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Updated: May 16, 2025
Joachim Vincent Pecci, since 1878 Pope, under the name of Leo the Thirteenth, was born at Carpineto, in the Volscian hills, in 1810. His father had served in the Napoleonic wars, but had already retired to his native village, where he was at that time a landed proprietor of considerable importance and the father of several children.
Therefore he had nothing but deferential words for the Roaring Lamb of Sinigaglia and the Opportunist Eagle of Carpineto, as it was his custom to designate Pius IX and Leo XIII respectively.
The Pope spent his childhood in the simple surroundings of Carpineto, than which none could be simpler, as everyone knows who has ever visited an Italian country gentleman in his home. Early hours, constant exercise, plain food and farm interests made a strong man of him, with plenty of simple common sense.
They are not, perhaps, very remarkable, and Leo the Thirteenth must sometimes long for the hills of Carpineto and the freer air of the mountains, as he drives round and round in the narrow limits of his small domain, or walks a little under the shade of the ilex trees, conversing with his gardener or his architect.
Carpineto lies on the mountain side, in the neighbourhood of Segni, in a rocky district, and in the midst of a country well known to Italians as the Ciociaria. This word is derived from 'cioce, the sandals worn by the peasants in that part of the country, in the place of shoes, and bound by leathern thongs to the foot and leg over linen strips which serve for stockings.
Those who have been to Carpineto have seen the dark old pile in which the Pope was born, with its tower which tops the town, as the dwellings of the small nobles always did in every hamlet and village throughout the south of Europe.
After mass he breakfasts upon coffee and goat's milk, and this milk is supplied from goats kept in the Vatican gardens a reminiscence of Carpineto and of the mountaineer's early life. Every day at about ten he receives the Secretary of State, Cardinal Rampolla, and converses with him for a good hour or more upon current affairs.
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