Ursula Corning and Civitella Ranieri
Ursula Corning, founder of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, was born in
Switzerland in 1903, studied in England, and spent most of her life in
New York City. A gifted linguist whose extended family lived in four
countries, she crossed borders with ease. Yet, if there is such a place
as one's true home, for Ursula, it surely was her beloved Civitella.
Her father's cousin, Romeyne Robert, had married the Marchese Ruggero
Ranieri di Sorbello, whose family had owned Civitella since the castle
was built in the 15th century. Ursula began visiting it as a young girl
but it wasn't until 1968, after she had retired from her career as a
physical therapist at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, that she made the
momentous decision, at the suggestion of Roberto Ranieri, Ruggero's
grandson, to rent the castle indefinitely.
Thus began the fabled Civitellian summers enjoyed for the next 35 years
by Ursula's wide and varied, always stimulating, always provocative
circle of international friends.
The atmosphere of the ancient castle and the quiet beauty of the
countryside inspired her artistic guests to express themselves through
poetry and music and, on one memorable occasion, to perform a play based
on the legendary ghost that haunted the castle. As for young guests, the
castle was the perfect milieu for whimsy and mischief-their high jinks
amused Ursula enough to occasionally join in.
The generations of regular guests, whom Ursula called "the
Civitellians," their friends and the occasional strangers Ursula
spontaneously invited, had the good fortune to enjoy her unparalleled
hospitality. The ultimate hostess, Ursula took great care in planning
the seating chart for evening meals. With guests sometimes numbering as
many as 30, she would spend an hour each day working on the seating
arrangements. Ursula took great pleasure in breaking down social
barriers at the dinner table, seating backpackers next to bankers, the
old next to the young, and always separating couples. Ursula, who
preferred others take center stage, would sit back and listen to the
conversations, carried on in as many as five different languages, and
watch friendships blossom between people whose paths were unlikely to
otherwise have crossed.
Ursula delighted in taking her guests on what she called tiddly-poms,
day-trips or forays in and around Umbria to visit her favorite
monasteries and chapels and enchant her guests with the stories behind
the medieval paintings and frescoes she loved. As comfortable on the
back roads as a native Umbrian, she was famous for whisking her guests
around hairpin mountain turns as they clutched the edges of their seats.
Her daring driving perhaps came from her fearlessness as a mountain
climber. A pioneering woman mountaineer in Europe, she scaled the
Matterhorn several times and continued climbing well into middle years.
Although she never married or had children, Civitella, the idyllic home
she created, connected her to a large extended family of devoted
friends. At the end of each summer, Ursula followed a ritual of driving
to the cathedral in nearby Castel Rigone to light a candle before the
Madonna dei Miracoli, and to make a wish to return the following year.
In the last decade of her life, Ursula often wondered aloud, "What will
become of my dear Civitella after I die? Will it be turned into a dusty
museum?" Those who knew her well say that, were she to return today, she
would be thrilled to see the castle abuzz with creative activity
generated by the new Civitellians, the international Fellows now
enjoying the castle. They can almost hear her say, as she so often did:
"Oh, splendid. How very splendid."
By Deanne Stone, 2008
