GeniusLoci
Brola is not a locality but an ancient word (from the Celtic Brògilos, garland, to the late medieval Latin Brolum) that refers to a little hamlet assembled around a courtyard encircled by hedges or protected by walls. In the Apennines these settlements developed on rocky outcrops where it was easier to lay the foundations of buildings: a main building where the family of the local gentry lived and, ringing it, the minor buildings called “barchesse” or barns that housed the employees and their families, the animals and the storehouses. All around them were the cultivated fields, the vineyards, the vegetable gardens, the woods where firewood was gathered for the kitchen and for heating. This is the “genius loci”, the spirit of the place that creates a continuity between past and present.
