The Origins of the Manor

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Descrizione

Land registry records from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries provide the earliest evidence of a “manor house” in Miradolo in the 1600s, with a vast estate, vineyards, and orchards, belonging to the Macello family. Although they were not lords of a fief, the family had landed property throughout the local area.

In 1759, Giovanni Battista Macello changed the family name to Massel and acquired the Marquessate of Caresana.
In the late eighteenth century, his son, Maurizio Massel, the second Marquess of Caresana, began work on the renovation and extension of the rustic manor in Miradolo, transforming it into a stately aristocratic home. A garden of delights was created nearby the building in a “formal” or “Renaissance” style, with vineyards, an orchard, and a fishpond, while the surrounding estate was farmed for food and animal fodder.
The renovation works were stopped short, unfortunately, by the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars, when the estate was raided and sacked.