Current name: Beverages Temple (Tempietto delle Bibite)

Original name: Tempietto Pompeiano (1924-1938), Fonte Littoria (1938-1943)

City: Castrocaro Terme e Terre del Sole

District: urban center

Address: Viale Guglielmo Marconi, n.14/16

Year of construction: 1924

Designer: “Focaccia&Melandri” (majolica factory)

Client: Aristide Conti

Architectural style: Eclectic modernist with clear neoclassical and deco references

Can be visited inside: yes

Notes: building listed by the Superintendency as a cultural asset. Focaccia&Melandri art majolica, inspired by the model of the archaic Greek temple, capitals covered in ceramic, metal decorations taken from Greek vase decorations. External and internal pictorial decorations.

In Castrocaro, the therapeutic use of waters and mud baths boasts ancient origins. On June 1st, 1851, the first thermal establishment officially opened, and it was placed in an already existing building that was readapted according to hygienic and typological criteria considered innovative at the time. The first centre of the current establishment was built only thanks to 1884.

Of this first phase, but extensively revised in a later period, the Tempietto delle Acque still remains in operation today, later called Tempietto Pompeiano (1920-1938) then called Fonte Littoria (1938-1943). The building as we see it today, although conceived as a “source” of water used for hydroponic cures (through direct supply), was originally the front of a more articulated composition that also included a water storage tank and minor service buildings. The site in which it is still located could be reached thanks to a path through nature, laid out on an axis with Via Nazionale and on a staircase to compensate for the difference in height between the level of the larger buildings, located along via Nazionale and via Del Ponte, and the level of the edge, along the bed of the Montone river.

The Tempietto, which was visited several times a day, had been placed in a central position in the park as a backdrop for a wide perspective, immersed in greenery, and made a focal point for the gathering of the guests, regardless of their class or gender. The Pompeian-style building is one of the works produced by the Focaccia&Melandri art majolica factory, founded in 1922 by the industrialist Umberto Focaccia from Ravenna and artist Pietro Melandri from Faenza (1885-1976).

The work was realised in the style of a Greco-Roman temple, freely inspired by the model of the archaic distyle in antis Greek temple: it has a pronaos, characterised by a pair of cement grit columns surmounted by capitals in majolica of a composite order, and two corner pilasters with similar capitals. Both the frame of the gable and the cover completed the envelope, both covered in ceramic materials of similar colour and texture to the capitals on the front.

Beyond the entrance, along the back wall is a panel made entirely of glazed majolica, consisting of a carpet of tiles painted with polychrome figures and finished with touches of gold, adorned with whirls, birds, leaves and a small lizard. Melandri, with his art, contributes to the iconography of the thermal baths’ landscape. The artwork of Castrocaro is highly influential, although in its current state it communicates little of the original layout.

 The building appears changed compared to how it was originally, but the large structure continues to exude great charm, and to remind us of the healing properties of water. The Tempietto di Castrocaro is not the artist’s only great work, but it is one of the most evocative among those created in a career rich in professional experience, which in the case under examination converge in an (at the time) exquisite mixture of interests, intentions and good execution practices.