Modern Age

If the medieval period had marked the fate of the Castle of San Venanzo as closely related to the continuous taxes and harassment imposed by the substantial immobility of the Papal States, in the first half of the 18th century another large family, that of the Faina, suddenly breaks into the life of the Castle of San Venanzo making shocking changes to the economy of the area but, at the same time, laying the foundations for the destruction of the castle itself.

From the progenitor Filippo (late XVII century) building contractor from Montegabbione, to the greedy Angelo (1759-1843), to the forward-looking Venanzo (1787-1868), a rational strategy of marriages of convenience later turned into a targeted policy of investments for the purchase of agricultural land, practically at a sale price, from the Papal States to then make them fertile and productive with great reclamation works.

All this soon allowed Faina to acquire the noble title of Conti (1848) and to obtain with the Count Zeffirino Faina (1826-1917) first the hand of Napoleon’s granddaughter Luciana Bonaparte Valentini and then the title of senator of the Kingdom of Italy thanks to the patriotic merits acquired in the Risorgimento struggles in 1859 in Perugia. On the other hand, the grandson Eugenio Faina (1846-1926), son of his brother Claudio (1812-1874) killed by bandits, was responsible for the reclamation of the lands in Spante and San Venanzo and the great innovations implemented together with his uncle, with the introduction of the first experimental vineyards, the foundation of the Faculty of Agriculture of Perugia and the diffusion of Faina agricultural schools on the national territory.