THE   FARMHOUSE

The Tuscany farmhouse, of which we are concerned, is in the area of Val di Chiana and Val d’Orcia. Every part of Tuscany has it own type of farmhouse features, due to local conditions.

The various classifications which we are taking into consideration, are based on three categories;

1. Rural houses with the kitchen on the first floor distinguished by:

o An external staircase

o An internal staircase

o Without a staircase.

2. Rural habitations with the kitchen nearly always on the ground floor as in:

o Houses for one or more families

o Houses with an open entrance hall

o Houses with separate stables and haylofts.

3. The house separated from the farm buildings.

Other types of farmhouse exist in Tuscany (with columbarium, porticos with or without loggias), but as they are rare in the area south of Siena, they have not been taken in consideration.

The farmhouse was isolated in the middle of the farm, where the sharecropper cultivated the fields. It was built to house the family, in many cases over the stables. Therefore, often there were no barns, so products for the family had to be conserved in one of the rooms.

The older style of house had two rectangular sloping roofs while the more modern had four. Nearly always the roofs consisted of alternate oval and flat tiles. Slabs of stone were used in the mountains. In the Val d’Arno and the Val di Chiana Aretina the pigeon coop was fairly common but was sometimes found in this area.

If there was an external staircase, it lead from the farmyard, to a covered or uncovered loggia or terrace, where the door opened into the kitchen which then lead to the bedrooms. Instead an internal staircase lead directly to the bedrooms, as the kitchen was on the ground - floor.

The kitchen was the most important room - the heart of the house - where the family met for meals and in bad weather, or on long dark evenings, they gathered around the fireplace. This was in the centre of the room and was so big it could accommodate up to ten people. The kitchen was furnished with a table, chairs, a kneading trough, where the bread dough was made, and the “palchetto”, a shelf over the sink where the dishes were put. The kitchen floor, like all the other rooms, was paved in brick.

In the bedrooms, apart from the bed, usually made of iron, there was a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. Before the introduction of bathrooms, every bedrooms had its jug and basin, on an iron tripod, for washing.

The oven, where bread was baked at least once a week, was indispensable in family life. It was usually found under the external staircase.

The outbuilding consisted of the sheds and stables. Those housing the animals such as oxen or horses (both liable to suffer cold) faced the east or were on the ground floor of the house. For the mules the stables faced the north and were well lit. also the pigsties faced the north with a plot of land where they could scratch about. The sheep pens were often far from the house as they did not suffer from the cold.

The poultry pen was always near the house so that they could scratch around the farmyard.

The hayloft was away from the house to avoid the possibility of fire. It usually consisted of a shed or dry stone building, but rarely of brick. On hills or mountains where hay was scarce it was piled into haystacks.

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