Casa calonica (plural: case caloniche) is the Italian term for a farmhouse or rural dwelling in which the family who live and work there is not the owner of either buildings or land, but are bound by a sharecropping (‘mezzadria‘) contract with the owner. Typical of many farmhouses was the red colour of the exterior paint (made by adding iron oxide to the mortar, sometimes with a white box in which the name of the owner and the number of the colony were indicated.