This Door is Made for Talking

Since before Ghiberti, Italy’s doors have been vying for attention with beautiful colors, ornate design and heavy-handers knockers.  Florence tends to rank top of Italy’s best doors and has even been featured in film like Joe Medeiro’s 2007 Doors of Florence and literature like Andrew Lowosky’s Doorbells of Florence. But any visitor to the Italian peninsula will tell you that sometimes small towns hide the most beautiful of Italian doors and door decoration.

From the side streets of Lazio, Mary Jane Cryan of Elegantetruria.com writes about Doors Made for Talking.

We often see Italian  doorways pictured  on  calendars and  postcards  as icons of “picturesque Italy”, but there is more than meets the eye.  Old doors  give us a glimpse into the past, a look at the lifestyle  and hint at what was important to  people  of that time.  And for those learning Italian, a whole new vocabulary is gained from door terminology.

Take the catenaccio, a cantina door with sliding bar and system of closure with a giant iron key and lock,  and a huge step forward from the  battered cantina  that no longer  holds wine.  The interior of  old doors gives us a look into the past with a precious  patina of long ago.  Note the  letter “P” engraved  in the wood which was not visible to the naked eye–a reminder that the door led to the cantina of Pietro Cima.

Instead of doorbells, gorgeously detailed  bronze batocchi decorated doors .  Besides the practical use of resounding a hearty knock , batocchi  reflected  contemporary  fashion  and family status.  The sphinx-like heads from this door in Viterbo’s center dates around  the Napoleonic  invasion of Egypt, 1798-1801, while the Renaissance- style  bronze  batocchi on my front door reflects their Tuscan provenance.

This  doorway in Tuscania’s historic center has water bottles  set all around for a specific, not very glamorous reason. Can anyone guess why?  Please send us your ideas!