Villa de Vecchi

Today’s topic is an abandoned mansion, but it was once a gorgeous and luxurious home designed for a prominent citizen of northern Italy. It’s often described as haunted and as having a dark history, but there are some interesting contradictions regarding that story.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch. OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 0:34Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx, listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:05Tracy V. Wilson?

  Whether you're calling the wise women in your life, video calling your girlfriends across the country, or checking in on someone who always knows how to make you smile, staying connected matters. Those small conversations, shared laughs, and quick hellos are what keep relationships strong even when life gets busy. Some of the most life-giving conversations start with just a phone call. That's why AT&T guarantees the network you can rely on, so you can focus on the moments and people that matter most. That's the AT&T Guarantee. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details. The Old Gays are back with Silver Linings, their lovable podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio

• 1:46Tracy V. Wilson?

  in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune in to Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:08Holly Frey?

  Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 2:19Holly Frey?

  Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey.

• 2:21Tracy V. Wilson?

  And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

• 2:24Holly Frey?

  So I wanted to do an episode on a haunted place. And so I just started kind of trawling the internet for lists of supposedly haunted places. And one of them came up over and over, and photos of it are so beautiful and super intriguing. Spoiler alert, I think I don't believe in haunted places very much these days. We'll talk about why. Today's topic is an abandoned mansion, which has some very colorful nicknames. It's called the Red House, the Witch's House, or even the Ghost House. But it was once a gorgeous and very luxurious mansion designed for a prominent citizen of northern Italy. And it's often described

• 3:06Holly Frey?

  as haunted and having this dark history. Sometimes it's, you know, like, the brutal murder house. I have good news if that makes you feel squeamish. There are some interesting contradictions regarding that story. So this episode is definitely going to make our skeptics happy. But wait, you get a little bit of a twofer. We'll explain why at the end. The last segment is about a related topic.

• 3:37Tracy V. Wilson?

  So, the municipality of Cortinova in northern Italy sits about 37 miles or 60 kilometers north of Milan. It's about 7.2 miles or 11.6 kilometers southeast of Belano on the eastern shore of Lake Como. This is an absolutely beautiful area of the country. It's lush with forests, but it is also home to a structure that is sometimes called the most haunted home in all of Italy. And that is Villa de Vecchi.

• 4:09Holly Frey?

  So to talk about Villa de Vecchi, we'll set the scene with the original owner, Felice de Vecchi, who is also called Felix, which is what we'll call him by. But this particular piece of the episode gets a big fat caveat because there is not a ton of information about Felix de Vecchi available. The only resource that I could find initially that gave any of his biographical information was the Italian Wikipedia page for him. Normally, we would never use Wikipedia. And there is a little more flexibility with a Halloween episode, but even so, not usually a place we would go to. However, I did pull his birth date from there. It did later get verified by something else, but he was born on February 12, 1816.

• 4:54Holly Frey?

  And there's some more information we're going to talk about later from that Wikipedia page that I think is important to telling his story. But de Vecchi was an artist. He was born into a wealthy family, but he also became a decorated hero in the Italian National Guard.

• 5:10Tracy V. Wilson?

  In his late twenties, de Vecchi was living in an Italy that was not yet unified. And he went on a long trip, starting in 1841, that took him through Turkey, Persia, India, and Egypt. This journey was one that left a significant impression on de Vecchi, who was deeply interested in learning about the cultures of the places he visited. Several years after this trip in 1844, Count de Vecchi married a woman named Carolina Francetti de Ponti. The two of them went on a long trip for their honeymoon. They traveled around to various locations throughout Italy, some of which Felix later captured in landscape paintings.

• 5:53Holly Frey?

  We don't have a ton of painting examples of his, but there are some that have been attributed to him, and he tends to paint in a very dark, sort of moody way. But de Vecchi's most famous achievement militarily was as part of what's known as the Cinque giornate di Milano, or Five Days of Milan. So the city of Milan, of course, has its own rich history dating back to 400 BCE. Over the centuries, it became a center of power as its financial and political influence grew and became really cemented. There had often been conflicts over Milan as various European powers sought to control it, but that only intensified from the Middle Ages on.

• 6:38Holly Frey?

  From the end of the 15th century to the military action in 1848 that made Dvecky's reputation, Milan was ruled by, in order, France, Switzerland, Spain, France, Spain, Austria, France, Austria, France, and Austria again, starting in 1815.

• 6:55Tracy V. Wilson?

  From 1815 to 1848, Austria controlled the city and made it the capital of the Lombardy region. But on March 18th, 1848, the people of Milan rebelled against the Austrian forces stationed there, and after five days of fighting, the Austrians left. Milan was still legally part of Austria for another 11 years, but the men who had led the fighting were lauded as Italian heroes, and Felix Dvecky had been among them. He was well-educated, well-traveled, and seemed to be a man whose life was on track for success.

• 7:32Holly Frey?

  In the 1850s, Felix Dvecky acquired a 13 hectare, that's roughly 20-acre, tract of land in Cortanova, and he envisioned a vacation home for his family there. I read one account that said that he had visited the area and was so struck, it's right there, like we said, forested and by the mountains, that he just knew he wanted to spend time there. Because of his travels in his earlier years, he had seen a lot of architecture from different cultures, and he wanted something unique that would incorporate classical Eastern architecture, borrowing motifs from the various styles he had seen, but particularly the ones he had seen in India. And to design this home, he hired a prominent architect by the name of Alessandro Sidoli.

• 8:15Tracy V. Wilson?

  Alessandro Sidoli was born in Cremona, Italy, on July 30th, 1812.

• 8:22Tracy V. Wilson?

  His family was not wealthy, but Alessandro was an artistic child and his father encouraged him to pursue art. He eventually attended architecture school in Cremona and he learned technical drawing and then went to design school. Next, he moved on to advanced architecture education in Milan, where he attended the Brera Art Academy and he had distinguished himself. He earned a number of prizes during this phase of his education. He was admitted as a member to the Milan Academy of Fine Arts in 1847. In between design commissions, Alessandro started teaching drawing lessons. By the 1850s, when De Vecchi reached out about this villa project, Sidoli had become

• 9:05Tracy V. Wilson?

  well-known and highly respected for a lot of luxurious building projects in Italy.

• 9:11Holly Frey?

  The home that Alessandro Sidoli designed for De Vecchi is a marvel of neo-Gothic opulence that borrows, as requested, from multiple design styles, including Eastern Classical, but it does so in a way that harmonizes all of them into one cohesive style. It is designed specifically for its mountain setting and it almost blends into that setting despite being obviously a fancy home. And part of that is because local stone was used in its construction. The mansion features an exterior that's defined by its pointed towers, arches, buttresses, and rose windows. The towers, which rise up all around the mansion's roof, were each designed with a

• 9:55Holly Frey?

  specific view in mind to take advantage of the home's elevated site.

• 9:59Tracy V. Wilson?

  And the surrounding area is beautiful, but it would have been spectacular in the 1850s when the home was built. There was detailed landscaping and surrounding gardens, complete with a pressurized fountain. They were designed to sort of extend the design of the home. The exterior of the house was painted red and it still retains the nickname The Red House, although today that paint has faded and more than half of it has chipped away.

• 10:27Holly Frey?

  Yeah, there are theories as to why it was painted red, whether that was just something that Devecky really loved, or if it had some meaning or borrow from something he saw in his travels, but we don't know. The interior of the house was designed to be just as thoughtful and intricate as the exterior. It is a three-story structure. It consists of a basement, a ground floor, and an upstairs floor. The basement was a work area. The kitchen was down there, as well as food storage and laundry areas. So basically, the places where the help would be. On the ground level were all the areas where people would gather, including the dining room, and the guest bedrooms were also on the ground floor. And the upper floor was where Devecky's bedrooms and family private spaces were.

• 11:13Holly Frey?

  Initially, this home was also planned to have an observatory on the top floor, but that was never completed for a reason we are about to mention.

• 11:21Tracy V. Wilson?

  There are full-wall frescoes and detailed woodwork. The home was thoroughly modern for its time with plumbing and heating. Even the furniture was part of the grand design and drew from the design education that Sidoli got as a youngster and incorporated into his comprehensive rendering for the villa. Construction began on the massive luxury project in 1854, but very deep into the construction process, Alessandro Sidoli died suddenly. That left the team to continue building without his leadership. This was when the observatory and some additional details were omitted from the construction plan.

• 12:03Holly Frey?

  Yeah, it had like another year to go when he died. And once the villa was completed, Felix Devecky and his family spent their summers at the Cortenova property. And then, after less than a decade in the house, unimaginable tragedy struck. Maybe. We're going to talk about what happened, what little we know, and whether that is even true, after we pause for a sponsor break.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 12:58Speaker 04

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 13:01Tracy V. Wilson?

  Hey, everybody. It's Tracy from Stuff You Missed in History Class. That's Alan Goya, a planning engineer at AT&T. He's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, defining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  It was going to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 13:29Tracy V. Wilson?

  That includes Field Services Manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 13:36Speaker 05

  Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.

• 13:42Tracy V. Wilson?

  And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.

• 13:45Speaker 05

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data is flowing is a beautiful thing.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  With the fan's experience, it's incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 13:53Tracy V. Wilson?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love. Connecting changes everything. AT&T. So you're considering getting a home security system, but you want something that fits your space. Well, with ADT Blue, it's easy to customize a system that's right for you and set it up yourself. Just pick the kit and monitoring plan that makes sense for your home. Let's say you're worried about package theft. The ADT Plus app can walk you through setting up a new doorbell camera kit. Once it's installed, ADT Pros can help you keep tabs on it 24/7, or you can manage it yourself from the ADT Plus app. There are no long-term contracts, so you can change your monitoring plan whenever you want. The flexibility doesn't end there. You can add to your system as you need to with things like extra cameras.

• 14:38Holly Frey?

  Motion sensors. Some life decisions are hard, but thanks to ADT Blue, you can DIY trusted ADT home security in a snap. Head to ADT.com/BLU to build your system today. And to hear more about home protection than other grown up topics, check out new episodes of Grown Up Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 15:06Speaker 06

  In military families, service is more than a job. It's a legacy. At American Military University, that legacy can help open new doors through education. If someone in your family served in the military, you could be eligible for reduced tuition. Take the next step with flexible online programs built for real life. Learn more at AMU.apus.edu/military.

• 15:35Holly Frey?

  Okay, first is the usual version of the story regarding Villa De Vecchi as it unfolds in most places you will find online. In 1862, Felix De Vecchi was away from the villa at Cortinova on a military action, but his wife and daughter were still there. When the count returned to their vacation home after being away, the scene before him was anyone's worst nightmare. His wife was dead. She had been murdered. His daughter was nowhere to be found. And the way this story is told in English language sources, De Vecchi launched a year-long investigation before he reached a point of such despair that he died by suicide. But this is another moment where I'm invoking

• 16:18Holly Frey?

  the Italian language Wikipedia page because that story is very different. And to be clear, I'm not fluent in Italian and I ran it through a translator and had a friend look at it. While his story there is sad, it is not at all the trauma that has been attached to the story in the murder kidnapping version. So in the version, his Wikipedia page, Felix's wife actually died in 1851 of presumably natural causes.

• 16:45Holly Frey?

  Before this house was ever built, leaving him with two young children to raise alone, a son and a daughter who were born in 1846 and 1850. Felix did not die by suicide. He died from liver disease in Milan in 1862. So it seems that the main story that's used as the groundwork for haunting claims at Vile D'Vecky is not really true at all.

• 17:09Tracy V. Wilson?

  So knowing that this murder story is apparently unsubstantiated, it turns into a fun exercise to kind of hunt down the iterations of the murder of D'Vecky's wife. And we're specifically not saying Carolina because she was already deceased at the time this murder supposedly happened and she was not a murder victim. So with that out of the way, here are some of the wilder variations on the murder story. One is that the murder was particularly grisly and that the wife's face was possibly disfigured during it. One of Holly's favorites is that the disappeared daughter was the murderer.

• 17:49Tracy V. Wilson?

  Also, some of the murder lore ties back to D'Vecky's status as a patriot and a liberation hero. So there's this suggestion that the murder and the kidnapping were politically motivated and that they were part of a larger plot against D'Vecky by his enemies in retribution for his various activities on the part of the Italian National Guard.

• 18:12Holly Frey?

  It does seem that after Felix's death,

• 18:16Holly Frey?

  which again seems to have been strictly from liver disease, his brother Biagio, which is sometimes spelled with just an O on the end and sometimes an IO, assumed ownership of the villa and custody of the children. But Biagio, who did not share his brother's artistic vision, made a number of alterations to the home, which shifted its style to have fewer design touches borrowed from Eastern design. The mansion is largely just as it was built in terms of its basic structure, although it has had a significant amount of degradation and collapse. But it stayed in the D'Vecky family, passing from Biagio to his children and so on for the next 80 years.

• 18:57Tracy V. Wilson?

  By the 20th century, the house already had a reputation associated with darkness and the occult. So much so that former podcast subject and well-known occultist Aleister Crowley visited and stayed several nights at the villa. This would have been during the time he was working on his book, The Diary of a Drug Fiend, which came out in 1922, because he was kicked out of Italy in 1923 after one of his followers died in Sicily under strange circumstances. Our Aleister Crowley episode, which discusses all of this, was published on October 4th of 2021, and we just ran it as a Saturday classic.

• 19:41Holly Frey?

  Once Crowley became associated with the villa, the rumors about this property exploded, all of which were very much in line with the kind of talk that often accompanies stories of Crowley. It seemed as though an endless string of unsubstantiated accusations and rumors began. The house was said to be used by deviants for massive orgies. Some versions of this story say that even after Crowley had been booted from Italy, his followers would still go to the villa and do this. Keep in mind, if you're thinking of the timeline, Biagio's descendants were still living there then, so that doesn't seem very likely. Stories of murders on the property started to circulate, as did claims that people went

• 20:25Holly Frey?

  to this property specifically to die by suicide. Throw in some sacrifice stories. There are rumors that both humans and animals were sacrificed there. And Villa De Vecchi became the most haunted house in Italy by reputation, if not by evidence.

• 20:43Tracy V. Wilson?

  In the years just before World War II, the family moved out. The villa was reportedly empty in 1938. The details of why they moved are not clear. After the war, the De Vecchi family did not return to the home. It changed owners several times over the next 15 years, although none of the subsequent owners ever lived there. It's been considered abandoned since 1960.

• 21:10Tracy V. Wilson?

  Some sources indicated that the property went up for auction a number of times and received no bids, but Holly could not substantiate that. It reportedly even reached a point where it was made available to any potential owner if the person receiving the property would legally agree to restore it. But the estimated cost of that restoration is so high that nobody ever took the offer. Additionally, the Italian Environment Fund has worked to bring public awareness to the villa.

• 21:42Holly Frey?

  Yeah, it's not clear and it's my fault because it's how I wrote it, but that offer of like, if you'll restore it was literally like, then you can have it for free.

• 21:50Tracy V. Wilson?

  It's yours.

• 21:51Holly Frey?

  Yeah. Similar to, there are instances of places in Italy, there's always those things you'll see circulate of like, you could buy a house for $500 and it's like, yes, some of those exist, but you have to sign a lot of paperwork that promises that you will restore it and take care of it.

• 22:08Tracy V. Wilson?

  It requires 5 million euros of work.

• 22:11Holly Frey?

  Literally was, I think the lowest estimate that I saw for just getting this property to a point where it was not going to be dangerous to people anymore was $6 million. And that's like bare bones, just fixing the things that are about to fall. So nobody wanted to do it. The home's 20th century reputation as a haunted place and Crowley's name specifically being connected to it has actually been the source of a lot of the property's modern day problems. After Crowley's visit, and even more so after World War II, when it was empty, the site became a destination for people interested in the occults or in Crowley specifically.

• 22:52Holly Frey?

  And a lot of them broke into the mansion and while they probably didn't have orgies or sacrificed anything, they sure did vandalize it. And that vandalism got worse and worse as the early issues went unrepaired and then things kind of spiraled to a point where literally, if you look at pictures, every interior wall and many of the exterior surfaces have been spray painted or just willfully damaged.

• 23:18Tracy V. Wilson?

  The stories of ghost activity have persisted. Locals claim that you can hear a piano playing in the house every full moon. There is still a piano in the house, although it has no legs and has collapsed. It seems likely that the story of the piano playing emerged after somebody trespassed in the abandoned house and saw it there. Stories circulate in the area and among tourists drawn to the property that Count De Vecchi is still there on the property. And there are claims that you can hear a woman screaming tied to this murder story that doesn't have any hard evidence.

• 23:58Holly Frey?

  In 2002, an avalanche destroyed most of the neighboring homes, although Villa De Vecchi sustained only minor damage. And this event only added to its mystique as people started to say that the house must have been spared due to some sort of paranormal intervention.

• 24:15Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 2015, there was a significant development in Felix De Vecchi's story. He owned a manor house in Row at the edge of Milan, and there, his travel diary from the early 1840s was found. This was full of information about his travels. It was considered a culturally significant find because it brought De Vecchi's inner thoughts into focus after a lot of this information about him had faded from the historical record. Additionally, it reveals a lot about life in pre-unification Italy and why De Vecchi became so invested in his political stance of resistance against countries that occupied Italian cities.

• 24:58Tracy V. Wilson?

  He recognized the importance of cultural identity in other countries and wanted to foster a scenario where Italy could develop its own identity. The travel journal became the inspiration and main feature of an exhibit titled Caravan Journal: The Rediscovered Manuscript: The Orient Through the Eyes of a Forgotten Milanese Patriot, Felice De Vecchi, which ran in the Villa Berba in Row in October of 2015.

• 25:27Tracy V. Wilson?

  This exhibit was jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism, the Lombardy Region, the Province of Milan, and Expo 2015.

• 25:36Holly Frey?

  In a 2018 interview with Atlas Obscura, a man named Giuseppe Negri joked that he was the ghost of Villa de Vecchi. He said, quote, "The reality is there are no ghosts. The ghost was me. Villa de Vecchi was our life, our family. My great-grandfather was the villa's gardener, same as my grandfather. At our little home, we used to organize cheerful dinners and lunches where we sang, played music, and laughed." In response to the idea that the house is haunted and that occult rituals were performed there, Negri dismissed it by frankly saying, quote, "It's all crap made up by crazy people. These people would sneak into the villa at night and smash up the doors. We decided

• 26:18Holly Frey?

  to dress up like ghosts with bed sheets in order to scare them off. We were organized. I stayed at the door while my brother-in-law hid upstairs. He got them running towards me and bam! Boots were pretty common back then, so you could hear the sound of me beating them, tack tack. It was a blast." Negri also mentioned punching one of his employees in the face in a case of mistaken identity. He thought the man was one of these intruders who had snuck into the mansion, and he went to investigate, and that is when the accidental punching happened. Negri also sadly mentioned that he could no longer bear to go inside the structure because its state, after years of vandalism and neglect, really disgusts him. He said of the once beautiful home, quote, "To me, it was heaven on earth."

• 27:03Tracy V. Wilson?

  Because of the many scary stories told about it, Villa de Vecchi has drawn the interest of a lot of people curious about its tragic history and spooky reputation. But there's another group of people who have an interest in visiting, and that's architects. It's said to be a pilgrimage for some architects to visit the property and see just how impactful Sidoli's design still is, even in this state of decay.

• 27:30Holly Frey?

  Today, Villa de Vecchi is often touted strictly as a ghost house, but there have been a number of efforts to preserve the villa. In some cases, these have not been focused on attempting to restore the site, as there's been so much vandalism and degradation over the decades, that it would be just a monumental task that would involve the need for massive funding.

• 27:50Tracy V. Wilson?

  But as recently as 2023, there have been interesting ideas about how Villa de Vecchi could be managed and rehabilitated going forward. In a dissertation titled "Atheneum: Adaptive Reuse of Villa de Vecchi into a Public Library", author Maham Inam laid out a potential plan for the site to be sustainably adapted for modern use in a way that would control the influx of visitors and prevent further damage. To be clear, this is a dissertation. It's not like a governmental initiative, but it outlines the way young architects might think about spaces like Villa de Vecchi and how there could be a way forward for them to have a functional life in the future.

• 28:34Holly Frey?

  For now, though, this site is still in a very precarious state. There is wire around it to prevent unwanted visitors, although whether that's effective in keeping anyone out is pretty debatable. There are lots of very recent photographs from inside the house, so obviously people are getting in. The government also has prevented anyone from working on the house, in part because of its hazardous position and the likelihood that another avalanche or rockslide might happen in the area. So it seems unlikely that this particular mansion will be developed anytime in the near future as a public space.

• 29:10Tracy V. Wilson?

  It turns out, there is actually another abandoned Villa de Vecchi with its own interesting history, and we will get to that one after we hear from the sponsors that keep Stuff You Missed in History Class going.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 29:58Speaker 06

  In military families, service is more than a job. It's a legacy. At American Military University, that legacy can help open new doors through education. If someone in your family served in the military, you could be eligible for reduced tuition. Take the next step with flexible online programs built for real life. Learn more at amu.apus.edu/military.

• 30:21Speaker 07

  Okay, Chicken Nugget fans, I've got huge news. The new Burger King Chicken Nuggets just dropped. And they are the crispiest, the juiciest, and the tastiest chicken nuggets ever at Burger King. Burger King heard that a lot of you didn't like the old chicken nuggets, so they got to work and reinvented them. To go along with the new chicken nuggets, a lot of the sauces were reinvented too, because better chicken nuggets deserve better sauces. We're talking new buffalo sauce, honey mustard, sweet and sour, and even a whole new option too, the new special savory sauce, which is only available for a limited time at participating US restaurants. I mean, you need to taste it all for yourself.

• 31:03Speaker 07

  This new chicken nugget, reinvented based on real feedback, is made with 100% white meat chicken and is now better than ever. You gotta try the new Burger King Chicken Nuggets and sauces today.

• 31:22Holly Frey?

  We mentioned before the break that there is another Villa de Vecchi, and this one is located not in Italy, though it has ties to Italy. It's located in Greece on the island of Rhodes. And it is historically significant, and that historical tie is to fascism. It was built by a man who shared a last name with Felix de Vecchi, although it is unclear if they were related. I've seen some write-ups that suggest they are distantly related, others that say they are not. I think it's a fair bet that somewhere along the line, they may have an ancestor in common, but we don't know.

• 31:55Tracy V. Wilson?

  Cesare Maria de Vecchi was born into a middle-class family on November 14th, 1884 in Casale, Manferrato.

• 32:04Tracy V. Wilson?

  That is also in northern Italy, although it's on the opposite side of Milan, about 100 kilometers or 62 miles southwest of it. As a teenager, he enrolled in the Naval Academy but did not stay there. He enrolled in law school instead at the University of Turin and then went into law practice after graduation.

• 32:25Holly Frey?

  Yeah, I saw one biography that basically suggested that he could not hack military school. In the period of World War I, when Italy remained neutral, Cesare served in the military and rose to the rank of second lieutenant. Then, when Italy entered the war, he fought and rose to the rank of captain. In 1919, he joined the fascist combat group. He also became the president of the Turin Fascist Party. He described himself as, quote, "a militant Catholic and an unreserved monarchist." From there, he continued to rise through the ranks of Mussolini's fascist regime as the dictator became prime minister on October 31, 1922, and then gained and expanded his power.

• 33:09Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 1936, De Vecchio was made governor of the Dodecanese Islands, which Italy had controlled since 1912. And one of his first orders of business there was to ensure that the main island of Rhodes had a palace worthy of Mussolini. This was also intended to be a centerpiece for the island culturally. This was important because it would make it entirely clear that Italy was in charge.

• 33:35Holly Frey?

  There was an existing palatial structure in place on Rhodes. That was the Palace of the Grand Master, which was built by the Knights Hospitaller in the 1300s. By the time Cesare De Vecchio got to Rhodes, that particular building was something of a ruin. He had a vision, though, to rebuild the site with a grand palace. Sometimes this is described as a renovation, and other times the wording makes it sound like a full rebuild. We're about to talk about a problem that might be the reason those words are used interchangeably.

• 34:09Tracy V. Wilson?

  This project started in 1937 and lasted for three years. The design of the new villa is, like the other Villa d'Avicci, a blend of architectural styles. In this case, it was Italian Renaissance with Gothic touches. This villa is often touted as being Mussolini's vacation villa, which he never actually used. But while it may have been intended for Mussolini to stay there, it was also intended to be Cesare d'Avicci's base of operations on the island. So to that end, it included office spaces and reception facilities, all of which were decorated with a blending of medieval and fascist design.

• 34:51Holly Frey?

  Aside from being a symbol of fascist ideology, the construction of the new villa also obliterated parts of the original structure, erasing its history. Because this was a case where Italy was rebuilding a Greek structure and discarding elements of it in the process, it was seen as both cultural appropriation and erasure simultaneously. And this controversy was going on as this was being built. But all of it was very intentional on d'Avicci's part. He had been tasked with establishing Mussolini's fascist regime in the islands in a way that was going to be obvious, clear, and imposing. And he definitely succeeded.

• 35:32Tracy V. Wilson?

  At the end of the war, d'Avicci surrendered his division and went into hiding as he was sought by the puppet state of the Italian Social Republic after the show trial, known as the Verona Trial. d'Avicci had been in favor of ousting Mussolini, so the dictator's surviving remnant sentenced him to death. He fled to Argentina with forged papers in 1947, but returned to Italy two years later. He died in Rome in 1959 at the age of 75.

• 36:04Holly Frey?

  Meanwhile, Mussolini was shot on April 28, 1945. The Villa on Rhodes was abandoned completely by 1947. And much like the Villa d'Avicci in Cortinova, it fell victim to vandalism and became largely covered in graffiti. Unlike the Cortinova property, though, you are welcome to visit the Villa on Rhodes, and it draws a lot of tourists. Today, it is called the Mussolini Villa, just as much as the Villa d'Avicci.

• 36:33Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 2014, the Greek island villa was listed on the market with the hope that someone would take a 50-year lease on the property. This was part of a larger effort by the Greek government to leverage various properties of significance in the hope of paying down the country's debts. The group of 14 properties were advertised as potential hotel spaces. Three were for sale outright, and the rest of them, like this one, were offered as long-term leases. In July of 2020, it was reported that the villa was still on the market. Throughout the effort to monetize these properties, the Greek government has faced criticism that it was selling off its history to the highest bidder.

• 37:16Tracy V. Wilson?

  But Greek officials have pointed out that prospective investors are likely to bring more light on them on the international stage than what they're currently getting.

• 37:26Holly Frey?

  Also, I didn't hear anything suggesting that this particular one is haunted, just FYI. Other than haunted by the ghosts of fascism.

• 37:39Holly Frey?

  Yeah, it's interesting, the way it's written about today as being one of those historical places that is significant because it shows the opposite of what the island's culture and desires were. So it's a fascinating spot. I have cute, cute, cute listener mail. Are you ready?

• 38:00Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yes.

• 38:01Holly Frey?

  Okay, this is from our listener Abby, who writes, "Hi Holly and Tracy. I hope you ladies are having a great week despite the crazy times we are living through these days here in the US. There are two reasons for this email. The first is to say you two are doing the heavy lifting and getting me through my workdays and keeping me sane after any exposure to current news. Thank you. I have been listening for years and find your voices to be so calming and at the same time entertaining. Anyway, enough gushing. Honestly, thank you." The second reason for this email, and the reason I'm excited about it, is that I was just listening to an old episode where Holly mentioned that her family raised the same breed of dogs that are written about in The Fox and the Hound. I know that she means red bone coon hounds and I knew I just had to write in about our

• 38:46Holly Frey?

  dog Cliff, picture included. Don't worry, I just couldn't help myself. We rescued Cliff about two and a half years ago as a nine-year-old guy. He had lived a hard life as a bear hunting dog in Vermont. We introduced him to the comfort of living with dinks, including treats, toys, going up and downstairs, and the beach, none of which he had experienced before. We're so happy to have him with us in his retirement because he is just the sweetest, best boy. However, we never had a hound dog before and boy, has it been an experience with a steep learning curve for us. We wouldn't change a thing, though. Anyway, enjoy the pic of Cliff and thanks again for keeping me sane. He certainly appreciates it. Abby is exactly correct. My family bred red bone coon hounds and Cliff is adorable. He is so sweet.

• 39:31Tracy V. Wilson?

  I remember these pictures. Yes. Extremely cute.

• 39:34Holly Frey?

  Cliff, Cliff is great because he has that thing that a lot of dogs get on hound breeds. It seems extra pronounced to me, but I could be wrong, where they're, they get gray hair around their muzzle and it's so sweet.

• 39:48Tracy V. Wilson?

  No.

• 39:48Holly Frey?

  Cliff is a distinguished gentleman, but I do know exactly what she's talking about with hound dogs, which are notoriously willful and have minds of their own and can be very smart and sneaky at times. But also like some of the sweetest dogs on the planet. If you earn the loyalty of a coon hound, that dog is your dog for life. Cliff is so sweet. I want to kiss his, his distinguished gentleman snout and I hope he is having the best day ever. Cliff, you are very lovable. Uh, thank you, Abby, for sending this to me. This was a great trip down memory lane. I haven't really spent a lot of time with coon hounds in my recent years. So it's a nice little flashback. If you would like to write to us and tell us about

• 40:31Holly Frey?

  your dogs, your cats, your squirrels, your birds, bird watching, I'm into it. Share that. Spiders, lizards, snakes, trying to think of anything I wouldn't want to see a picture of, even bugs. I'm good with it. Tracy may feel differently. I'm not speaking for everybody.

• 40:46Tracy V. Wilson?

  No, that's fine.

• 40:47Holly Frey?

  Okay, great. I just didn't want to, you know, presume to be like, send us pictures of your cockroaches. And you'd be like, Holly, stop.

• 40:56Tracy V. Wilson?

  No, that's fine.

• 40:56Holly Frey?

  Cool. All right. Then we got, we got plans. You could do any of that at [email protected]. You can also subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts.

• 41:14Tracy V. Wilson?

  Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 41:27Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 41:58Tracy V. Wilson?

  Whether you're calling the wise women in your life, video calling your girlfriends across the country, or checking in on someone who always knows how to make you smile, staying connected matters. Those small conversations, shared laughs, and quick hellos are what keep relationships strong even when life gets busy. Some of the most life-giving conversations start with just a phone call. That's why AT&T guarantees the network you can rely on, so you can focus on the moments and people that matter most. That's the AT&T Guarantee. AT&T: Connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details.

• 42:34Speaker 06

  In military families, service is more than a job. It's a legacy. At American Military University, that legacy can help open new doors through education. If someone in your family served in the military, you could be eligible for reduced tuition. Take the next step with flexible online programs built for real life. Learn more at amu.apus.edu/military.

• 42:57Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.