We are at the end of 1200; while Pietrone is away from the castle to participate with his troops in some military action, the castle is attacked by opposing militias led by the young Lancillotto Anguissola, an old love of Rosania, opposed by her family.
The castle falls after a strenuous defense, and the victor threatens severe reprisals. The young castellana throws herself at his feet, interceding for the life of the vanquished; the two recognize each other and the ancient love awakens; so that night Rosania fails in her duties as a bride.
Later, however, Lancelot, recalled by other military enterprises, leaves the castle with his soldiers. Pietrone returns who, informed by a faithful maid of his named Verzuvia of his wife's betrayal, plans the terrible punishment we have said: under the pretext of building a safe hiding place in case of danger, he has a cave dug in the living rock under the foundations of the castle; then, one night, having removed all possible witnesses, he puts his young wife to sleep with a drugged wine and locks her up; the entrance to the "cursed room" is walled up and carefully hidden.
The girl dies in this horrible way, and her spirit remains tied to the place of her unhappy existence, manifesting itself on certain nights with moans and groans that since then would have often been heard by those who lived in the castle; the diaphanous figure of a young woman dressed in white who wandered in the park or in certain rooms of the castle would also sometimes be seen.
In some rooms of the main body a figure of a rather petite young woman has recently appeared several times, with her hair gathered up by a veil and a long white dress; the apparition, which has been seen not only by the owners but also by others, including visitors, goes away, as silently as it arrived, entering a wall, or vanishes as soon as one tries to look at it more carefully.
durante un evento alla ricerca di presenze, è apparso questo bimbo alle spalle di Gianfranco Gibelli
con Sky Presenze è arrivata una equipe di storici e studiosi, oltre al sensitivo Umberto di Grazia. In quell'occasione è apparso un druida con tanto di bastone caduceo. Noi sentiamo spesso il suo passo marcato dall'appoggio del bastone nella sala dell'organo
durante un evento alla ricerca di presenze, è apparso questo bimbo alle spalle di Gianfranco Gibelli
The mystery
The images shown here were taken by visiting adult tourists, or by primary school kids visiting with their teachers or by experts with special equipment. We or our guides were always present and they were shown to us immediately, and we believe that there were no manipulations, because there would not have been the time necessary to do them.
The figures that emerge are always 3: one young female, one very old and one male
Like all self-respecting castles, Gropparello also has its legends and mysteries: we talk about secret passages, walled rooms, "well of the cut" (ie those pitfalls consisting of wells with sharp blades stuck in the walls, where the unfortunates that the lord wanted to "disappear" or the enemies were thrown), etc.
Certainly there were prisons, which were to be found in some rooms under the body intended for the garrison, which can be accessed through low and narrow tunnels, which suggest their function of hindering the escape of prisoners (currently this part cannot be visited for reasons safety).
Of course, there is also talk of a ghost; that of the unhappy Rosania Fulgosio, who would have been walled up alive by her husband, Pietrone da Cagnano, for having betrayed him during his absence from the castle.
Investigations by Gianfranco G. Gibelli
THE AUTHOR
Gianfranco Giorgio Gibelli was born in Milan, where he graduated from the University of Mathematics, a subject that fascinated him from the philosophical point of view as the "art of reasoning", according to the Renaissance humanistic conception. Passionate lover of music, philosophy, psychology, esotericism and fascinated by all the mysterious aspects of history, he wrote his first "autobiographical thriller" during high school, based on a mysterious fact in which he had been involved the previous summer. After a short experience as a volunteer assistant at the chair of Mathematical Analysis and teaching in high school, he joined a large multinational IT company dealing with staff training. In 1993 the meeting with the Gropparello Castle took place: it is “love” at first sight; he manages to buy it by going there to live with his wife Maria Rita and with his daughters Chiara and Francesca and dedicating himself to enhancing the historic residence with various activities and investigating its still numerous mysterious aspects. The Invisible Company is his second published novel.
il primo romanzo
Investigation into a disturbing presence - The Legend of Rosania Fulgosio
Giorgio and Margherita have lived together for about twenty years in Milan, where she moved from Viterbo and married, and where their two daughters, Maria and Giovanna, now "grown up", were born and raised: fourteen and thirteen respectively.
Giorgio, with a degree in mathematics but with multiple interests ranging from philosophy to ancient music, from medieval art to esotericism, works in a large IT company; Margherita, deals with the restoration of ancient musical instruments; their life takes place regularly, in the big city, perhaps with a… dream in the drawer: moving to the countryside and living more in contact with nature. But the problems are many: the convenience of reaching the workplace, the school of the daughters, the difficulty of finding what is in their dreams: an ancient house, with fireplaces, frescoes, a centuries-old park around, and, what more matters… compatible with their finances. And so the idea is abandoned ..
One day, however, an unforeseeable fact arrives to upset the existence of the family. Margherita accidentally learns that they are selling an ancient castle in Piacentino; with inexplicable insistence he wants at all costs to go and see him, and, as if suddenly a superior will had taken possession of them, the decision is immediately taken: despite the apparent absurdity of the thing, despite the thousand difficulties, that castle will be their.
But something non-human really seems to reside within those walls, where a series of incomprehensible facts, traces, messages increasingly involve the unaware and bewildered family. Until the arrival of a scholar of paranormal phenomena, the discovery of an ancient diary and the intervention of a medium, make our people aware of an inconceivable and shocking truth ...
Changing only the names of the characters but not the events, the author, current owner of the castle of Gropparello, tells in first person the incredible story of which he was the protagonist
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INVESTIGATION ON A WORRING PRESENCE
The legend of Rosania Fulgosio
By Gianfranco Giorgio Gibelli
Ed. Tep - Piacenza, year 2004 - pp. 345 cost € 15,50
il secondo romanzo
The Invisible Company
What pushed Gianfranco Gibelli, an employee of a computer company, to abandon the now consolidated routine of his Milanese life to embark on this adventure can only be understood if one accepts that there are passions stronger than reason: those shots of the mind and of the heart, attributable to the classic love at first sight, which convince you - perhaps not exactly in a moment - to pack up, load the family into the car, and change everything. Of course, it also took the will - or perhaps the complicity - of his wife Rita, restorer of ancient instruments, to give life to a company that soon proved to be a source of continuous discoveries, so much so as to make clear the need to collect them in a book .
"We knew that the Castle had belonged to prestigious families since the Carolingian era - says the author - but only over time have we discovered other types of secrets and legends, such as that of Rosania Fulgosio, a castellan who died at the hands of her husband Pietro da Cagnano" . As can be seen from the novel, the new inhabitants of the castle are not people who are easily influenced. In particular, a mathematician who likes to philosophize like Gibelli cannot accept without a fight that he is dealing with what some would call ghosts. And yet, truly inexplicable things were happening between the halls and dark corners of Gropparello. “From the attic, through a very old roof, we could hear a heavy step and a classic dragging sound. But there were no footprints in the dust on the floor. The equipment of the service personnel was constantly disappearing in a mysterious way. It was also becoming a problem to find someone who was willing to work here ».
It goes without saying that these and other episodes are only part of the events described in a novel which - as Roberta Manuali of Bastogilibri assures us - can be read in one go and represents an opportunity to get to know a place a little more deeply. which - crowded with spirits of every age - seems to have always been there and perhaps even before its very existence, since the Celts had chosen the land as a place of worship, in the 4th century BC. But this is another story. Or perhaps one of the many from "The Invisible Company".
Gropparello Castle, one of the oldest castles in Italy. In 1994 Gianfranco Gibelli, author of the novel, became the owner of this splendid fortress, and… of its mysteries.
The Castle, as it later became known, was "inhabited" by strange presences, with which he and his family soon had to learn to live together. The author narrates the legend of the young castellana Rosania and her death perhaps at the hands of her husband Pietro da Cagnano in his first autobiographical novel, Investigation of a disturbing presence. But slowly, over the years, a much broader and much denser vision of meanings came to superimpose itself on the few historical truths known so far. Did Pietrone really kill his wife out of jealousy? Or are that disappearance and the ensuing events linked to more serious reasons? Did Pietrone really leave for a Crusade, at the invitation of the Church? What secret is she hiding in her life from that moment on? Why half a century later did Bishop Fulgosio, a descendant of Rosania, take possession of the castle and place it in his family's heritage? Why did the Nazis, passionate about esotericism, forcefully occupy the castle during the war? Why did they brick a substantial part of the ancient cellars? What is really hiding behind these walls? ...
There are many questions whose answers remain hidden behind the veil of minute history, the one without witnesses… shipwrecked in the mists of time. But only those who live, love and try to deeply understand this fascinating and ancient place can perhaps find a new truth in intuition and living with it.
THE AUTHOR
Gianfranco Giorgio Gibelli was born in Milan, where he graduated from the University of Mathematics, a subject that fascinated him from the philosophical point of view as the "art of reasoning", according to the Renaissance humanistic conception. Passionate lover of music, philosophy, psychology, esotericism and fascinated by all the mysterious aspects of history, he wrote his first "autobiographical thriller" during high school, based on a mysterious fact in which he had been involved the previous summer. After a short experience as a volunteer assistant at the chair of Mathematical Analysis and teaching in high school, he joined a large multinational IT company dealing with staff training. In 1993 the meeting with the Gropparello Castle took place: it is “love” at first sight; he manages to buy it by going there to live with his wife Maria Rita and with his daughters Chiara and Francesca and dedicating himself to enhancing the historic residence with various activities and investigating its still numerous mysterious aspects. The Invisible Company is his second published novel.
Author: GIANFRANCO G. GIBELLI
THE INVISIBLE COMPANY
EDITOR BastogiLibri
Price: 20.00 euros
Pages: 432
Format: 15 x 21, Paperback
ISBN / EAN: 978-88-5501-001-6
Series: Narrative Paths