he built his most significant residence (Palazzo Calabresi). During the nineteenth century, various agricultural plots around Cerveteri were also purchased, where olive groves and vineyards were planted, as well as large wooded areas (coppice and Mediterranean scrub), suitable for breeding wild Maremmana cattle. The agricultural activity continued until the 1970s in various hilly plots of vineyards and olive groves.
In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, a large portion (over 500 hectares) of the Castelluccio plain in Umbria was acquired, which, due to its altitude, allowed for summer grazing of the flocks. In Castelluccio, Filippo Calabresi also built a beautiful small palace, mainly used as a hunting base, which was unfortunately completely destroyed during the earthquakes that struck Umbria in 2016 (August 24 and October 30).
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the activity of “country merchants” in Lazio and Umbria remained economically dominant and was carried out with notable success by Filippo with cattle and sheep breeding. The construction of Palazzo Calabresi in Rome in 1882 dates from this period, designed by Gaetano Koch, on Via XX Settembre, the new street opened between Porta Pia and the Quirinale after the annexation to the Kingdom.
Paolo Calabresi, Filippo’s brother, is remembered for starting the archaeological excavations of the Banditaccia Etruscan necropolis in Cerveteri, with a license from the Papal Government (Pope Gregory XVI). These excavations, subsequently continued by state administrations to the present day, have produced one of the most important collections of Etruscan artifacts from the 8th to the 4th centuries BC (including the unique Calabresi Urn and a famous double-handled bucchero amphora), now largely displayed in a special room in the Vatican Museums, in the Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome, and in a small museum created in the medieval fortress of Cerveteri.
In the agricultural business, Filippo was succeeded by Francesco, who sadly passed away prematurely in 1928, and then by his children who, having ended the extensive breeding activity, purchased a large flat area on the left bank of the Tiber downstream of Rome, reclaimed it and organized it as sharecropping, building roads, farmhouses, company buildings and the school. After Francesco, in the second half of the last century, agricultural activity in Cerveteri continued thanks to the work of his sons Massimo and Ugo, who together acquired and managed a livestock farm in Campagnano (Rome) for over twenty years.
