Casa Berardi-Tomba

This solitary structure stands on steep ground near a spring, a simple block of three rectangular levels. The semi-basement, with two rooms, was for animals; the ground floor, a single chamber, contains a masonry staircase leading up to the living quarters. Its main façade features a round-arched stone portal. There are no sanitary facilities, and the building is in mediocre repair.

This is a tomba, or rural tomb, of a type once common in the Italian countryside, a multi-purpose farm building that housed both livestock and people, often on a slope to make the most of the land. The stone arch and plain volumes speak to a practical, unadorned tradition of rural construction. One imagines the animals below, the family above, and the spring nearby providing water. Today, it stands as a weathered, slightly forlorn reminder of a hard-working, self-contained way of life, its modest story told in its three storeys and its silence.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.